The Trouble With Normal (book)
Encyclopedia
The Trouble with Normal: Sex, Politics, and the Ethics of Queer Life is a non-fiction book that discusses the role of same-sex marriage
as a goal for gay rights activists, written by Michael Warner
. It was published in 1999 by The Free Press
, an imprint
of Simon and Schuster. It was re-published in 2000 in paperback by Harvard University Press
, and is still in print. The book argues that the right to marry is an inadequate and ultimately undesirable goal for gay rights activism. As well as addressing marriage, the book considers other areas in which public discourse stigmatizes certain sexual behaviors, including through sensationalist coverage of sex scandals, public zoning
initiatives that marginalize the sex industry
, and the attempted use of shame to manage sexually transmitted disease
. The book has been described as a classic of the debates on normalcy
as a goal for the gay rights movement, and as an important contribution to queer theory
.
should not be the sole goal for gay rights activism; that gay activists should work toward equal benefits for domestic partners and unconventional families. When national LGBT activists insist on the overriding importance of marriage, the book argues, it stigmatizes queer people who choose other types of relationships, while ignoring a broad range of legal benefits that could help the entire community, not just legally married couples. Criticizing those who present gay marriage and the repeal of the Don't Ask, Don't Tell
policy as the sole remaining aims of the (American) gay rights movement, Warner contends that the institutional sanctioning of certain types of relationship always comes at the expense of others, which are constituted by contrast as abnormal, inferior, and shameful. He argues that any queer rights movement would do better to abandon the pursuit of normality in favour of campaigning for the recognition of broader varieties of sexual expression as dignified. He discusses the part played by the idea of normality in the uneven distribution of sexual shame that inhibits lives, and the negative consequences — including greater risk of violence and disease — that result.
after a sexual scandal
to argue that public and political discourse
uses shame disingenuously, to portray certain kinds of sexual behaviour as intolerable, when private morality generally recognises the compatibility of sex with dignity.
The second chapter, titled "What's Wrong with Normal?", argues that as well as being a limited goal, less urgent than the elimination of violence and discrimination against queer people, same-sex marriage actively causes negative consequences both for queer and straight people, because in validating a single, prescribed type of relationship it devalues and makes more difficult other kinds of interpersonal relationship. Warner argues that the campaign for gay marriage threatens to turn the gay rights movement, previously a powerful force against the stigmatization of sex, into a tool for the normalization of queer life.
In Chapter Three, "Beyond Gay Marriage", Warner proposes that by restricting its campaigning to demands for same-sex marriage, the gay rights movement has marginalized and ignored queer counterpublics that it would have served better by presenting a broad range of sexual lives as moral.
In the fourth chapter, "Zoning Out Sex", Warner examines the history of zoning regulation changes in 1990s New York City
. He argues that stricter regulation of the city's sex-related businesses represents a trend toward the repression of sex and the "erosion of queer publics." By removing problematic, visible, queer sex from public spaces, Warner argues, these policies relegated sexuality to a private sphere of presumed heterosexuality. The net effect was to heighten hypocrisy over the conduct of sexual relationships, supporting the impression that the best any sexuality campaigner can aspire to is admission to a limited sphere of normality that is politically sanctioned, but also deliberately placed outside the sphere of the politically debatable.
In the final chapter, "The Politics of Shame and HIV Prevention", Warner challenges the assertion, made by gay authors like Larry Kramer
, that sexual recklessness is to blame for continuing cases of HIV
infection. Warner argues that, on the contrary, the political use of shame to stigmatize certain kinds of sexual activity actually puts more people at risk of contracting HIV and developing AIDS
, by marginalizing those in at-risk communities and restricting access to condoms and safer sex advice. He also criticizes abstinence-only sex education as "an appalling insult to gay men and lesbians among others" and an inadequate response to the problems of public sexual health, asserting that "shame and stigma are often among the most intractable dimensions of risk."
