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Adam Isaiah Green, Ph.D. Associate Professor |
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University of Toronto, Department of Sociology |
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RESEARCH |
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SEXUAL FIELDS (2008, Sociological Theory 26) In modern times, urbanization, mass communication, and the erosion of traditional institutional controls of sexuality establish the conditions for the rise of highly specialized erotic worlds in the West. Such erotic worlds cater to a plurality of sexual tastes and dispositions, yet they are as much arenas of sexual exploration as they are sites of stratification and domination. Organized by eroticized schemas related to race, ethnicity, class and age, erotic worlds bind the “how”, “why” and “with whom” of sexual sociality to the regularities of collective life. |
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My research of gay sexual subcultures in New York City and downtown Toronto has prompted me to think of erotic worlds as physical sites of sexual sociality that are organized by an underlying structure of social relations—a sexual field. A sexual field is an institutionalized matrix of relations that materializes as actors with overlapping erotic tastes project their desires into social space, thereby producing a structure of desire organized around a set of related erotic themes. Structures of desire, in turn, establish the hegemonic currency of erotic capital of a given sexual field and, in turn, a sexual status order that actors must negotiate.
Structures of desire are typically reflected in the setting of a particular sexual site and in the fronts of its patrons.
As an example, Church Street of downtown Toronto houses a strip of gay bars and nightclubs that each possess their own particular erotic theme, clientele, and attendant sexual status order. For instance, the “Black Eagle” is the classic North American leather bar with a very specific representational character, clientele base and structure of desire. This structure of desire revolves around leather attire, a rough, blue-collar masculinity and sadomasochism, and is reflected in advertisements of the venue in local magazines and newspapers, in the signs and emblems on the exterior of the bar, in the SM leather videos playing inside the bar, in the bar’s décor, its name, the contests it features (e.g., ‘Sexiest Leather Daddy”), the particular fashion choices of its patrons, in the age distribution of patrons (typically older than the trendy “twink” bar down the street), and in the interactions between patrons, including observable patterns in who garners sexual attention from whom and who approaches whom and how. Thus, patrons of the leather bar find themselves inserted into a sexual field with a robust structure of desire, well defined currencies of erotic capital, and intractable tiers of desirability—field features with an external facticity comparable to any other social structure.
By contrast, only a few feet North on Church Street, one finds “Lub Lounge” — a gay bar with a very different kind of representational character, clientele base, and structure of desire—i.e., a very different sexual field. At Lub, the patronage networks are comparatively younger and whiter than most other bars on the strip, the men wear expensive dressy-casual couture, have sporty urban hair-dos, are tanned and lean, and drink fashionable martinis. On weekends, a DJ plays hip, high-energy urban gay remixes and it is not uncommon for the crowd to dissipate after 1 a.m. as patrons move to “Fly”, a dance club down the street, thereby extending the field to a new site.
In total, the sexual status order at the Black Eagle is a study in contrasts from that of the Lub Lounge, as each is organized by marked distinctions in what is deemed sexually and socially desirable. The kinds of erotic capital that secure status at the Black Eagle have little currency in Lub, and vice-versa. Indeed, the man in his mid-forties with high erotic capital in the Black Eagle’s sexual field will likely find himself with an erotic capital deficit at Lub, and vice-versa. These status differentials become particularly consequential when characteristics such as race, class, age and ethnicity systematically stratify the dispersion of erotic capital between groups of sexual actors, affording differential degrees of power and social significance in the course of interaction. As a consequence, field position may be related to gay community attachment, the formation of friendship networks, self-esteem, perceptions of equity and justice, and sexual decision-making practices.
SEXUAL FIELDS: THE THEORY
My formulation of the sexual fields framework draws from Bourdieu’s theory of practice to illuminate the structural backdrop of erotic worlds, but Goffman’s social psychology to provide the conceptual groundwork for capturing micro-level interaction within these structured contexts, including patterns of expectation, situational negotiation and the management of self. Bourdieu
Bringing Bourdieu and Goffman into conversation, the sexual Bourdieu fields framework highlights how actors negotiate sexual fields by developing a reflexive relationship to their practices and to their hexis, and the corresponding erotic capitals these provide.
