"I'm sort of queer for girls myself." (Part I, Ch. 2)
What are the implications of David referring to his attraction to women as "queer," particularly in the context of Guilluame's bar? Virtually all of the men in the novel are homosexual, which creates an interesting backdrop and distorts society's (as well as David's) adherence to heteronormativity. In this sphere, a man's interest in women is queer, while an interest in other men is standard and accepted behavior.
Queer is not a synonym for gay; rather, it represents the idea that sexual/gender identities are not fixed and do not determine who we are. In this way, David's inversion of normative sexuality in this statement makes sense. Yet there are certain implications of choosing to subvert typical definitions of "queerness" that seem to contradict David's denial and repression of his sexuality for a large portion of the text. Is he merely playing along in order to fit in with the scene at the gay bar? What are his motivations for ascribing to a non-heteronormative perspective in this scene, and how do they affect the novel's perspective as a whole?
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