Deregulating the Heterosexual Imagination: Liberalism, ‘Political Correctness’ and the Denial of Domination

Abstract

Heterosexist discourses have until recently been predominantly based upon medical and religious conceptions, in which the lesbian or gay man has been regarded as 'sick' or 'sinful'. However, I argue that new forms of heterosexism are superseding these discourses. Recently homosexual subjects have been cast not as bearers of sin or psychopathological suffering. but rather as cultural invaders, subverters of social equality, demanders of special rights, and standard-bearers of 'political correctness'. It has been argued in media accounts that lesbians and gay men are powerful subjects who leave the private sphere to invade the public sphere of culture and who attempt to alter it detrimentally through the procurement of their 'special interest'. While these newer discourses are in part informed by older, traditional conservative ideas, their emergence arises in part from a constellation of liberal and libertarian assumptions about (among others) the autonomous social subject, public and private spheres, individuals and collectivities, rationality and irrationality, and politics and 'politicisation'. These newer forms of heterosexism continue their social control over gay and lesbian subjectivities by denying the domination of gay men and lesbians, assisting in the naturalising of heterosexuality, constructing homosexuality as Other, and containing challenges to compulsory heterosexuality. Although the subjects of this thesis are 'lesbians and gay men', these subjects do not constitute a unitary group; lesbians and gay men are not always positioned similarly within heterosexist representations or in the social order. I examine the meanings of these similarities and differences in a society characterised by a social hierarchy between men and women. The thesis is intended as a piece of reflexive theory. It amalgamates insights from the relevant academic literature with empirical material to develop a piece of theory which offers insights into the relationship of sexual identity to the body politic at this point in New Zealand's history.