True Crime and the Protection of Heterosexuality

Eric Shorey writes about the sadistic impulses of the true crime genre — and how violence is often a shield for fragility around gender.

Photo of Jonbenét Ramsey

CW: This essay contains disturbing and graphic material.

Critics of deconstructionist philosophy in the 21st century are quick to eviscerate a basic rhetorical trick at the heart of this style of textual analysis: discover (or invent) a logical hierarchy, and then criticize it. Bizarrely, in the minds of deconstructionists, hierar…