Abstract
The liberalization of attitudes towards homosexuality in UK and US cultures has been one of the most profound and prolonged social trends of the past 30 years (Keleher and Smith, 2012). While this is documented in quantitative research since the turn of the millennium, particularly in the US, it has taken longer for qualitative research to engage with this social reality. My own work has contributed to the growing body of qualitative evidence regarding decreasing homophobia and its effects (e.g. Anderson, 2009; McCormack, 2012; Weeks, 2007). Here, it has been necessary to prove that homophobia was decreasing, before examining what effects this had in each research context.
It is in this recent historical and intellectual context that several new studies have taken decreased homophobia as the starting point for their research, rather than as a claim that requires proof. In his engaging book on the social construction of heterosexual identities in the US, Straights, James Joseph Dean comments that the increasing visibility and inclusivity of gays and lesbians is found ‘in everyday life and across the nation’s major social institutions’ (p. 2). Dean conceptualizes the US as a ‘post-closeted culture’ in order to recognize ‘the institutional incorporation and cultural legitimation of “normalized” gay men and lesbians and their expanded latitude in negotiating desire, gender, and identity’ (pp. 5–6). Similarly, in his study of the changing nature of gay neighbourhoods also in the US, There Goes the Gayborhood?, Amin Ghaziani uses the concept of ‘post-gay’ as a way of understanding a ‘new gay paradigm … characterized by a dramatic acceptance of homosexuality and a corresponding assimilation of gays and lesbians into the mainstream’ (p. 9). Also adopting the post-gay framing in Understanding Narrative Identity Through Gay and Lesbian Youth, Edmund Coleman-Fountain engages in debates about the continued relevance of sexual identity categories (see Savin-Williams, 2005), as well as developing understanding of narrative identity perspectives as a sociological tool.
Ghaziani’s important book sits at the intersection of urban studies and the sociology of sexualities – examining how change is occurring in sexual spaces within US cities, colloquially known as ‘gayborhoods’. Highlighting how gayborhoods have often been seen merely as ‘comparative foils or footnotes against racial and ethnic enclaves’ (p. 7), his research demonstrates the importance of understanding sexualities within urban studies, as well as considering the significance of geography within research on LGBT people. Ghaziani highlights that gayborhoods are not just places for sexual minorities to feel safe, they are also cultural locations that provide a distinct character to a neighbourhood. Gayborhoods, for Ghaziani, provide a splash of colour against the dulling greyness of heteronormativity.
Drawing on an impressive array of media sources, census counts, opinion polls, interviews and ethnographic observations, Ghaziani develops a nuanced and sophisticated understanding of social change related to gay-dominated areas within metropolitan cities. The arguments in the book are oriented around one particular paradox: the perceived decline of ‘the gayborhood’ in US cities and the emergence of a post-gay world occurred primarily because of the erosion of homophobia. How do gay people keep together, Ghaziani asks, when they no longer see the need to live in the same place for safety or solidarity?
The answer that Ghaziani develops is to recognize that while gayborhoods may be ‘de-gaying’ (gays are moving out) and ‘straightening’ (straights are moving in) throughout the United States and in many western countries (p. 24), they are not dying, but changing and reinventing themselves in complex ways. Technological advances, not least related to ‘hooking-up’ apps such as Grindr, mean that virtual networks exist that no longer rely on geographical spaces and, as such, these spaces change to accommodate people’s needs in the 21st century. Ghaziani argues that gayborhoods have become tourist attractions and a ‘mecca’ (p. 22) for sexual minorities as they travel to big cities. However, he argues that new sexual communities emerge as well, suggesting that we live in a world ‘not of shrivelling sexual and spatial expressions but instead of extraordinary growth and new possibilities’ (p. 259). While he uses Boystown in Chicago as a case study, Ghaziani emphasizes that changes are also occurring in small towns and rural areas across America. He argues that ‘our national landscape today is defined by queer geographies’ (p. 259), and he is careful to state that these exist ‘in the plural’ (p. 239).
In order to understand changing attitudes toward gayborhoods, Ghaziani characterizes three zeitgeists of the 20th century: the ‘closet, coming out, and post-gay eras’ (p. 9). He argues that the closet era was defined by concealment, isolation and shame, and lasted until the mid-1940s. He defines the period between 1945 and 1997 as the coming out era, as a period when ‘gayborhoods’ initially formed and later flourished and people increasingly lived as openly gay (although not necessarily without stigma). The third era emerged in 1998 and is known as ‘post-gay’, characterized by acceptance of gays and lesbians and the triumph of assimilationist over queer politics.
The book also highlights the continued role of gayborhoods as a safe-haven for those who suffer discrimination and marginalization even in post-gay culture – including queer youth of colour, transgender individuals, and those who hail from smaller, more conservative communities. Ghaziani argues that middle-aged participants’ claims that the spaces are no longer needed are based in their own life-course experiences and do not appear to distinguish between their own personal circumstances and broader social change. It is a shame, then, that Ghaziani did not have ethical approval to interview the young people aged under 18 he claims still need these spaces. Their narratives about the contemporary need for gayborhoods would have enriched his arguments about these spaces’ continued importance.
