Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers (한국지역지리학회지)

The Korean Association of Regional Geographers (한국지역지리학회)
권호 표지

Compromised Sexual Territoriality Under Reflexive Cosmopolitanism: From Coffee Bean to Gay Bean in South Korea

이성애 중심 공간에서 조화로운 게잉과 게이의 성적 수행 공간으로: 종로구 '게이빈' 사례를 중심으로

  • Received : 2017.01.03
  • Accepted : 2017.02.12
  • Published : 2017.02.28
Download PDF
⟨ Previous Next ⟩

Abstract

This article examines the sexualization of place under conditions of the compressed modernization and reflexive cosmopolitanism. In particular, I adopt Michel de Certeau's spatial didactic model of strategy and tactic to investigate the dynamics at play in the gay labelling of a Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf (Coffee Bean) in South Korea, and explore the 'gaying' that takes place within preconceived heteronormative space. Using interview data, I additionally explore the negotiation tactics and coping mechanisms at work when gays compete with heterosexuals for non-gay place. The results illustrate how gays gay in heteronormative space and how heteronormative space harmoniously embodies gay men. The findings suggest that spatial location and tactic play important roles in stimulating compromise of sexual territory. Gay Bean benefits from being nestled between locations with histories of tolerance, while it also prospers from reflexive cosmopolitan ideals of diversity and acceptance of others. Gay identity and gaying is interpreted as foreign in Korea, which buttresses gay performativity in spaces welcoming of foreigners and so-called "deviance." However, how gaying functions within place relies not only on spatial histories of tolerance outside, but also on the tactics of identity negotiation within. The findings suggest that spatial and tactical conditions induce gay individuals to police other gay-identified individuals when gays gay in so-called heteronormative places.

본 연구는 종로구에 위치한 커피빈이 어떻게 '게이빈'으로 불리며 게이들의 모임 장소라는 성적인 이미지가 생겼는지를 분석하는 것이다. 이를 위해 Michel de Certeau의 모델을 이용하여 이성애 중심공간(heteronormative space)에서의 게잉(게이 행위-행동-수행)의 활발한 역동성을 연구했다. 인터뷰를 통해 수집한 데이터를 활용하여 특정한 공간을 두고 경쟁하는 게이와 이성애자들 사이의 협상전술(negotiation)과 대응기제(coping mechanisms)를 분석했다. 이를 통해 특정한 공간에서 성적 정체성이 상이한 주체들 사이에 공간을 차지하기 위한 비폭력적 경쟁이 지속되는 것을 관찰할 수 있었다. 이는 게이들이 이성애 중심 공간을 어떻게 조화롭게 '게이화'할 수 있는지를 보여주고 있다. 게이빈이 자연스럽게 '게이화'될 수 있었던 배경에는 성찰적 코스모폴리타니즘으로 인해 공간적 위치와 전술이 성적 공간의 평화적인 상호 양보(compromise)를 이끌어 냈다는 것이 중요하다. 특히, 게이빈은 비정상행위(deviant behavior)에 관대한 역사를 가진 두 공간인 인사동과 탑골공원 사이에 위치하여, 다양성과 '타자'에 대한 수용이라는 코스모폴리탄의 이상의 혜택을 누려왔다. 즉 외국인을 환영하는 공간(인사동)과 비정상적 행위에 관대한 공간(탑골공원) 사이에서 게이의 수행성은 존재할 수 있었던 것이다. 그러나, 이성애 중심 공간에서 게잉이 조화롭게 유지된 것은 외부 공간의 관대한 역사에 기인한 것뿐만 아니라 내부에서의 정체성 조절 전술 덕분이 기도 했다. 이성애 중심 공간에서의 질서 유지(policing)는 게이 커뮤니티를 기반으로 게이들에 의해 자체적으로 이루어졌다.

