Stages of Sexuality argues that the lived spatial
experiences of Generation X gay men are
characterized by a profound sense of homelessness (a
psychic/material condition distinguished by social
dissociation, restricted social mobility, and
invisibility to the public gaze). In each of the
four chapters of this study, Diehl explores the
cultural/sexual/generational politics of a single
site at which young gay male identities are
produced/performed to gain an extended understanding
of how spatial practices can facilitate a more
equitable and just distribution of the social order
and reveal less restrictive alternatives for how
young gay men inhabit that order. At the heart of
the study is a search for home, a search which Diehl
argues is tempered by the knowledge that home is
both kaleidoscopic and fictive not the place we come
from but the places to which we endlessly return.
Ultimately the author suggests that while young gay
men are always and only halfway home, they
continue to press their bodies against social space
both with cause and with determination because those
actions matter to both personal and political
survival.
experiences of Generation X gay men are
characterized by a profound sense of homelessness (a
psychic/material condition distinguished by social
dissociation, restricted social mobility, and
invisibility to the public gaze). In each of the
four chapters of this study, Diehl explores the
cultural/sexual/generational politics of a single
site at which young gay male identities are
produced/performed to gain an extended understanding
of how spatial practices can facilitate a more
equitable and just distribution of the social order
and reveal less restrictive alternatives for how
young gay men inhabit that order. At the heart of
the study is a search for home, a search which Diehl
argues is tempered by the knowledge that home is
both kaleidoscopic and fictive not the place we come
from but the places to which we endlessly return.
Ultimately the author suggests that while young gay
men are always and only halfway home, they
continue to press their bodies against social space
both with cause and with determination because those
actions matter to both personal and political
survival.