Poststructural sensibility

Poststructural sensibility is constructed from the themes reflecting on the world, structural analysis, valorising difference, struggle and perseverance, identification of self as constructed, acts of parrhesia, subjugated voices and openness to new ideas. The category assumes a poststructural approach to the subject. It suggests that multiple selves do not cohere and are often in conflict (Davies 1991). The subject is a contested space, continually troubling the boundaries of its own definition (Weedon 1987). This category problematises the existence of one truth and valorises difference. It positions a growing acceptance that there does not have to be an answer to every problem. The subject is seen as comfortably existing in a space of not knowing (Probyn 1996).

Contradiction is a feature of this category’s construction. Places and or issues are seen from different and contradictory constructions. This category assembles the subject as non-foundational and continually shifting. Nothing is certain. Action is the ability to think critically about the world. However the thinking self thinks, does not always mirror the acting self. This dissonance between thought and action is constructed by this category as a curiosity more than a problem. Meaning-making is bound up with ideas of partiality, fragility, uncertainty, non-stability, non-coherence, confusion and uneasiness.

A range of meanings about the self and engagement in homosexual beat sex is central to this category. Homosexual beats are public toilets and parks that are frequented for casual and usually anonymous sex. The subject within these spaces takes on different constructions through this category. Some are marginalised. Others are privileged. Some are empowering. Others are not so empowering.

In this ‘dangerous space’ the subject is constructed as one who engages in immoral, non- intimate and selfishly self-gratifying sexual activities, surreptitiously carried out. For example, in the phrase, ‘in this world of darkness, filth, disease, danger, stench. In this silent world, this room of contempt and immorality’, the subject of beat sex is perceived as a site without celebration and pleasure. Another example, ‘Dark, stench, filth, cold, scared, no words, just a look, behind doors, no sound, used, so quick’, constructs coldness, solitariness, and the fear of the subject that participates within the subculture of the homosexual beat.

In its acceptance and recognition of contradiction, this category also understands beat sex as a place of excitement and lust. ‘Passion, hot, steamy, sweat, lusting, deep and long’, has the subject participating in homosexual beats as a site of pleasure. Another phrase, ‘Anticipate, a glance, this is it, queasy, horny, warm, fast, a scent, animal’, signals the subject engaged in beat sex in a space where adrenalin fuels a chaotic moment of bliss. In the following example the idea that beats are places of ‘immorality and contempt’ is challenged: ‘Reject all the values of the society and enjoy sex. When you’re dead, you’ll regret not having had fun with your genital organs – Joe Orton Diaries.’ Through this example, the subject participating in beat sex is seen for its potential to offer spaces and subject positions of pleasure, free from wider society’s rules about sex.

The subject that participates in beat sex is also considered as a site where intimacy can be found. An emphasis on intimacy is demonstrated through phrases like, ‘I receive love, affection, sensuality’ and ‘I am wanted and needed’. Phrases such as, ‘I don’t even know his name’, read through this category, construct an alternative subject position despised for its lack of intimacy. The subject is ambiguous. The possibilities of multiple meanings highlight the consideration of the subject as open and partial, struggling against a fixed notion of truth.

The recognition of difference and the complexities of sexualities are very important to this category. Old men are often vilified within gay male subculture, so the words, ‘I fucked an old man tonight. It was the first fuck for ages. I feel revolting. I want to make love’, are read as an example of the subject not conforming to dominant ideas of sexual attractiveness in gay subculture. The penetrative nature of the sexual act is constructed in a contradictory way conforming to dominant ideas that surround a younger partner taking the active role and the older man taking the passive role. Penetrative sex as constructed within the confines of a penetrative act is constructed within traditional masculine ideas of sex (Connell 1987, 1995).

A feature of this category involves the dissonance between critical thinking and action. Thinking and action do not always cohere and they construct a space of tension for the subject. The solidity and coherence of the subject is questioned. This category’s feature of ambivalence and the subject existing in a space of not knowing is demonstrated through the phrase, ‘Yet longing to be so much apart of it’. The subject is constructed as possessing a desire to belong and fit into the gay scene even though he has a critical awareness that gay subculture may limit available subject positions. The tension between a critical awareness of the gay scene, where dominant images and body types are questioned, and wanting to belong and fit in is constructed by this category as an example of the subject existing in a contested space, not fixed, forever shifting and struggling to understand itself (Davies 1991).

In this example the subject is comprehended as believing in the worth of challenging heterosexual sexism, yet its sexist behavior towards other gay men is constructed as a curious contradiction: ‘I abhore oggling and sexism of men towards women, yet I spend half the day checking out balls and cocks.’ Critical thinking does not translate into action. This dissonance is pictured as a curiosity. Examples such as this are used by this category to construct a reading of the subject that is contested, multiple, often in conflict and continually troubling the boundaries of its own definition (Lather 1991).