If my analysis has seemed severe, it is because I believe what is at stake is serious. In response to Brown’s open letter (Brown 2020), Scott Linford, Kwasi Ampene, and Karl Haas stress the importance of ‘[re-envisioning] music scholarship in any way necessary to challenge structural violence against people of color’ rather than seeking to ‘[soothe] individual minds [or] simply “put a dent” in an inequitable system’, and Kaminsky argues that ‘reminagining ethnomusicology also means reimagining music scholarship, music departments, and music teaching more generally’.Footnote 1 Clearly, scholarly work does not exist in some rarified realm, immune from the most deeply rooted, structuring ideologies of the culture in which it is created—and in the case of both ethnomusicology and queerness, their ability to combine in a largely unproblematic manner is an example of how such shared ideologies can foster a continuation of something much more diffuse and malign that what it professes to be. Ethnomusicology’s woefully belated, woke embrace-cum-exploitation of non-normative sexualities, a beneficial, profitable proof of its ‘diversity’, is made possible by a theoretical construction (queerness) Western to its very core, a marketable brand that, owing to its ability to de-sex, allows the discipline to continue the effacement of those very sexed things that are most dangerous; queerness finds its alignment with ethnomusicology likewise beneficial, the embrace-cum-exploitation of ever larger swaths of ethnically/racially/geoculturally diverse subjects fundamental to its imperial-colonial ambitions, yet offered as proof against charges of white, Euro-/Anglocentric theoretical-epistemological and financial hegemonies. Both disciplines conform to deeply ingrained, Western, masculinist conceptions of and limitations on knowledge production. And motivated by the interlaced, profoundly gendered compulsions of the colonial, the imperial, the capitalist—at the very root of the institutional, administrative settings in which they exist—such ‘interdisciplinary’ enterprises cannot but replicate and further potentiate asymmetries, erasures, and silencings with injurious consequences.

My original focus, the fetishizing ethnomusicologist, might appear almost tragicomic in his (her, their) oblivious obeisance to an antediluvian caricature of gendered existence. One might almost pity the enactors of this repressive masculinity, understanding that inherent in such performances is a profound pusillanimity, an obligation to act in a certain way for fear of losing the approval of those supposed to possess that ultimate object-goal; according to Kimmel, ‘we constantly parade the markers of manhood…in front of other men, desperate for their approval’ (1994: 214). But there is nothing pitiable about the consequences of such ‘homosocial enactments’ (214). Kimmel also posits the existence of a contemporary ‘guyland’, a social space and developmental stage often marked by especially ‘toxic’ behaviour, wherein young men, in acts of ‘dominance bonding’ collectively defend against what they perceive as assaults on both their entitlements and formerly all-male social spaces, ‘whether professions such as medicine or law, or the science lab, or the military, or the sports locker room’ (2008: 134) or, I would add, academic spaces perceived by men as ‘threatened’ by ‘diverse’ persons who may exhibit the beginnings of rebelling against their confinement to ‘special places’.Footnote 2 Moreover, as Bourdieu argues, ‘courage’—a supposed (positive) marker of the masculine—is often ‘rooted in a kind of cowardice’; men will commit any number of atrocities via ‘[reliance] on the “manly” fear of being excluded from the world of “men” without weakness’ (2001: 52).

