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Abstract
This autoethnographic report uses performative writing to explore significations of HIV as they relate to the study of thin, gay men. Specifically, I investigate how my own HIV-related fears speak to and against marginalizing discourses that frame cultural understandings of HIV, gay men, and body types. The essay concludes with a discussion that explains how performative interventions and narrative blueprints can be used to challenge misrepresentations of gay men in relation to HIV and AIDS.
An earlier version of this essay was presented at the 2004 annual meeting of the National Communication Association. A later revision of the manuscript was awarded the 2006 Norman K. Denzin Qualitative Research Award by the Carl Couch Center and the National Communication Association's Ethnography Division.
An earlier version of this essay was presented at the 2004 annual meeting of the National Communication Association. A later revision of the manuscript was awarded the 2006 Norman K. Denzin Qualitative Research Award by the Carl Couch Center and the National Communication Association's Ethnography Division.
Acknowledgments
The author would like to thank a number of people who encouraged the development of this essay, including Dan Brouwer, Bruce Henderson, Linda Park-Fuller, Karma Chavez, Sara McKinnon, Michael Bowman, and the two outstanding blind reviewers who provided thought-provoking and invaluable feedback.
Notes
An earlier version of this essay was presented at the 2004 annual meeting of the National Communication Association. A later revision of the manuscript was awarded the 2006 Norman K. Denzin Qualitative Research Award by the Carl Couch Center and the National Communication Association's Ethnography Division.
1. In “Skinnybones,” I use “performative” in a broader sense than Butler initially defines the concept. In Gender Trouble, for example, Butler's deployment of the term is articulated in terms of gender performativity, an argument that she clarifies in Bodies that Matter. In her second book, Excitable Speech, Butler links her rendition of performativity to J. L. Austin's Speech Act Theory, demonstrating how reiteration opens up possibilities for change and subversion. For the purposes of this essay, I am more interested in how other scholars have reconfigured performativity to better fit within performance paradigms.
2. Confide was the first FDA-approved home collection HIV testing kit. Johnson and Johnson pulled the test off the market due to poor sales (Scott 207).