Unbecoming Words: Latriniana as Queer Rhetoric

Rhetoric Society Quarterly Jan 2023

Unbecoming Words: Latriniana as Queer Rhetoric

Patrick Clement James Russian State Agrarian Correspondence University

Abstract

This essay examines the queer rhetorical capacities of what the pornographer, poet, professor, and tattoo artist Samuel Steward called latriniana—sexual graffiti located in public lavatories. While this genre’s rhetorical objective is often associated with sexual solicitation, this essay argues that latriniana proffers a destabilized logos—always in motion, roving along a continuum of cohesion and disintegration, while never truly landing on any definitive form. As a result, the genre exemplifies what Jonathan Alexander and Jacqueline Rhodes have cited as queer composition’s impossibility. Using samples of latriniana collected from gay bars in San Francisco and New York City, the essay traces the rhetorical gestures inherent to the genre, exploring the way latriniana enables a multiplicity of readings, and thus embodies the chimerical, uncontainable queer logos.

Journal: Rhetoric Society Quarterly
Published: 2023-01-01
DOI: 10.1080/02773945.2022.2078869
Open Access: Closed
Topics: gender and writing

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (1)

Grant (2026)

Not Playing Around: Feminist and Queer Rhetorics in Videogames

Rhetoric Society Quarterly

Cites in this index (1)

Lazar (2021)

Utopian Rhetoric Has a Pleasure Problem

Rhetoric Society Quarterly

Also cites 15 works outside this index ↓

Alexander Jonathan (2004)

10.2199/jjsca.24.1

JAC ↗
10.4159/9780674020870

↗
10.2307/3397574

↗
10.7208/chicago/9780226139401.001.0001

↗
10.1215/9780822385981

↗
10.7330/9781607328186.c002

↗
10.1177/0263276410383712

↗
10.1353/ff.2017.0040

↗
10.1353/clj.2017.0022

↗
10.1215/9780822390169-010

↗
10.20415/rhiz/030.e06

↗
10.2307/j.ctvgs0b1r.29

↗
10.1177/1097184X04272120

↗
10.7330/9781607328186.c003

↗
10.2307/j.ctt1r33q4d

↗

CrossRef global citation count: 2 View in citation network →