Catchalls and Conundrums: Theorizing “Sexual Minority” in Social, Cultural, and Political Contexts

The term “sexual minority” functions in social, cultural, and political contexts as a catchall for minority sexuality categories. Yet, apart from serving as an umbrella term, its uses are contradictory. On the one hand, the term emphasizes “sexuality,” which serves the purposes of religious fundamentalist and political groups that demonize minority sexualities to the exclusion of identity, background or family status. On the other hand, the term can be useful for readers and researchers in sexuality studies to become more globally aware of, and to reconceptualize, sexuality outside of tightly contained LGBT boxes. Such a contradiction has implications for education practice and policy. We suggest, for instance, using the term cautiously when describing same-sex sexualities because, as an umbrella term, it can homogenize people who represent a highly diverse spectrum of racialized categories, class backgrounds, genders, sexualities, and other social markers of difference. As a pedagogical heuristic device, the term is useful in delineating the differences between queer and sexual minority pedagogies when deciding upon the approach that will best draw an audience into the discussion. Our overall goal through this critical exploration is to support new understandings and insights of sexual diversity in ways that effectively challenge heterosexism and homophobia.

Memorialising queer community: digital media, subjectivity and the Lost Gay # archives of social networking

Following the development of online sites dedicated to the preservation of individuals’ photographic and textual memorialisation of cities, a number of archiving sites using Facebook have been developed that cater to the interactive and co-creative practice of memorialising LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer) city-based communities, events and public spaces (e.g. Lost Gay Perth and Lost Gay Melbourne). Such minority community practices of memorialisation invoke deeply felt and affective attachments to ‘past’ in ways which have implications for identity, belonging, ageing and agency. This article utilises a critical approach to archiving, temporality, identity and attachment to interrogate some of the ways in which digital cultural practices related to archiving social networking sites are implicated in the memorialisation of community belonging through notions of past, networks of knowing, and the temporal and historical production of ways of thinking about and knowing minority sexuality, particularly LGBTQ subjectivity.

Erotic Solutions for Ethnic Tension: Fantasy, Reality, Pornography

This chapter examine how the French porn industry channels and manipulates tensions and fears related to the immigration debate and the place of Arabs in France, at times offering erotic “remedies.” This has culminated in a new pornotrope: Porno Ethnik, or pornography involving men and women of color, usually Arab or black. The chapter begins with a discussion of the output of French directors who were the first to feature Franco-Arab actors in gay male pornography: Jean-Daniel Cadinot (Cadinot), Jean-Noël René Clair (JNRC), and Stéphane Chibikh (Citébeur). It then considers heterosexual pornography featuring Franco-Arab women and asks whether or not this field of production is so different in its representations of minority sexuality that it precludes comparison with homosexual pornography. Tropes of sex tourism to North Africa, the hypersexualization of single immigrant men, the “eroticization of poverty” as regards both women and men, the veil as striptease, and the “homothug” type are all surveyed. Pornography, often seen as apolitical, does tackle issues of undigested colonial memory and contemporary race relations in a much more forthright (if politically incorrect) way than do the traditional journalistic means available.