Home-o: Being at Home with Reflections on Hetero-Homosexual Identity

ABSTRACT

This article presents a creative interpretation of interaction between hetero- and homosexual worlds. The metaphor of home is used to transfer different meanings and experiences of hetero-homosexuality into private and personal takes on bisexuality and being heteroflexible. Self-knowledge is implicitly equated with awareness of one's sexuality.

KEYWORDS:

• creative writing
• bisexuality
• heteroflexibility
• plural sexuality
• sexual identity

Acknowledgment

I express my gratitude to the two gay men—‘Felix’ and ‘the gay Australian’—whose presence was integral to the writing of this piece.

Notes

1. As regards the use of the noun ‘homo,’ I am aware of the historical stigma around the term and its use. I do not in any way use ‘homo’ in a derogatory sense. On the contrary, I use it throughout almost as a ‘homely’ and ‘home-based’ term of endearment, as a way to bridge gaps between the sexualities I discuss. ‘My homo’ can almost be equated with ‘my dear.’ In addition, the word play involving ‘homo’ and the title of this piece ‘Home-o’ (pronounceable as ‘home-o’ and ‘hom-e-o’) partially necessitates the inclusion and use of ‘homo’ to make sense of the sexual and home focused context of the piece.

2. It is essential to explain the use of the singular and the plural: homo and homos. Although I am writing about interaction with one particular gay man and how my heterosexuality has been challenged and questioned greatly by our interaction, the original unpublished piece ‘Home-o’ written in Copenhagen, Denmark in October 2002 was presented primarily as a letter-cum-diary-cum-journal to a male gay friend and artistic collaborator in Australia. In this sense, I often move freely between the singular and plural and speaking to ‘my homo’ or ‘my homos.’

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Joshua Nash

Joshua Nash is a linguist and an environmentalist. His research intersects ethnography, the anthropology of religion, architecture, pilgrimage studies, and language documentation. He has conducted linguistic fieldwork on Norfolk Island, Pitcairn Island, and Kangaroo Island, environmental and ethnographic fieldwork in Vrindavan, India, and architectural research in outback Australia. He is a postdoctoral research fellow in linguistics at the University of New England, Armidale.