This essay presents personal narratives co-constructed with queer men regarding their experiences of queerness and maleness. As the narrators chart their journeys toward identifying as queer, they recount incongruity between and within identities, which the author argues creates queer consciousness. Intersectional and reflexive queer consciousness is demonstrated in narratives that recount how critically evaluating identities led the narrators to contest elements of misogyny, effemimania, hypermasculinity, and other discourses and practices that have implications for our bodies. Espousing a queer identification opens up new discursive and material spaces for queer men to critically explore our bodies, while remaining cognizant of and reflexive about the messy and contradictory aspects of queerness.
AhmedS. (2006). Queer phenomenology: Orientations, objects, others. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
4.
AlexanderB. K. (2003). Fading, twisting, and weaving: An interpretive ethnography of the black barbershop as cultural space. Qualitative Inquiry, 9, 105-128.
5.
AlexanderB. K. (2006). Telling twisted tales: Owning place, owning culture in ethnographic research. In HameraJ. (Ed.), Opening acts: Performance in/as communication and cultural studies (pp. 49-74). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
6.
AnzaldúaG. (1999). Borderlands—La Frontera: The new Meztiza. San Francisco, CA: Aunt Lute Books.
7.
BerryK. T. (2007). Embracing the catastrophe: Gay body seeks acceptance. Qualitative Inquiry, 13, 259-281.
8.
BrownL. S.RothblumE. D. (Eds.). (1989). Fat oppression and psychotherapy: A feminist perspective. Binghamton, NY: Haworth Press.
9.
CalafellB. M. (2007). Mentoring and love: An open letter. Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies, 7, 425-441.
10.
CalafellB. M. (2009). “She a’int no diva!”: Reflections on in/hospitable guests/hosts, reciprocity, and desire. Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies, 5. http://liminalities.net/5-4/diva.pdf
11.
Carrillo RoweA. (2005). Be longing: Toward a feminist politics of relation. NWSA Journal, 17, 15-46.
12.
ConnellR. W. (1995). Masculinities. Berkeley: University of California Press.
13.
ConquergoodD. (1985). Performing as a moral act: Ethical dimensions of the ethnography of performance. Literature in Performance: A Journal of Literary and Performing Art, 5, 1-13.
14.
ConquergoodD. (1991). Rethinking ethnography: Towards a critical cultural politics. Communication Monographs, 58, 179-194.
15.
CoreyF. C. (1998a). Blessed are the mysteries. In HechtM. L. (Ed.), Communicating prejudice (pp. 257-271). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
16.
CoreyF. C. (1998b). The personal: Against the master narrative. In DailyS. J. (Ed.), The future of performance studies: Visions and revisions (pp. 249-253). Annandale, VA: National Communication Association.
17.
DugganL. (2003). The twilight of equality? Neoliberalism, cultural politics, and the attack on democracy. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
18.
FoxR. (2006a). Negative: Using performative interventions to explore HIV-negativity. Theatre Topics, 16, 47-64.
19.
FoxR. (2006b). Raging against rage: Telling tales of taboo, molestation, and anger. Text and Performance Quarterly, 26, 98-107.
20.
FoxR. (2007). Skinny bones #126-774-835-29: Thin gay bodies signifying a modern plague. Text and Performance Quarterly, 27, 3-19.
21.
GamsonJ. (2000). Sexualities, queer theory, and qualitative research. In DenzinN. K.LincolnY. S. (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (2nd ed., pp. 347-365). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
22.
GamsonJ. (2003). Reflections on queer theory and communication. In YepG. A.LovaasK. E.EliaJ. P. (Eds.), Queer theory and communication: From disciplining queers to queering the discipline(s) (pp. 385-389). Binghamton, NY: Harrington Park Press.
23.
GamsonJ.MoonD. (2004). The sociology of sexualities: Queer and beyond. Annual Review of Sociology, 30, 47-64.
24.
Gingrich-PhilbrookC. (1998). What I “know” about the story: For those about to tell personal narratives on stage. In DaileyS. J. (Ed.), The future of performance studies: Visions and revisions (pp. 298-300). Annandale, VA: National Communication Association.
25.
GreenA. I. (2007). Queer theory and sociology: Locating the subject and the self in sexuality studies. Sociological Theory, 25, 26-45.
26.
GriffinR. A. (2012). I AM angry black woman: Black feminist autoethnography, voice, and resistance. Women’s Studies in Communication, 35, 138-157.
27.
HarrisonC. (2008). Real men do wear mascara: Advertising discourse and masculine identity. Critical Discourse Studies, 5, 55-73.
28.
JonesR. G.Jr. (2010). Putting privilege into practice through “intersectional reflexivity”: Ruminations, interventions, and possibilities. Reflections: Narratives of Professional Helping, 16, 122-125.
29.
JonesR. G.Jr. (2014). Divided loyalties: Exploring the intersections of queerness, race, ethnicity, and gender. In HowardS. C. (Ed.), Critical articulations of race, gender, and sexual orientation (pp. 23-46). Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
30.
JonesR. G.Jr.CalafellB. M. (2012). Contesting neoliberalism through critical pedagogy, intersectional reflexivity, and personal narrative: Queer tales of academia. Journal of Homosexuality, 59, 957-981.
31.
JungP. B.SmithR. F. (1993). Heterosexism: An ethical challenge. Albany: State University of New York Press.
32.
KhayattD. (2002). Toward a queer identity. Sexualities, 5, 487-501.
33.
LangellierK. M. (1989). Personal narratives: Perspectives on theory and research. Text and Performance Quarterly, 9, 243-276.
34.
LangellierK. M. (1999). Personal narrative, performance, performativity: Two or three things I know for sure. Text and Performance Quarterly, 19, 125-144.
35.
MoyaP. M. L. (2006). “What’s identity got to do with it?” Mobilizing identities in a multicultural classroom. In AlcoffL. M.Hames-GarciaM.MohantyS. P.MoyaP. M. L. (Eds.), Identity politics reconsidered (pp. 96-117). New York, NY: Palgrave MacMillan.
36.
PetersonE. E.LangellierK. M. (1997). The politics of personal narrative methodology. Text and Performance Quarterly, 17, 135-152.
37.
PlummerK. (1998). Afterword: The past, present, and futures of the sociology of same-sex relations. In NardiP. M.SchneiderB. E. (Eds.), Social perspectives in lesbian and gay studies (pp. 604-614). London, England: Routledge.
SandovalC. (2000). Methodology of the oppressed. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
40.
SantoroP. (2012). Relationally bare/bear: Bodies of loss and love. Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies, 12, 118-131.
41.
SenderC. (2006). Queens for a day: Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and the neoliberal project. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 23, 131-151.
42.
SpryT. (2006). A “Performative-I” copresence: Embodying the ethnographic turn in performance and the performative turn in ethnography. Text and Performance Quarterly, 26, 339-346.
43.
TierneyW. G. (1997). Academic outlaws: Queer theory and cultural studies in the academy. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
44.
TillmannL. (2003). Friendship as method. Qualitative Inquiry, 9, 729-749.
45.
YostM. J. (2006). Demystifying gynecomastia: Men with breasts. Gynecomastia.org.
