SOC 101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 15: Heteronormativity, Heterosexuality, Queer Theory
Document Summary
Sexuality - sexual attraction, practices & identity which may /may not align with sex & gender: eg. heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, queer, among others. Heteronormativity: the cultural, legal, & institutional practices that present heterosexuality as the only natural & normative sexual identity , the expectation that heterosexuality is natural & therefore needs no explanation. Homosexual people are expected to come out & identify themselves only because they"re different to heterosexuals, & yet heterosexual people aren"t expected to publicly announce their heterosexuality. Queer theory - a set of ideas based around the idea that identities aren"t xed & don"t determine who we"re. It suggests that it"s meaningless to talk in general about "women" /any other group, as identities consist of so many elements that to assume that people can be seen collectively on the basis of 1 shared characteristic is wrong. Indeed, it proposes that we deliberately challenge all notions of xed identity, in varied & non-predictable ways.
