Lesbian, gay, and queer criticism
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everyone’s experience can be understood. Heterocentrism renders lesbian and gay experience invisible, making it possible in decades past, for example, for fans of Walt Whitman to be blind to the homoerotic dimension of his poetry. It is interesting to note that the words homophobia, heterosexism, and heterocentrism are sometimes used interchangeably, the difference among them apparently being one of degree: homophobia suggests the most virulent antigay sentiment, heterocentrism the least virulent. By focusing our attention on gay men and lesbians as an oppressed group, the words homophobia, heterosexism, and heterocentrism tend to spotlight the ways in which gay people constitute a political minority. As a minority they deserve, of course, the same protection under the law afforded to racial, ethnic, and religious minorities in America. Another concept that emphasizes the minor‑ ity status of lesbians and gay men is biological essentialism, the idea that a fixed segment of the population is naturally gay, just as the rest of the population is naturally heterosexual. Conversely, some lesbian and gay theorists argue that, although gay people constitute an oppressed political minority in America, all human beings have the potential for same-sex desire or sexual activity. Accord‑ ing to this view, which is called social constructionism, homosexuality and het‑ erosexuality are products of social, not biological, forces. Ways of understanding gay and lesbian experience that focus on their minority status are called minoritizing views. Ways of understanding gay and lesbian experience that focus on the homosexual potential in all people are called universalizing views.2 Interestingly, both essentialist (minoritizing) and constructionist (universaliz‑ ing) views have been used to attack homosexuality: for example, (1) gay people are born sick (or evil); (2) gay people are sick (or evil) products of a sick (or evil) environment. By the same token, both essentialist and constructionist views have been used to defend or celebrate homosexuality: for example, (1) it is bio‑ logically natural for some people to be gay, no matter what environment they’re born into, and therefore they should be accepted as natural; (2) homosexuality is a normal response to particular environmental factors, and therefore gay people should be accepted as normal. Finally, two oft-used words that refer to same-sex relationships are homoerotic, which I used earlier to describe Whitman’s poetry, and homosocial. Homoerotic denotes erotic (though not necessarily overtly sexual) depictions that imply same-sex attraction or that might appeal sexually to a same-sex reader, for example, a sensually evocative description of women in the process of help‑ ing each other undress or of nude men bathing in a pond. Such depictions can occur in any medium, such as film, painting, sculpture, photography, and, of course, literature. The word homosocial denotes same-sex friendship of the kind seen in female- or male-bonding activities. For example, the relationship among
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