Why begin with the question of normativity and transgression? We begin here because normativity and transgression represent two approaches to linking sexuality with larger social and political issues. The question of the place of sexuality in human life is not simply a question of what we do with whom, but a matter of what kind of human relations are possible. When human relations are marked by injustice, alienation, oppression, and unsustainability, and when these patterns and structures receive ideological and institutional support, transgressing norms can be a way of opening the imagination to new possibilities of relating, of engaging in practices that generate better social structures and institutions. This is not to say that all norms are necessarily unjust, alienating, or oppressive, but the temptation to fall back into normative patterns limits our ability to be attuned to the various voices raising their demand to flourish in the world. Religion is one way of negotiating the poles of normativity and transgression. The tension between religion as âsacred canopyâ, which provides order and normativity, and religion as âprophetic critiqueâ as a transgressive force has always been at the heart of Christian theological endeavours (Ruether, 1989, see also Brueggemann, 1979). Thus, to begin with normativity and transgression is to participate in a long-standing theological tension between upholding the rules and norms that are necessary to hold a loving community together and resisting the unjust and alienating patterns that such rules and norms often enshrine.
To begin thinking about sexuality in terms of normativity and transgression, we can start with an obvious point: sex happens every day. On this quotidian level, sexual activity is a normal, even universal part of human life. And since Darwin, sexual selection has been a fundamental tenet of the evolutionary theory that undergirds the entire field of biology. Yet, sexual activity is not simply a biological imperative, as the evolutionary theorists have made foundational to their understanding of human life, but also one of the most culturally regulated aspects of life there is. It is within this tension between the scientific understanding of sexuality as integral to life and the historicist understanding that culture in large part determines what even counts as sex that we can see the beginnings of recurring confusions between normalcy, normativity, and transgression in thinking about sex.
To begin with, the move to crown science as the determiner of norms comes fraught with dangers, as the history of scientific legitimation of destructive ideologies has shown. Whether one considers the recurring attempts from Samuel George Morton to Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray to link intelligence to race (Gould, 1996), the pervasive gendered metaphors that shape the very perception of the objects of scientific enquiry (Keller, 1985), to evolutionary psychologyâs normalization of rape (Thornhill and Palmer, 2000), science and ideology have often gone hand in hand (see also Alexander and Numbers, 2010). Science, like every other human endeavour, is a matter of contesting interests and it is problematic to ground social norms in the provisional nature of all scientific enquiry. This does not mean that liberative interventions in science are not useful. Joan Roughgarden and Bruce Bagemihl offer welcome interventions into scientific discourse on sexuality with a clear social agenda of disrupting heterosexist assumptions and binary understandings of gender (Roughgarden, 2004; Bagemihl, 1999). But to put the emphasis on âinterventionâ and âcontestationâ is to shift away from allowing science to determine norms. In this respect, Judith Butlerâs Gender Trouble offered queer theory a genuinely transgressive theory that upended the very terms of biological essentialism, and showed how the construction of gender precedes the classification of sex (Butler, 1990).
Religion and theology can also provide alternative vantage points from which to unsettle an imagined natural order that can lead to a restrictive normativity in social practice. Whatever the many problems one can identify with Karl Barthâs theology, this ability to use theology as a fulcrum to intervene in scienceâs quest to provide the only normative position is an advantage of his assault on natural theology, a move which provided one ground for the Confessing Churchâs resistance to National Socialism (see also Villa-Vicencio (1988) for ways in which Barthâs theology was helpful in resistance to South African apartheid). Though Barthâs resistance did not come close to transgressing gender or sexual norms, Jaime Ronaldo Balboa made a provocative case for using Barth in the service of gay liberation (Balboa, 1998). Balboa argued that Barth did not apply his critique of casuistry and natural theology consistently and that a consistent application of his critique unravels the patriarchal and heteronormative aspects of his thought. Barth looked to the development of an ethics that was not grounded in an abstract principle such as natural law or an understanding of the Bible as a deposit of moral guidelines. He worried that such ethics tended toward idolatry by replacing God with a moralist, turned Godâs command into an empty form, and encroached on human freedom (Balboa, 1998, 775â776). Yet, as Balboa carefully demonstrates, Barth slipped precisely into the casuistical mode when thinking about sexuality and gender because he could not think past an ostensibly biologically given sex/gender system. Balboa pushes through this impasse by insisting that a consistent application of Barthâs ethical system would have to relinquish this grounding of ethics in a particular understanding of the body. The concrete, historical dimensions of human experience can again rise to the surface and push against the strictures of narrow understandings of biology.
