PLEASURE AND DANGER - THE PARADOXICAL SPACES OF SEXUAL CITIZENSHIP

This paper considers issues of citizenship-and especially the spaces of citizenship-in relation to sexuality. Various articulations of sexual citizenship-through consumption and activism-are considered in relation to critiques of citizenship theory. By mobilizing the figure of the 'citizen-pervert' (through a reading of the Operation Spanner case), examining the spaces she or he can inhabit and the claims on citizenship that she or he can make from there, we can begin to unpick the space of sexual citizenship and to expose their limits. Between public and private, between sin and crime, the citizen-pervert lives out a paradoxical geography which destabilizes the surrounding hegemonic discourse on both sexualities and citizenship.