ABSTRACT
Desire, as Judith Butler understands it, points to the construction of sexual attraction through the performativity of sexual acts. This chapter considers the intricate understandings and doings of desire by men who identify as ‘gay’, ‘homosexual’ and ‘bisexual’. The author posits that desire is an assembly of four major processes. First, through a bodily awareness of the operations of their bodies, these men negotiate attraction. Second, desire is constructed through a heeding of the visceral, or a deep listening to knowledge ‘from the gut’ or experiences of ‘gut feelings’. Third, these men perform their desire when they respond honestly to their bodily knowledges in moments of insight, sense-making and logic. Fourth, desire is understood and performed in these men’s responses to abjections and unabjections. In other words, men ‘know’ and ‘do’ gay when they are ostracised and alienated by society, as well as familiarising with representations of ‘gay’ from fiction, movies and photographs. This chapter also undertakes the construction of a sexual bi/theology, or a queer theological methodology that draws on the lived experiences of a Roman Catholic bisexual man.
