Interrogating Homonormativity

"Using interviews to nuance his careful analysis, Mowlabocus shines a bright light on the current conundrums of queer everyday life."
— Professor Lisa Duggan, Department of Social & Cultural Analysis, New York University, USA.
"This is an exceptional book, which interrogates the complex ways in which marriage equality has changed the place of gay men in contemporary (British) society, exposing how formal equality continues to overlook sexual difference and ends up obscuring demands for genuine equity."
— Dr. Gavin Brown, Professor of Political Geography & Sexualities, Leicester, UK. 
"A pleasure to read, this book offers reflections that are refreshingly grounded in the experiences of gay men today dealing with a new world of legal rights in a context of declining public gay spaces and at best conditional public acceptance." 
— Dr. Barry Adam, Distinguished University Professor Emeritus of Sociology, University of Windsor, Canada. 
This book explores the concept of homonormativity and examines how the politics of homonormativity has shaped the lives and practices of gay men living primarily in the UK. The book adopts a case study approach in order to examine how homonormativity is shaping relationships within gay male culture, and between this culture and mainstream society. The book features chapters on same-sex marriage, HIV treatment, dating and hook-up culture, sexualized drug use and the world of work. Throughout these chapters, the book develops a conversation regarding the role that neoliberalism has played in defining gay male identities and practices in the UK and USA. If homonormativity is understood as the sexual politics of neoliberalism, this book considers to what extent those sexual politics pervade gay men’s sense of self, their relationships with each other, their experience of the spaces they occupy in everyday life, and the identities they inhabit in the workplace.
Sharif Mowlabocus is Associate Professor in the Department of Communication and Media Studies at Fordham University, New York, USA. He holds a PhD in Media and Cultural Studies from the University of Sussex, UK, and is the author of several books and research articles. His research focuses primarily on Western gay male culture and its engagement with new forms of communication, mediation and representation.