Trading Happiness for Confinement: Making Space for Intimacy
¶ 1 Leave a comment on paragraph 1 2 The text that is most influential to the scholarly work I am currently invested in is Sara Ahmed’s The Promise of Happiness. Not only does Ahmed discuss how happiness is structured as a heterosexual paradigm, but she also discusses the idea of the structures that give space to the acts of engaging in homosexual behavior. I am very interested in the idea of confinement in literature, particularly in African-American literature, regarding the idea that confinement allows for certain actions of resistance to the white heteronormative world. In Ahmed’s chapter “Unhappy Queers,” she discusses how attributing unhappiness to queers has allowed for positive outcomes through the allowance of a space for homosexual acts to occur. She prefaces this chapter in the introduction by saying, “To kill joy, as many of the texts I cite in the following pages teach us, is to open a life, to make room for life, to make room for possibility, for chance. My aim in this book is to make room” (20). This idea of “making room” allows for additional space to discuss areas of study that are not traditional in the sense that they are outside of the heteronormative world. Ahmed is not seeking an inclusion into that world, but insisting that there are ways that allow a different kind of life to be lived, one that is outside of the happiness script. Through the analysis of Ahmed’s work, I conclude that there is a space outside of heteronormativity where homosexuals are able to engage in acts of homosexuality without following the happiness script that has been proscribed in our capitalistic and predominantly heteronormative society.
¶ 2 Leave a comment on paragraph 2 0 Ahmed uses the work that has been established by others in order to make a claim for creating a space that allows for action outside of the heteronormative world. I, too, am focused on how creating space allows the oppressed to function on their own terms, limiting the influences of the dominant power structure to intervene. Ahmed critiques the movie If These Walls Could Talk 2 in order to solidify her idea that there are spaces where homosexuality can flourish, and often these spaces reside in the confinement of the home:
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The house is figured as a zone of intimacy; their love literally occupies the walls, keeping
them busy. The house is not represented as property but as a space in which they have extended themselves: mementos, cards, photographs; queer intimacy leaves an impression on the walls” (109).
¶ 4 Leave a comment on paragraph 4 2 Ahmed describes the house as a zone of intimacy which is an excellent example of homosexuality prospering in a private sphere. The house allows for a level of intimacy to happen, and it becomes a space of confinement. Confinement in this sense is not a negative term, but can be viewed as a dwelling that is not infused with heteronormative coding. It is a space that can be shaped and re-shaped according to the homosexuals’ desire. If Ahmed’s quest is “to make room” she does an exceptional job of doing just that. By allowing these spaces to be discussed, she is pushing back against the heteronormative world and their strict constructs of what happiness means. Queer intimacy can thrive through spaces that are constructed by the homosexuals themselves. If these spaces are built by the “unhappy queer,” then there is a positive progression in terms of making room for others by the choice of building a space for homosexuality to convene.
¶ 5 Leave a comment on paragraph 5 0 The work that I am focused on has slightly changed because of reading Sara Ahmed’s The Promise of Happiness. I often focus on the individual who is passing as heterosexual, but engaging in homosexual behavior. The behavior happens behind closed doors (literally) in a place of confinement that allows for acts of homosexuality to occur. I will discuss how Ahmed’s text has slightly shifted my analysis of the intrusion of the heteronormative world after discussing my original thoughts surrounding the idea of the confinement of homosexuality.
