Celebrating Queer Lesbian Desires with Dorothy Allison: From moral monstrosity to the beautiful materiality of the body

Autores

  • Mélanie Grué Université Paris-Est, IMAGER, UPEC

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5007/2175-8026.2015v68n2p127

Resumo

Using social and queer theory on domination, sexuality and gender, this contribution explores how the queer American author Dorothy Allison celebrates the vilified transgressive lesbian body. As, in the 1970s, the mainstream american feminist movement crystallized around the definition of an acceptable sexuality in the name of femininity, female sexual practices were standardized according to strict identity frames, carnal desire was denied, and transgressive lesbians who play with gender roles were defined as abject. In response to this extreme taming of the body, Allison interrogates the notions of masculinity and femininity, domination and submission in her exploration of sexual pleasure and traumatized sexuality. She celebrates the aggressiveness and masculinity of queer lesbianism, promotes the fluidity of gender roles, and asserts the primacy of the flesh,sensuality, and materiality in sexuality.

Biografia do Autor

Mélanie Grué, Université Paris-Est, IMAGER, UPEC

Mélanie Grué, PhD, is a temporary teaching and research fellow at Université Paris-Est, IMAGER, UPEC, where she teaches literature, translation and English for specialists of other disciplines. Her fields of research include Dorothy Allison’s works, trauma and resistance literature, literary representations of the body and sexuality, gender and queer studies, as well as feminist and queer visual arts.

Publicado

2015-01-21