Homonormative aesthetics: AIDS and ‘de-generational unremembering’ in 1990s London

This article historically contextualises the origins of a transnational gay male aesthetic many now think of as homonormative. While typically understood as a depoliticisation that ‘recodes freedom and liberation in terms of privacy, domesticity, and consumption’ (Manalansan, 2005: 142), homonormativity also has an associated look defined by a set of slick surface appearances relating both to the body and design. Recognisable in various locations across the globe and in multiple settings including cruise ships, resorts, and gyms, this aesthetic is, above all, associated with gay-bourhoods and gay villages. Using Soho’s gay village in London as a case-study of the emergence of this generic style in the 1990s, its branded emphasis on ‘affluence’, minimalist interior design and idealised gym bodies is contextualised with references to yuppification and AIDS. Constituting a ‘clean break’ with earlier forms of urban gay culture now stigmatised as ‘dirty’ and ‘unhealthy’, the homonormative aesthetic can be viewed as an example of ‘de-generational unremembering’ following the first traumatic phase of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s (Castiglia C and Reed C (2011) If Memory Serves: Gay Men, AIDS, and the Promise of the Queer Past. Minneapolis, MN, and London: University of Minnesota Press, p. 9). By placing AIDS at the centre of a discussion of homonormativity, some of the assumptions about its privilege can be queried while at the same time maintaining a critique of how class-specific ‘aspirational’ imagery was deployed to detract from the stigma of the health crisis. 本文将跨国同性恋男性美学的起源置于历史的背景中，许多人现在认为这是一种同性恋正常化。虽然通常被理解为“在隐私、家庭和消费方面重塑自由和解放”的非政治化运动（Manalansan，2005：142），但同性恋正常化也具有与身体和设计相关的、由一组华丽的表象所定义的相关外观。这种美学在全球各地以及包括游轮、度假村和健身房在内的多种环境中都可以识别，最重要的是与同志村和同志区相关联。我们将伦敦苏豪区的同志村作为这种在20世纪90年代出现的通用风格的一个案例，其突出的特征是强调“富裕”、简约的室内设计和理想化的团体健身房，而我们则将其置于人们将同性恋与雅皮士风格和艾滋病相联系的历史背景中。性恋正常化试图从早期形式的城市同性恋文化（现在被认为“肮脏”和“不健康”）中洗白，其审美可以被视为20世纪80年代以艾滋病危机为特征的第一个痛苦阶段之后的“代际遗忘”的一个例子（Castiglia C and Reed C (2011) If Memory Serves: Gay Men, AIDS, and the Promise of the Queer Past. Minneapolis, MN, and London: University of Minnesota Press, p. 9）。通过将艾滋病放在同性恋正常化讨论的中心，可以探寻关于其特别待遇的一些假设，同时保持对部署特定类别的“抱负”图像以从健康危机污点中洗白的做法的批评。