Diskussionsforum: Cenk Özbay - Istanbul’s Nocturnal Queers

This presentation will address the complexity, diversity, and intersectional nature of the organization of the same-sex desire and queer socio-erotic possibilities in Istanbul. For this, I will demonstrate three examples that are the findings of three separate research projects. The first example is an ethnographic study about the allegedly “straight” rent boys and their gay clientele and the transformation of male/queer sex work in Istanbul in the last decade. The second case recounts stories of a form of homonormativity—including normalization and forms of exclusion—that the middle aged, middle and upper-middle class gay men construct, live within, and negotiate. The last example will come from a joint research on youth feminist and queer activism in different cities of Turkey. As the social life and cultural conditions that queer people navigate change, the cultures of gender and sexual activism also transform and this research shows the possible directions and orientations of this transformation.