Geographies Of Sexualities Research Articles

Governing sexuality and park space: acts of regulation in Vancouver, BC

This paper suggests that the coding and ordering of sexuality and space through definitions of which sexual practices and which representations of sexuality are morally appropriate in public space can be usefully understood as a problem of governance. We argue that attempts to hide or make visible specific sexualities in public space are complicated and politically charged because, while written regulations are relatively cut-and-dried, their implementation, by planners, judges, et al., involves significant discretion and leads to contingent, contestable outcomes. Furthermore, the politics of governing sexual morality and public space is made more problematic when the place where a hegemonic norm of behaviour or morality is publically challenged is an iconic park that attracts intense media attention. The paper elaborates these arguments through two interrelated case studies: a debate over the appropriate location of an AIDS memorial in Stanley Park, Vancouver and the reaction to the killing of a gay man who cruised the park for sex. We conclude by linking our argument to recent statements about the future of geographies of sexuality, arguing for analyses that acknowledge both the contingences and potentialities of categories like ‘the state,’ ‘governance,’ and ‘public space’ and also their structural tendencies and their ongoing association with sexual repression.

Book Review: Geographies of sexualities: theories, practices and politics by Kath Browne, Jason Lim and Gavin Brown. Aldershot: Ashgate 2007. xi +264 pp. £60 cloth, £25 pb. ISBN 9780754647614 (pb)

Book Review: Geographies of sexualities: theories, practices and politics by Kath Browne, Jason Lim and Gavin Brown. Aldershot: Ashgate 2007. xi +264 pp. £60 cloth, £25 pb. ISBN 9780754647614 (pb)

Mapping same-sex couple family households in Australia

Please click here to download the map associated with this article. The map (1:1,218,987) accompanying this report is the first to depict the distribution of same-sex couple family households across Australia. The map and the report contribute to emerging scholarship combining critical geographies of sexualities with quantitative techniques and GIS in order to advance the political claims of sexual minorities. The data were collected through the 2006 Census and obtained via consultation with the Australian Bureau of Statistics. These data included the number of same-sex couple family households for all Statistical Divisions across Australia and for Statistical Sub-Divisions within metropolitan capital cities. Geographical concentrations of same-sex couple family households were determined by calculating the proportion of couple family households that were same-sex in each Statistical Division and Statistical Sub-Division, since the Census defines cohabiting same-sex couples as a subset of couple family households. To visualise where the proportions fell above and below the national average, and thus where concentrations were found, these ratios were converted to location quotients using the Australian average as the denominator. The map combines different scales—Statistical Divisions and Statistical Sub-Divisions—to illustrate distributional patterns between inner-city and suburban areas, as well as between urban and regional localities. While high concentrations are found in inner-cities, there are also significant suburban and regional concentrations, thus contesting assumptions about same-sex couples' inner-city residential choices. Moreover, since same-sex couples were found in most Statistical Divisions, areas below the national average cannot be considered devoid of these families, with implications for constitutive identity politics and the operationalisation of equal rights legislation.

An Intimate and Imperial Feminism: Meliscent Shephard and the Regulation of Prostitution in Colonial India

This paper seeks to construct an antinostalgic portrait of an imperial feminist. As the representative of the Association for Moral and Social Hygiene (AMSH) in India between 1928 and 1947, Meliscent Shephard was an embodiment not only of the feminist urge to challenge patriarchal gender relations, but also of the imperialist urge to classify and fathom the world through a series of racist typologies. Despite an earlier belief that blame for the exploitation of prostitutes lay with the colonial state and economy, she later fell back on explanations based on notions of Indian society and religion. Operating in a period of heightened anticolonial nationalism, these latter views thwarted any hope of her forging successful connections with emergent Indian social reform groups. This failure to cultivate intimate relations with Indian colleagues marks a failure at the level of national and racial politics. Shephard did, however, cultivate an intimate relationship with correspondents at the AMSH in London, while her experiences of the sexual geographies of Indian cities provided a form of intimate interaction that would inspire her mission to close down tolerated brothels. As such, this paper marks an empirical engagement with the intimate frontiers at which the affective grid of colonial politics was marked out.