Keywords

References

  1. Adkins, L. and Merchant, V., 1996, Sexualizing the Social, Hampshire: Macmillan Publishers Limited.
  2. Bak, Sangmee, 2005, From Strange Bitter Concoction to Romantic Necessity: The Social History of Coffee Drinking in South Korea, Korea Journal, Summer, 2005.
  3. Bech, H., 1998, Citysex: Representing Lust in Public, Theory, Culture & Society, Aug., 15, 215-241. https://doi.org/10.1177/0263276498015003010
  4. Beck, U. and Grande, E., 2010, Varieties of Second Modernity: The Cosmopolitan Turn in Social and Political Theory and Research, British Journal of Sociology, 61(3), 409-43. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-4446.2010.01320.x
  5. Beck, U., 1992, Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity, Sage Publications, Ltd.
  6. Beck, U., 2006. Cosmopolitan Vision(Polity).
  7. Bell, D., 2001, Fragments for a Queer City in D. Bell et. al., Pleasure Zones: Bodies, Cities, Spaces, Syracuse University Press.
  8. Bell, D. and Binnie, J., 2004, Authenticating queer space: citizenship, urbanism and governance, Urban Studies, 41(9), 1807-1820. https://doi.org/10.1080/0042098042000243165
  9. Bell, D. and Valentine, G., 1995, Queer country: rural lesbian and gay lives, Journal of Rural Studies, 11(2), 113-122. https://doi.org/10.1016/0743-0167(95)00013-D
  10. Berlant, L. and Warner, M., 1998, Sex in Public, Critical Inquiry, 24(2), 547-566. https://doi.org/10.1086/448884
  11. Betsky, A., 1995, Building Sex: Men, Women, and the Construction of Sexuality, William Morrow & Co..
  12. Binnie, J., 1995, The Globalization of Sexuality, London: Sage Publications, Ltd..
  13. Binnie, J. and Valentine, G., 1999, Geographies of Sexuality: A Review in Progress, Progress in Human Geography, 23(2), 175-187. https://doi.org/10.1177/030913259902300202
  14. Blackwood, E., 1993, Breaking the Mirror: The Construction of Lesbianism and the Anthropological Discourse on Homosexuality in Suggs, D. and Miracle, A.W.'s, Culture and Human Sexuality: A Reader, California: Wadsworth, Inc., 328-338.
  15. Bong, Y. D., 2008, The Gay Rights Movement in Democratizing Korea, Korean Studies, 32, 86-103. https://doi.org/10.1353/ks.0.0013
  16. Brown, G., et. al., 2007, Introduction, or Why Have a Book on Geographies of Sexualities? in Geographies of Sexualities by K. Browne, Lim, J. and Brown, (Ashgate).
  17. Butler, J., 1993, Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex, Routledge.
  18. Butler, J., 2010, Performative Agency, Journal of Cultural Economy, 3(2), 147-161. https://doi.org/10.1080/17530350.2010.494117
  19. Carver, T. and Mottier, V., 1998, Politics of Sexuality: Identity, Gender, Citizenship, New York: Routledge.
  20. Chang, Kyung-Sup, 2010, Compressed Modernity in Perspective: South Korean Instances and Beyond, Presentation paper at 5th World Congress of Korean Studies, 25-28 October.
  21. Chang, Kyung-Sup, 2010b, The second modern condition? Compressed Modernity as Internalized Reflexive Cosmopolitanism, The British Journal of Sociology, 61(3), 445-464.
  22. Clark, Allen D. and Clark, D. N., 1969, Seoul Past and Present: A Guide to Yi T'aijo's Capital, Seoul: Royal Asiatic Society, Korea Branch, (Hollym Corporation), 209.
  23. Cho, J., 2009, The Wedding Banquet Revisited: 'Contract Marriages' between Korean Gays and Lesbians, Anthropological Quarterly. 82(2), 401-422. https://doi.org/10.1353/anq.0.0069
  24. Collins, A., 2013, Cities of Pleasure: Sex and the Urban Socialscape, Routeledge.
  25. Colomina, B., 1992, Sexuality & Space, New Jersey: Princeton Architectural Press.
  26. De Certeau, M., 1984, The Practice of Everyday Life, California: Regents of the University of California.