's 1995 Virtually Normal
. David Bell, in Contemporary Sociology
, accordingly characterized The Trouble with Normal as a move in the "assimilationist
debates", over the extent to which gay people should aspire to 'normality', that characterized 1990s and 2000s gay rights activism. In these debates Warner was ranged against Andrew Sullivan and Larry Kramer, who argued that the most radical goals the movement could seek were the acceptance of gay life into the political and cultural mainstream, through rights like marriage. Warner insisted that, on the contrary, queer people were ideally positioned to critique and challenge mainstream institutions and should not settle for mere tolerance. The debate was impassioned; Warner told the Guardian that "This Fifties version of how gay life should be that we've been handed is actually not making a lot of people happy", while Sullivan asked "What could be more boring than to still be referring to yourself as "queer"?" In 2003 the Library Journal
described Warner's book as a classic in the field of the debate on normalcy.
Queer theorist Judith Butler
, with whose idea of the necessarily transgressive nature of queerness Warner takes issue, called the book "brave and timely", applauding its analysis of sexual shame and noting that "one may not concur with every word, but everyone will attest to the power and necessity of the invaluable critical voice offered here." Martha Nussbaum
, writing in the New Republic
, praised the book's moral opposition to "the domination of the 'normal': "Warner is a deft and thoughtful writer who turns his own experience of the margins into a source of genuine understanding about America and its sexual politics...what Warner's book finally demands of us is...genuine reflection." Nussbaum later called the book "clearly written and argued, insightful about human life, and valuable both in its theoretical analysis and its recommendations for practice."
Kirkus Reviews
praised the "lapidary skill" with which the book criticized heteronormativity, but objected to its emphasis on the need for an already marginalized gay community to change: "Telling gay people that, for various ethical reasons, they shouldn't even want to marry, when they already can't, does not change the fact that laws that enfranchise some while disenfranchising others are discriminatory. Warner's rhetoric persuasively reveals the hierarchical parameters of marriage and the constraints of normalcy, but a more universal approach to his topic would delineate the limitations of marriage for all people, not just queer people. In the end, his polemic leaves standing discriminatory treatment of queers for the sake of a theoretical attack on normalcy."
, and William Eskridge
"positions his arguments as an intra-community fight and may limit his readership." The Library Journal recommended the book as a "provocative polemic" for "specialized collections" The New York Times characterized Warner as one of the Free Press's "contrarian" writers, quoting editorial director Elizabeth Macguire as noting that the book's anti-mainstream message had not been universally popular at the publishing house, but insisting that "If you don't embrace a book, really believe you produced with the author a good book, it doesn't work. That doesn't have much to do with ideology."
Same-sex marriage
Same-sex marriage is marriage between two persons of the same biological sex or social gender. Supporters of legal recognition for same-sex marriage typically refer to such recognition as marriage equality....
as a goal for gay rights activists, written by Michael Warner
Michael Warner
Michael Warner is a literary critic, social theorist, and Seymour H. Knox Professor of English Literature and American Studies at Yale University. He also writes for Art Forum, The Nation, The Advocate, and The Village Voice...
. It was published in 1999 by The Free Press
Free Press (publisher)
Free Press is a book publishing imprint of Simon and Schuster. It was founded by Jeremiah Kaplan and Charles Liebman in 1947 and was devoted to sociology and religion titles. It was headquartered in Glencoe, Illinois, where it was known as The Free Press of Glencoe...
, an imprint
Imprint
In the publishing industry, an imprint can mean several different things:* As a piece of bibliographic information about a book, it refers to the name and address of the book's publisher and its date of publication as given at the foot or on the verso of its title page.* It can mean a trade name...
of Simon and Schuster. It was re-published in 2000 in paperback by Harvard University Press
Harvard University Press
Harvard University Press is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. In 2005, it published 220 new titles. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. Its current director is William P...