The Ties That Bind: Towards Geographies of Intimacy

AbstractThe last decade in human geography has been marked by the emergence and development of significant bodies of work on: geographies of sexuality; children; and youth/young people's geographies. Taken together, this work might be characterised as being about intimate relations. In this article, I briefly review the differential contributions to, and place in, the discipline of these sub‐disciplinary areas as well as identifying ‘family’ studies as an absent presence within geography. I then go on to explore what might bind these disparate areas of research together, and to argue that by developing their connections, through the concept of intimacy, the contributions of these sub‐disciplinary areas might be scaled up to have a more fundamental impact on the discipline of geography.

Guest Editorial—Geographies of Sexuality and Gender ‘Down Under’

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Acknowledgements The guest editors thank the reviewers of the papers, and Jim Forrest for devoting this edition to geographies of sexuality and gender. Notes 1. Australasia denotes Australia and New Zealand specifically, rather than the broader Asia-Pacific or Oceania. 2. The ‘Baby Bonus’ was introduced by the federal government on 1 July 2004, paying A$4000 per child to parents upon birth. The policy rhetoric responded to and reinforced a nationalism based on heterosexual procreation and family building (Guest 2007 Guest, R. 2007. ‘The Baby Bonus: a dubious policy initiative’. Policy, 23: 11–16. [Google Scholar]). For instance, Treasurer Peter Costello urged Australian couples to have ‘one [baby] for your husband and one for your wife and one for the country’ (Guest 2007 Guest, R. 2007. ‘The Baby Bonus: a dubious policy initiative’. Policy, 23: 11–16. [Google Scholar], p. 11).

Afterword—Geographies of Sexuality and Gender ‘Down Under’

The specialist sessions on ‘Geographies of Sexuality and Gender “Down Under”’ at the Australian Geographers’ conference in Melbourne in July 2007, and the subsequent publication of the essays prese...

Mexico's evolving HIV epidemic.

Mexico's evolving HIV epidemic.

Geographies of sexualities: theory, practices, and politics

Contents: Introduction, or why have a book on geographies of sexualities?, Gavin Brown, Kath Browne and Jason Lim. Section 1 Theories: From lesbian and gay to queer geographies: pasts, prospects and possibilities, Larry Knopp Sexuality, the erotic and geography: epistemology, methodology and pedagogy, Jon Binnie Health/sexuality/geography, Vincent J. Del Casino Jr. Queer critique and the politics of affect, Jason Lim Developmental desire and/or transitional jouissance: re-formulating sexual subjectivities in transcultural contact zones, Hanna Hacker Fucking geography, again, David Bell. Section 2 Practices: Playing with restraints: space, citizenship and BDSM, R.D.K. Herman Queer mixed race? Interrogating homonormativity through Thai interraciality, Jinthana Haritaworn Drag queens and drab dykes: deploying and deploring femininities, Kath Browne The queer unwanted and their undesirable 'otherness', Mark E. Casey Straights in a gay bar: negotiating boundaries through time-spaces, Tatiana Matejskova Between transgression and complicity (or: can the straight guy have a queer eye?), Phil Hubbard. Section 3 Politics: Pussies declawed: unpacking the politics of a queer women's bathhouse raid, Catherine Jean Nash and Alison L. Bain Religion, identity and activism: queer Muslim diasporic identities, Farhang Rouhani HIV+bodyspace: AIDS and the queer politics of future negotiation in Aotearoa/New Zealand, Matthew Sothern Autonomy, affinity and play in the spaces of radical queer activism, Gavin Brown Counting on queer geography, Michael Brown Conclusions and future directions, or our hopes for geographies of sexualities (and queer geographies), Jason Lim, Kath Browne and Gavin Brown Bibliography Index.