A more recent exploration of the value of reading biology and Scripture together for queer liberation takes biological data more seriously, but leaves more room for scientific insights. In his contribution to Adam, Eve, and the Genome, a volume that explores the implications of the Human Genome Project through the lens of liberation theology, Ken Stone notes the parallel between the genome and Scripture as kinds of texts (Stone, 2003, 112â114). In particular, he sees a common thread in genetic research and Scripture to conflate etiological and ethical questions. For example, the quest for a âgay geneâ is an aetiological question, one which people often assume has the ethical importance of proving that âhomosexuality is naturalâ and therefore moral. Stone, however, draws on his experience with reading another set of etiological texts â the Genesis creation stories â to show that it is negative experiences, not positive experiences that drove the writers to pose etiological questions about the pain of labour both in agriculture and childbirth. What is explained by aetiology, even a naturalizing aetiology, is not necessarily ethically justified by that explanation (Stone, 2003, 118). Thus finding the âgay geneâ as a means of normalizing homoerotic desires can backfire, for another set of readers could have found what went wrong â and seek for remedies in genetic engineering.
The fact that neither science nor religion can be abstracted from their contexts and reified as a coherent framework for normative positions is a crucial starting point for thinking through theological options for transgressivity. Before we move to theological reflections on transgression, then, some general historical and theoretical contextualization of the debates around normativity and transgression are in order.
The Gay Rights movement, Queer Nation, and recent transgender activism all have had to transgress established norms not only to claim the liberal promises of fairness and equality in the public sphere, but simply to find out what subjectivities, what identities, what communities we wanted to put forward. The quality of transgression, however, is not a stable thing. In the early twenty-first century, one can discern a growing sense of ambivalence around the idea of transgression. Some of this ambivalence around transgression can be seen in debates among queer theorists over the virtues or dangers of normalcy. A more subtle case of growing ambivalence around transgression can be seen in the difference between Madonnaâs and Lady Gagaâs versions of musical-sexual transgression. Madonna celebrated transgression in many ways. An example of how she emphasized breaking boundaries could literally be seen in the lighting practices at the shows, where she would be lit very starkly in a column, which gave the impression of restriction, only to have the light break out all over the audience at a moment where musical tension was released. She was readily adopted by gay male culture as an icon of sexual liberation. Her approach was generally celebratory and affirmative, even when she shifted from the act of breaking boundaries to explicit critique of a moral wrong. For example, when she addressed an issue as serious as domestic violence, in her song âTil Death Do Us Partâ, a peppy rhythm and major mode dominate the song. While the song pivots between the upbeat and the serious, the songâs anchoring in the upbeat keeps Madonnaâs critique of domestic violence well within the realm of the pleasurable, even fun. Like Madonna, Lady Gaga provided a pop icon for many gay men. However, her musical-visual work in the mid-2000s added a very different twist to the production of transgressive sexualities that did not simply celebrate, but also added uncanny and disturbing aspects to the depiction of open sexuality. For example the video to the song âPaparazziâ opens with Lady Gaga engaged in explicit foreplay with a man who takes her to a balcony (LadyGagaVEVO, 2009). When he notices paparazzi taking photos of the couple, he throws her over the balcony. The video cuts to Lady Gagaâs body on the ground, and the song begins from the perspective of Lady Gaga, now on crutches. Because the initial scene is overtly sexual, the confusion of violence and sexuality inherent in the opening scene means that the kind of transgression that Madonna pursued has been pushed to a point where one would wonder where the liberation is.
