Critical Response #5

           Reading Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's Epistemology of the closet was yet another new experience for me. There were parts of the book where I felt totally lost and parts where I could possibly draw strong connections to my own thoughts,feelings, and experiences. One area where I felt lost was going through the long introduction, It wasn't sure when the actual book was going to start and some of the older histories of homosexual views. Not having a lot of background knowledge on these histories can be overwhelming as well as tells me how much society blankets such topics and keeps the conversation "In the Closet". 

         While reading the introduction section There was a reference to a book that I had read before but from a very different view. Axiom #6 brought into frame Oscar Wilde's " Picture of Dorian Gray" as an outspoken text of what a modern homosexual identity may look like. My first encounter with these book was in AP English as a senior in high school, I'd chosen to read it as an extra credit opportunity and loved the novel. Reading it back then I drew connections to false beauty and objectification but didn't touch to talk about the subtle description of Gray's sexual orientation. I found it scary and in some way intrusive to the character to try and analyze a characteristic that my place to give opinion. Using a lens of our class concepts thought I find the book to be just as captivating. Maybe now at an older age and more educated I can revisit the book and read it for what is said beneath words on a page. 

        

          In part 1 "The Closet" is describe as a parallel drawn to homosexuality and coming out which was created by our hetero society. Sedgwick says, " "The Closet" and "Coming out " now verging on all-purpose phrases for the potent crossing and recrossing of almost any politically charged lines of representation, have been the gravest and most magnetic of those figures. The closet is the defining structure for gay oppression in this century"(Sedgwick 71). It's disappointing yet completely believable that our power leaders are what setting norms of how homosexual identities are expressed in our modern day. I relate this to a spoken word poem " Dear Straight People" by Denice Frohman who gave the line " Dear straight people you're the reason we stay in the closet, you're the reason we even have a closet. I don't like closets but you've made the living room an un-shared space and i'm feeling like a guest in my own house". It is crazy to come to the reality that the parameters of non-heterosexual identities are made and boxed in by a powerful hetero community. Not to take any worth away from showing your real self to the world but what would our streets look like if we remove the pressure of "coming out". As s sweet white girl i stand never to have my sexuality questioned or to be interrogated to reveal my love to strangers on the street.these are known to everyone as luxuries attached to the hetero normative lifestyle but yet love and justice should be granted to everyone isn't that what makes america something to desire. While watching a talk done by Laverne Cox ( A trans women of color) on bullying of trans women gave  a quote which I find to fit a lot of what our class is about " Justice is what love looks like in public". It's frustrating to live in a community full of destruction based on demands for those not fitting unrealistic norms to  " come out"  such a statement tells me its purpose is so the persecution given can be more directed to how someone identifies. My hope is that Justice can be mere acceptance towards all other people where violence isn't committed based on where love lies. 

References:

 Denice Frohman " Deaar Straight People " 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWL3jfn6zNI

Laverne Cox's speech 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zwy5PEEa6U

Sedgwick,Eve Kosofsky. Epistemology of the closet: Updated with a new preface. Los Angeles. University of California Press.2008.