Cruising and queer counterpublics: Theories and fictions

My dissertation examines the practice of cruising for sex, as it is represented in the work of lesbian and gay male writers and in media images of lesbians and gay men. It argues that cruising---the aggressive solicitation of sexual contacts in public spaces---is a form of sexual and social interaction that contributes to the development of queer counterpublics. In other words, cruising offers a compelling and radical vision of intimacy, sexual identity, and belonging that deviates from the normative model of the privatized conjugal couple and nuclear family, and it structures alternative, publicly queer modes of existence. My dissertation moves from the general to the particular---from a social-theoretical perspective on the relationship between public sexuality and identity, to a consideration of queer counterpublic intimacies and lesbian cruising representations. The first half develops the theoretical framework of the dissertation through the juxtaposition of social theory and contemporary cultural analysis. It examines queer identity-formation in terms of public sphere theory and social recognition theory, through readings of Tom of Finland, Abercrombie & Fitch, and James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room. The second half considers the sexually non-normative subject in relation to queer counterpublics. It attempts to articulate a theory of queer counterpublicity that is not organized around the identitarian categories of gay and lesbian, and it proposes a relational understanding of homosexuality, in which shared conditions of marginalization constitute a queer form of belonging. It examines texts by John Rechy, Jean Genet, Bruce Benderson, Mark Merlis, Ann Bannon, and Margaret Cho, among others. In conclusion, my exploration of cruising as a form of intimacy seeks to document different configurations of queer sexual collectivity and, in doing so, to reclaim aspects of queer public culture that may be seen as antithetical to the aims of the mainstream gay and lesbian movement.