Body maps: Envisaging homophobia, violence and safety

This article seeks to explore the implications of homophobic hostility beyond the question of individual injury. It suggests that in order to understand the cultural, or collective, implications of homophobic hostility it is necessary to position this hostility in the wider context of discursive statements of sexual visibility; that is, to consider how homophobic violence functions through the equivocal and ambiguous trope of visibility. To make this argument, the article draws upon an empirical study of sexuality, gender and homophobia, undertaken in Australia. This study suggests that the knowledge one has of homophobic hostility interacts with other factors to engender deeply embodied practices of self-surveillance that inevitably centre upon mapping the visible expressions of sexuality. Yet, the pleasure that is derived from flouting the danger of homophobia suggests that it might be helpful to consider the collective implications of homophobic violence as a question of 'management'. In light of the contested nexus between homosexuality and visibility, it is further suggested that the imperative to manage one's homosexuality as a means of negotiating safety is inevitably an imperative to manage the unmanageable.