GAY MEN’S HOME-MAKING AS AFFECTIVE PRACTICE IN TURKEY: THE PURSUIT OF SAFETY AND COMFORT

Year 2021, , 349 - 378, 24.04.2021

Haktan Ural

https://doi.org/10.18490/sosars.927266

Abstract

The geographies of home are discerned as having a particular significance in the lives of gay men. The individual homes of lesbians and gay men are amenable to affirming non-heterosexual identities and subverting the cultural norms of heterosexual family life. This study contributes to understanding this construction of lesbian/gay identity at home. Drawing on gay men’s everyday experiences within Turkey’s cultural context, I deal with home as a spatial domain laden with diverse meanings and affective registers. I suggest that Turkey’s cultural context structures gay men’s habitus and informs their knowledge of possible actions that are available to them. In this discursive terrain, they attribute specific meanings of safety and autonomy to their homes. However, these meaning-making practices should not be reduced to an experience of closeting, as gay men’s domestic life opens up a space of comfort for gay identities. Insofar as gay men can re-inscribe their homes as sites for the comfort of gay identities, these homes seamlessly become a performative domain. Within them, the men’s situated activities pave the way for creation and affirmation of gay identities, in both individual and collective ways. Therefore, I suggest that gay men’s affective dispositions (namely safety and comfort) arise out of their relations with people, objects and places, and lead to restructuring their habitus in a way so as to validate their gay identities in domestic life. Yet this is an unfinished project and needs to be renegotiated to ensure gay men’s safety and comfort in their everyday lives.