Ghaziani writes in an engaging, inclusive style, and it is easy to see why his book has drawn such widespread media attention. In addition to the importance and topicality of the issue, his prose is particularly apt for a broader audience – writing in the plural, encouraging ‘us’ to think critically and share ‘our’ journey together. This is done without loss of clarity or academic rigour, and is particularly welcome in a sub-discipline where language all-too-often becomes obtuse and impenetrable.
Advancing debates about assimilation and gay rights – and fully recognizing the benefits of decreasing homophobia on sexual minorities, particularly among young people – a sense of loss is palpable in the early chapters that describe the changes occurring in these gay subcultures. Yet Ghaziani is also optimistic, arguing against a supposed decline of gayborhoods but instead positing their reinvigoration and multiplication in the second half of the book.
Ghaziani’s arguments are persuasive, and yet, highlighting the generational nature of sexualities (Plummer, 2010), I could not help but agree with the post-gay participants. As a gay man with friends who are gay, straight and in-between, I found myself somewhat estranged from the pull of gayborhoods, even in their new incarnations. At one level this highlights the strength of Ghaziani’s conceptualization of the three eras – my adolescence occurred during the post-gay era and my views fit with his participants from this period. And yet it also perhaps questions the particular nomenclature used. In a period of growing legal equality in the West and in a context where gays and lesbians are more visible than ever before, perhaps pro-gay is a more accurate description than post-gay. Nonetheless, Ghaziani develops a serious intellectual perspective that I endorse, and his book offers a powerful analysis of the changing nature of gayborhoods, bringing urban studies and the sociology of sexualities into a thoughtful, engaging and important debate about the sexual nature of our cities and the politics of these changes.
Shifting the lens of analysis away from gay cultures, Dean’s book examines the processes by which heterosexuals – the straights of the title – present and manage their identities. In a wide-ranging and theoretically sophisticated introduction, he explains why the notion of the closet is fundamental to understanding contemporary straight identities. He defines the closet as ‘a specific social-historical condition in which a regime of compulsory heterosexuality imposed patterns of passing and a double life upon the vast majority of individuals for whom same-sex desire was salient’ (p. 5). Dean powerfully makes the case for why the closet is of central importance to straight people’s lives, and his description of the contemporary era as being ‘post-closeted’ is persuasive. Recognizing that the closet continues to have influence, he uses the term to argue that in this culture ‘straights can neither assume the invisibility of gays and lesbians nor count on others to assume their heterosexuality’ (p. 247).
It is the weakening of the heterosexual presumption that is central to Dean’s work. He discusses a range of practices by which straight men and women navigate their identities in this social world, which he describes as ranging from homophobic to anti-homophobic. He places these practices on a continuum of levels of contact with, and social distance or boundaries from, sexual minorities. Dean categorizes these as ‘strongly aversive boundaries’ (including behaviours such as homophobic language and the stigmatization of gender non-conformity), ‘weak boundaries’ (including discussion of opposite-sex partners as ways of recuperating heterosexuality) and ‘blurred boundaries’ (including disavowal of straight privilege and recognition of components of bisexuality).
One of the strengths of Dean’s approach is his attention to the heterosexual identity management strategies of both men and women. This enables him to draw out gendered differences in the presentation of heterosexuality that enhances understanding of both sexes. For example, by highlighting that homophobic women feel able to visit gay bars and have gay friends while homophobic men do not, Dean is able to elucidate some of the complexities in the ways in which heterosexuality is maintained as a gendered mode of power.
The other key development in Dean’s book is the empirically grounded understanding of race that is developed through interviews with black and white men and women. Often under-developed in the literature on heterosexuality, Dean is able to highlight how race intersects with gender and sexuality. He highlights how racial status is used to legitimize both homophobic and pro-gay views, and how religious belief is a particularly strong theme in the narratives of black participants who sought to defend their homophobic positions.
Writing in an accessible manner, Dean presents the narratives of his participants sequentially in each chapter to allow a richness of qualitative data, which he then analyses. While a more thematic analysis may be more familiar, this approach enables him to draw out some of the complexities within his data. For example, by giving the narrative of a 54-year-old woman he is able to explore the generational nature of sexualities by highlighting how the participant’s age fundamentally affected how she navigated living in post-closeted America.
There are a number of theoretical developments in Dean’s book. Perhaps the most obvious is his careful exposition of the utility of post-closet culture as a concept, and his description of the different zeitgeists of the 20th century. This can be seen as overlapping with and complimentary to Ghaziani’s framework, with the variance explained by their differing foci. While I appreciated the way he historically situated Foucault’s theorizing, the use of queer theory early on was less persuasive than his own inductive theorizing which seemed more fully grounded in the social constructionist literature. Dean’s notion of a continuum of straight identity practise is an empirically grounded intersectional analysis with a deeply sociological focus. Similarly, the book also contributes to debates about masculinities, the relationship between men and women within gender studies, as well as intersectional debates about race and gender.