The framework also provides a conceptual apparatus that shifts the sociological focus from individual-level problems around sexual Identity and practice to the study of systems of sexual stratification that characterize collective sexual life in late modernity. Goffman
THE SEXUAL FIELDS FRAMEWORK: CURRENT RESEARCH
My current research uses a three-pronged methodological approach to the study of the sexual fields of the Gay Village in downtown Toronto. First, through intensive field work on Church Street, I am acquiring a first-hand encounter with the sexual subcultures that are anchored to its street corners, to its bars, restaurants, and specialty shops. Here, there are discernable daily and seasonal variations in foot traffic, in the location of diverse bodies on the street, and in the patronage of its sexual institutions. These patterned variations provide a mapping of the social organization of the Gay Village, a place which is at once a single queer community and a very particular sexual sector of the city with a complex composition of multiple sexual fields, structures of desire, and tiers of desirability. The character of these sexual fields, their particular currencies of erotic capital, the relationship of one field to another, and the ways in which individuals with different kinds and degrees of erotic capital move through the sector, are all of primary interest. The Gay Village of Toronto
The second data point consists of in-depth interviews with 70 gay and bisexual men stratified by age, ethnoracial status, class, and HIV status. This project is funded by a grant from the Canadian Foundation for AIDS Research (CANFAR) and assisted by Rob Teixeira, a doctoral candidate in the department of sociology at York University with extensive professional and activist involvement in Toronto’s queer community.
Respondents are asked to discuss their perceptions of sexual sociality in the downtown Gay Village, including their own sense of the sexual status order and their place within it. In these interviews, I acquire a sense “of the game” from individuals who possess very different master statuses from each other and from my own. For instance, do Asian gay men perceive a sexual status order where White men do not? Are there certain gay venues that are preferred for sexual sociality by men over forty than when compared to men under forty and why? Are there certain venues that are avoided and why? Are there discernible currencies of erotic capital that distinguish one site from another, one field from another? What happens when a man with perceived lower sexual status engages in sexual interaction with a man with perceived higher sexual status, and how do these perceptions compare with the aggregated perception of sexual status structures of respondents as a whole? How are the distinct sexual fields of the Gay Village socially organized, navigated and negotiated, and with what effects on sexual identity, sexual practice, the presentation of self, the formation of friendship networks, community participation, health and well-being?
The third and final data point consists of archival research at the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives of Toronto. With the assistance of Tess Conte, a top student in sociology at York University, I am constructing a portrait of the Gay Village from a sociohistorical perspective, including the particular economic, political and cultural conditions that gave rise to the Church Street Village, and the conditions under which it is transformed. Here, issues around sexual regulation, gentrification, the rise of HIV/AIDS and the changing demographic composition of the neighborhood and the city more generally are all points of interest. In total, this history will provide the macro-level, historical backdrop against which the Gay Village as a sexual sector, and its various and changing sexual fields, will be analyzed.
FUTURE DIRECTIONS
Research into sexual fields is in its infancy. Left unanswered are a wide range of empirical questions that run the gamut from micro-level issues around the relationship of social structure to the erotic habitus (Forthcoming, Theory & Society) and, in turn, to the structure of sexual fields, to macro-level issues around the relationship of erotic worlds to the urban landscape, including inquiries into the political, social, cultural and commercial conditions under which structures of desire take form and the conditions under which they vary.
Moreover, it will be necessary to examine how more and less densely structured sexual fields relate to one another, how the sexual fields of a given locale configure unique kinds of sexual sectors, which are themselves embedded in still broader social, political and economic processes and structures, including local and federal policies related to sexual regulation and sexual citizenship, patterns of immigration, gentrification and urban renewal, and the rise and fall of sexually transmitted infections.
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