  27. D'Emilio, J., 1983, Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities: The Making of a Homosexual Minority in the United States, 1940-1970, The University of Chicago.
  28. Du, Yan, 2007, The Sexualized Confucianism and the Confucian Sexuality: A Critique of Rey Chow's 'Mandarin Ducks and Butterflies: An Exercise in Popular Readings' in Woman and Chinese Modernity: the Politics of Reading Between West and East, University of Minnesota Press.
  29. Einstein, A., 1969 (1954), Forward, in Jammer, M. Concepts of Space, The History of Theories of Space in Physics, 2nd(ed.), Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.
  30. Elling, A., et. al., 2003, Gay/ Lesbian Sports Clubs and Events: Places of Homo-Social Bonding and Cultural Resistance?, International Review for the Sociology of Sport, Dec., 38 (4), 441-456. https://doi.org/10.1177/1012690203384005
  31. Elster, J., 1983, Sour Grapes: Studies in the Subversion of Rationality.
  32. Foucault, M., 1976, History of Sexuality, Editions Gallimard.
  33. Ghaziani, A., 2014, There Goes The Gayborhood?, Princeton University Press.
  34. Giddens, A., 1990, The Consequences of Modernity, Stanford: Stanford University Press.
  35. Giddens, A., 1992, The Transformation of Intimacy: Sexuality, Love & Eroticism in Modern Societies, California: Stanford University Press.
  36. Greenberg, D. F., 1988, The Construction of Homosexuality, The University of Chicago Press.
  37. Grosz, E., 1992, Bodies-Cities in Colomina's Sexuality & Space, Princeton Architechtural Press.
  38. Harvey, D., 2006, Spaces of Global Capitalism: Towards a Theory of Uneven Geographical Development, Verso.
  39. Herdt, G. H., 1993, Semen Transaction in Sambia Culture, in Suggs, D. and Miracle, A.W.'s, Culture and Human Sexuality: A Reader, California: Wadsworth, Inc..
  40. Jacobsen, J. and Zeller, A., 2008, Queer Economics: A Reader, Routledge.
  41. Johnston, L. and Longhurst, R., 2010, Space, Place, and Sex: Geographies of Sexualities, UK: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc..
  42. Johnston, L., 2005, Queering Tourism: Paradoxical Performances of Gay Pride Parades, Routledge.
  43. Keogh, P. G. and Weatherburn, P., 2000, Tales from the backroom: anonymous sex and HIV risk in London's commercial gay sex venues, Venereology, 13 (4), 150-5.
  44. Khng, R., 2008, Tiptoe out of the Closet, Journal of Homosexuality, Oct. 40(3-4), 81-96. https://doi.org/10.1300/J082v40n03_05
  45. Knopp, L., 1990, Social Consequences of Homosexuality, Geographical Magazine, May, 20-25.
  46. Knopp, L., 1995, Sexuality and Urban Space: A Framework for Analysis.
  47. Kong, T. S. V., 2009, More Than a Sex Machine: Accomplishing Masculinity Among Chinese Male Sex Workers in the Hong Kong Sex Industry, Deviant Behavior, 30, 715-745. https://doi.org/10.1080/01639620902854654
  48. Kong, T. S. V., 2011. Chinese Male Homosexualities: Memba, Tongzhi and Golden Boy, Routledge.
  49. KoStat, 2016, Complete Enumeration Results of the 2015 Population and Housing Census http://kostat.go.kr/portal/eng/pressReleases/1/index.board?bmode=read&aSeq=356507
  50. Krich, John, 2000, Decision to Stop Building in Insadong Triggers a Battle Over What to Save, The Wall Street Journal.
  51. Longhurst, R., 2001, Bodies: Exploring Fluid Boundaries, Routledge.
  52. Massey, D., 2005, For Space, SAGE Publications Ltd..
  53. Matejskova, Tatiana, 2007, Straights in a Gay Bar: Negotiating Boundaries through Time- Spaces, in Browne, K. et. al.'s, Geographies of Sexuality: Theory, Practices and Politics, Ashgate Publishing Limited.
  54. McLelland, M., 2005, Queer Japan from the Pacific War to the Internet Age, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc..