, and is still in print. The book argues that the right to marry is an inadequate and ultimately undesirable goal for gay rights activism. As well as addressing marriage, the book considers other areas in which public discourse stigmatizes certain sexual behaviors, including through sensationalist coverage of sex scandals, public zoning
Zoning
Zoning is a device of land use planning used by local governments in most developed countries. The word is derived from the practice of designating permitted uses of land based on mapped zones which separate one set of land uses from another...
initiatives that marginalize the sex industry
Sex industry
The sex industry consists of businesses which either directly or indirectly provide sex-related products and services or adult entertainment...
, and the attempted use of shame to manage sexually transmitted disease
Sexually transmitted disease
Sexually transmitted disease , also known as a sexually transmitted infection or venereal disease , is an illness that has a significant probability of transmission between humans by means of human sexual behavior, including vaginal intercourse, oral sex, and anal sex...
. The book has been described as a classic of the debates on normalcy
Normalcy
"A return to normalcy" was United States presidential candidate Warren G. Harding’s campaign promise in the election of 1920...
as a goal for the gay rights movement, and as an important contribution to queer theory
Queer theory
Queer theory is a field of critical theory that emerged in the early 1990s out of the fields of LGBT studies and feminist studies. Queer theory includes both queer readings of texts and the theorisation of 'queerness' itself...
.
Overview
The Trouble with Normal argues that same-sex marriageSame-sex marriage
Same-sex marriage is marriage between two persons of the same biological sex or social gender. Supporters of legal recognition for same-sex marriage typically refer to such recognition as marriage equality....
should not be the sole goal for gay rights activism; that gay activists should work toward equal benefits for domestic partners and unconventional families. When national LGBT activists insist on the overriding importance of marriage, the book argues, it stigmatizes queer people who choose other types of relationships, while ignoring a broad range of legal benefits that could help the entire community, not just legally married couples. Criticizing those who present gay marriage and the repeal of the Don't Ask, Don't Tell
Don't ask, don't tell
"Don't ask, don't tell" was the official United States policy on homosexuals serving in the military from December 21, 1993 to September 20, 2011. The policy prohibited military personnel from discriminating against or harassing closeted homosexual or bisexual service members or applicants, while...
policy as the sole remaining aims of the (American) gay rights movement, Warner contends that the institutional sanctioning of certain types of relationship always comes at the expense of others, which are constituted by contrast as abnormal, inferior, and shameful. He argues that any queer rights movement would do better to abandon the pursuit of normality in favour of campaigning for the recognition of broader varieties of sexual expression as dignified. He discusses the part played by the idea of normality in the uneven distribution of sexual shame that inhibits lives, and the negative consequences — including greater risk of violence and disease — that result.
Synopsis
Chapter One, "The Ethics of Sexual Shame", criticizes the idea that there is some morally compelling aspect to "normality", arguing that the normal range is simply a statistical category to which there is no ethical obligation to correspond: "If normal just means within a common statistical range, there is no reason to be normal or not" (see also Hume's Guillotine). Warner uses the example of former US president Bill Clinton's impeachmentImpeachment of Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton, President of the United States, was impeached by the House of Representatives on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice on December 19, 1998, but acquitted by the Senate on February 12, 1999. Two other impeachment articles, a second perjury charge and a charge of abuse of...
after a sexual scandal
Lewinsky scandal
The Lewinsky scandal was a political sex scandal emerging in 1998 from a sexual relationship between United States President Bill Clinton and a 25-year-old White House intern, Monica Lewinsky. The news of this extra-marital affair and the resulting investigation eventually led to the impeachment of...
to argue that public and political discourse
Discourse
Discourse generally refers to "written or spoken communication". The following are three more specific definitions:...
uses shame disingenuously, to portray certain kinds of sexual behaviour as intolerable, when private morality generally recognises the compatibility of sex with dignity.
