Sexual McCarthyism (Metaphor)
In his discussion of Clinton as symbolizing current trends in shaming sex publicly, Warner adopts a phrase from Alan Dershowitz, a commentator who called the Clinton impeachment crisis “sexual McCarthyism.” Warner explains:
[The phrase] had an undeniably valid point: that the alignment of prudery, prosecution, and publicity was creating a moral panic that even the policy and media elites could not longer control. (19)
McCarthyism refers to the communist witch-hunts during the Cold War, in which Senator McCarthy aggressively investigated and questioned people for communist sympathies. Interestingly, gay people during this time were also targeted, because homosexuality was considered to predispose people to communism. This kind of political witch-hunt, Dershowitz argues, has become a sexual panic. Now, we are hysterical not about communism, but about (potentially queer) sex and sexuality.
Other Forms of Stigma (Simile)
In Chapter 1, Warner discusses the difference between shame and stigma. Stigma is an aggressive kind of shame that attaches permanently to people like an identity. In this way, the stigma of certain kinds of sex—such as homosexuality—is analogous to the stigma experienced by other oppressed groups in American society. Warner explains:
The shame of a true pervert—stigma—is less delible; it is a social identity that befalls one like fate. Like the related stigmas of racial identity or disabilities, it may have nothing to do with acts one has committed. It attaches not to doing, but to being, not to conduct, but to status. (28)
This is what makes the stigma of homosexuality different from the shame experienced by people like Bill Clinton, who are shamed for their sex but not left with a permanent mark.
Front Lines (Metaphor)
In discussing HIV prevention in Chapter 5, Warner makes a distinction between those on the “front lines of the fight against HIV/AIDS” and those who are passing laws in Washington, D.C. that, for instance, limit the representation of sex and sexuality in HIV prevention programs (202). The metaphor of the “front lines” makes HIV prevention look like a war, and it suggests that activists within queer publics have better knowledge of the war because they are closer to the action. We should trust queer publics to lead the HIV prevention fight rather than the politicians who are far away from the action and don’t know what the most pressing issues are.
