Hi everyone--
I've received a ton of brilliant submissions for Why Are Faggots So Afraid of Faggots?, but I'm extending the call for submissions all the way to May 15, 2008, and looking for more essays on the following topics in particular:
ability/disability, body fascism, fat politics
race, racialized desire, racism in gay/queer cultures
perspectives from outside the US
perspectives from rural areas, small towns and non-destination cities
faggotry in prison
aging, ageism, older-younger relationships
sexual safety and risk-taking, HIV, health status
public sexual cultures
Pasted below is the original call -- please forward far and wide, and feel free to email me (mattilda at sbcglobal.net) with any questions.
Love-- mattilda
WHY ARE FAGGOTS SO AFRAID OF FAGGOTS?: flaming challenges to masculinity, objectification and the desire to conform
* CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS *
As back rooms are shut down to make way for wedding vows, and gay sexual culture becomes little more than straight-acting dudes hangin' out, where are the possibilities for a defiant faggotry that challenges the assimilationist norms of a world that wants us dead?
Masculine ideals have long reigned supreme in male sexual spaces, from the locker room to the tea room, the bars to the back alleys to the beaches. But is there something more brutal and dehumanizing about the calculated hyperobjectification of the internet? How do we confront the limits of transaction sexuality, where scorn becomes "just a preference," lack of respect is assumed, and lying is a given? How can we create something splendid and intimate from that universe of shaking and moaning and nervous glances turned inward now groaning?
I'm especially interested in essays about community-building experiments, public sexual cultures, faggots not socialized or presenting as male, cruising, HIV, consumerism, transfaggotry, polyamory, feminism, sexual safety and risk-taking, norms for faggots outside of the US, and gender transgression (of course). I'm looking for essays that expose hierarchies of gender, age, race, nationality, class, body type, ability, sexuality and other identity categories instead of imposing fascistic definitions based on beauty myth consumer norms. That's right, honey -- I'm talking about interventions that are dangerous and lovely, just like you.
Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore is the editor, most recently, of Nobody Passes: Rejecting the Rules of Gender and Conformity (Seal/Avalon, 2007) and an expanded second edition of That's Revolting! Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation (Soft Skull, forthcoming June 2008). Her second novel, So Many Ways to Sleep Badly, will be published by City Lights in September 2008. For more on Mattilda, visit www.mattildabernsteinsycamore.com.
The basics:
*Submit non-fiction essays of up to 6,000 words. All submissions must be typed and double-spaced, and sent by post (no email submissions, but feel free to contact me with queries, mattilda at sbcglobal.net). Please include a short bio.
*Deadline is May 15, 2008.
*Send submissions to: Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore 537 Jones Street, #3152 San Francisco, CA 94102
-- Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore (415)440-1575 537 Jones Street, #3152 San Francisco, CA 94102 www.mattildabernsteinsycamore.com http://nobodypasses.blogspot.com
Out NOW on Seal Press... Nobody Passes: Rejecting the Rules of Gender and Conformity
"Smart, sassy, and long overdue, this collection of essays by Mattilda and hur badass posse of evil geniuses gleefully demolishes the smug propriety that lurks within most contemporary debates about gender and diversity. What a breath of fresh air!" -Susan Stryker
"Nobody Passes is a fascinating example of how feminism and gender studies can support radically new identities that develop at the speed of life-or it may be part of the end of identity politics as known so far." -Naomi Zack
-- lisa jervis cofounder, bitch: feminist response to pop culture **bitch is a nonprofit, reader-supported magazine--become a sustainer today!** http://www.bitchmagazine.org/donate-sustainer.shtml
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