Gay Power! A Study of Male Homosexuality and Identity Politics in the Swedish GayPress 1971–1986 In this essay, the author examines the sexual policy ideas behind the Swedish gaymagazine Revolt in order to describe one aspect of the history of ideas about male homosexuality in Sweden. In particular, the study emphasize the social and cultural creation of meaning, as well as constructions of a homosexual male subject. The author has here focused on the ideas and theories that governed and influenced the magazine in a certain direction during the examined period 1971–1986. The overall purpose has been to study the gay press's perception of homosexuality, and what values about same sex-sexuality that have emerged in the material. The author distinguishes between two kinds of directions of ideas who have affected the magazine. One was the ideology of sexual liberalism, where the ambition was to break the silence and stigma when talking about sex in general, especially homosexuality. Within the framework of sexual liberalism, the magazine has intended to depict the many facets of homosexuality in words and images. The other direction was more focused on conducting identity politics where the sexual practice was dimmed to instead give preference to issues that valued a creation of a homosexual identity. The construction of such an identity has primarily been about creating cohesion and continuity among gay men, in order to strengthen the homosexual community inwards. But the identity politics has also implied a normalization of homosexuality. Likewise, it has limited the scope for sexual variations in relation to the creation of a homosexual subjectivity. By the mid-1980s, the identity politics had become so strong that Revolt came to be a magazine for gay men specifically, and earlier liberal ideas of sexuality became almost alienated. The male homosexuality became here an object of moralizing where some sexual practices were problematized and even made incomprehensible in the light of social changes in the homosexual community and in the society in general.

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento CientÃfico e TecnolÃgico / CoordenaÃÃo de AperfeÃoamento de Pessoal de NÃvel Superior / This research investigates the field of print publications conceived as "gay press" in Brazil, taking them as relevant instances of the creation and re-elaboration of sexual and gender categories and identities, and of the political visibility and experiences of homosexualities in Brazil from the second half of the twentieth century. Focusing on newspapers and magazines mostly addressed to a homosexual male reader, published in the 1960s (O Snob), 1970s (Gente Gay e LampiÃo da Esquina), 1990s (Sui Generis) and 2000s (Junior), the thesis analyzes how these publications at the same time forge and are immersed within the processes of identifications that reiterate, displace or pose a risk to these categories and their classification potential. It critically questions the themes privileged by these vehicles for being in the interest of its audience and in the âpublic interestâ. It investigates, fundamentally, the construction and the search for legitimacy of a journalistic field that is claimed as âgay pressâ, taking it as a social field of intersection between social subjectivities, practices and knowledge which produces discourses about the experiences of subjects and ways of being. It also examines how the demarcation of these publications as gay involve complex processes of negotiation about dynamics that circumscribe and exceed the (re)constructions of categories in these vehicles, associated with the processes of construction of a lectureship shaped in homosexualities that are historically crossed by multiplicities, disputes and contradictory strategies of affirmation and social legitimacy. Beyond dialogue with sexuality and gender studies and socio-anthropological research addressing journalism as a field of symbolic production, the methodology involves the analysis of discourses circulated in the cited publications, and interviews with journalists and employees currently working or formerly employed by this segment of the press. The aim is to construct a dialogic reflection between the researcher and journalists about both their practices and this discursive production. / A pesquisa investiga o universo de publicaÃÃes impressas situado como âimprensa gayâ no Brasil, tomando-as como instÃncias relevantes de criaÃÃo e reelaboraÃÃo de categorias e identidades sexuais e de gÃnero e de polÃticas de visibilidade e vivÃncias das homossexualidades no Brasil a partir da segunda metade do sÃculo XX. Privilegiando como recorte jornais e revistas endereÃados majoritariamente a um pÃblico leitor homossexual masculino, publicados nos anos 1960 (O Snob), 1970 (Gente Gay e LampiÃo da Esquina), 1990 (Sui Generis) e 2000 (Junior), analisa-se como estes periÃdicos forjam e ao mesmo tempo se inserem no jogo das identificaÃÃes que ora reiteram, ora tensionam, deslocam ou pÃem em xeque essas categorias e seus potenciais de classificaÃÃo. Do mesmo modo, interrogam-se criticamente as temÃticas que esses veÃculos privilegiam simultaneamente como de interesse de sua audiÃncia leitora e de interesse âpÃblicoâ. Investiga-se, fundamentalmente, a prÃpria construÃÃo e a busca por legitimidade de um segmento jornalÃstico que se reivindica como âimprensa gayâ, tomando-o assim como campo social de interseÃÃo de subjetividades, prÃticas e saberes, produtor de discursos acerca de experiÃncias de sujeitos e modos de ser. TambÃm se analisa como a demarcaÃÃo destas publicaÃÃes como gays envolve processos complexos de negociaÃÃo acerca de dinÃmicas que circunscrevem e excedem as (re)construÃÃes das categorias agenciadas nos discursos desses veÃculos, associados à construÃÃo de um leitorado projetado em homossexualidades historicamente atravessadas por multiplicidades, disputas e estratÃgias contraditÃrias de afirmaÃÃo e legitimaÃÃo social. AlÃm do diÃlogo com os estudos de sexualidade e gÃnero e com as investigaÃÃes socioantropolÃgicas que abordam o jornalismo como campo de produÃÃo simbÃlica, adota-se como metodologia a anÃlise dos discursos veiculados nas publicaÃÃes citadas e a realizaÃÃo de entrevistas com jornalistas e colaboradores que atuam ou exerceram parte da vida profissional neste segmento de imprensa, construindo uma reflexÃo dialÃgica partilhada entre o pesquisador e os jornalistas tanto de suas prÃticas como da produÃÃo discursiva que se elegeu como terreno analÃtico.

Thesis (M.A.)--Concordia University, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 88-104).

Thesis (M.A.)--Concordia University, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 88-104). Also available electronically via World Wide Web in PDF format.

The apparent ‘invisibility’, or lack of representation of black men in contemporary mainstream gay visual cultures is the primary critical issue that the study engages with. The study presupposes that the frequency with which white men appear in popular representations of ‘gayness’ prevails over that of black men. In order to substantiate this assumption, this study analyses selected issues of the South African queer men’s lifestyle magazine Gay Pages. Gay visual cultures appear to simultaneously conflate ‘whiteness’ and normative homosexuality, while marginalising black gay men by means of positioning ‘blackness’ and ‘gayness’ as irreconcilable identity constructs. Images of the gay male ‘community’ disseminated by queer and mainstream media constantly offer stereotypical, distorted and race-biased notions of gay men, which ingrain the exclusive cultural equation of white men and ideal homomasculinity. The disclosure of racist and selectively homophobic ideologies, which seem to inform gay visual representation, is therefore the chief concern of the dissertation. By investigating selected images that ostensibly embody the complex cultural relationship between race and homomasculinity, the study addresses the following forms of visual representation: colonial representations of ‘blackness’; so-called gay ‘colonial’ representations; black self-representation; gay black self-representation; and contemporary representations of homomasculinity in advertisements and queer men’s lifestyle magazines such as Gay Pages. A genealogy of images is explored in order to illustrate the ways in which ‘blackness’ and ‘whiteness’ are respectively positioned as contradictory to and synonymous with dominant visual representations of homomasculinity in gay visual cultures. The hegemony of ‘whiteness’ in images sourced from colonial systems of representation, queer male art and commercial publicity, for example, are thus critiqued in order to address the various race-based prejudices that appear to be symptomatic of contemporary gay visual cultures. Copyright / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2009. / Visual Arts / unrestricted