In recent years, moreover, some LGBTQ+ voices have started to wonder if norms and normalcy are all bad, after all. Hardly an advocate of the status quo, Janet Jakobsen published some musings on norms, noting that feminists have shied away from reflections on norms, âbecause they are frequently read as constituting prescriptive codes of actionâ (Jakobsen, 1997, 120). Generally sympathetic to this critique, and somewhat sceptical of the need for norms, she nevertheless refuses to let go of the question, âdo norms have any role to play in lesbian and feminist ethics?â (Jakobsen, 1997, 120). She turns to the work of philosopher Seyla Benhabib as an example of a feminist attempt to reclaim norms for ethical reflection. Benhabib advances a commonly heard argument that norms are necessary to sustain critique of unjust societies. Through her close reading of Benhabibâs argument that norms mediate critique and community, Jakobsen finds that Benhabib slips back into the imperialist mode of constructing a âweâ of Western rationality that allows for discussion and debate over against âotherâ communities that are united through the non-rational forces of ethnicity or religion (Jakobsen, 1997, 120â126). Jakobsen proposes as her solution the replacement of normative frameworks with norm-making networks, an active, relational understanding of norm-making, rather than norm-accepting (Jakobsen, 1997, 136). This active, relational work of making norms avoids the imposition of rigid rules on complex lives but still holds out the possibility of setting parameters by which one can judge the injustice of a situation.
However, Jakobsenâs approach is but one resolution of tensions surrounding normativity for LGBTQ populations, and the issue has been one around which real debates about how to live in community arise. Two prominent sets of figures in these debates are Andrew Sullivan and Michael Warner and Martha Nussbaum and Judith Butler. Andrew Sullivanâs arguments must be seen against the backdrop of queer activism and theorizing of the early 1990s. The AIDS crisis of the 1980s gave rise to vibrant LGBTQ activism and queer theory developed in conversation with the struggles queer activists pursued. The year 1990 saw both the publication of Judith Butlerâs Gender Trouble and the distribution of the anonymously produced flyer âQueers Read Thisâ at the June Gay Pride parade in New York City. âQueers Read Thisâ was an unabashed, hostile expression of queer anger that named straightness as a privilege and even voiced an unqualified âI hate straightsâ (Queers Read This). âQueers Read Thisâ refused any accommodation to heterosexual norms or any compromise with heterosexist privilege. While activists embraced a range of tactics, âQueers Read Thisâ distilled a rage that would not be contained by propriety or accommodation. In theology, Robert Gossâs Jesus Acted Up gave voice to this anger and work for social liberation (Goss, 1993).
In 1993, the same year as the publication of Jesus Acted Up, Andrew Sullivan published an article in The New Republic that was an initial volley for bringing gayness (and his perspective did hinge around gay male experience almost exclusively) into the orbit of the normal (Sullivan, 1993). It set out a typology of ideological stances people adopt in relation to homosexuality: the prohibitionist, the liberationist, the conservative, and the liberal. He located the transgressive politics of Queer Nation among the liberationists, who, according to Sullivan, saw sexuality not as an innate characteristic of a human, but as something one simply does, and should do. His critique of the transgressive politics was that it worked primarily through shock, rather than dialogue. If transgression depends on shock value, then the strategy loses its force when met with general social acceptance. Sullivanâs approach to social change moves forward with a general principle from Catholic Social Teaching that rights must go with responsibilities. Here, Sullivan argued for a vision of civil society in which gays participate in two bulwarks of traditional society: the military and marriage. In particular, he sees marriage as foundational to a civil society that can be a check against totalitarian states, but gay experience remains separate from other struggles in society that have challenged the status quo. Thus, the route to normalization leaves the structures of society intact, rather than allowing the experience of exclusion to raise radical questions about how communities and societies might allow for radical changes that keep various struggles interconnected.