The second chapter, titled "What's Wrong with Normal?", argues that as well as being a limited goal, less urgent than the elimination of violence and discrimination against queer people, same-sex marriage actively causes negative consequences both for queer and straight people, because in validating a single, prescribed type of relationship it devalues and makes more difficult other kinds of interpersonal relationship. Warner argues that the campaign for gay marriage threatens to turn the gay rights movement, previously a powerful force against the stigmatization of sex, into a tool for the normalization of queer life.
In Chapter Three, "Beyond Gay Marriage", Warner proposes that by restricting its campaigning to demands for same-sex marriage, the gay rights movement has marginalized and ignored queer counterpublics that it would have served better by presenting a broad range of sexual lives as moral.
In the fourth chapter, "Zoning Out Sex", Warner examines the history of zoning regulation changes in 1990s New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. He argues that stricter regulation of the city's sex-related businesses represents a trend toward the repression of sex and the "erosion of queer publics." By removing problematic, visible, queer sex from public spaces, Warner argues, these policies relegated sexuality to a private sphere of presumed heterosexuality. The net effect was to heighten hypocrisy over the conduct of sexual relationships, supporting the impression that the best any sexuality campaigner can aspire to is admission to a limited sphere of normality that is politically sanctioned, but also deliberately placed outside the sphere of the politically debatable.
In the final chapter, "The Politics of Shame and HIV Prevention", Warner challenges the assertion, made by gay authors like Larry Kramer
Larry Kramer
Larry Kramer is an American playwright, author, public health advocate, and LGBT rights activist. He began his career rewriting scripts while working for Columbia Pictures, which led him to London where he worked with United Artists. There he wrote the screenplay for Women in Love in 1969, earning...
, that sexual recklessness is to blame for continuing cases of HIV
HIV
Human immunodeficiency virus is a lentivirus that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome , a condition in humans in which progressive failure of the immune system allows life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers to thrive...
infection. Warner argues that, on the contrary, the political use of shame to stigmatize certain kinds of sexual activity actually puts more people at risk of contracting HIV and developing AIDS
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
, by marginalizing those in at-risk communities and restricting access to condoms and safer sex advice. He also criticizes abstinence-only sex education as "an appalling insult to gay men and lesbians among others" and an inadequate response to the problems of public sexual health, asserting that "shame and stigma are often among the most intractable dimensions of risk."
Commercial and critical reception
As the Library Journal noted, The Trouble With Normal was sometimes construed as a straightforward response to Andrew SullivanAndrew Sullivan
Andrew Michael Sullivan is an English author, editor, political commentator and blogger. He describes himself as a political conservative. He has focused on American political life....
's 1995 Virtually Normal
Virtually Normal: An Argument About Homosexuality
-Summary:The book presents the reader with four groups of citizens who view homosexuality in a specific manner within American society, criticizing the arguments. The Prohibitionists comprise Thomas Aquinas and strict followers of the Bible. The Liberationists are epitomised by Michel Foucault and...
. David Bell, in Contemporary Sociology
Contemporary Sociology
Contemporary Sociology is an academic journal in the field of sociology, published bimonthly by Sage Publications on behalf of the American Sociological Association since 1972. Contemporary Sociology publishes reviews and discussions of the most important recent works in sociology and in related...
, accordingly characterized The Trouble with Normal as a move in the "assimilationist
Cultural assimilation
Cultural assimilation is a socio-political response to demographic multi-ethnicity that supports or promotes the assimilation of ethnic minorities into the dominant culture. The term assimilation is often used with regard to immigrants and various ethnic groups who have settled in a new land. New...
debates", over the extent to which gay people should aspire to 'normality', that characterized 1990s and 2000s gay rights activism. In these debates Warner was ranged against Andrew Sullivan and Larry Kramer, who argued that the most radical goals the movement could seek were the acceptance of gay life into the political and cultural mainstream, through rights like marriage. Warner insisted that, on the contrary, queer people were ideally positioned to critique and challenge mainstream institutions and should not settle for mere tolerance. The debate was impassioned; Warner told the Guardian that "This Fifties version of how gay life should be that we've been handed is actually not making a lot of people happy", while Sullivan asked "What could be more boring than to still be referring to yourself as "queer"?" In 2003 the Library Journal
Library Journal
Library Journal is a trade publication for librarians. It was founded in 1876 by Melvil Dewey . It reports news about the library world, emphasizing public libraries, and offers feature articles about aspects of professional practice...
described Warner's book as a classic in the field of the debate on normalcy.
