Yes, Chris, it's interesting, thoughtful stuff, and not something that
lends itself to ready replies, however, I do wonder whether there are
elements of homosociality that are being missed. In the normal order of
things, the acquisition of sexual partners is deeply enmeshed in codes of
acquisition and commodity and competition, and in the male half of the
heterosexual world 'mates' are a release from that, in other words,
'mateyness' can be a matter of non-competitive relationships. A release
from the rat-race of sex. Homosocial friendships can also extend across
generational gaps too, or the prisons of race, as again, normal conditions
of social warfare are suspended. It is not that I dispute how 'mateship'
can also be strongly homophobic, but I think there are many other shades of
description possible too.

On 21 November 2011 10:09, Chris Jones <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> I wrote this in Jan 2001. Old stuff, sorry, but would appreciate greatly
> coments some years later.
>
> I cannot see that I have changed my thinking. Phairall,  my cat is sitting
> on my crossed leg on my boat BTW. Still very busy refitting Wings (in love
> with a vintage sailing boat; how queer can you get?)
>
>
> Sedgewick, so far as I know, first used this term [homosociality] and
> possibly introduced it to literary criticism and academic writings as well
> as political talk on the streets. The critique also has currency in both
> feminist and gay movement politics. In Australia, a great deal of critical
> thinking has been done on what is called Australian mateship. A close
> friendship between men which is precisely homosocial. Mateship is defined
> by the exclusion of women and gay males from this friendship between men.
> This exclusion acts (in part) to define masculinity and heterosexuality.
> Heterosexuality is then defined in terms of masculinity, by men. Mateship
> is also  used to define the Australian Nation and nationalism in masculine
> terms. (To define both draws the boundaries and  endows a vertical form to
> masculinity, which is why there can be no becoming man for Deleuze and
> Guattari.)
>
> An outstanding theorist of homosociality in recent Australian fiction is
> /Best Mates/ by Paul Radley (I think that is the correct title and author?)
> In this novel the two main characters, young men, are best mates, of
> course. In one episode they go to town and get rotten drunk when they are
> 16 years old. A rite of passage on the way to being men. One of them
> doesn't make it home and is picked up by the local cop and raped in the
> police cell. As a result the police station is later burnt down with the
> cop in it by the local men, in retribution for this rape. The point I want
> to pick up here is that homosociality cannot rely simply on the forces of
> law and order but must depend on the eternal vigilence of the homosocial
> bond to both ensure the homosocial patriarchal order is maintained and also
> that any hint (even) of a crossing of that line, such as a homosexual cop,
> must be excluded from the boundaries that are established. In this case
> burnt like a faggot and a traitor to mateship. The symbolism of this is
> also essential to homosociality. Here is also an Hegelian-like logic of
> sacrifice operating. Homosociality must both uphold and rely  on state
> philosophy. To borrow a slogan from Feminism -- Hegel is the theory,
> homophobia the practice. Homosociality is homophobia. The homosocial fears
> homosex and defines the line  which it must not cross. Gay men are of
> course excluded at the threat of death from this formal definition. This
> knife edge must be ever guarded against, for the exchange of body fluids
> between men is death, in the logic of the homosocial. In this case the
> death of Man. (Hence Gothic themes of the death of man and sodomy, for
> example.) Homosocial is Oedipal.
>
> Another interesting critical article on homosociality is Foucault, "On
> Friendship" (first published in /Le Gai Pied/ but availbale in English in
> Semiotexte, I think?) Also see Foucault's discussion on soldiers in
> /Discipline and Punish/. D&G's /Anti Oedipus/ is a thorough critique of the
> homosocial. As soon as the line is crossed from the homosocial to explicit
> homosex the structure of patriarchal homosociality can no longer be
> sustained. It is not simply a matter of cross dressing, for example. Cross
> dressing can be tolerated within a homosocial structure and can act to
> build and maintain that structure. (D&G also make short work of cross
> dressing in the becoming plateau, writing on becoming woman.)
>
> I have probably said enough for now.  Hope that helps answer the question,
> although it certainly does not exhaust the question. Homosociality assigns
> a particular role to women and gay men (lesbians are lumped in with women
> here since homosociality does not recognise women as having a sexual
> potential ouside of the masculine) which feminism and gay rights understand
> as oppressive. A new type of friendship between males is also suggested.
>



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