imagine ethnographers ready to pounce on faulty methodology, so inflected are Chaumont’s analyses with an uninterrogated class and cultural slant. Such an investigation would explore, without excusing or justifying what is objectionable in Madjid’s speech, the conditions which lead virilism to be read as juvenile and anti-modern, rather than as an instrument formed by contemporary socio-economic circumstances. The speech of virile sexual minorities has rarely (save for the outer reaches of queer theory) been read as anything other than the reification of a timeless patriarchy. Even more rarely has it been interpreted as the possible response to the gendered humiliation of their immigrant parents’ generation, as these youth might perceive it75. In the gay mainstream press, commentators have often depoliticized virile homosexual identity by calling it juvenile or a compensation technique, but few have interpreted virilism as a highly politicized gender reaction to class and race conformism in the gay community. Such is the lens through which one can begin a critique of Chaumont’s analyses, not to excuse or look charitably on virilist abuses where they do occur, but rather to consider the condemnation of virility in relation to a homonormativity rapidly consolidating around particular class, culture and race determinants. Seen as a prisoner of his environs, what nevertheless transpires through banlieue Madjid and his tales (adjusted for the histrionic exagerration youths are sometimes prone to) is a capacity for urban mobility and cross-class interactions, evident in his later anecdotes about meeting other men in the city center. Chaumont’s one-way focus on Madjid’s contradictions sheds light on how contradiction in is criticized when committed Homo-ghetto by others but elided when committed by the author. The way Chaumont recurrently evokes contradiction in Madjid ironically echoes the debilitating gestures of 19th century Western European medicine, as recounted by Foucault, was in the habit of diagnosing homosexuals as alienated, their and coping mechanisms laughably “performances” See section three of Chapter Two, on the Father,” p. 175-176. “Impotent 75
imagine ethnographers ready to pounce on faulty methodology, so inflected are Chaumont’s analyses with an uninterrogated class and cultural slant. Such an investigation would explore, without excusing or justifying what is objectionable in Madjid’s speech, the conditions which lead virilism to be read as juvenile and anti-modern, rather than as an instrument formed by contemporary socio-economic circumstances. The speech of virile sexual minorities has rarely (save for the outer reaches of queer theory) been read as anything other than the reification of a timeless patriarchy. Even more rarely has it been interpreted as the possible response to the gendered humiliation of their immigrant parents’ generation, as these youth might perceive it75. In the gay mainstream press, commentators have often depoliticized virile homosexual identity by calling it juvenile or a compensation technique, but few have interpreted virilism as a highly politicized gender reaction to class and race conformism in the gay community. Such is the lens through which one can begin a critique of Chaumont’s analyses, not to excuse or look charitably on virilist abuses where they do occur, but rather to consider the condemnation of virility in relation to a homonormativity rapidly consolidating around particular class, culture and race determinants. Seen as a prisoner of his banlieue environs, what nevertheless transpires through Madjid and his tales (adjusted for the histrionic exagerration youths are sometimes prone to) is a capacity for urban mobility and cross-class interactions, evident in his later anecdotes about meeting other men in the city center. Chaumont’s one-way focus on Madjid’s contradictions sheds light on how contradiction in Homo-ghetto is criticized when committed by others but elided when committed by the author. The way Chaumont recurrently evokes contradiction in Madjid ironically echoes the debilitating gestures of 19th century Western European medicine, as recounted by Foucault, was in the habit of diagnosing homosexuals as alienated, their “performances” and coping mechanisms laughably 75 See section three of Chapter Two, on the “Impotent Father,” p. 175-176.
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