Problematic Gay Rhetoric

I've been troubled lately about what I consider very problematic rhetoric that seems pervasive on at least one gay blog that I follow.  About the only website on which I can manage to read comments by readers is NPR and even there the occasional ill-considered comment pops up.  On almost every other internet site, comments reflect the worst of humanity: ignorance, flat-out stupidity, bigotry, prejudices, inhumanity (e.g., "I hope you die"), rudeness, ad hominem attacks, the worst logical fallacies, etc.  Gay blogs are no different, but I wish they were.  Some are better than others, but what concerns me is that: a) gays should know better and b) much of it seems to be echoing current activist rhetoric.  To be clear, most of the problematic language and though I've read comes from gay males and white gay males at that.  Men of color, lesbians, and transfolk seem to be considerably better in both manner and thought.  Perhaps on other sites, those people are just as bad, but there seems to be something particular to white gay men (likely of a certain social class).

What follows are some of the problematic thoughts I've read and very brief thoughts about them:

The Best "It Gets Better"

A few weeks ago I blogged my critique of the "It Gets Better" project.  As well intentioned as it is, many of the stories reinforce some kind of happiness script rooted in heterosexual ideas of happiness. It also stands to lose ground long term in favor of some short term gain.  That's a valid ethical choice, but I'm not sure we want to leave people who see it isn't getting better out to hang, perhaps literally, because they then assume that it's their fault that their life hasn't gotten better.

So, imagine my joy to be directed to this video, which I think better says it. Gabrielle Rivera explains why it might not get better but we do get stronger.  (She is included in Savage's written compilation, but, unfortunately, he dismisses her contribution as just another way of say "it get's better." Thanks for not listening to what she's saying at all, Dan.)

The Construction of Happiness in "It Gets Better" (Brief Essay)

In response to a rash of highly publicized suicides of lesbian and gay youth, columnist Dan Savage initiated the "It Gets Better Project" (www.itgetsbetter.org) in September, 2010. According to the website, since its inception, various individuals, including celebrities and politicians contributed over 10,000 videos. The laudable purpose and aim of the project is to provide hope to despondent gay and lesbian youth. Although many have lambasted critics of the program (such as gay blogger Joe Jervis’s denunciation of queer theoretical critiques as “predictable,” “over-intellectualizing,” and “navel gazing” ), to exempt this very well-meaning program from analysis is to willfully ignore the ways in which the project works against its own aims. As Sedgwick says, “in the vicinity of the closet, even what counts as a speech act is problematized” (p. 3).


The content of the videos tend to vary somewhat depending on the contributor, so for the purposes of this brief analysis, I focus on Savage’s and his partner’s original video. The better future that Savage offers is an intact family, with an emphasis on fulfillment through the addition of a child, “the promise of the child becomes the promise of happiness” (Ahmed, p 113). Happiness is the “reproduction of happy heterosexuality” (p. 90). Thus, the failure to enunciate any alternate, queer forms of love or happiness becomes one of the “many silences” (Sedgwick, p. 3) and becomes a powerful reification of heterosexual happiness scripts. In addition to the silence that denies queer love, the videos act as a confessional space where queers get to perform their coming out. Invoking Foucault, one may question: for many of the contributors, in addition to Savage, for whom does the confession provide happiness? Perhaps rather than the audience, the confessor derives his (or her) pleasure from the act of confessing queerness. Also, to what extent does the video serve to provide hope versus providing a space for the confessor(s) to establish him/herself with the societal structure, to perform acceptance? Is hope possible when the potential site of liberation is placed within the very structures that oppress or fail to prevent oppression? At the very least, Savage fails to “trouble…conventional ideas of what it means to have a good life” (Ahmed, p. 115) or to account for a better life that includes unhappiness, given that “happiness tends to come with rather straight conditions” (p. 100).

Works Cited:
Ahmed, S. "Unhappy Queers" in The Promise of Happiness.
Foucault, M. The History of Sexuality Vol 1.
Sedgwick, E. K. Epistemology of the Closet.