Looking Queer: Body Image and Identity in Lesbian, Bisexual, Gay, and Transgender Communities
Bringing together feminism, body image, and sexual orientation, Looking Queer: Body Image and Identity in Lesbian, Bisexual, Gay, and Transgender Communities hopes to convince readers that society as a whole needs to redefine our concepts of body image. By looking at body image issues among lesbian, bisexual, gay, and transgender people and taking differences such as race or disability into consideration, this book bridges gaps left by earlier work and provides a step toward a new focus in...
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Looking Queer: Body Image in Lesbian, Bisexual, Gay, and Transgender Communities contains research, firsthand accounts, poetry, theory, and journalistic essays that address and outline the special needs of sexual minorities when dealing with eating disorders and appearance obsession. Looking Queer will give members of these communities hope, insight, and information into body image issues, helping you to accept and to love your body. In addition, scholars, health care professionals, and body image activists will not only learn about queer experiences and identity and how they affect individuals, but will also understand how some of the issues involved affect society as a whole.Dismantling the myth that body image issues affect only heterosexual women, Looking Queer explores body issues based on gender, race, class, age, and disability. Furthermore, this groundbreaking book attests to the struggles, pain, and triumph of queer people in an open and comprehensive manner. More than 60 contributors provide their knowledge and personal experiences in dealing with body image issues exclusive to the gay and transgender communities, including:• exploring and breaking down the categories of gender and sexuality that are found in many body image issues• finding ways to heal yourself and your community• discovering what it means to “look like a dyke” or to “look gay”• fearing fat as a sign of femininity• determining what race has to do with the gay ideal• discussing the stereotyped ”double negative”—being a fat lesbian• learning strategies of resistance to societal ideals• critiquing ”the culture of desire” within gay men’s communities that emphasizes looks above everything elseRevealing new and complex dimensions to body image issues, Looking Queer not only discusses the struggles and hardships of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered persons, but looks at the processes that can lead to acceptance of oneself. Written by both men and women, the topics and research in Looking Queer offer insight into the lives of people you can relate to, enabling you to learn from their experiences so you, too, can find joy and happiness in accepting your body.Visit Dawn Atkin’s website at: http://home.earthlink.net/~dawn_atkins/
About the EditorContributorsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Looking QueerBeauty Is a Beast3Living into My Body5Beauty Mandates and the Appearance Obsession: Are Lesbians Any Better Off?17Resistance and Reinscription: Sexual Identity and Body Image Among Lesbian and Bisexual Women27Contradictions of the Spirit: Theories and Realities of Lesbian Body Image37Lesbians and the (Re/De)Construction of the Female Body47The Ugly Dyke69Woman Eats Brownies, Gets Laid73Professionally Q: A Day in the Life of a Career Counselor79The Beauty Norm: A Femme Strikes Back83It's Not What You Wear: Fashioning a Queer Identity87Hair Piece93Out-of-Body Experiences99Movement107Vanishing Point109Autobiographical Slices: Life in the Queer Kitchen111That Other Girl Who Is Not Me115Moving Like a Dyke119Tattoo Me125Mirror129Big Grrl131Ode to My Vibrator137Dressing Room Blues141My Ideal Becoming Real145Coming Out153Power, Beauty, and Dykes155My Big Fat Body161My Mother's Journals163Be, Being, Becoming165Boogeywoman177The Razor's Edge: Walking the Fine Line of the Self181My Life As an Erroneous Sonogram189Holding My Breath Underwater199Affronting Reason205In(to)Visibility: Intersexuality in the Field of Queer221Agdistis' Children: Living Bi-Gendered in a Single-Gendered World227Flunking Basic Gender Training: Butches and Butch Style Today233Frankly Feminine: Rejecting and Embracing Standards for Beauty239Faggot Rant241Beautiful Boy: A Girl's Own Story245"I" is for Intersection: At the Crux of Black and White and Gay and Straight251Piece of Man: Redefining the Myths Around the Black Male Phallus259Mapping My Desire: Hunting Down the Male Erotic in India and America271"Undressing the Oriental Boy": The Gay Asian in the Social Imaginary of the Gay White Male277I Like My Chi-i-sa-i Body Now295When Pigs Have Wings299Inside/Outside307Body Language313The Imperfections of Beauty: On Being Gay and Disabled315Love Poem323Queer Crash Test Dummies: Theory, Aging, and Embodied Problematics327Laws of Desire: Has Our Imagery Become Overidealized?345A Matter of Size355Justify My Love Handles: How the Queer Community Trims the Fat359Fatness and the Feminized Man367But to Hear THEM Tell It ... Or: Looksism, Beauty's Evil Stepsister373Reps383Your Dreamworld Is Just About to End389Learning the F Words393Why I Hate The Beatles and The Supremes413If Only I Were Cute: Looksism and Internalized Homophobia in the Gay Male Community415More Than a Sum of Parts: Rescuing the Male Body from Fundamentalism431Skinny, "White" Chicks and Hung, Buff Boys: Queer Sex Spaces and Their Discontents439Index455
