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INFORMATION TO USERS This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. UMI films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be from any type of computer printer. The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleedthrough, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send UMI a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note wifi indicate the deletion. Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by sectioning the original, beginning at the upper left-hand comer and continuing from left to right in equal sections with small overlaps. Each original is also photographed in one exposure and is included in reduced form at the back of the book. Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy. Higher quality 6" x 9" black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order. iv i University Microfilms International A Bell & Howell Information Company 300 Nortfi Zeeb Road. Ann Arbor. Ml 48106-1346 USA 313/761-4700 800/521-0600 Order Number 9412046 Emotion, identity, and social movements: The effects of Jeffrey Dahmer’s serial killings on Milwaukee’s lesbian and gay com m unity Schmidt, Martha A., Ph.D. The Ohio State University, 1993 U'M' 300 N. Zeeb Rd. Ann Arbor, MI 48106 EMOTION, IDENTITY, AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: THE EFFECTS OF JEFFREY DAHMER'S SERIAL KILLINGS ON MILWAUKEE'S LESBIAN AND GAY COMMUNITY DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of the Ohio State University By Martha A. Schmidt, B.S., M.A. The Ohio State University 1993 Dissertation Committee: Approved by G. Hinkle J.C. Jenkins j f y i_ V. A. Taylor Advisor Department of Sociology ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am immeasurably grateful to Verta Taylor, an extraordinary advisor, mentor and friend, for her guidance and support. I am also grateful to Gisela Hinkle and J. Craig Jenkins for their careful readings and helpful suggestions. I am indebted to Lynn Dennison, who always believed in me and in this work. Your fierce, unending support helped to make this possible. I am also deeply grateful to Geoffrey Brown for an unbelievable amount of emotional and logistical support. Special thanks also to Susan Nash, Reginald Dyck, Ceci Gray, Douglas Gray, and Nancy Charlton for their readings, insight and support. 1 am grateful to Douglas Rutledge for his careful editing and insight. 1 would also like to thank Kathryn Feltey and Mary Beth Krause for years of support and for their very broad, waterproof shoulders. 1 would also like to express my gratitude to Jim Nelson, Jack Spencer, and Carol Luper, who started it all. Of course, I am indebted to the brave individuals in Milwaukee who opened their homes and hearts to me. I respect you all tremendously. Thank you. And finally, to my family, the foundation of all of my accomplishments: you have cheerfully endured my absences and preoccupations with unending love and support. I am so grateful to you. You are all such a gift in my life. I feel truly blessed. ii VITA July 3,1960 ............................................................................... Born, Akron, Ohio 1982 B.S., Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 1986............................................................................................MA, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 1991-present..............................................................................Assistant Professor, Dept. of Behavioral Sciences, Capital University, Columbus, Ohio FIELDS OF STUDY Major field: Sociology Specialization: Social Movements, Gender, Gay Studies, Cultural Studies TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS....................................................................................................ii VITA......................................................................................................................................iii CHAPTER PAGE I. INTRODUCTION.............................................................................................. 1 II. METHODOLOGY........................................................................................... 28 III. JEFF..................................................................................................................63 IV. COMMUNITY RESPONSES TO DAHMER.............................................92 V. EMOTIONS, IDENTITY, AND ACTIVISM...............................................130 VI. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS...................................................185 APPENDIX........................................................................................................................195 LIST OF REFERENCES................................................................................................ 200 IV CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION On a hot Tuesday night in July, 1991, the usual television fare of summertime re-runs was interrupted by news clips of an unfolding horror. Viewers watched surreal scenes of police carting away assorted boxes, cartons, and vats from a North 25th Street apartment building in one of Milwaukee's rougher neighborhoods. Newscasters recounted tales of a shirtless man, one arm in handcuffs, who had escaped the sadistic torture of a man trying to kill him. When he took police back to apartment 213, they found human heads in the refrigerator, painted skulls on shelves, genitals stored in buckets, and Jeffrey Dahmer awaiting arrest. It was a cinematic nightmare come true, foreshadowed by the recently released screen version of "The Silence of the Lambs." In the weeks that followed, Jeffrey Dahmer would be portrayed by press around the world as a real life Hannibal-the-Cannibal Lecter. Dahmer had confessed to killing 17 young men and boys, mostly Black and Hispanic gays. He admitted to photographing them, dismembering their corpses, and eating some of their body parts. In February, 1992, nearly seven months after his arrest, Dahmer was convicted by a jury in Milwaukee of 15 counts of first-degree homicide. Three months later, he was convicted in Ohio on one count of homicide for a 1 2 murder he had committed in his hometown. Bath, Ohio was my hometown too. Jeffrey Dahmer had been my classmate and friend. His gruesome crimes captured national headlines for months. When my association with Dahmer became public, I was interviewed repeatedly by news organizations across the country. My own involvement with this case and with the press afforded me a unique opportunity to examine the sociological significance of these killings. Specifically, In this research I analyze the impact that the events surrounding the murders had on Milwaukee's lesbian and gay community. The media frequently focused on the issue of homosexuality. Dahmer's crimes were often constructed by the press as specifically gay crimes, as the result either of his own homosexuality or of the gay "lifestyle" led by many of his victims. The repeated emphasis on "gayness" within the media underscored the fact that the discovery of his killings was profoundly affecting the lesbian and gay movement in Milwaukee. In this dissertation, I examine these effects, focusing specifically on the ways that the emotions evoked within that community shaped collective identity. My goal is to provide an empirical analysis of the centrality of emotion in social movement cultures. I approach the emotions of the lesbian and gay community not as individual psychological responses but as collectively constructed and shared experiences. Discourse, meanings, and symbols create the framework for defining and interpreting the emotion culture of a social movement. Jeffrey Dahmer became constructed as a symbol both in the lesbian and gay culture and in the dominant culture as well. These constructions were vastly different and reflected opposing political interests and agendas. I will argue that there was a competition between the dominant culture and Milwaukee's lesbian and gay activists to define the emotions surrounding the Dahmer event. Within the dominant culture, Dahmer was portrayed as the result of a gay "lifestyle," justifying increasing physicai and political repression of homosexuals. Within the lesbian and gay community, Dahmer symbolized both the victimization that their community had long suffered and the devastating consequences of internalized homophobia. The meaning ascribed to Dahmer as an emotional symbol significantly shaped the meaning of gay identity, resulting in a similar shift in lesbian and gay activism. I was able to collect data through: 1) participant observation in Milwaukee: 2) interviewing Milwaukee's gay and lesbian activists, as well as reporters who served as informants; and 3) content analysis of both the gay and the mainstream press. The event that became known simply as "Dahmer" to Milwaukee's lesbian and gay activists began with his July, 1991 arrest and continued through his February, 1992 trial in Milwaukee. That his arrest would be a meaningful and historical occurrence for Milwaukee's gay and lesbian movement became clear within one week following

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