Keywords

geographies of sexualities, gay, home, affactive practice, habitus

References

• Acar, F., & Altunok, G. (2013). The ‘politics of intimate’ at the intersection of neo-liberalism and neo-conservatism in contemporary Turkey. Women’s Studies International Forum, 41, 14–23. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wsif.2012.10.001
• Addison, M. (2017). Overcoming Arlie Hochschild’s concepts of the ‘real’ and ‘false’ self by drawing on Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of habitus. Emotion, Space and Society, 23, 9–15. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emospa.2017.01.003
• Ahlm, J. (2017). Respectable promiscuity: Digital cruising in an era of queer liberalism. Sexualities, 20(3), 364–379. https://doi.org/10.1177/1363460716665783
• Ahmed, S. (2004). The Cultural Politics of Emotion. Edinburgh University Press.
• Ataman, H. (2011). Less than citizens: The lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender question in Turkey. Içinde R. Ö. Dönmez & P. Enneli (Ed.), Societal Peace and Ideal Citizenship for Turkey (ss. 125–158). Lexington.
• Bereket, T., & Adam, B. D. (2008). Navigating Islam and same-sex liaisons among men in Turkey. Journal of Homosexuality, 55(2), 204–222. https://doi.org/10.1080/00918360802129428
• Beşpınar, F. U. (2014). Women and Gender. Içinde B. Shane & M. Herzog (Ed.), Turkey and the Politics of National Identity: Social, Economic and Cultural Transformation (ss. 118–144). IB Tauris.
• Binnie, J., & Skeggs, B. (2004). Cosmopolitan knowledge and the production and consumption of sexualized space: Manchester’s gay village. The Sociological Review, 52(1), 39–61. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-954X.2004.00441.x
• Blunt, A., & Dowling, R. (2006). Home. Routledge. Blunt, A., & Varley, A. (2004). Introduction: Geographies of Home. Cultural Geographies, 11, 3–6. https://doi.org/10.1191/1474474004eu289xx
• Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction: A social critique of the judgement of taste. Harvard University Press.
• Bourdieu, P. (1990). The Logic of Practice. Polity Press.
• Brown, G. (2008). Ceramics, clothing and other bodies: affective geographies of homoerotic cruising encounters. Social & Cultural Geography, 9(8), 915–932. https://doi.org/10.1080/14649360802441457
• Brown, G., Browne, K., & Lim, J. (2007). Introduction, or why have a book on geographies of sexualities? Içinde K. Browne, J. Lim, & G.
• Brown (Ed.), Geographies of Sexualities: Theories, Practices, Politics (ss. 1–20). Ashgate. Burkitt, I. (2014). Emotions and Social Relations. Sage.
• Çarkoğlu, A., & Toprak, B. (2007). Religion, Society and Politics in a Changing Turkey.
• Cattan, N., & Vanolo, A. (2014). Gay and lesbian emotional geographies of clubbing: reflections from Paris and Turin. Içinde Gender, Place &
• Culture (C. 21, Sayı 9, ss. 1158–1175). https://doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2013.810603
• Chase, S. (2005). Narrative Inquiry: Multiple Lenses, Approaches, Voices. Içinde N. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Ed.), The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research (ss. 651–680). Sage.
• Cindoglu, D., & Unal, D. (2017). Gender and sexuality in the authoritarian discursive strategies of “New Turkey”. European Journal of Women’s Studies, 24(1), 39–54. https://doi.org/10.1177/1350506816679003
• Collins, D. (2005). Identity, Mobility, and Urban Place-Making: Exploring Gay Life in Manila. Gender & Society, 19(2), 180–198. https://doi.org/10.1177/0891243204272707
• Davis, M., Flowers, P., Lorimer, K., Oakland, J., & Frankis, J. (2016). Location, safety and (non) strangers in gay mens narratives on ’hook-up apps. Sexualities, 19(7), 836–852. https://doi.org/10.1177/1363460716629334
• Duncan, N. (1996). Renegotiating Gender and Sexuality in Public and Private Spaces. Içinde N. Duncan (Ed.), Bodyspace: Destabilizing Geographies of Gender and Sexuality (ss. 127–144). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107415324.004
• Elwood, S. (2000). Lesbian Living Spaces: Multiple Meanings of Home. Journal of Lesbian Studies, 4(1), 11–27.
• Erol, M., & Ozbay, C. (2017). No andropause for gay men? The body, aging and sexuality in Turkey. Journal of Gender Studies, 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1080/09589236.2017.1329715
• Eslen-Ziya, H., & Koc, Y. (2016). Being a gay man in Turkey: internalised sexual prejudice as a function of prevalent hegemonic masculinity perceptions. Culture, Health & Sexuality, 18(7), 799–811. https://doi.org/10.1080/13691058.2015.1133846
• Gabriel, Y., & Ulus, E. (2015). “It’s all in the plot”: Narrative explorations of work-related emotions. Içinde H. Flam & J. Kleres (Ed.), Methods of Exploring Emotions (ss. 36–45). Routledge.
• Gorman-Murray, A. (2006a). Gay and Lesbian Couples at Home: Identity Work in Domestic Space. Home Cultures, 3(2), 145–167. https://doi.org/10.2752/174063106778053200
