ABSTRACT
This little noun does all its important work linguistically, of course. As a part of speech, ‘the closet’ is a specific kind of figurative slang: it is a metaphor, a term that conveys one meaning through the form of another. But as a geographer I am struck by the fact that we represent gay and lesbian oppression with such a patently geographic signifier. Whatever else it is, the closet is a spatial metaphor: a way of talking about power that makes sense because of a geographic epistemology that is largely taken for granted. It is a sign that – often surreptitiously – alludes to certain kinds of location, space, distance, accessibility and interaction (see Knox and Marston 1998). Indeed, it is not hard to come up with spatial
aspects of the closet that connect the metaphorical and the material. Consider Figure 1.1, Keith Haring’s 1988 National Coming Out Day (Marcus 1993). A closet is literally a place where things are hidden. It is typically a small, confining place off a more central, open room. This is depicted in the image by a black interior of the closet placed in contrast to the bold fluorescent green, orange and purple of the exterior room, and the yellow body. By being placed figuratively ‘into a closet’, gay men and lesbians are marginalised; by coming out, they are liberated. And so we see a jubilant figure in motion, one of liberation and freedom.