‘The will to dominate, exploit, or oppress’ noted by Bourdieu (52) becomes manifest in/as the absence of same-sex desire in ethnomusicology, the outcome of a masculinist homophobia. And it implicates at least some practitioners as the benefactors of hegemonic, fetishistic/fetishized masculinity operating also as a complicit masculinity (Connell 2005)—a stance of cowed silence (and, silencing of Others) which ‘keeps the system running’ (Kimmel 1994: 214),Footnote 3 a system that operates at its most fundamental levels according to the logics of the capitalist-colonialist. It is clear that capitalism and colonialism are inextricable, one from the other; that capitalism has permeated every facet of sociocultural life in the post-industrial West, so that ‘so long as we believe (in our hearts) that capitalism is bad, we are free to continue to participate in capitalist ex-change’ (Fisher 2009: 13);Footnote 4 that the perpetuation of the capitalist-colonialist can only be successful via ideological and epistemological structuring in which the (provincially constructed) masculine, rational, industrious, evolutionarily advanced subject is the sole possessor of the ultimate status of human (concurrently unmarked and aspired-to); and that current imperialist projects of countries like the United States—as noted previously—operate through covert practices rather than territorial expansion (Chatterjee and Maira 2014: 7).Footnote 5 As such, while ethnomusicology may be a relatively easy and obvious target (and yet it has been spared any real scrutiny until only very recently; and yet it continues, decade after decade), I hope that my arguments have at least been a catalyst for additional thought about those subjects, disciplinary locations, and performances that appear, superficially, as outside the purview of such critique, but are, in fact, the un-usual suspects, every bit as complicit, and arguably more dangerous via their having learned the rules of stealth. The old guard shows signs of vulnerability; the new guard, conversant with the latest rules of the game, is guaranteed to be more subversive (ironically, often by claiming a subversive relation to that which it perpetuates). As such, the necessity to look beyond the surface, beyond the self-constructed (us)good/(them)bad binary, beyond the low-hanging fruit, is more urgent than ever.

And so, to return to the beginning: Now that PrEP has rendered physical illness a thing of incomprehensibility (for the wealthy), AIDS is perhaps for many in the West primarily encountered as the dramatic centre of a bingeworthy streaming series (It’s a Sin 2021), something distant, of another generation, understood historically rather than experientially. Pulse, in the gun-worshiping, homonationalist United States, is no longer ‘news’, just one of countless mass shootings, the details of which become a blur owing to the enormity of the numbers, lost among the thousands of newsfeed items scrolled rapidly, distractedly through in any given week.Footnote 6 (Or, alternately, what is claimed to be the latest ‘false flag’, a deep-state conspiracy peopled by crisis actors, a covert assault on the Second Amendment.) ‘Homophobia’ is for many assumed as necessarily modified with an implied ‘post-’, its supposed ever-decreasing presence contrasted with (and confirmed by) an inverse, inevitably ever-increasing visibility of ‘queer folk’ not only in the media, but in academia, where disciplines such as ethnomusicology are becoming ever more diverse, and an alignment with queer studies brings not shame but cachet. But as I have been arguing, such sanguine, amnesic relationships to the past and/as present are both distorted and distorting, including the understanding of ‘homophobia’ as a discrete, bounded phenomenon—because the relationships among AIDS, Pulse, ethnomusicology, queerness, media, academia, coloniality, masculinity, approached with fury and ‘negativity’, archaeologically/historically and critically, affectively, aesthetically, and corporeally/experientially, are revealed as deeply intertwined via disturbingly enduring dynamics. Those eras constructed as breaks with superstition and barbarism, marking (for some, consciously or otherwise) ‘our’ constant evolution towards (as) the most rational, ethical, and civilized culture on the planet have produced much: the European ‘Renaissance’ giving birth to a parochial, ethnocentric invention of the human, serving as the moral, metaphysical, material/biological justifications for genocide; the ‘Scientific Revolution’ figuring nature as feminine, something to be exploited (or tortured) by the rational, masculine subject, in order to give up her ‘secrets’ (thus leading to profit); the ‘Age of Enlightenment’ as the breeding ground for racist theories positing a ‘degeneration’ of the originary, superior white ancestor as the mechanism through which people of colour come to exist. These few broad, stunning, historical examples highlight the shared lineages and mutually constituting connections among the various faces of exploitation.Footnote 7

