Publication Date

4-29-2022

Document Type

Contribution to a Book

Publication Title

Handbook of Research on Communication Strategies for Taboo Topics

DOI

10.4018/978-1-7998-9125-3.ch016

First Page

322

Last Page

343

Abstract

The Objectùm-Sexuality Internationale (OSI) website is the largest source of information representing a community who experiences emotional and romantic desire towards objects. This chapter presents a queer rhetorical analysis of OSI to understand how queer communities that must negotiate multiple taboos (en)counter the public. The author argues that OSI reveals two things about taboo communication: 1) the discursive and material boundaries that constitute the taboo and 2) the rhetorical work required to disrupt these boundaries. The author's analysis reveals how OSI engages in complex rhetorical practices to lay the groundwork for a queer-posthuman counterpublic-a rhetorical space that disrupts the heteronormative moral divisions and anthropocentric paradigmatic distinctions that constitute certain lived experiences as taboo. Such a move exposes the possibilities and ethical implications at stake in communicating the taboo while outlining an analytic framework for understanding the rhetorical processes that facilitate (en)countering the taboo in public communication.

Comments

This is the Version of Record, and has been used with the permission of IGI Global, under their Fair Use Policy.

Department

Communication Studies

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