Queering the family home: narratives from gay, lesbian and bisexual youth coming out in supportive family homes in Australia

Geographical literature has predominantly presented the heterosexual nuclear family home as an oppressive environment for gay, lesbian and bisexual (GLB) youth, reporting that homophobic abuse, violence and expulsion are not uncommon outcomes of coming out at home. While not denying the widespread reality of these experiences, little consideration has been given to GLB youth whose disclosure at home is affirmed by parents and siblings, nor the reasons for and consequences of this acceptance and support. This article begins to fill this gap, contributing to geographies of sexuality, home and family. Through a critical reading of autobiographical coming out narratives from Australia, I reconsider the experience of the nuclear family home for well-supported GLB youth, arguing against the normalization of the homophobic nuclear family home. Through the support of parents and siblings, family homes can become sites of resistance to wider practices of heterosexism, and support for GLB youth. Heterosexual identity does not ‘essentially’ generate heterosexist reactions and attitudes: some heterosexual parents and siblings welcome and nourish sexual difference, and this provides fissures in overarching structures of heteronormativity which allow for the generation of non-heterosexual subjectivities and desires. I contend that this actually ‘queers’ the family home, providing a space for the fluorescence of non-heterosexuality within an apparently heteronormative site.

From ‘Woman‐Loving Woman’ to ‘Queer’: Historiographical Perspectives on Twentieth‐Century British Lesbian History

AbstractHistoriographical approaches to 20th‐century British lesbian history have been shaped by a range of political perspectives. Lesbian feminist historians writing in the 1980s and 1990s emphasised the role of female friendships and lesbian relationships in supporting the lives and work of key figures such as Radclyffe Hall, as well as the negative impact of patriarchal oppression. In the 1990s, definitions of ‘the lesbian’ and the notion of the interwar period as a defining moment in modern lesbian history were challenged by queer and post‐structural approaches, which encouraged an interpretation of categories of sexual identity as unstable. The recent historical concern with geographies of sexuality has prompted lesbian historians to explore the impact of space and the material world on the construction of lesbian identity and experience.

The inevitability of infidelity: sexual reputation, social geographies, and marital HIV risk in rural Mexico.

Marriage presents the single greatest risk for HIV infection among women in rural Mexico. We drew on 6 months of participant observation, 20 marital case studies, 37 key informant interviews, and archival research to explore the factors that shape HIV risk among married women in one of the country's rural communities. We found that culturally constructed notions of reputation in this community lead to sexual behavior designed to minimize men's social risk (threats to one's social status or relationships), rather than viral risk and that men's desire for companionate intimacy may actually increase women's risk for HIV infection. We also describe the intertwining of reputation-based sexual identities with structurally patterned sexual geographies (i.e. the social spaces that shape sexual behavior). We propose that, because of the structural nature of men's extramarital sexual behavior, intervention development should concentrate on sexual geographies and risky spaces rather than risky behaviors or identities.

Sexy stories – Using autobiography in geographies of sexuality

For geographers doing qualitative research, autobiographical narratives offer a discrete avenue into life experiences, everyday lived geographies, and intimate connections between places and identities. Yet these valuable sources remain mostly untapped by geographers and largely unconsidered in methodological treatises. This article seeks to elicit the benefits of using autobiographical data, especially with regard to stigmatised sexual minorities in Western societies. Qualitative research among gay men, lesbians and bisexuals (GLB) is sometimes difficult; due to the ongoing marginalisation experienced by sexual minorities in contemporary Western societies, subjects are often difficult to locate and reticent to participate in research. But autobiographical writing has a long history in Western GLB subcultures, and offers an unobtrusive means to explore the interpenetration of stigmatised sexuality and space, of GLB identity and place. A keen awareness of the power of geography of spaces of concealment, resistance, connection, emergence and affirmation underpins the content and form of GLB autobiographical writing. I demonstrate this in part through the example of my own research into gay male spatiality in Australia. At the same time we need to be aware of the generic limitations of autobiographies. Nevertheless, this article calls for wider attention to autobiographical sources, especially for geographical research into marginalised groups.

