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Qualitative Inquiry
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Embracing the Catastrophe

Gay Body Seeks Acceptance

Keith Berry

University of Wisconsin–Superior

This article examines the constitution of gay male identity through embodied performances in Steamworks, a gay male bathhouse in Chicago. Motivated by Kabat-Zinn's (1990) Buddhist conceptualizations of catastrophe and mindfulness, I reflectively track the ways in which desirability influences disconnection and identity negotiation as it occurs within a pervasive, generalized, and highly influential conceptualization of the idealized gay male body. Personal narratives scan experiences at Steamworks in which my body—less than the "ideal"—matters to me and to others culturally. I use Butler's (1990) notion of performativity to propose stylized and normative ways in which subjectivity comes to be through uses of the body.

Key Words: subjectivity • gay culture • bathhouse • performativity • narrative • aestheticized body • Butler • mindfulness • Boystown

Qualitative Inquiry, Vol. 13, No. 2, 259-281 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/1077800406294934
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This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 Cultural Studies <=> Critical MethodologiesHome page
K. Berry and J. T. Warren
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Home page
 Qualitative InquiryHome page
T. E. Adams
A Review of Narrative Ethics
Qualitative Inquiry, March 1, 2008; 14(2): 175 - 194.
[Abstract] [PDF]