  55. Moran, L., Skeggs, B., Tyrer, P. and Corteen, K., 2001, Property, Boundary, Exclusion: Making Sense of Heteroviolence in Safer Spaces, Social and Cultural Geography, 2, 407-420. https://doi.org/10.1080/14649360127228
  56. Morin, Stephen, F., 1977, Heterosexual Bias in Psychological Research on Lesbianism and Male Homosexuality, American Psychologist 32, 629-637. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.32.8.629
  57. Morris, M., 1992, Great Moments in Social Climbing: King Kong and the Human Fly in Colomina, B., Sexuality & Space, New Jersey: Princeton Architectural Press.
  58. Munt, S. R. and O'Donnell, K., 2007, Pride and Prejudice: Legalizing Compulsory Heterosexuality in New York's Annual St. Patrick's Day Parades, Space and Culture, 10 (1), 94-114. https://doi.org/10.1177/1206331206296379
  59. Murray, S. O., 2000, Homosexualities, The University of Chicago Press.
  60. Murray, S. O., 2002, Pacific Homosexualities, Writers Club Press.
  61. National Organization of Gay and Lesbian Scientists and Technical Professionals (NOGLSTP), 1987, Measuring the Gay and Lesbian Population, Pamphlet.
  62. Nicholas, C., 2004, Gaydar: Eye-Gaze as Identity Recognition Among Gay Men and Lesbian, Sexuality & Culture, Winter 2004, 8(1), 66-86.
  63. Oswin, N., 2008, Critical Geographies and Uses of Sexuality: Deconstructing Queer Space, Progress in Human Geography, 32(1), 89-103. https://doi.org/10.1177/0309132507085213
  64. Ramstad, Evan, 2001, Foreigner Crime in South Korea: The Data, The Wall Street Journal, Aug. 23.
  65. Rich, A., 1980, Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, Summer, 5(4), 631-660. https://doi.org/10.1086/493756
  66. Rooke, A., 2007, Navigating Embodied Lesbian Cultural Space: Toward a Lesbian Habitus, Space and Culture, 10(2), 231-252. https://doi.org/10.1177/1206331206298790
  67. Rubin, G., 1994, Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality, The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader, New York: Routledge,188-241.
  68. Rushbrook, D., 2002, Cities, Queer Space, and the Cosmopolitan Tourist, GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, 8, 183-205. https://doi.org/10.1215/10642684-8-1-2-183
  69. Sacramento, O., 2011, Liminal Spaces: Reflections on the Proxemia of Cross-Border Demand for Prostitution, Space and Culture, 14(4), 367-383. https://doi.org/10.1177/1206331211412255
  70. Shim, Young-hee, 2001, Feminism and the Discourse of Sexuality in Korea: Continuities and Change, Human Studies, 24, 133-148. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1010775332420
  71. Soja, E. W., 1971, The Political Organization of Space, Commission on College Geography, Resource Paper 8, Washington: Association of American Geographers, 1-54.
  72. Soja, E. W., 1980, The Socio-Spatial Dialectic, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 70(2), 207-225. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8306.1980.tb01308.x
  73. Soja, E. W., 1996, Thirdspaces: Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real-and-Imagined Places, Cambridge: Blackwell Publishers.
  74. Tewksbury, R, 1993, Peep Shows and 'Perverts': Men and Masculinity in an Adult Bookstore, Journal of Men's Studies, 2(1), 1-53. https://doi.org/10.3149/jms.0201.1
  75. Turner, Bryan S., 2010, Reflexive Traditionalism and Emergent Cosmopolitanism: Some Reflections on the Religious Imagination, Soziale Welt, 61, 313-318. https://doi.org/10.5771/0038-6073-2010-3-4-313
  76. Weston, Kath, 1991, Families We Choose: Lesbians, Gays, Kinship, New York: Columbia University Press.
  77. Whittle, S. (ed.) 1994, The Margins of the City: Gay Men's Urban Lives, Manchester: Arena.
  78. Wood, M. J., 2008, The Gay Male Gaze, Journal of Gay & Lesbian Social Services, 17(2), 43-62. https://doi.org/10.1300/J041v17n02_03