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Since the 1950s, the closet has been the chief metaphor for conceptualizing the experience of sexual minorities. Social change over the last four decades has begun to dismantle some of the social structures that historically policed heteronormativity and forced queer people to manage information about their sexuality in everyday life. Although scholars argue that these changes make it possible for some sexual minorities to live “beyond the closet” (Seidman, 2002), evidence shows the dynamics of the closet persist in organizations. Drawing on a case study of theme park entertainment workers, whose jobs exist at the nexus of structural conditions that research anticipates would end heterosexual domination, I find that what initially appears to be a post-closeted workplace is, in fact, a new iteration: the walk-in closet. More expansive than the corporate or gay-friendly closets, the walk-in closet provides some sexual minorities with a space to disclose their identities, seemingly without cost. Yet the fundamental dynamics of the closet – the subordination of homosexuality to heterosexuality and the continued need for LGB workers to manage information about their sexuality at work – persist through a set of boundaries that contain gayness to organizationally desired places.

This study aims to investigate the random collection of items for gifting which are stored in one’s home in a special place. Traditional gift-giving models suggest gift givers buy gifts for certain recipients on certain occasions. This study ' s journey into gift storage finds that some gift-giving practices are initially acquisition-less, recipient-less and/or occasion-less.

Based on a convenience sample of 111, the main functions and motivations for gift storage are described. From a free elicitation process of gift-closet attributes, a first account of the symbolic meanings that gift storage is embedded in is provided.

Seventy-seven per cent per cent of the sample had a gift closet where they stored gifts for which either the occasion or the recipient was not known at the time of acquisition. According to these gift-closet owners, the main purposes of gift closets are convenience, thrift and to have a place for surplus or shopping items.

While it makes sense to some consumers to prepare for future gift-giving occasions by stockpiling items in gift closets, the results indicate that storage may affect the symbolic value of the gift and, ultimately, the development of social ties. Consumers who gift from the closet believe that there are few negatives involved. However, people who do not have gift closets and receive gifts which they suspect are from storage may perceive a lack of caring and even feel insulted.

Due to the unexplored nature of gift storage, the results reported in this paper represent a first exploratory account of gift storage and its possible effects on the relationship-building capacity of gifts.

There arc few published works dealing with British aircraft sanitary systems and associated equipment and a comprehensive survey of this particular subject should not, therefore, be out of place here. In this article, a history of the development work culminating in the evolution of a modern scries of chemical closets is traced. It is shown that for equipment of this nature . simplicity of design is essential if proper mechanical functioning, satisfactory hygiene standards and good serviceability arc to be assured. Two outstanding features of the modern chemical closet are the closed flushing system, in which one of a scries of special chemical fluids is used as the circulating medium, and the external servicing arrangements. Specific closet design information is presented. Details arc also given of aircraft toilet compartment layout and of representative types of ground servicing equipment.

This article presents a theoretical and empirical discussion of the way in which computer technologies (the internet) influence the production of sexuality, sexual fantasies, and specific sexual behaviors. This discussion is based on the case study of an Israeli website for sexual encounters, which its users say has brought out (or enabled) a specific sexuality that would not have emerged were it not for the new technology. This article focuses on a particular population from among the sites users: married men who surf the site to find men with whom to have one-off sexual encounters, and who report a positive experience of “life in the closet.” A total of 34 men were interviewed, 6 face-to-face and 28 in online interviews. The findings include three main accounts: (1) most of the interviewees said that the new technology (the website) enabled them to invent a new existential category, that of “married straight men who sometimes have sexual encounters with other men.” This category is seen as enabling a new sexuality, or a sexuality that would not have been enacted were it not for the internet; (2) the interviewees spoke of how “life in the closet,” and in particular entering and exiting it (which was called a “zigzag sexuality” or the “revolving doors of the closet”), creates an experience of a vital sexuality that fits in with their marriage to a woman and their life as a “straight” man; (3) many interviewees explained how the technology enabled them to keep their sexuality secret, where the secrecy itself was said to create a unique sexual desire. The discussion section shows how the new technology enables individuals to invent a new sexuality, to enact unique sexual fantasies, and to maintain an alternative self, or alternative components of their concept of self.

This chapter draws on 17 months of ethnographic observations in the Parade department at an American theme park that I call Wonderland. The Parade department is a homonormative workplace, numerically and culturally dominated by gay men. I examine how this work culture challenges the dominance of heteronormative masculinity often embedded at work through an exploration of backstage interactions among performers. I also explore the gendered and racialized meanings of the camp aesthetic that performers embody. I argue that while Parade culture undermines workplace heteronormative masculinity, it also reproduces the epistemology of the closet through its reliance on the gay/straight binary.

Lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) employees constitute one of the largest, but least studied, minority groups in the workforce. This article examines what we know, and what we need to know, about the career and workplace experiences of this understudied population. The construct of sexual identity is defined, followed by a review of the research on sexual orientation in the workplace. Then an analysis of the differences between LGB employees and other stigmatized groups is presented. Three unique challenges facing LGB employees are identified, and conceptual models are developed that explain underlying processes. Finally, career theories are critically analyzed, and an identity-based longitudinal theory of LGB careers is presented.

For geographers doing qualitative research, autobiographical narratives offer a discrete avenue into life experiences, everyday lived geographies, and intimate connections between places and identities. Yet these valuable sources remain mostly untapped by geographers and largely unconsidered in methodological treatises. This article seeks to elicit the benefits of using autobiographical data, especially with regard to stigmatised sexual minorities in Western societies. Qualitative research among gay men, lesbians and bisexuals (GLB) is sometimes difficult; due to the ongoing marginalisation experienced by sexual minorities in contemporary Western societies, subjects are often difficult to locate and reticent to participate in research. But autobiographical writing has a long history in Western GLB subcultures, and offers an unobtrusive means to explore the interpenetration of stigmatised sexuality and space, of GLB identity and place. A keen awareness of the power of geography of spaces of concealment, resistance, connection, emergence and affirmation underpins the content and form of GLB autobiographical writing. I demonstrate this in part through the example of my own research into gay male spatiality in Australia. At the same time we need to be aware of the generic limitations of autobiographies. Nevertheless, this article calls for wider attention to autobiographical sources, especially for geographical research into marginalised groups.

The purpose of this paper is to understand how gay employees, as labeled deviants, cope with heterosexist harassment at work in an Asian culture of hegemonic heterosexual masculinity, using the modified labeling theory.

Using qualitative research approach, in-depth interviews were carried out with 16 self-identified gay employees.

Results revealed how the coping strategies of gay employees, in the face of harassment, are entwined with the labeling and stigma leading to diverse and complex coping strategies. Several broader coping strategies were thus identified based on whether the participants accepted the label of deviance and stigma and whether they were open about their sexuality. These broader coping strategies are support seeking, confrontation, inaction, quitting and, stigma and labeling avoidance strategies. Under these broader strategies, there were also sub strategies such as seeking social support, organizational support, legal support the support of the wise, as well as secrecy and social withdrawal.

These findings will advance the knowledge in coping strategies of heterosexist harassments at work as well as knowledge in harassment of gay employees, in hegemonic heterosexual cultures.