MDSA01H3 Chapter Notes - Chapter 9: Queer Theory, Heterosexuality, Human Sexuality
Document Summary
We all like to talk a big game about accepting bisexuals, but actually doing it, both in the real world and television, can be a challenge. Queer media scholars attempt to understand how media texts contribute to the ordering of human understandings surrounding gender, sex and sexuality. Queer theory is an interdisciplinary perspective that seeks to disrupt socially constructed systems of meaning surrounding human sexuality. Sexuality is an enduring emotional, romantic, or sexual attraction towards others based upon their gender or sex. Heterosexuality is a cultural construction that functions as a heuristic, a mental shortcut, which people draw upon to describe their sexual practices. The social constructions of heterosexuality and homosexuality are cultural categories (like masculine and feminine) humans use to make sense of their personal sexual practices. Heteronormativity refers to a diverse set of social practices that function to: perpetuate the heterosexual/homosexual binary, to privilege heterosexuality.
