{"id":754,"date":"2022-09-15T20:21:49","date_gmt":"2022-09-16T00:21:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/?p=754"},"modified":"2022-09-15T20:21:49","modified_gmt":"2022-09-16T00:21:49","slug":"gender-expression-and-nature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/2022\/09\/15\/gender-expression-and-nature\/","title":{"rendered":"Gender Expression and Nature"},"content":{"rendered":"

In \u201cBoy in a Whalebone Corset\u201d, Saeed Jones describes the traumatic experience of his father catching him wearing feminine clothing and physically abusing him for it. Beyond the metaphors, Jones\u2019s poem is about his father\u2019s response to his expression of self and the measures that his father is willing to take to suppress Jones\u2019s true self. Jones\u2019s use of the line \u201c<\/span>negligee, lace, fishnet, whore.\u201d best represents the poem as it shows his father\u2019s perception of him. The first three words are revealing, scandalous clothing or material that is associated with sexuality, and the use of \u201cwhore\u201d for the ending of the line shows that Jones\u2019s father views his gender expression in a negative and demeaning light. The line \u201c His son\u2019s a whore<\/span>..<\/span>\u201d (Jones 12) emphasizes this shaming attitude.<\/span> Aside from this theme, themes of fire versus nature, and waltzing are also present. The destructive and consuming relationship of fire and nature is used to represent the familial relationship. Like fire, his father\u2019s attitude toward femininity and queerness is destructive and seeks to consume nature or metaphorically, Jones\u2019s sense of self. His father\u2019s association with fire comes from the literal description of him holding matches and a jug of gasoline as he prepares to burn Jones\u2019s feminine clothes. (Jones 12) As for the theme of waltzing, it is connected through the mention of Nina Simone\u2019s record playing and the rhythm of the poem is similar to one of a waltz. Jones\u2019s waltzing to her music in dresses furthers his themes of exploration of gender expression (femininity versus masculinity) as he is going against gender expectations. Gender expectations, along with sexuality and abuse are some of the common themes of Jones\u2019s writing. The exploration of these themes paints a picture of the joy and pain that can come with the queer experience.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In \u201cBoy in a Whalebone Corset\u201d, Saeed Jones describes the traumatic experience of his father catching him wearing feminine clothing and physically abusing him for it. Beyond the metaphors, Jones\u2019s poem is about his father\u2019s response to his expression of self and the measures that his father is willing to take to suppress Jones\u2019s true … Continue reading Gender Expression and Nature<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5026,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[344620],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall-2022"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5026"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=754"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/754\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}