Queer Praxis
Questions for LGBTQ Worldmaking
Edited By Dustin Bradley Goltz and Jason Zingsheim
17. Queer Love: The Limits of Anger and Decorum
Extract
MEREDITH M. BAGLEY, KIMBERLEE PÉREZ, RAECHEL TIFFE, DUSTIN BRADLEY GOLTZ and JASON ZINGSHEIM
2011
Enabling & Constraining Queer Belongings
Kimberlee: What are the conditions that impose the stakes of decorum? When do/can—decorum and anger—ever operate together? Are they always in opposition? Can decorum ever not be disciplinary, imposed? Can it be queered? What would that look like? How do we trust one another, how do we trust decorum not to deflate queer?
Raechel: I was disciplined about decorum long before I became queer. Growing up as a fat, working class child with a fat, working class single mother, I lived what I now read about in journal articles: I was an “unfit neoliberal citizen”; a welfare leech, an unruly and unfeminine body. My middle-class grandmother taught me how to constrain some of that excess: how to discern the difference between the small fork and the big fork at a fancy restaurant, how to speak French, and talk about Shakespeare. When I hit adolescence, I discovered a new trick for discipline and self-control through throwing up nearly everything I ate. I rejected my working class neighborhood, with their bars full of foul-mouthed third-shifters, and “white trash” lawn debris, for the more privileged realms of punk rock shows in the city. By the end of high school, I learned to behave in terms of class, but I embraced more palatable, commodified versions of deviance through a relatively depoliticized social...
You are not authenticated to view the full text of this chapter or article.
This site requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books or journals.
Do you have any questions? Contact us.
Or login to access all content.