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‘They look at you like an insect that wants to be squashed’ : an ethnographic account of the racialized sexual spaces of Manchester’s Gay Village

Held, N

‘They look at you like an insect that wants to be squashed’ : an ethnographic account of the racialized sexual spaces of Manchester’s Gay Village Thumbnail


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Abstract

This article explores the interactive relationship between sexuality, ‘race’ and space. By drawing on ethnographic research with bisexual and lesbian women, it looks at the lived experiences of the intersections of sexuality and ‘race’ in a particular sexualized space, namely Manchester’s Gay Village. The article argues that this ‘primarily’ sexualized night-time leisure space is simultaneously racialized through the ways in which it is structured around whiteness, which is perpetuated through a somatic norm that operates in different ways. It explores perceptions of the Gay Village as a ‘racially neutral’ space, exclusionary practices such as door policies, practices of looking and touching, and expressions of sexual desire, all of which racialize bodies and spaces. Examining ways in which ‘race’ and sexuality work together to constitute space and how sexualized space that is inherently racialized constitutes racial-sexual subjectivities, the article demonstrates the significance of the spatial dimension of everyday intersectional experience and therefore calls for researchers to pay more attention to ‘space’ as a concept when researching intersectionalities.

Citation

Held, N. (2017). ‘They look at you like an insect that wants to be squashed’ : an ethnographic account of the racialized sexual spaces of Manchester’s Gay Village. Sexualities, 20(5-6), 535-557. https://doi.org/10.1177/1363460716676988

Journal Article Type Article
Online Publication Date Dec 29, 2016
Publication Date Sep 1, 2017
Deposit Date Oct 26, 2021
Publicly Available Date Oct 26, 2021
Journal Sexualities
Print ISSN 1363-4607
Electronic ISSN 1461-7382
Publisher SAGE Publications
Volume 20
Issue 5-6
Pages 535-557
DOI https://doi.org/10.1177/1363460716676988
Publisher URL https://doi.org/10.1177/1363460716676988
Related Public URLs http://www.uk.sagepub.com/journals/Journal200950
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