Locations of Silence (original) (raw)

(Hetero)Sexing Space: Lesbian Perceptions and Experiences of Everyday Spaces

Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 1993

Heterosexuality is the dominant sexuality in modern Western culture, However, it is not defined merely by sexual acts in private space but is a process of power relations which operates in most everyday environments. In this paper, therefore, the author explores how lesbians perceive and experience everyday spaces. It is argued that lesbians can feel ‘out of place’ in environments such as the workplace or hotels, because these spaces are organised and appropriated by heterosexuals and so express and reproduce asymmetrical sociosexual relations. Consideration is also given to the way heterosexual hegemony is reproduced and expressed in space through antigay discrimination and violence. In the conclusion, the author explores the way in which fear of disclosure and antigay abuse inhibit the expression of lesbian and gay sexualities in everyday spaces and so feed the spatial supremacy of heterosexuality.

Language, sexuality and place: The view from cyberspace

Gender and Language, 2011

This study attempts to use space/place as a tool in discourse analysis, focusing on the immediate surroundings of interaction. It investigates the ongoing performance of sexualised place (and place-based sexuality) through the use of language in online chat-rooms. The central questions focus on how the shared imaginary of a room helps to shape the performances of genders and sexualities unfolding 'there' and how the gendered and sexualised discourses sexualise the room. Guided by the triangle of space model , attention is paid to the chat rooms' user interface, the spatial metaphor of the 'room' , and to participant interaction as part of the three dimensions of online spatiality. Analysis focuses on data taken from a corpus of computer-mediated chat-room interaction. These are queer places for performances (in this case) of non-heterosexual, masculine identities and desires, which are marginalized in our heteronormative society. Gotved's model of online spatiality allows linguistic analysis to demonstrate that social understandings of space and place interact with individuals and communities on a mutually reformulating path.

Queer Safe Spaces and Communication

Encyclopedia of Queer Studies and Communication, 2022

Printed from Oxford Research Encyclopedias, Communication. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice).

Space, Place and Location in Sexual Social Media

AoIR Selected Papers of Internet Research

Contributing to the swiftly emerging field of the geographies of digital sexualities, this panel explores the geosocial and geopolitical dimensions of digital sexual cultures by zooming in on the connections between sexual practices, geographic imaginaries, and locally embedded social media platforms devoted to sexual expression. Building on case studies of an Estonian platform used primarily by those interested in group sex (LC, est. 2018), a Swedish platform preferred by BDSM practitioners (Darkside.se, est. 2003), and a Finnish platform for nude self-expression (Alastonsuomi.com, est. 2007) we show how these platforms contribute to and shape sexual geographies in digital and physical registers. On the one hand, these platforms operate as spatialized tools which put bodies in motion in the interest of hooking up. They function as digital compasses that allow for orientation of sexual desires in physical spaces. On the other hand, these platforms also assemble localized online plac...

Queerspace: Sexualized spaces revisited

interalia: a journal of queer studies, 2007

Reflecting on lessons learned from the endemic and tacit homophobia throughout his childhood in the American south, Diepiriye's personal narrative begins with realizing his first ally in a most unlikely corner. His best friend became the first in their class to grow breasts and the world seemed to collapse in on her much the same way the world abandoned him because of his effeminacy. Told in first person, this is the first chapter in a book that regards gender, race and class in the American south with critical the hindsight of a native who has now traversed the world, and currently resides on the other side.

Spaces of Female Friendship and Sexuality

altrelettere, 2022

This article examines the representation of friendship between adolescent girls in two novels by Silvia Avallone: Acciaio, published in 2010, and Un'amicizia of 2020. After identifying thematic points of contact between the two texts, which include adolescent coming of age, and the separation from parents as a rite of passage, the question of social class, and literary setting, the article focuses on the girls’ intimate friendship, their corporeal performances of sexuality, and their engagement with their surroundings. The adolescent girls adopt spaces of seclusion, or closet spaces (BROWN 2000), as a means of playing out the domestic sphere, exploring their sexuality and, ultimately, solidifying their friendship. I contend that in both of Avallone’s novels, the centrality of the adolescent girls’ friendship forms an original and highly engaging narrative strategy, as seen in the writer’s exploration of the intensity of the bond between two best friends, including an acknowledgement of same-sex desire. I posit that the writer’s depiction of female friendship is in part influenced by patriarchal norms, not only in her adoption of the male gaze, but also in that the relationship between the two girls is marked by rivalry, jealousy and conflict, thus undermining what might otherwise be deemed a feminist strategy and the potential for female solidarity (RAYMOND 1986).

Intimate places: playgrounds for self-exploration

Inscriptions, 2024

Our essay starts from our first-person experience of visiting El Eco Experimental Museum in Mexico City. Over the course of our visit, El Eco became, what we will call an 'intimate place' in which we were able to explore personal thoughts, memories, and feelings. We go on to compare El Eco to Black Water (2021), a site-specific art installation by RAAAF. We draw on Donald Winnicott's work on play to show how intimate places like the El Eco museum have commonalities with the therapeutic setting of psychotherapy. They are places that enable people to freely associate by enabling a visitor to be in a state of relaxation, and by affording a rich array of disruptive possibilities for self-exploration. We understand such intimate places as playgrounds that can (temporarily) disrupt rigid patterns of resistance or avoidance, enabling a person to confront difficult emotions and experiences that might otherwise go unnoticed.

Gender Roomours I : Gender and Space

2017

Women's "narrative space" the authority granted women's stories exists marginally, as the concept of female story continues to compete with the perceived monopoly of the "master text." "Sick humour," an approved method of publicly reducing subject to object, principally reconstructs its target, or "butt," through the mechanism of gender identification. Exploring the culture and popularity of "sick humour," I critique the means by which sick jokes-which can in some cases effect social change-define the public awareness of three ordinary American women: Christa McAuliffe, Cathleen Webb and Lorena Bobbitt. Assessing the narrative space of these women, whose private tragedies became sensational public domain, we experience how the humour surrounding and confining women replaces their specificity with the saleable and consumable images of other female bodies. Mary. Almost. Yes. Better. Ah. There. I've done it. See the invisibl...