• Gorman-Murray, A. (2006b). Homeboys: uses of home by gay Australian men. Social & cultural geography, 7(1), 53–69. https://doi.org/10.1080/14649360500452988
• Gorman-Murray, A. (2007). Contesting Domestic Ideals: Queering the Australian home. Australian Geographer, 38(2), 195–213. https://doi.org/10.1080/00049180701392766
• Gorman-Murray, A. (2008). Queering the family home: Narratives from gay, lesbian and bisexual youth coming out in supportive family homes in Australia. Gender, Place & Culture, 15(1), 31–44. https://doi.org/10.1080/09663690701817501
• Green, A. I. (2008). Erotic habitus: toward a sociology of desire. Theory and Society, 37(6), 597–626. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11186-007-9059-4
• Güney, M. E., & Selçuk, İ. A. (2016). LGBTTs of Turkey between the east and the west – the city and the world through their eyes in the case of Izmir. Gender, Place & Culture, 23(10), 1392–1403. https://doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2016.1160870
• Held, N. (2015). Comfortable and safe spaces? Gender, sexuality and “race” in night-time leisure spaces. Emotion, Space and Society, 14, 33–42. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emospa.2014.12.003
• Holliday, R. (1999). The Comfort of Identity. Sexualities, 2(4), 475–491.
• Johnston, L., & Valentine, G. (1995). Wherever I lay my girlfriend, that’s my home: the performance and surveillance of lesbian identities in domestic environments. Içinde D. Bell & G. Valentine (Ed.), Mapping Desire: Geographies of Sexualities (ss. 99–113). Routledge.
• Kentlyn, S. (2008). The Radically Subversive Space of the Queer Home: ‘Safety House’ and ‘Neighbourhood Watch’. Australian Geographer, 39(3), 327–337. https://doi.org/10.1080/00049180802270523
• Korkut, U., & Eslen-Ziya, H. (2016). The Discursive Governance of Population Politics: The Evolution of a Pro-birth Regime in Turkey. Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State & Society, 23(4), 555–575. https://doi.org/10.1093/sp/jxw003 McNay, L. (2008). Against Recognition. Polity Press.
• Misgav, C., & Johnston, L. (2014). Dirty dancing: the (non)fluid embodied geographies of a queer nightclub in Tel Aviv. Social & Cultural Geography, 15(7), 730–746. https://doi.org/10.1080/14649365.2014.916744
• Ozyegin, G. (2012). Reading the closet through connectivity. Social Identities, 18(2), 201–222. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504630.2012.652845
• Podmore, J. (2001). Lesbians in the Crowd: Gender, sexuality and visibility along Montreal’s Boul. St-Laurent. Gender, Place & Culture, 8(4), 333–355. https://doi.org/10.1080/09663690120111591
• Reay, D. (2004). ‘It’s all becoming a habitus’: Beyond the habitual use of habitus in educational research. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 25(4), 431–444. https://doi.org/10.1080/0142569042000236934
• Seidman, S., Meeks, C., & Traschen, F. (1999). Beyond the Closet? The Changing Social Meaning of Homosexuality in the United States.
• Sexualities, 2(1), 9–34. https://doi.org/10.1177/136346099002001002
• Sümer, S., & Eslen-Ziya, H. (2017). New waves for old rights? Womens mobilization and bodily rights in Turkey and Norway. European Journal of Women’s Studies, 24(1), 23–38. https://doi.org/10.1177/1350506815619878
• Taylor, Y., & Falconer, E. (2015). ‘Seedy bars and grotty pints’: close encounters in queer leisure spaces. Social & Cultural Geography, 16(1), 43–57. https://doi.org/10.1080/14649365.2014.939708
• Ural, H., & Beşpınar, F. U. (2017). Class and Habitus in the Formation of Gay Identities, Masculinities, and Respectability in Turkey. Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies, 13(2), 244–264. https://doi.org/10.1215/15525864-3861323
• Valentine, G., Skelton, T., & Butler, R. (2003). Coming out and outcomes: Negotiating lesbian and gay identities with, and in, the family. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 21(4), 479–499. https://doi.org/10.1068/d277t
• Wetherell, M. (2012). Affect and Emotion: A New Social Science Understanding. Sage.
• Wetherell, M. (2013). Affect and Discourse – What’s the problem? From Affect as Excess to Affective/Discursive Practice. Subjectivity, 6(4), 349–368. https://doi.org/10.1057/sub.2013.13
• Wimark, T. (2016). The impact of family ties on the mobility decisions of gay men and lesbians. Gender Place and Culture, 23(5), 659–676. https://doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2015.1034246
• Yılmaz, V., & Göçmen, İ. (2016). Denied Citizens of Turkey: Experiences of Discrimination Among LGBT Individuals in Employment, Housing and Health Care. Gender, Work and Organization, 23(5), 470–488. https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.12122
• Young, I. M. (2005). On Female Body Experience: “Throwing like a Girl” and Other Essays. Oxford University Press.