"The body becomes present as a body, with surfaces and boundaries, in the showing of the limits of what it can do. Phenomenology helps us explore how bodies are shaped by histories, which they perform in their comportment, their posture, and their gestures…what bodies ‘tend to do’ are effects of histories rather than being originary…We can see that the tending towards certain objects and not others produces what we could call ‘straight tendencies,’ a way to act in the world that presumes the heterosexual couple as a social gift. Such tendencies enable action, in the sense that they allow the straight body, and the heterosexual couple, to extend into space. The queer body becomes from this viewing point a failed orientation: the queer body does not extend into such space, as that space extends the form of the heterosexual couple. The queer couple in the straight space might look like they are slanting, or oblique…We could describe heteronormativity as a straightening device, which rereads the ‘slant’ of queer desire…For me, the important task is not so much finding a queer line but asking what our orientation towards queer moments of deviation will be. If the object slips away, if its face becomes inverted, it looks odd, strange, out of place, what will we do? If we feel oblique, where will we find support? A queer phenomenology would involve an orientation toward queer, a way to inhabit the world that gives support to those whose lives and loves make them appear oblique, strange, and out of place."
— Sara Ahmed, Orientations: Towards a Queer Phenomenology
