Dude

It didn’t take the room long to figure out that I was digging for answers to very particular questions but then again these are people who have known me for many months if not several years. My original interviewee’s schedule and my own did not mesh in such a way to allow a “guided conversation” and I was hesitant to go the way of a cyber-interview. In the end, I choose to turn my (fairly) normal Saturday night into a sociological journey into our collective experiences in high school surrounding the “specter of the fag.” My focus during the conversation was on Joe Messa and this summary will reflect that focus but throughout the evening I found interesting experience coming from not only Joe but from others present that evening including my partner Leo Goodson and his best friend (and Joe’s boyfriend) Mathew Parks.

Joe’s experience throughout high school and within his own peer-group would best be reflected as a combination of River High’s Gay-Straight Alliance and drama department where play and gender-bending took on new meanings for not only those involved but the greater network of the high school generally. Being a part of the “geeky and artistic” crowd in his high school expression of any sort was seen not as much as an expression of the person but of “artistic expression” in general. It was perhaps this behavior in particular that assisted Joe in escaping the “specter of the fag” as Pascoe describes. It should be mentioned that as a whole Joe is not easily identified as either feminine or gay – the two primary usages of the word “fag” but as our conversation continued we realized that this may go even further than sexuality or even gender expression.

Nearly all of our experience were unique but held some striking sim...

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...ain reflects the dominate/passive relationship found within the male/female dichotomy.

Our community, as open minded as it tries to be, finds itself conforming to the hegemonic ideologies of the greater society that we wish to be found equals to by assimilating the ideals of masculine and feminine alongside the inevitable power plays involved – this truly shows the hidden power of patriarchy. Fundamentally, we all agreed that it was only loosely tied to homophobia and had found a more stable and divisive place within the male/female or masculine/feminine dichotomy. My final question of the night was this: “should we as a community try and reclaim the word “fag?” I believe Joe hit the nail on the head by saying “It may be too early to reclaim the word and given its new found place in patriarchy it should probably just fall into the annuals of history.”