Beyond heteronormativity? Gay cruising, closeted experiences and self-disciplining subject in People's Park, Guangzhou

《Beyond heteronormativity? Gay cruising, closeted experiences and self-disciplining subject in People's Park, Guangzhou》

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关键字: Public space; cruising; gay identity; closet; self-disciplining subjectivity; HOMOSEXUAL IDENTITIES; QUEER SPACE; SEX; POLITICS; CHINA; GAMES; MEN; GEOGRAPHIES; CITIZENSHIP; COMMUNITY

作者单位: [Qian, Junxi] South China Normal Univ, Sch Geog, Ctr Cultural Ind & Cultural Geog, Guangzhou, Guangdong, Peoples R China. Qian, JX (reprint author), South China Normal Univ, Sch Geog, Ctr Cultural Ind & Cultural Geog, Guangzhou, Guangdong, Peoples R China. E-Mail: junxi.qian@gmail.com

摘要: In this paper, I examine relationships between public space, gay people's cruising and construction of gay subjectivity in People's Park, Guangzhou, China. In particular, I interrogate the complex dynamics between the performance of homosexual identity and the dominant heteronormative ideologies in China's cultural-political sphere. I articulate how public cruising can be mobilized as a space of alternative socio-spatial ordering and simultaneously a closeted space to experience and reassert hegemonic divides of public/private, normal/abnormal. This paper employs an analysis of self-disciplining and the production of docile bodies to examine how gay cruisers construct gayness as deviant identity and thus attempt to reconcile gay subjects with dominant norms and values. The production of self-disciplining subjects is centered on the discursive formulation that gay men in public need to act in self-regulated and low-profile ways. This paper intends to enrich our understanding of the intrinsically dialectical relationships between public space and sexual subjectivity in concrete time spaces.