QueerMap.com Dictionary of Symbols Header

 

 

Animal

 Homosexuality is linked with animals and animality. Jerry Falwell calls us “brute beasts.” We are seen to represent the carnal and sensual instead of the rational and spiritual, as if there were no dialogue between these realms. And yet the word “animal” originates in the Latin anima, meaning both soul and breath. Carl Jung used the word “anima” to describe the female element in every male, always so carefully concealed from others and oneself.

 

Man with Centaur, metal statuette, possibly early 8th century BC

   

We live in a society where human beings feel cut off from their identity with nature. The language of beasts seems strange and incomprehensible. The ancient and enduring connection between people and animals has been lost to consciousness, along with the emotional energy and intuitive wisdom it supplied. Gay and lesbian people can celebrate their animal nature. We can claim animal ancestors, totem animals, and animal powers. We can create queer as a lived understanding of biological diversity. Homosexuality invites us act and advocate for the wild.

 

Shadow: The animal nature requires attention. It can be attended through denial, expressed through pathologies and exorcised with self-righteousness. Or we can choose to honour the Animal integrate the Beast heterosexuality would project onto an “other.”

 

Related Figures and Attributes: Wild Man, Predator, Unnatural

 

 For more writing on this symbol, see these chapters of Orientation: Mapping Queer Meanings: Dirt, Wildness, Environments, Family.

 

 

 

 

Abnormal
Androgyne
Angry
Animal
Butch
Clown
Decadent
Depraved
Diseased
Disguised
Effeminate
Evil
Exotic
Fairy
Friend
Godless
Hero
Innocent
Joyous
Lonely
Pedophile
Perverse
Predator
Secret
Sensitive
Stranger
Submissive
Suffering
Superficial
Unethical
Unnatural
Unstable>
Victim
Wild Man
Witch