Vincent Pak, "Queer Correctives: Discursive Neo-homophobia, Sexuality and Christianity in Singapore" (Bloomsbury, 2025)

Oct 3, 2025

Vincent Pak, an Assistant Lecturer at the University of Hong Kong, explores the intersection of sexuality and Christianity in Singapore through his book, Queer Correctives. He discusses the concept of discursive metanoia, framing it as a form of neo-homophobia that promotes personal transformation for queer individuals. Vincent delves into how testimonials from a group called True Love Is reveal the painful narratives surrounding homosexuality. He also connects his findings to Foucault's theories, emphasizing the subtleties of neo-homophobia in contemporary society.

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ANECDOTE

Research Origins And Fieldwork During COVID

Vincent recounts starting the project in 2018 while an undergraduate and tracking True Love Is as it emerged.
He describes doing fieldwork during COVID-19 and interviewing about 20–21 religious sexual minorities for his dissertation.

INSIGHT

Lines As A Metaphor For Normative Sexuality

Vincent links cultural obsession with straight lines to assumptions about heterosexuality as the normative path.
He argues straightness functions as an ontological value that people try to enforce on sexual trajectories.

INSIGHT

True Love Is: A New Form Of Testimonial Ministry

True Love Is is a non-denominational Christian ministry that popularized video testimonials of spiritual change.
Their narrative reframes storytellers as 'Christians with unwanted same-sex attraction' rather than openly hostile conversion actors.

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Queer Correctives: Discursive Neo-homophobia, Sexuality and Christianity in Singapore (Bloomsbury Academic, 2025) explores Christian discourses of sex and sexuality in Singapore to argue that metanoia, the theological concept of spiritual transformation, can be read as a form of neo-homophobia that coaxes change in the queer individual.

In Singapore, Christian discourses of sex and sexuality have materialised in the form of testimonials that detail the pain and suffering of homosexuality, and how Christianity has been a salve for the tribulations experienced by the storytellers. This book freshly engages with Michel Foucault's posthumous and final volume of The History of Sexuality by revitalising his work on biblical metanoia to understand it as a form of neo-homophobia. Drawing on Foucauldian critical theory and approaches in discourse studies, it shows how language is at the centre of this particular iteration of neo-homophobia, one that no longer finds value in overt expressions of hate and disdain for those with non-normative sexualities, but relies extensively on seemingly neutral calls for change and transformation in personal lives.
Queer Correctives takes Singapore as a case study to examine neo-homophobic phenomena, but its themes of change and transformation embedded in discourse will be relevant for scholars interested in contemporary iterations of Foucault's concepts of discipline and technologies of the self. Together with interview data from religious sexual minorities in Singapore, it captures a burgeoning form of homophobic discursive practices that eludes mainstream criticism to harm through change and transformation.

About Vincent Pak:

Vincent Pak is Assistant Lecturer at The University of Hong Kong. His work is located in the fields of sociocultural linguistics and linguistic anthropology, where he’s interested in matters of gender, sexuality, and race. His monograph, Queer Correctives, considers the emergence of neo-homophobia in Singapore.

About Pavan Mano:

Pavan Mano is Lecturer in Global Cultures in the Department of Interdisciplinary Humanities at King's College London. He works at the intersections of critical & literary theory, politics and culture. His first monograph, Straight Nation (Manchester UP, 2025), interrogates postcolonial nationalism and the governance of sexuality in Singapore.

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