..."The Trouble With Normal"

I recently read "The Trouble With Normal: Sex, Politics, and the Ethics of Queer Life" by Michael Warner. It is a very academic read, but I got through it with a pad of paper and my trusty Oxford Dictionary. It was originally published in 1999 and discusses the politics surrounding queer culture in the mid to late 1990's. The themes that Dr. Warner brings up include sexual shame, the battle for equal rights and how New York City's former Mayor, Mr. Giuliani, turned the queer neighbourhoods into "better" places.

So, some of my thoughts throughout reading "The Trouble With Normal" ranged from understanding to disagreement to even a bit of "what?!" To get an idea of what Dr. Warner speaks about, here is a link to a full synopsis on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trouble_With_Normal_(book)#Synopsis

My very abbreviated version of this synopsis is as follows.

Chapter 1: Describes the idea of normality and how shame of sex outside the "normal" is portrayed by the media with the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal.

Chapter 2: Delves further in what the [queer] movement is turning into because of the need to normalize homosexuals into being just like everyone else.

Chapter 3: The fight for same-sex marriage marginalizes other queer groups within the ever-expanding LGBTQQPA...etc.

Chapter 4: Discusses zoning laws in the 1990's New York City and how it removed public sexuality into a private shame.

Final Chapter: Looks at the politics of HIV and the backwards approach to ending the epidemic.


As a new shiny queer of the 2000's, I don't have a lot of insight into the battle of human rights that was fought before me. I am trying to take that time now to understand how I can walk down the street and hold my fiance's hand without getting garbage thrown at me. Dr. Warner tells the struggles that sparked the Stonewall riots. The ambitions of the early [queer] movement were to bring sex and sexuality out of shame and into public knowledge. I know that people fear what they don't understand, and the less the public knows about sex, the easier it is for others to use that ignorance against everyone.

The idea that sex between a man and a woman must happen only to procreate, be in a certain position, stay behind closed doors and not shared is what has been noted as public knowledge and acceptance for many, many years. This is the state of our current social media, aside from the few poor portrayals of queer life you get on Grey's Anatomy, Desperate Housewives, All My Children, and so on. Some shows in the last 10 years have worked hard at representing the queer community in a positive light, like Will and Grace, the L Word, Queer As Folk, South of Nowhere and many others.

With all of these shows, not many of them depict the sub-cultures of the queer community. Many of them try to appeal to the larger heterosexual audience by making queer characters just like anyone else. In many cases this is true, I don't think I look gay or dyke-y, but that doesn't mean that just because I look stereotypically straight, all queer people need to be represented this way.

This is one point that Dr. Warner shines light on, that with this obsession of the queer movement to be just like everyone else, it is forgetting that everyone else is oppressed by sex with the notion that there is only one kind of acceptable sex. I very much agree that sex is deemed shameful in itself and that a sexual revolution in the form of education and availability to sex and sexuality should be a motivation for our new generation of queer people.

Now, just as a side bar, I use the word queer as an umbrella term for a very diverse group of people. I know that it is a word that was used in derogatory ways and not everyone accepts this word. Feel free to give me other words to use. I don't use LGBTQ because to me it is not inclusive enough. It also, to me, groups gender with sexuality too closely and does not give enough distinction for people of varying genders.

Okay, so when Dr. Warner discusses the issue of same-sex marriage, I have to say that I was a bit confused and angered that he did not support same-sex marriage and the way that the queer movement is fighting for rights. I kept reading and saw that his argument was that the 'trouble with marriage' is the privilege that is given to couples that marry as opposed to other co-habitting couples. As much as I want to have the right to marry, and do since I live in Canada, I understand now the problem that arises for queers and straights alike that don't have the same rights and privileges of those who marry. Division of property, parental rights (which queer couples don't really have), tax breaks, benefits from work and lots of other perks that go along with the word marriage are things that should be extended to co-habitting couples. One parental right queer parents do have is child support; the saying goes "find a parent, any parent, make them pay." This is something I heard from a woman who teaches family law in Toronto, Canada. That could be a whole other blog, though :P.

Did these problems with marriage make me want to change my mind about getting married, not really. Did it make me want to change what rights everyone should be given, sure did!

The last thing I was moved about was his discussion on HIV prevention. I grew up knowing AIDS and HIV were bad and you couldn't be cured of them. What I learned as I got a bit older was that a lot of media (and even my Dad), blamed it on gay men in the 1980's. I recognize that it was widespread then in the queer community, but Dr. Warner points out that a great thing was working on prevention by educating people about the disease and also how to keep themselves safe. The efforts of educating seemed to be working and infection rates were down, but it was still very much labelled a gay disease. What changed was the loss of funding for education and prevention and a new way to stigmatize and shame homosexual sex. So again, sex takes a place in the dark.

I really enjoyed "The Trouble With Normal" and it opened my eyes to a more complicated view of queer politics, but also one that rang true, even now. If you want to check it out, you could probably find it at a university or online at Amazon.com (or .ca).

Please leave comments and questions and critique because this is my first post and I'd like to not bore too many people.

Also, to read about Michael Warner, you can check out his wiki page @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Warner