Sexing the disabled veteran: the homoerotic aesthetics of militarism

This article examines a recent Kickstarter campaign, titled Always Loyal, aimed at funding the publication of a photographic project, with the intent of investigating its gendered and sexual aesthetics of militarism. The photographic project features physically disabled US veterans who pose in a sexually evocative way; for this reason, Always Loyal has been described as homoerotic. This representation of homoerotic disabled veterans runs against conventional aesthetic regimes of militarized militarism. The article investigates whether the addition of disability and homoerotism to the aesthetization of militarism challenges the aesthetics of militarized masculinity. Through visual and discourse analysis, I establish that sexing the disabled veteran does not undermine the problematic gender relations produced by militarized masculinity. In fact, the disabled veteran of Always Loyal is re-masculinized in a post-human subject via prosthetics and sexual power. This techno-militarized masculinity is sold to the public via emotional labour that Michael Stokes, the photographer, performs to engage an audience that believes in western civilizational superiority on the ground of its liberal and liberated sexual politics. Always Loyal epitomizes the dangers of sexy militarism, where sexual politics is combined with militarism to normalize militarization.