by Matthew Williams
I have appropriated queer as it was originally conceived by Teresa de Lauretis and developed by Eve Sedgewick, as an identificary category lacking any conclusive explanation as to what it defines, existing, almost solely, for the pu rpose of confronting and disrupting static notions of gender and sexuality. Quee r is not a label, camp,or statement, as much as it is a question. Queer, a word that could be applied to just about any form of sexual expression, asks each indi vidual on both an intimate personal level and a wider sociopolitical level to define just exactly what sexuality is to him or her, thus liberating queer identifie d persons of the necessity to conform to any discrete categorization of sexuality . Just as punk does, queer also confronts, disrupts and asks questions that may h ave no answers. Queer provides the sexual front of the multilayered critique of America's white, heterosexual, and middle class dominant center which is included in punk. Thus I can exist in a culturally liberated space at the margin.