Co-Sexuality: the Lived Experience of Communicatively Organizing Around Sexuality
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CO-SEXUALITY: THE LIVED EXPERIENCE OF COMMUNICATIVELY ORGANIZING AROUND SEXUALITY A dissertation presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School University of Missouri Department of Communication In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements of the Degree Doctor of Philosophy by CRISTIN A. COMPTON Dr. Debbie Dougherty, Dissertation Advisor JULY 2016 The undersigned, appointed by the dean of the Graduate school have examined the dissertation entitled: CO-SEXUALIUTY: THE LIVED EXPERIENCE OF COMMUNICATIVELY ORGANIZING AROUND SEXUALITY Presented by Cristin A. Compton A Candidate for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy And hereby certify that, in their opinion, it is worthy of acceptance. ______________________________________________________________________ Debbie S. Dougherty, PhD. ______________________________________________________________________ Rebecca J. Meisenbach, PhD. ______________________________________________________________________ Kate L. Harris, PhD. _____________________________________________________________________ Mary Jo Neitz, PhD. Acknowledgements To my parents: I won the parent lottery. Without your steady guidance your unwavering support, I would have never developed into the human being I am today. Thank you for your constant support in any endeavor that I choose to pursue. Your steadfastness, your righteous indignance on my behalf, and your earnest belief that my work and my ideas matter remind me I have the ability and opportunity to do things I have not yet dreamed. To my dissertation committee: You are four of the most brilliant women I will ever know. Your patience, guidance, and willingness to bat ideas back and forth with me, and your thoughtful perspectives have allowed me to grow not only as an academic and a researcher, but also as a person. I am grateful for the opportunity to have not only worked with you, but to have learned from you. Thank you for everything you have done for me. To my cohort: Well, we did it. We survived coursework, comprehensive exams, and a whole host of teaching moments that have shaped and changed us as a collective. I look forward to seeing you at NCA or ICA and reminiscing about Quant II homework, that one time in Comm Theory, and the time Christmas garland went missing and we all became detectives. This experience has gone far too quickly, and I am deeply grateful to know and learn from each and every one of you. ii Table of Contents Chapter I: Introduction ........................................................................................................ 1 Communication and Sexuality ............................................................................................ 3 Co-Sexuality and Co-Cultural Theory 5 Purpose and Rationale ......................................................................................................... 9 Exploring Co-Sexuality: Into the Workplace .................................................................... 11 Chapter 2: Literature Review ............................................................................................ 14 The Messy Construct of Human Sexuality ........................................................................ 15 Heteronormativity and the Social Organizing of Sexuality 22 The Current State of Sexuality .......................................................................................... 27 Sexuality (and Gender) Categories 27 Into the Workplace ............................................................................................................ 36 Towards Co-Sexuality ....................................................................................................... 49 Chapter 3: Methods ........................................................................................................... 52 Methodology ...................................................................................................................... 52 Data Collection Methods ................................................................................................... 55 My Commitment to Reflexivity 56 Analysis ............................................................................................................................. 66 Chapter 4: Analysis ........................................................................................................... 71 “Normal” Sexuality At Work 72 Co-Sexuality: A Push-Pull Organizational Process .......................................................... 84 Constructing, Pulling Toward, and Pushing Away from Sexual Norms through the Master Narrative of the Midwest: Religion and Discomfort with Difference 85 The Normalization of Gendered and Aggressive (Hetero)Sexuality 101 Silenced Sexual “Norms” and Organizational Control 126 Chapter 5: Discussion and Conclusion………………………………………………… 160 Co-Sexuality: Organizing Around Sexual “Norms” At Work ........................................ 172 Organizing Around the Sexual “Center” 172 Organizing through Discursive and Embodied Means 176 Implications for Sexuality Scholarship 183 Co-Sexuality: Implications for Theory 195 Political Implications of the Language of Co-Sexuality 202 Implications for Practice 206 Limitations & Strengths 213 Future Research 215 Concluding Thoughts ...................................................................................................... 218 Appendix 1: Demographic Questionnaire ....................................................................... 219 Appendix 2: Initial Interview Protocol ............................................................................ 220 Appendix 3: Participants ................................................................................................. 222 References ....................................................................................................................... 226 Vita….………………………………………………………………………………………...………....246 Chapter I: Introduction The construct of sexuality, at its core, functions as a tool for human organizing (Foucault 1978/1990). With the development of the binary sexual identity categories of “homosexual” (largely understood as romantic attraction to persons of the same biological sex) and “heterosexual” (largely understood as romantic attraction to persons of the opposite biological sex) in the medical sciences in the late 19th century came the social valuation of them. In terms of organizing sexuality on a broad social scale, the category of heterosexuality has come to be socially privileged as “normal” (Katz, 2007) while violations of heterosexuality have come to be socially stigmatized (Goffman, 1963). At its core, the heterosexual/homosexual binary that inherently privileges the former (Hancock & Tyler, 2001) fundamentally organizes us and reifies the institutionalization of heteronormative bias that undergirds day-to-day life (Warner, 1993). Broadly, heterosexuality still remains the comparison against which all other categories of sexuality are constructed and held accountable (Foucault, 1978/1990), even as categories of sexual identity have become diversified. A good example of the privilege of heterosexuality is the use of the acronym LGBTQ (representing the categories of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer). Despite fundamental differences between these categories of gender/sexuality, the acronym hangs together because of how they are socially positioned (Marinucci, 2011); people identifying with or labeled as sexual minorities are organized such that they are pushed to the margins of society through the shared experience of discrimination and social violence as a result of their failure to adequately perform heterosexuality. 1 It is from the social margins that much of the scholarship related to sexuality and social organizing has developed (e.g., Rich, 1980; Rubin, 1984; Sedgwick, 1990; Warner, 1993). This foundational scholarship has demonstrated that the construction of sexuality and its subsequent institutionalization as an organizing tool affects lived experience on a daily basis. By “organizing,” I mean the process of ordering broader social narratives about sexuality into a system of representation (Ashcraft, 2004) that influences how sexualities are communicated and evaluated. How sexualities are communicatively represented has material consequences. For example, people classified as sexual minorities face political and legal repercussions (i.e., marriage equality; adoption rights) that negatively affect their social legitimation, ultimately marginalizing them and minimizing their social voice. Critical feminist and queer scholars in particular have addressed the hierarchy of sexualities and its related systemic inequities. Much of this literature focuses on deconstructing the privileged category of “heterosexuality” as the “normal” or “natural” construct to organize around, exhibiting that it is unstable, disjointed, and in some cases, paradoxical (Katz, 2007). Further, socially acceptable performances of (hetero)sexuality have been demonstrated to be highly contextualized (Eguchi, 2009) and constantly in flux (e.g., Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005), illuminating the systems of power that privilege and reward some groups while marginalizing others. While this scholarship is more often interested in issues of social justice than in the communicative act of organizing, it lays the foundation for an exploration of the powerful yet institutionalized hierarch of sexualities that organizes lived experience. 2 I argue that the process of organizing sexualities