Sexing Citizenship, Privatizing Sex

Abstract

This paper explores different stories of sexual citizenship found in gay and lesbian rights struggles. It uses two recent cultural productions, Kissing Jessica Stein and Queer as Folk , to analyze the stories of sexual citizenship found in two Supreme Court decisions, M. v. H. , and Little Sisters. The paper deploys these contrasting stories of sexual citizenship, of sameness and difference, assimilation and subversion, to animate a complex reading of the sexing of citizenship and the privatizing of sex. It argues that the modality of sexual citizenship produced by rights struggles has been one in which sexual subjects are privatized, de-eroticized and depoliticized. At the same time, it argues for a more disruptive reading, which unearths the public, the erotic and the politicized subject, as well as the normalizing effect of this more subversive subject.

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