Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This research proposal examines the social construction of heterosexual identities. I analyze recent theoretical and empirical developments on heterosexuality, showing how heterosexuality is both a normative identity and a principle of social organization which goes unmarked in shaping the norms, identities and relations of the sexual “majority.” Building on recent scholarship on heterosexuality, such as Jonathan Katz (1996), Chyrs Ingraham (1996, 1998) and Diane Richardson (1996, 2000), as well as important feminist benchmarks, such as Judith Butler (1990, 1992), Betty Friedan (1963), Adrienne Rich (1980), Gayle Rubin (1975, 1984) and Monique Wittig (1992), I propose to examine the intersectional character of heterosexual identities. Paralleling research on the diverse racial and gender character of homosexualities, I plan to explore the social significance of race and gender in shaping the lives of heterosexual men and women. Moreover, I argue that the development of heterosexualities must be understood in the context of the changing contours of gay and lesbian life today. Thus this research will explore how heterosexual identities have been affected by the recent and unprecedented increases in gay and lesbian visibility and their partial institutional integration. That is, I examine the effects of post-closeted world (a visible gay and lesbian presence in social life) on heterosexuals, examining the everyday accomplishment of heterosexual identities. If heterosexual identities are always defined in opposition and relation to homosexual ones, then what are the effects of a post-closeted life for heterosexuals today?
By analyzing the social construction of heterosexual identities and normative heterosexuality as a principle of social organization in social life, I also explore the relationship between heterosexualities and homophobia. That is, normative heterosexuality (heterosexism and compulsory heterosexuality) and homophobia (hatred, fear, and disgust of homosexuality and homosexuals) are social forces that not only shape the lives of homosexuals but heterosexuals as well. Often when homophobia is made an issue, it is thought of something as a problem for how homosexuals are treated, this assumption ignores and misses how homophobia is something integral to the contour of heterosexual identity as well. In other words, heterosexuals have and still frequently do form their identity and its normative status through homophobic practices (Jenness and Richman 2002, Nardi and Bolton 1991, Pharr 1988 Stein 2001).

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This research proposal examines the social construction of heterosexual identities. Building on recent scholarship on heterosexuality, such as Katz (1996), Ingraham (1996, 1998) and Richardson (1996, 2000), as well as important feminist benchmarks, such as Butler (1990, 1992), Friedan (1963), Rich (1980), Rubin (1975, 1984) and Wittig (1992), I propose to examine the everyday accomplishment of heterosexual identities. Paralleling research on the diverse racial and gender character of homosexualities, I plan to explore the social significance of race and gender in shaping the lives of heterosexual black and white men and women. Moreover, I argue that the development of heterosexual identities must be understood in the context of the changing contours of gay and lesbian life today. This research will explore how heterosexual identities have been affected by the recent and unprecedented increases in gay and lesbian visibility and their partial institutional integration. That is, I examine how the dynamic of a visible gay and lesbian presence in social life shapes heterosexual identities, the operation of the norm of heterosexuality and homophobic practices. If heterosexual identities and relations are always defined in opposition and relation to homosexual ones, then what are the implications of increased gay and lesbian visibility for heterosexuals today? And how does gay visibility and social integration shape the racial and gendered heterosexual identities of black and white men and women?

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: As gays and lesbians have become more visible and, as heterosexual individuals acknowledge, no longer conform to stereotypes as gender inverts, a clear gender sign system that indicates a heterosexual or homosexual identity is being blurred. Consequently, heterosexual individuals increasingly evaluate how central heterosexual privilege is to their identities by how they choose to interact with and befriend openly gay and lesbian individuals. And it this boundary drawing that provides a salient social index of the importance of heterosexual identity and its privileged status as well as how heterosexuals produce and reproduce the norm of heterosexuality and the homophobic or anti-homophobic practices they utilize in establishing a heterosexual identity in the context of gay visibility.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Previous sociological research on interracial intimacy has focused on interraciality as a social problem, failing to consider how these relationships may experienced as both a liability and a source of social capital for White partners. Scholars, therefore, have neglected an opportunity to examine interraciality as a site in which White partners may reconceptualize their sense of racial identity and cultivate a critical analysis of how race, racism, and racialization operate in their lives. In this article we respond to these omissions by drawing upon two separate longitudinal ethnographic research projects conducted by the authors with members of 80 Black/White interracial couples living in the eastern United States (New York, Philadelphia, and Washington DC) and England. We demonstrate that White partners who develop “racial literacy,” begin to rethink and evaluate their everyday practices and the social processes that reproduce their privilege.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Scholars have suggested that women will be forerunners in promoting acceptance of gays and lesbians. I use ethnographic and interview data from an all female floor in a mixed-gender residence hall on a university campus to examine how some heterosexual women’s strategies for navigating inegalitarian gender conditions may actually contribute to discrimination against lesbians. I find that in the erotic heterosexual market of college, some women may gain status by trading on their heterosexuality. Because of their disinterest in male erotic attention, lesbians are relegated to the lowest ranks of the erotic hierarchy. Heterosexual women who are invested in this hierarchy may avoid lesbians for fear of social contamination. Using social distance as a measurement of college women’s anti-lesbian attitudes and behaviors, I map out variation in women’s gender strategies, connect this variation to involvement in erotic hierarchies, and focus on how the dominant mode of social distance relegates lesbians to the margins of social spaces. I also show how same-sex eroticism among heterosexual women can increase social distance from lesbians. I conclude by discussing the role that social context plays in fostering or diluting discrimination against lesbians.