Queering marriage : an ideographic interrogation of heteronormative subjectivity

D. Grindstaff

Recent debates on same-sex marriage mark the institution, practice, and concept of marriage as a significant site of power and resistance within American culture. Adopting Michel Foucault_s conception of "discipline," this essay examines how marriage discourse reinforces heteronormative power relations through its rhetorical constitution of gay male identity. Supplementing "ideographic" critique with Judith Butler_s theory of performative speech acts enables us to better interrogate and resist these operations of power. This essay maps the contemporary scene of heteronormative power and resistance through two rhetorical performances of gay male identity. The marriage debates, in the first instance, demonstrate how a conventional desire for masculine agency influences the heteronormative production of gay male identity. In the second instance, gay male SM [sadomasochism] performs a concept of "relational agency," which potentially resists heteronormativity.[Copies are available from: Haworth Document Delivery Center. The Haworth Press, Inc., 10 Alice Street, Binghamton, NY 13904-1580, USA]