Mad, Bad, and Queer

Abstract

Since the 1980s, the spider woman’s dangerous sexuality has become increasingly excessive, even disease like, in its ambiguous and indiscriminate nature. Frequently, these promiscuous inclinations are directly aligned with same-sex desire, negatively associating queer coupling with themes of overindulgence, narcissism, deviance, and destruction. In the previous chapter I introduced the idea that these alliances backhandedly problematise lesbianism in such a way as to feed into dominant postfeminism’s broader project to re-secure heterosexual relations as normal and naturally occurring.