Flaccid theory and the geographies of sexual health in the age of Viagra™

The discipline of geography is largely absent in discussions and debates about drug use practices and their relationships to sexual health. Given the important relationships among the use of drugs, performances of sexualized identities, and the practices of sex, it behooves medical and health geographers particularly, and social and cultural geographers more generally, to engage in the wider interdisciplinary debates about these relationships. Through a discussion of one drug, Viagra, this brief intervention offers an agenda for studying the geographies of sex, sexuality, and drug use. It is argued that drug use is an inherently geographic practice that reshapes how places are resituated in relation to the fluid and dynamic meanings of sex, sexuality, and sexual health, areas of research and practice that medical and health geographers ought to consider more seriously.

Producing Homonormativity in Neoliberal South Africa: Recognition, Redistribution, and the Equality Project

Producing Homonormativity in Neoliberal South Africa: Recognition, Redistribution, and the Equality Project

Challenging Queer Geographies

can a rigid Gay Male identity cope with that really cute guy, who used to be a butch baby dyke, and is still involved in a primary relationship with a woman, but considers herself basically a gay man? ... As it's finally sinking in that if gender is fluid, how can sexual orientation not be as well? How can you be rigidly orientated toward something that is amorphous shifting, fluid, tricky, elusive? Basing your identity on sexuality is like building your house on a foundation of pudding (Scott 1997:65-66) This short intervention seeks to challenge geographies of sexualities to further interrogate the possibilities and limitations of queer. Specifically it seeks to contend that geographies of sexualities should not be simplistically conflated with queer geographies. In exploring queer and its potentials beyond its deployment as an overarching term to describe multiple sexual dissidents (including lesbian, gay and bisexual) this intervention seeks to open up potentially productive avenues between geographies and queer theory. I engage with contemporary debates within queer studies and lesbian and gay studies as well as addressing the sub-discipline of geographies of sexualities. In emphasising fluidity and the slippages of queer, however, this piece does not offer clear answers or solutions. Instead, it seeks to open up potentialities of queer geographies and of geographies of sexualities beyond those offered by queer. The tensions between geographies of sexualities and queer geographies can offer ways of thinking through the problems of fluidity and naming, and the implications these questions have for political thought and action, beyond queer and sexualities, both within and outside of geography.

Imagining King Street in the Gay/Lesbian Media

Imagining King Street in the Gay/Lesbian Media

Cruising Mat Motor: Malay biker masculinity and queer desire in/through KL Menjerit

This paper examines the construction of working‐class Mat Motor (Malay biker) masculinity and queer desire in/through KL Menjerit, a commercial biker film that exudes the unmistakably aura of working‐class kejantanan (masculinity). Specifically, I focus on how the film – or more precisely the ‘queer moments’ it contains – resonates in ways that are not necessarily obvious to the disinterested heterosexual public eye. The discussion takes into account both filmic elements and the sexual geography of Kuala Lumpur (KL), where shifting biker spaces sometimes intersect with homosexual cruising sites. My argument is that the film’s representation of the Mat Motor protagonist as unbendingly straight and heterosexually jantan – while imaginably gratifying to the core audience of Mat Motors – actually belies the opposite reality of KL’s ‘forgotten’ underside, where gender and sexuality are much more fluid and malleable than is sanctioned by society and the state.

Book Review: Bisexual Spaces: A Geography of Sexuality and Gender Clare Hemmings

Book Review: Bisexual Spaces: A Geography of Sexuality and Gender Clare Hemmings

Book Reviews: Bisexual Spaces. A Geography of Sexuality and Gender

Book Reviews: Bisexual Spaces. A Geography of Sexuality and Gender