'You Are My Dwelling Place': Experiencing Black Male Vocalists' Worship as Aural Eroticism and Autoeroticism in Gospel Performance

In this essay, the author teases out the ways in which gospel singing is understood as erotic and sensual for nonheterosexual, single believers, both performers and listeners. The author asks what we might learn about the pleasure derived from the auditory and bodily dimensions of gospel music makin...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Women & music (Washington, D.C.) D.C.), 2018, Vol.22 (1), p.3-21
Main Author: Jones, Alisha Lola
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
African Americans
Baptist churches
Choirs
Dopamine
Eroticism
Feminism
Gays & lesbians
Gospel music
Historically Black Colleges & Universities
Leadership
Males
Music
Music education
Musical performances
Musicians & conductors
Respiration
Sermons
Singers
Singing
Traditions
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Summary:In this essay, the author teases out the ways in which gospel singing is understood as erotic and sensual for nonheterosexual, single believers, both performers and listeners. The author asks what we might learn about the pleasure derived from the auditory and bodily dimensions of gospel music making and contends that sexual abstinence discourses obscure the alternative forms of sensual and sexual exploration occurring in gospel music participation. Informed by womanist and feminist modes of analysis, she conducts this research as a formally trained cisgender woman preacher, musician, and researcher who is sexually and nonsexually attracted to men, with what black feminist bell hooks might call an oppositional gaze toward black male musicians.
ISSN:1090-7505
1553-0612
1553-0612
DOI:10.1353/wam.2018.0001