Sullivanâs attempt to draw homosexuality into the sphere of the normal met with a thorough rebuttal from the literature scholar Michael Warner (Warner, 1999). Warner treated the very category of normality as a creator of a hierarchy of sexual values, in which a series of terms line up: Good/bad; normal/abnormal; heterosexual/homosexual; married/unmarried; procreative/nonprocreative; noncommercial/commercial, and so on (Warner, 1999, 25â26). Because of the general conflation of the various terms on either side of the pairs, the desire to be good comes with a tremendous internalized pressure to be normal. Warner notes how scientific studies, such as the Kinsey Report, gave people who felt abnormal, a chance to feel normal. But as with the earlier discussion of the role of science in producing norms, this move to legitimate the abnormal as normal through recognition that there are others like oneself lets science legitimate the very category of normality by conflating statistical and evaluative norms (Warner, 1999, 52â55). Such a move to normalize gay and lesbian experience led to a general desexualization of gay and lesbian discourse, which Warner noted resulted from various factors in the 1990s, ranging from the changed understanding of the AIDS epidemic from a crisis to a manageable problem to the growing importance of lobbying to the growing centralization of gay politics by national organizations in Washington, DC (Warner, 1999, 76). Warner then discusses the legion of problems surrounding the arguments for a strong manifestation of the desire to fold gay relationships into the normal: gay marriage. For Warner, marriage is primarily a means of distinguishing who is where in a social hierarchy, and to argue for inclusion in the institution of marriage is to reinforce, not challenge, the creation of licit and illicit forms of sex.
Yet, if Warner was able to mount a cogent, passionate critique of Sullivanâs argument, one could see that Sullivanâs call for normalization had a seductive appeal. Why constantly destabilize when society offers enough space to settle? In her historical overview of musical technologies of queer identity, Judith Peraino analysed the career of the lesbian icon Melissa Etheridge as just such a succumbing to normalcy, and she explicitly positioned her argument within the parameters of the SullivanâWarner debate (Peraino, 2006, 131â143). Etheridge started her career in the 1980s with a gender-bending musical style that embraced conventionally masculine rock idioms, thus distancing herself from the androgynous New Wave music that was at the top of the charts at the time (Peraino, 2006, 136â137). Peraino connects Etheridgeâs choice of masculine styles of musicking with her cultural functioning as a lesbian Phallus. In the case of Etheridge, Peraino answers the question she poses, âif the phallus negates the penis, does a lesbian icon negate real lesbians?â in the affirmative, because Etheridge âas a lesbian icon represents not the desire to escape or confound normalcy through the fissures of signification [âŚ], but rather to signify normalcy in spite of those fissuresâ (Peraino, 2006, 133, 139). Peraino also sees Etheridgeâs embrace of such heterosexually coded lesbian existence in the way she talked about her partner, Julie Cypher, as âthe mother of my childrenâ (Peraino, 2006, 140). Here, Etheridge adopts a proprietary rhetoric of relationality common to some forms of heterosexual masculinity. Finally, Etheridgeâs path down a heterosexually normalized lesbianism intensified after her break-up with Cypher, when she began a relationship with a younger actress, Tammy Lynn Michaels. Michaels adopted the role of the dutiful wife, who takes care of the children and puts her spouseâs needs and career before her own. Etheridge explicitly tied her experience to a masculine script, asserting that a divorce at 40 and marriage to a younger actress is right âout of the Rock and Roll handbookâ (Peraino, 2006, 143). Etheridge gives a powerful example of the possibility of a lesbian identity that works around the act of transgressing heteropatriarchal norms, instead embracing them fully.
The legal debates in the US finally settled the question of marriage on Sullivanâs side. However, Warnerâs lessons on the temptations of normalcy still retain their power. While lesbian and gay lives can now be lived within the approval of the law, a vibrant transgender activism has taken the lead on pushing the boundaries of queer life.
The New Republic featured another iteration ...