¶ 6 Leave a comment on paragraph 6 3 I have been focusing on the predicament in multicultural literature where the individual, or subject, who is passing as a heterosexual, must find a place in order to give their homosexuality a space to be performed. I have created a term to describe this aspect of literature, called The Triangle of Heteronormative Opposition, or THO. In order for homosexuality to be performed, the subject attains an object, a homosexual lover, in order to fulfill their desire within the homosexual space. The counterproductive aspect to the triangle lies within the intruder, or the heteronormative society in which the subject and object attempt to escape from. The model at the aesthetic value should be articulated to achieve full understanding of the idea at hand. The THO begins with the top point of the triangle where the subject is positioned as the individual who is in-between the homosexual and heteronormative world. The bottom left corner is home to the object, or the homosexual lover that the subject chooses to engage in a relationship with. The right southern point belongs to the intruder, which represents the heteronormative society. The body of the triangle, or the space in-between these three points, represent the homosexual space, which the intruder is constantly attempting to invade, and where the subject and object’s homosexual love have the ability to exist. Through this model, the triangle represents the confinement, or place, where the subject is allowed a homosexual space to act upon the desires that they must suppress while they active in the heternormative community. The infringement of the intruder into the homosexual space creates the subject’s largest predicament they encounter, which is the choice of accepting the homosexual lifestyle, or returning to the act of passing as a heterosexual.
¶ 7 Leave a comment on paragraph 7 3 I have been working on this model for about a year now, which situates me in a position where I am looking for spaces that allow action to occur. This model has become a part of who I am regarding the work I focus on as a member of academia, and what kind of work I want to accomplish in the future. Ahmed has slightly changed how I view the THO model because the intrusion of the heteronormative world does not only occur when a person is passing as a heterosexual. In If These Walls Could Talk 2 the character experiences the intrusion after her lover has passed away. The people who intrude into her homosexual space break the intimacy that was once there because they choose to remove objects that have become important to the couple living in that sphere. So I wonder if this model is appropriate for not only individuals who are passing as heterosexual, but also to the people who are living openly as homosexuals. I think this model is important because there is always an intrusion by the dominant world due to the constraints placed on homosexuality. Homosexuals, until recently, were unable to marry, which left them with no rights regarding the care of their loved ones. Without rights, they are only able to create intimate spaces through confinement, even if that confinement also happens in the public sphere, such as streets. To say that people can openly engage in homosexual acts in public is to say that they are safe to engage anywhere that they would like. Of course we know that there can be serious repercussions to committing these acts in certain areas of the world, even in atmospheres that seem relatively open. So although we may say that people can perform acts of homosexuality in the streets, we are also saying that these streets are confined to certain areas that allow for this action to occur.
¶ 8 Leave a comment on paragraph 8 0 Ahmed’s work has been substantial regarding the idea that more room needs to be made for these issues. It is a part of my life’s work to develop more spaces that people can live in, literally and figuratively. By pushing against ideals of heteronormativity, we start a process of creating more space for others to live, and even thrive in. I hope that the THO model that I have created will become one of those texts where people are able to see that the idea of confinement is not always a negative aspect, but that it does not necessarily mean that it is solely positive, either. The confinement allows for acts of homosexuality to occur, but that is because these acts are typically not welcome in the public sphere. By bringing attention to confinement, we are initiating the idea that there is a need for spaces to exist. Through that need we can also recognize that homosexuality has been forced behind closed doors. What I initiate is that we take this recognition and begin to make a change so that there is less confinement, happiness scripts, and more rights to have the choice to develop any lifestyle that a person chooses to lead.
¶ 9 Leave a comment on paragraph 9 0 Ahmed, Sara. The Promise of Happiness. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 2010. Print.
¶ 10 Leave a comment on paragraph 10 0 Pavlick, Julie. “The Triangle of Heteronormative Opposition: The Confinement of Homosexuals in Multicultural Literature.” Proc. of Living by the Code An Exploration of Morality and Ethics, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Indiana.
Good summation of Ahmed, but I’d like you to unpack what is going on with “homosexual acts” here. Do you mean sex acts? Are those the same thing as queer ways of being (I’d say no, though they certainly have a lot to do with one another…). What about the difference between “queer” and “homosexual”? (I can give you some quick reading material if you feel uncertain about that distinction!
I think your connection to Ahmed’s trope of confinement seems fitting to your own work in African American Lit., and is something I had never even considered. The idea that confinement can sometimes breed chance, or possibility is pretty exciting!