Desiring subjects: a theoretical approach to the dynamics of gay desire

Abstract

Understanding gay desire as a social phenomenon is a conceptual challenge. This essay was born as an attempt to put together a theoretical apparatus that allows us to understand the dynamics of desire of young upper-class gay men from Lima for a thesis project. Different currents are reviewed to approach this phenomenon: from gender studies and queer theory, to French postmodernism and poststructuralism. With these contributions, the conceptual tools necessary to explain the desiring dynamics will be developed. These are constituted by the construction of the object of desire from the process of subjectivation and the development of courtship strategies that respond to that desired object. It also considers how the positions that desiring subjects assume in the dynamics of desire influence their social position. Along these lines, the aim is to emphasize the productive nature of desire, the subversiveness of the queer experience and the relationship between the subject and the structure. This dissertation is not intended to be a determining or essentialist statement of the nature of homosexual desire, but rather to propose a way to understand the ways in which young gay people come to desire and be desired in an environment that is often adverse to them.