Queer Social Control and the Homonormative Bargain: Sexual Harassment in the Era of Open LGBT Military Service

Abstract

AbstractUntil recently, opportunities to analyze the sexual harassment of LGBTs in the U.S. military were constrained by their formal exclusion; the existing research was largely conducted under the conditions of closed service, which were crucial to its operation. This article considers if and how sexual harassment is being re-conceptualized in the era of open service. Using in-depth interviews, I assess how current, future, and former service members narrate the emergence of open service and its relationship to sexual harassment. Although sexual blackmail may have lost some of its purchase under these conditions, I find that discussions and enactments of sexual harassment play a central role in containing the threat of queer contamination that has been introduced by open service. These are practices of what I term “queer social control” and demonstrate one of many reasons why inclusion should not be mistaken for acceptance; rather than resisting heterocisnormativity and the military’s role in its maintenance, the dynamics of LGBT incorporation actually reinforce it. This seemingly paradoxical finding is, in fact, the only logical outcome of the homonormative bargain that has been struck in the name of advancing LGBT rights.