It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to posit exact causalities among the mutually constituting components of this exploitative force; which is assumed or constructed to have preceded/influenced which? As previously noted, however, I do—owing to my experiences—understand this Western masculinity to be among those central, driving, consolidating (metaepistemic) forces, visibly and surreptitiously replicating in countless contemporary manifestations, each with disastrous results: the ‘big swinging dicks’ of Wall Street, responsible for incalculable suffering of global proportions; the myriad homophobic, misogynist religious fundamentalists visiting symbolic and material destruction upon victims worldwide; the growth of virtual/online spaces marked by ‘alarming amounts of vitriol and violence directed toward women’ (Banet-Weiser and Miltner 2016: 171); the murderous, racist actions of state-sanctioned forces (protected by the ‘brotherhood’-backed ‘walls of silence’); and the continuing defilement of ecosystem, understood primarily as a conglomeration of exploitable resources. The US political landscape continues to be marked by a desire to entrench masculine prerogative via gendered calumnies levied against those seen as veering from the party line. For example, the response to a global pandemic, a public health emergency, has been undergirded by gendered constructions, with conservative Republican U.S. senators Rand Paul and Andy Biggs accusing the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) director Anthony Fauci of having ‘emasculated the medical care system and ruined the economy’ (2020). And the most unthinkable of U.S. Presidents attempted to shame his (equally repugnant) Vice into collusion by arguing that the latter’s reluctance to contest a free and open election would result in his historical reputation as a ‘pussy’.Footnote 8

(And, as I complete this manuscript, it continues: Only one week before the fifth anniversary of the Pulse shooting on 12 June 2021, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis vetoed two bills which were to provide funding for LGBT+-focused services—including $150,000 for mental health counselling for the survivors of the Orlando massacre [Fung 2021]. Additionally, in 2022, Florida legislation outlawing discussions of non-normative sexualities [‘Don’t Say Gay’], and supporting a racist, revisionist telling of history [with attacks on strawman constructions of critical race theory, and initiatives such as the 1619 Project] has been passed in order to erase that which is Other-than-Man, which discomfits, which interferes with the centred subject’s ‘positivity’, and his/her/their belief in the perfection of the system. Echoing, in some ways, the observations made by Frank Ocean six years earlier, in relation to Pulse, artist Janelle Monáe noted the current legislative ‘agenda for erasure…happening right underneath our noses’ [Palumbo and Amanpour (2022)]. Legislation, or weapons; legislation as weapon.)Footnote 9

(And continues: on 24 June 2022 the United State Supreme Court, ruling on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization [no. 19-1392], overturned Roe v. Wade, revoking the constitutional right to reproductive freedom, and allowing for the immediate criminalization of abortion. In his Concurrence, Justice Clarence Thomas stated that the ruling should make possible the reconsideration—and, by implication, overturning—of other cases which had previously granted rights based on due process including Griswold v. Connecticut [the right of married couples to purchase and use contraception without governmental interference], Obergefell v. Hodges [extending the fundamental right to marry to same-sex couples], and Lawrence v. Texas [ruling that punishment for ‘sodomy’ is unconstitutional]. As New York University law professor Melissa Murray wrote in The New York Times, ‘for Justice Thomas, and indeed, for the conservative legal movement writ large, abortion is just the beginning’ [2021].)

(And continues: On 25 June 2022, in what is currently being ruled a hate crime and act of terrorism targeting the annual Pride festivities, a gunman opened fire on three locations in central Oslo, including one of the city’s largest LGBT+ venues, The London Pub. Two people were killed, and twenty-one injured; many were hospitalized, several critically.)

(In the current context, this text has no conclusion.)

These diverse examples, among many others, highlight the urgency of understanding and combatting all such manifestations of masculinity-monologism-coloniality, including and especially—for the academic—those that serve as the central, driving forces of one’s own disciplining institution. In an attempt to rebut charges of the detainment, torture, and murder of hundreds of citizens marked by non-normative sexual identities (beginning in 2016, uncovered in 2017, disappearing under international scrutiny, and reappearing in 2018–2019),Footnote 10 Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov denied the very existence of men who love/desire other men, and women who love/desire other women within the borders of his country, stating ‘such people do not exist’ (see Brock and Edenborg 2020). Thus from AIDS to Pulse to Chechnya, and countless other locations dispersed around the globe, it is abundantly clear that the symbolic, the linguistic, is continually and horrifically wedded to the material. As such, neither anger nor fury nor affective dissolution must be allowed to be vilified as ‘counterproductive’, the enemies of ‘positive thinking’. And silence must not be allowed to perpetually equate to—indeed, to engender—death.