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A review by dvlavieri
Epistemology of the Closet by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick
5.0
I have been thinking a lot lately about how variable the gay experience is across America and around the world, and even by individual. I have been recently seeing a guy from Venezuela who is only in the process of coming out. He hasn't come out to his parents, but has come out to his American friends and classmates, as well as some of his close female cousins. He has three brothers, and after coming out to one of them recently, he received the response that while his brother respects him, he does not support him. I was a bit taken aback by the rather brash out-casting in this day and age, and a bit shocked that there is still so much hatred and misunderstanding in the world today. Being raised in Massachusetts in the middle class, my perception of acceptance is likely to be pretty skewed toward liberal notions of equality, acceptance, etc. I haven't lost any friends, I haven't been eschewed from my family or work communities; I have been accepted for who I am, gay. But I wonder if I am missing out on some important rites and rituals as a homosexual, being so readily accepted? Am I missing out on an experience that is supposed to shape me?
It has been a while now since I have read through Eve Sedgewick's Epistemology of the Closet and while I may have lost some of the particulars and nuances into the receding oblivion, the impact it has made on my world view persists. Throughout literature, just as throughout life, we encounter everywhere the metaphor of the closet. So much rhetoric has been propped up against this metaphor of the "closet" that it seems that it creates this vicious cycle of stigmatizing people who are unsure, figuring it out, or simply constrained by other forces. Being "in" the closet is perceived as living a false, sham half-life - it isn't living. You are deemed doubly guilty: of being gay, and of being ashamed of it. We live in such an insecure society, and everyone is in one closet or another, and many of them are made of glass: they wear their insecurities on their sleeves. It is not only "us" versus "them" - gay versus straight, there is such a broad range of internally directed hatred, judgment and shaming within the gay community. As a group we parade and champion acceptance, but behind the confines of our paper partitions, we do not often accept one another for our variations on the same theme.
I read recently that many believe that homophobia is a fear that the homophobe himself may be gay - that is probably true, and is by no means a new idea. What is the origin of this? Where did all this hate even come from? In the ancient past, homosexuality was a fairly common and accepted passtime, though socially constructed in such a way. Hadrian and Antinoos, Achilles and Patrocles, Jove and Ganymede, Apollo and Hyacinth etc. There was not any kind of enduring relationship - no gaily married men on Olympus that I know of, anyhow. But the sexual component was accepted if not promoted by the ancients. I suppose it must have been the rise of religion that gave voice to the prudish hatred for the sexual act. I have a Mormon friend whose parents told him that while he is entitled to love whoever he chooses, they condemn the homosexual act. What a reverse! Are love and sex not a golden braid in themselves? A complicated relationship exists between the commingling of hearts and the physical manifestation in bodies, but it seems a gross hypocrisy to allow one and condemn the other.
La Rochefoucauld wrote "There are some people who would never have fallen in love if they had not heard there was such a thing" - does the same go for hate as goes for love? How would someone grow to hate themselves or to hate others for their differences, if someone aeons ago had not given voice, conceived of such a word, as defines something to be hated? And will that rhetoric of homophobia and hatred ever truly be extricated from our language? Language is very powerful - it can make people fall in love, it can entertain, it can enlighten, but it can also breed hatred and misunderstanding, it can lie, it can kill.
It has been a while now since I have read through Eve Sedgewick's Epistemology of the Closet and while I may have lost some of the particulars and nuances into the receding oblivion, the impact it has made on my world view persists. Throughout literature, just as throughout life, we encounter everywhere the metaphor of the closet. So much rhetoric has been propped up against this metaphor of the "closet" that it seems that it creates this vicious cycle of stigmatizing people who are unsure, figuring it out, or simply constrained by other forces. Being "in" the closet is perceived as living a false, sham half-life - it isn't living. You are deemed doubly guilty: of being gay, and of being ashamed of it. We live in such an insecure society, and everyone is in one closet or another, and many of them are made of glass: they wear their insecurities on their sleeves. It is not only "us" versus "them" - gay versus straight, there is such a broad range of internally directed hatred, judgment and shaming within the gay community. As a group we parade and champion acceptance, but behind the confines of our paper partitions, we do not often accept one another for our variations on the same theme.
I read recently that many believe that homophobia is a fear that the homophobe himself may be gay - that is probably true, and is by no means a new idea. What is the origin of this? Where did all this hate even come from? In the ancient past, homosexuality was a fairly common and accepted passtime, though socially constructed in such a way. Hadrian and Antinoos, Achilles and Patrocles, Jove and Ganymede, Apollo and Hyacinth etc. There was not any kind of enduring relationship - no gaily married men on Olympus that I know of, anyhow. But the sexual component was accepted if not promoted by the ancients. I suppose it must have been the rise of religion that gave voice to the prudish hatred for the sexual act. I have a Mormon friend whose parents told him that while he is entitled to love whoever he chooses, they condemn the homosexual act. What a reverse! Are love and sex not a golden braid in themselves? A complicated relationship exists between the commingling of hearts and the physical manifestation in bodies, but it seems a gross hypocrisy to allow one and condemn the other.
La Rochefoucauld wrote "There are some people who would never have fallen in love if they had not heard there was such a thing" - does the same go for hate as goes for love? How would someone grow to hate themselves or to hate others for their differences, if someone aeons ago had not given voice, conceived of such a word, as defines something to be hated? And will that rhetoric of homophobia and hatred ever truly be extricated from our language? Language is very powerful - it can make people fall in love, it can entertain, it can enlighten, but it can also breed hatred and misunderstanding, it can lie, it can kill.