Since Judith Butler’s “Gender Trouble” was first published two decades ago, countless contributions on sex, sexualities, bodies and power have been published. While Butler’s work on the ‘heterosexual matrix’ is still a crucial reference, the notion itself has been replaced by ‘heteronormativity’ in order to grasp heterosexuality as a fundamental structuring force. Despite the many contributions on heteronormativity in relation to citizenship, migration regimes, kinship, economy, politics, media, and epistemologies, systematic theoretical reflections on how heteronormative power operates and gains stability are still rare. Against this background we propose the concept of heteronormative hegemony and provide an epistemological encounter between theories of hegemony and affect studies: Emphasizing hegemony we, first, dismiss a juridical top-down understanding of power that is still predominant in queer contributions and suggest instead a formation of power that gains its stability through consensus, social struggles, and compromises. Here we refer to Antonio Gramsci and offer a queer reading of his theory of hegemony. Secondly, we argue that hegemony and consensus are not only about people’s minds but also need to be theorized in terms of bodily affects, atmospheres, and sentiments because they constitute important functions of heteronormativity. For doing so, we move to current theories of affect. Reading Lawrence Grossbergs’s understanding of affective hegemony together with Sara Ahmed’s idea of “happy objects” and heteronormativity as shaping bodies in a public comfort zone we argue for re-considering heteronormativity in terms of affective attachments. We conclude by reflecting on how the concept of heteronormative hegemony implies a rethinking of the relation between power, subjects, bodies, and affects and thus how it helps theorizing (heteronormative) power and politics.
