The Monster: Bounded and Boundless

P.R. Manalo
Both Leo Bersani and Peter Redman speak about the consequences and the origin of the
elision of the spread of AIDS and male homosexuality. In the first part of his article, Bersani
identifies the role of the media as central in widely perpetuating mistaken and heterosexist notions
about AIDS. All they expose, Bersani says, are heterosexual anxieties. With the outbreak of AIDS
and HIV, the heterosexual population has been overly concerned with practicing safe sex so that
it may not be infected with the so-called homosexual disease. The TV essentially targets the family,
specifically white and heterosexual ones, and in so doing, producing, or better still infusing meanings
on them in order to shape the populations identity.
Later on Bersani explores the nuances and the experiences of a gay man. According to him,
fucking, for men, is a sign of power; therefore it is not inconceivable that homophobia emerged
almost simultaneously with the spread of AIDS and STDs. But ultimately it is all a question of
power: the fear of the gay man and the lifestyle he has, and by extension, the displacement that
takes place between certain unfulfilled heterosexual desires and homosexual hatred, and the
association of promiscuity with infection, of homosexuality with multiple homicide because
homosexuals carry STDs, so to speak. Ultimately, Bersani finds value in the powerlessness of sex
and argues that a reinvention of the body is called for, and that homosexual men should celebrate
their own sexuality not only because the value of sexuality itself is to demean the seriousness of
efforts to redeem it, but also because it is a moral ideal that is violent.
Redman presents the idea of monstrosity and the horror genre in the spread of HIV and
AIDS. While HIV was venerealized, that is, regarded as coming from certain groups of people and
spreading through promiscuity from an infected population to a healthy and normal sexuality, it
has also been associated with narratives of the horror genre. Essentially, monstrosity, as well as the
horror genre, is concerned with the question of identity: the instability of identity, the threat of
boundary invasion and boundary dissolution. The idea is that, like Dracula, some external existing
being moves to attack the other. This is the monster (the AIDS carrier), which lives in the world of
the monstrous (composed of gay men, black people, young, single women / the prostitute). What is
being feared, Redman argues, is the loss and breakdown of identities and boundaries, but at the
same time, he also says, it is desirable. Boundaries, for the heterosexual man, are important, because
they define not only his power, but also his territory where he has absolute and supreme control, the
place where he can call himself I. He insists on differentiation and identification, which is why
anal penetration is threatening and frightening to him. This is also the reason why promiscuity is
stigmatized, because it suggests a disrespect for boundaries and territories due to uninhibited sexual
desire. Unfortunately these notions pervade in our culture. The AIDS carrier continues to be a
monster.