injury of this double discursive framing may limit the reinscription effected here,
however, the moment is undoubtedly one of pleasure for Josh and Ian.
The moment is ruptured, however, by Ian’s ‘Baby kitten soft dick’; Ohan must intervene
to defend/reassert his hetero-masculinity, to act his place in discourse. Ian’s retort can be
understood as a series of discursive manoeuvres. ‘Baby kitten soft dick’ is a performative
interpellation that has the potential to constitute Josh as infantile, impotent, feminised,
and passive - as the vilified homosexual Other of hetero-normative discourse. Yet the
enduring gay identity ascribed to Ian, and his laughing delight in the naming, complicate
this discursive frame. The passive femininity ascribed to Josh also alludes silently to
Ian’s active masculinity, the ‘soft dick’ ascribed alludes silently to Ian’s ‘hard dick’.
Frequently vilified for being/constituted as the denigrated homosexual, these implicit
constitutions should be impossible within the hetero-masculine regime of the school. And
yet, active and pleasurable, if illegitimate, homosexuality is rendered intelligible here.
Quiet simply, a boy who is frequently vilified as/for being homosexual creates, in tacit or
silent collaboration with his friend, a discursive moment in the classroom in which pop-
gay icons are named; performatives that constitute legitimate homosexual subjects are
exchanged; reference to implicitly homosexual penises and pleasures is made; and
heterosexual boys are seduced and/or tricked into a momentary intimacy with a legitimate
homosexual Other.
While Ohan did not recognise the pop-gay discourse cited by Josh, or its performative
implications, he does not miss Ian’s constitutions. Hetero-masculinity is threatened, even
22
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