Disturbing Disgust: Gesturing to the Abject in Queer Cases

Abstract

Disgust and queerness are tangled together in law. Sometimes used synonymously, these terms have come to point to the visceral recoil or turning away from practices and identities that contaminate the reproductive, matrimonial, monogamous imaginary that sustains the social order of heteronormative intimacy. Criminal law in particular has a long history of gesturing with disgust in order to contain offensive or injurious conduct. Sex that is deemed ‘queer’ can attract disparate disgust gestures. From sex in public to buggery in the bedroom, activities that violate a majoritarian (hetero)sexual order have been the subject of considerable penal sanction. My interest is not in rehearsing these arguments. While much has been written about the problematic use of disgust in criminal law, this chapter maps a queerer path: to consider the way disgust can trouble our attachments to the sentimental and open us up to new possibilities of intimacy. Specifically, I am interested in pursuing the mobilisation of disgust by and against queer subjects by examining the decriminalisation and criminalisation of particular queer sex acts. This analysis highlights the ambivalence of disgust used in pursuits to protect queer minorities and helps queer the ideas of legal progress that are advanced as a consequence of this pursuit.