ABSTRACT

This essay examines the banality of soldiering and military service in South Korea. This banality makes people innocuous to the everyday violence inherent in militarization, from the treatment of trans bodies in the military conscription system to the production of homophobia, misogyny, racism or xenophobia, and ableism. However, this essay provides an alternative narrative of the military and soldiering by curating stories, images, and videos of men having sex with other men on base, the queerness of the soldier, and the homoeroticism of military service. I argue repetition of erotic stories and representations of the soldier as a homoerotic subject narrate an other military that glimpse the queer soldier’s connectivity and survivability. The stories and representations I discuss use the same contexts, spaces, and mechanisms to provide alternative possibilities of understanding military service and interpreting the soldier and his supposed masculinity. The same tools used to make military service ordinary contribute to the different trajectories of pleasure and eroticism. The repetition of stories and representations narrates the underbelly of the military, the fleshiness of the soldier and soldiering. This narrative of the underbelly is world-making, one that is making the military a survivable place for queer soldiers.

摘要

本文探讨了韩国军人和兵役的平庸。这种平庸使人们对军事化中固有的日常暴力无害，从军事征兵系统中对跨性别者的待遇到制造仇视同性恋、厌女症、种族主义或仇外心理和能力主义。然而，这篇文章通过策划男人在基地与其他男人发生性关系的故事、图像和视频、士兵的酷儿和服兵役的同性恋，提供了关于军事和士兵的另一种叙述。我认为色情故事的重复和士兵作为同性恋主题的表现讲述了另一个军队那一瞥酷儿士兵的连通性和生存能力。我讨论的故事和表述使用相同的背景、空间和机制来提供理解兵役和解释士兵及其假定的男子气概的替代可能性。用于使兵役变得普通的相同工具有助于快乐和色情的不同轨迹。故事和陈述的重复讲述了军队的软肋，士兵和士兵的肉体。这种关于下腹部的叙述是世界性的，它使军队成为酷儿士兵生存的地方。