Queering the Bitch: Spike, Transgression and Erotic Empowerment

Abstract

According to Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, queer exists when the constituent elements of anyone’s gender or sexuality are not made (or cannot be made) to signify monolithically. By this definition Spike is the queerest character in the 'Buffyverse': both his gender and sexuality are fluid – neither is secure and both are based around excess. His gender switches from male to female and his sexuality from 'vanilla' to more varied and non-traditional forms of eroticism. The article argues that the character of Spike opens up opportunities for the resignification of what it means to be male or female, man or monster, dominant or submissive, 'vanilla' or an exponent of erotic variation – opportunities we need to seize if we are to challenge the all-pervasive binaries which govern our understanding of sex, gender and sexuality, and the interrelationship between these terms.