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Is the Rectum a Grave?

"Is the Rectum a Grave?" is a 1987 essay by scholar Leo Bersani. It is an early text in queer theory (although Bersani never considered himself a queer theorist), and provides a non-utopian view of sexuality. The essay was republished in 2009 alongside others by Bersani.

Cover of 2009 publication of "Is the Rectum a Grave?" and Other Essays

Background edit

Bersani published "Is the Rectum a Grave?" during the 1987 height of the AIDS epidemic.[1] The title was inspired by two declarations of Simon Watney, an AIDS activist: That AIDS has produced "a new machinery of repression, [by] making the rectum a grave"; and that the public health response to AIDS has refigured gay men's rectums as impenetrable and "Off Limits".[2] The first sentence of Bersani's essay remains famous: "There is a big secret about sex: most people don't like it."[3]

The essay is not utopian; it refutes the desire to view pre-AIDS gay social life as idyllic, saying they were economies of desire with ingrained social orders that excluded many.[4]

Legacy edit

"Is the Rectum a Grave?" and Bersani's 1995 book, Homos, are seen by cultural critic Robyn Wiegman as part of the "inaugural" foundations of an explicitly anti-social perspective in queer theory.[5] This has been put into question by queer theorist Tim Dean, who says Guy Hocquenghem originated this strand of thought in his Deleuze and Guattari-inspired book Homosexual Desire (1972).[6] Bersani never believed himself to be a part of queer theory, but the essay is nonetheless widely viewed as an early text in the field.[7]

Bersani republished the essay in Is the Rectum a Grave? and Other Essays (2009), a collection of his essays.[8] "Is the Rectum a Grave?" is older than the other essays featured by about a decade, a move seen by queer theorist Brian Glavey as an attempt to refine his theories about sex.[9]

The title has been borrowed by other scholars, such as in "Is the Rectum Straight?" (1991) by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick and "Are the Lips a Grave?" (2011) by Lynne Huffer.[10]

References edit

Citations edit

  1. ^ Herring 2016, p. 5.
  2. ^ Escoffier 2011, p. 132; Sedgwick 1994, p. 239.
  3. ^ Berlant & Edelman 2015, p. 625; Wiegman 2017, p. 219.
  4. ^ Muñoz 2009, p. 34.
  5. ^ Wiegman 2017, p. 220.
  6. ^ Moore, Brintnall & Marchal 2018, pp. 31–32.
  7. ^ Wiegman 2017, p. 237.
  8. ^ Glavey 2010, p. 318.
  9. ^ Glavey 2010, p. 319.
  10. ^ Huffer 2011, p. 517; Sedgwick 1994, p. 102.

Bibliography edit

  • Berlant, Lauren; Edelman, Lee (September 2015). "Reading, sex, and the unbearable: A response to Tim Dean". American Literary History. 27 (3): 625–629. doi:10.1093/alh/ajv035.
  • Escoffier, Jeffrey (2011). "Sex, safety, and the trauma of AIDS". Women's Studies Quarterly. 39 (1/2): 129–138. ISSN 0732-1562. JSTOR 41290283.
  • Glavey, Brian (2010). "Leo Bersani and the universe". Criticism. 52 (2): 317–323. doi:10.1353/crt.2010.0028. S2CID 191628492.
  • Herring, Scott (2016). "The sexual objects of "parodistic" camp". Modernism/Modernity. 23 (1): 5–8. doi:10.1353/mod.2016.0013. S2CID 147093559.
  • Huffer, Lynne (2011). "Are the lips a grave". GLQ. 17 (4): 517–542. doi:10.1215/10642684-1302361. ISSN 1527-9375. S2CID 144472220.
  • Moore, Stephen D.; Brintnall, Kent L.; Marchal, Joseph A. (2018). Sexual disorientations: Queer temporalities, affects, theologies (First ed.). Fordham University Press.
  • Muñoz, José Esteban (2009). Cruising utopia: The then and there of queer futurity. New York University Press. ISBN 9780814757277.
  • Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky (1994). Tendencies. New York: Routledge. ISBN 020320221X.
  • Wiegman, Robyn (2017). "Sex and negativity; Or, what queer theory has for you". Cultural Critique. 95: 219–243. doi:10.5749/culturalcritique.95.2017.0219. ISSN 0882-4371. JSTOR 10.5749/culturalcritique.95.2017.0219. S2CID 149234970.
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