The great shame about Dean’s book is that his empirical data is not as contemporary as his theoretical arguments. The interviews occurred in 2004 and 2005, yet General Social Survey data show that attitudes toward homosexuality have markedly improved since then (see Keleher and Smith, 2012). It also means that just six of his male participants are ‘millenials’ – those born after 1980 – and just one of these men is white. This is perhaps most important in his discussion of metrosexuality, where surprisingly resistant attitudes are present in the narratives of many of his participants. However, when one considers millenials are the generational cohort that exhibit the most inclusive and fluid masculinities (see Anderson, 2014), and it appears that white men have been most associated with metrosexuality, one wonders whether straight men in contemporary society are more gender fluid than Dean’s work suggests. Nonetheless, Dean provides an important contribution to the study of heterosexuality that develops interesting theoretical and empirical tools in understanding the gendered and racialized nature of straights’ identity management techniques in post-closet American culture.
Maintaining the focus on the social processes of mediating sexual identities, Coleman-Fountain examines the experiences of gays and lesbians rather than heterosexuals to argue that traditional sexual identity categories have continued significance in the 21st century. In a similar manner to Dean and Ghaziani, he highlights how different narrative tropes existed at different periods of the past century, moving from ‘deviance’ (p. 23) to ‘community and cultural practice’ (p. 24) to the contemporary ‘narratives of ordinariness and citizenship’ (p. 26). Coleman-Fountain focuses on ordinariness as an ‘organizing theme … as efforts are made to make sense of how identities are organized in the context of the declining conditions of the closet, changing patterns of homophobia, and the normalization of lesbian and gay identities’ (p. 28). The conceptual links between ordinariness, post-gay and post-closeted culture are clear and speak to the broader social trends each author is engaging with.
Providing a more pessimistic perspective regarding the assimilation of sexual minorities in contemporary culture than found in Dean’s and Ghaziani’s work, Coleman-Fountain argues that tensions exist in being an ‘ordinary’ gay or lesbian youth in contemporary society. Drawing on interviews with 15 gay and four lesbian youth, with data collected in 2008, the book is necessarily very limited in its empirical scope. However, Coleman-Fountain argues that there is value in providing a ‘local view on a bigger issue’ (p. 7). The local view in this instance is of this small group of people who self-identify as gay and lesbian from the North East of England.
The importance of the local view is best articulated in Coleman-Fountain’s description of how participants were ‘doing ordinariness’ in their social practices (pp. 91–113). He argues that ‘the paradox of normalization, as a politics of sameness, is the way it contests sexual difference whilst simultaneously re-inscribing it’ (p. 119). In other words, participants seek to recognize their sexual difference without losing a sense of sameness with their heterosexual peers. The tension, Coleman-Fountain argues, is that the desire for sameness requires identity work in how they understand their sexual difference that polices their own gendered and sexual identities.
In thinking about their sexual difference, Coleman-Fountain also documents an ‘essentialist’ belief in the science of sexuality among participants that ‘allowed the young men to know, explain and understand the body … as if they were inherently gay’ (p. 55). While increasing evidence shows, in my view, that their belief in science is fundamentally accurate, Coleman-Fountain stresses the emotional pull of being able to explain one’s desires within a broader social context, with the ‘need to explain’ being evidence of a heterosexist culture – where straight people do not encounter similar questions regarding the aetiology of their sexual identity. Highlighting this, and supporting Ghaziani’s arguments, participants still placed value in gay spaces where they could feel safe even as they did so in a manner that sought to normalize their sexual difference.
Coleman-Fountain skilfully navigates the empirical and theoretical aims of the book. His empirical arguments are situated within the debates about changing identifications – most notably as described by Savin-Williams (2005) and engaged with by Bert Cohler and Phil Hammack – and this book offers continuity in this discussion in the manner in which it highlights that ordinariness is occurring alongside continued meaning in sexual identities. In addition to the issues about post-gay society, Coleman-Fountain also develops an argument about narrative approaches to identity that is accessible, comprehensive and particularly relevant for students and those new to the field. Coleman-Fountain provides a strong history of theoretical approaches to studying sexual identities, focussing on the uses of symbolic interactionism and narrative identities. His defence of narrative approaches to identity is timely, and concurs with the constructionist approach adopted by all three authors reviewed here.
These three books provide important contributions to the sociology of sexualities and, taken together, highlight some key trends in contemporary research in this area. One interesting component is that, contrary to some claims about a poststructural turn in recent sexualities scholarship, these books are rooted in constructionist and interactionist sociology that eschew a deconstructionist framework. Perhaps the key trend, though, is the centrality of generations and the generational nature of sexualities (Plummer, 2010). All three authors recognize different cultural zeitgeists related to sexualities in the past 100 years, and all use conceptual tools (of post-gay or post-closeted culture) to recognize profound shifts in the 21st century. Inherent within in the framing of these books is the fact that young people today live in a markedly different social zeitgeist than prior generations, and that this is primarily the result of improving attitudes toward, and increasing assimilation of, sexual minorities. Thus, by examining the after-effects of decreasing homophobia, these scholars enhance sociology in exciting ways, strengthening the notion that the study of sexualities must be a cornerstone of the discipline.