HOMOSOCIALITY(MALE BONDING): HOW IT IS PROPPED UP AS POWER AND DOMINANCE BY HOMOSPECTRALITY:A POLITICAL PERPECTIVE. BY STEVEN BENSON

{see also previous post on homospectrality}

People laugh at the “big words” but homosociality is merely a word for “male bonding”, socilaizing between members of the same sex(“homo” is “same”).

Society rests, to a large extent,on a system whereby male(sometimes close) friendships and allegiances create a hegemony(a dominant system, running down from the political superstructure  to the cultural infrastructure, by way of politics, established religion and various ideologies and ways of doing things that are seen and enforced as “normal”, ie normativizing); a hegemony which CAN and only WANTS to perpetuate that system in its own interests. So , it excludes and/or marginalises/minorises,( for example, in regard to immigrants, “taking our jobs and houses”),these groups, which are seen, as “other” and are therefore ignored or scapegoated or psychologically projected upon as causing the ills of society at large(AIDS sufferers seen as primarily being gay men and drug users, and infecting “normal” members of society is another example). Closeted lgb people who have no necessity to hide their sexual orientation buy into this system by dint of their invisibility(though I would still largely argue that coming out is a personal choice).

Hence,homospectrality, in another sense, that of the invisibilization(sometimes by their own internalized SELF-invisibilization) of lgb people, so that they are spectres of themselves in this important (socio) psychological sense.

Homosocial(ising) (hetero)normativity, which has the hegemonic position in our society,(over women, gay people and racial minorities, for instance) NEEDS this outsider status/invisibilization/marginalisation/otherness of these groupings of people to prop itself up.

Sometimes this process of spectralising these groups is un/subconscious but this makes it no less prevalent, the result being to undermine people’s subjectivity. So, us gay, lesbian and bisexual people are the ghosts outside the window looking in or “passing” as straight(chameleon-like we sometimes try to fit in).

This all sounds very victimy; but, in reality,RECOGNITION that this process is largely occurring is , in fact, the first stage in (self) empowerment:

coming out to yourself

then to others

educating people who just DON’T understand rather than don’t want (see above for the resons for this)to understand

(trying to!) take no notice of comments like “you are the anarchist”, “you are repeatedly going on about homosexuality” just because you want equality and your subjectivity to be valued as equally(no more!)as a heteronormatively validated one.

All these moves, on an individual level,(as well, obviously as legal equality and events like “Gay Pride”) help to make links; and gradually to wear down the hegemonic structure I began by describing; and we are less spectral, eventually we are let inside(if indeed we WANT to be let in and/or to what degree!.) Hence, why this post is in “TowardsUtopia”