English 3150 Critical Theory Today Ch. 10

Question 1

Boston Marriage

Answer 1

Term used in late nineteenth- century New England to refer to a monogamous relationship of long standing between two single women, who were usually financially independent and often shared interests in culture, feminist issues, the betterment of society, and profes- sional careers.

Question 2

Homophobic reading

Answer 2

A reading informed by the fear and loathing of homosexuality.

Question 3

Homophobia

Answer 3

An individual’s pathological dread of same-sex relations.

Question 4

Internalized Homophobia

Answer 4

Self-hatred some gay people experience because, in their growth through adolescence to adulthood, they’ve internalized the homophobia pressed on them by heterosexual America.

Question 5

Heterosexism

Answer 5

Institutionalized discrimination against homosexuality, and the privileging of heterosexuality that accompanies it

Question 6

Compulsory Heterosexuality

Answer 6

Pressure to be heterosexual placed on young people by their families, schools, the church, the medical professions, and all forms of the media.

Question 7

Heterocentrism

Answer 7

Subtle form of prejudice against gay men and lesbians, is the assumption, often unconscious, that heterosexuality is the universal norm by which everyone’s experience can be understood.

Question 8

Biological Essentialism

Answer 8

Idea that a fixed segment of the population is naturally gay, just as the rest of the population is naturally heterosexual.

Question 9

Social Constructionism

Answer 9

Homosexuality and het- erosexuality are products of social, not biological, forces.

Question 10

Homoerotic

Answer 10

Denotes erotic depictions that imply same-sex attraction or that might appeal sexually to a same-sex reader.

Question 11

Homosocial

Answer 11

Denotes same-sex friendship of the kind seen in female- or male-bonding activities.

Question 12

Lesbian Critics

Answer 12

Address issues related to both sexism and heterosexism.

Question 13

Sexuality

Answer 13

Defined in sexual desire. One’s sexuality might be based on such oppositions as “orgasmic/nonorgasmic, noncommercial/commercial, using bodies only/using manufactured objects, in private/in public, spontaneous/scripted”. Socially constructed (rather than inborn) to the extent that it is based on the way in which sexuality is defined by the culture in which we live.

Question 14

Lesbian

Answer 14

Woman-Identified woman

Question 15

Separatists

Answer 15

Lesbians who disassociate themselves as much as possible from all men, including gay men, and from heterosexual women as well.

Question 16

Homosexual

Answer 16

Associated, for many, with the belief that homosexuality is a medical or psychological disorder.

Question 17

Gay sensibility

Answer 17

Includes an awareness of being different, at least in certain ways, from the members of the mainstream, dominant culture, and the complex feelings that result from an implicit, ongoing social oppression.

Question 18

Queer

Answer 18

Inclusive category for referring to a common political or cultural ground shared by gay men, lesbians, bisexuals, and all people who consider themselves, for whatever reasons, nonstraight.

Question 19

Queer Theory

Answer 19

Defines individual sexuality as a fluid, fragmented, dynamic collectivity of possible sexu- alities. Our sexuality may be different at different times over the course of our lives or even at different times over the course of a week because sexuality is a dynamic range of desire.