Queer theorist Judith Butler
Judith Butler
Judith Butler is an American post-structuralist philosopher, who has contributed to the fields of feminism, queer theory, political philosophy, and ethics. She is a professor in the Rhetoric and Comparative Literature departments at the University of California, Berkeley.Butler received her Ph.D...
, with whose idea of the necessarily transgressive nature of queerness Warner takes issue, called the book "brave and timely", applauding its analysis of sexual shame and noting that "one may not concur with every word, but everyone will attest to the power and necessity of the invaluable critical voice offered here." Martha Nussbaum
Martha Nussbaum
Martha Nussbaum , is an American philosopher with a particular interest in ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, political philosophy and ethics....
, writing in the New Republic
The New Republic
The magazine has also published two articles concerning income inequality, largely criticizing conservative economists for their attempts to deny the existence or negative effect increasing income inequality is having on the United States...
, praised the book's moral opposition to "the domination of the 'normal': "Warner is a deft and thoughtful writer who turns his own experience of the margins into a source of genuine understanding about America and its sexual politics...what Warner's book finally demands of us is...genuine reflection." Nussbaum later called the book "clearly written and argued, insightful about human life, and valuable both in its theoretical analysis and its recommendations for practice."
Kirkus Reviews
Kirkus Reviews
Kirkus Reviews is an American book review magazine founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus . Kirkus serves the book and literary trade sector, including libraries, publishers, literary and film agents, film and TV producers and booksellers. Kirkus Reviews is published on the first and 15th of each month...
praised the "lapidary skill" with which the book criticized heteronormativity, but objected to its emphasis on the need for an already marginalized gay community to change: "Telling gay people that, for various ethical reasons, they shouldn't even want to marry, when they already can't, does not change the fact that laws that enfranchise some while disenfranchising others are discriminatory. Warner's rhetoric persuasively reveals the hierarchical parameters of marriage and the constraints of normalcy, but a more universal approach to his topic would delineate the limitations of marriage for all people, not just queer people. In the end, his polemic leaves standing discriminatory treatment of queers for the sake of a theoretical attack on normalcy."
Release details
Publishers Weekly noted that, though The Trouble With Normal engaged with a broad social context through its analysis of the Clinton affair, the degree to which Warner criticized the positions of gay advocates Kramer, Michelangelo SignorileMichelangelo Signorile
Michelangelo Signorile is a gay American writer, a national talk radio host whose program is aired each weekday across the United States and Canada. He is a political liberal, and covers a wide variety of political and cultural issues...
, and William Eskridge
William Eskridge
William N. Eskridge, Jr., is the John A. Garver Professor of Jurisprudence at Yale Law School. He is spending the spring semester of the 2011-12 academic year as a visiting scholar at Georgetown University Law Center, where was a mamber of the law faculty from 1987-98. After earning a B.A. at...
"positions his arguments as an intra-community fight and may limit his readership." The Library Journal recommended the book as a "provocative polemic" for "specialized collections" The New York Times characterized Warner as one of the Free Press's "contrarian" writers, quoting editorial director Elizabeth Macguire as noting that the book's anti-mainstream message had not been universally popular at the publishing house, but insisting that "If you don't embrace a book, really believe you produced with the author a good book, it doesn't work. That doesn't have much to do with ideology."
External links
- Interview with author Michael Warner about the book at Genders.org