Edited by
Gemma Clarke, Fiona McQueen,
Michaela Pnacekova, Sabrina Sahli
Examining Aspects of
Sexualities and the Self
Critical Issues
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A Critical Issues research and publications project.
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The Transformations Hub
‘Sexualities: Bodies, Desires, Practices’
Examining Aspects of
Sexualities and the Self
Edited by
Gemma Clarke, Fiona McQueen,
Michaela Pnacekova, Sabrina Sahli
Inter-Disciplinary Press
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Table of Contents
Preface
Gemma Clarke, Fiona McQueen, Michaela
Pnacekova &Sabrina Sahli
PART I
Examining Aspects of Homosexuality
Specifics of the Contemporary Czech Homosexual
Community: History, Evolution and Ambivalences
Zdeněk Sloboda
Recognition and Regulation of Same-sex Couples
in the United Kingdom: An Exploratory Study of
Civil Partnerships
Mike Thomas
PART II
vii
3
21
Forms of Resistance to the Organisation’s Symbolic
Heteronormative Order
Beatrice Gusmano
31
Deconstructing Sexual Identities in Daniel MacIvor’s
A Beautiful View
Michaela Pňačeková
45
Examining Aspects of Heterosexuality
What Drives the Human Sex Drive? Peering into the
Portals of Virtual Sex
Derrell Cox II
59
Uncomfortable Territory? The Relationship Between
Gender, Intoxication and Rape
Gemma Clarke
69
Sex in Transition: Anti-Sexuality and the Church in
Post-Communist Poland
Alicja A. Gescinska
87
The Embodiment of Female Sexual Pleasure:
Body as Object and Body as Instrument
Fiona McQueen
95
PART III
Narrative Discourses
Spatial Sexualities: The Private, the Social, and
the Distinctively Deadly in Othello on Screen
Eleni Pilla
111
Feminine but Macho: Erotic Reshaping of the
Self in Hanif Kureishi’s The Black Album
Illaria Ricci
119
I Simply am Not There: Sadism and (the Lack Of)
Subjectivity in Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho
Sabrina Sahli
129
Sade’s Doctrine of Creative Destruction
Caleb Heldt
141
Memory, Excess & the Fictional Self
Andrew Markham
153
Preface
Gemma Clarke, Fiona McQueen, Michaela Pnacekova &
Sabrina Sahli
*****
In PART I: Examining Aspects of Homosexuality, the four chapters
examine constructions and deconstructions of homosexuality and its
meanings in various settings as well as from various points of view. There are
historical, sociological, and linguistic approaches applied on media
discourses, narrative discourses and art discourses. What they all have in
common is the post-modern approach to discursive and societal constructions
of sexuality; whether it is the post-modern model of community that is being
deconstructed as a whole, or whether it is looking at sexual identities as
discursive processes as well as discursive products. Foucault and Butler
become crucial starting points for these authors, who not only apply these
theories to very different fields but who also defy these theories in order to
shed new light on homosexual identities and their constructions, contestations
and deconstructions.
In his chapter ‘Specifics of the Contemporary Czech Homosexual
Community: History, Evolution and Ambivalences’, Zdeněk Sloboda focuses
on the specifics of the Czech homosexual community that he sees as a postcommunist, transitional type. Sloboda describes the history of the gay
community in the Czech Republic in the last 20 years, its formations and
representations in society and the media. He questions the actual
characteristics of the Czech homosexual community applying binary and
contrastive concepts to this ‘community’, such as visibility/invisibility,
tolerance/homophobia and activism/inactivism. Sloboda therefore poses an
important question and that is whether the Czech gay community is really a
community and in what ways it differs from ‘western’ gay communities.
Mike Thomas’s chapter entitled ‘Recognition and Regulation of
Same-sex Couples in the United Kingdom: An Exploratory Study of Civil
Partnership’ discusses his exploratory analysis of civil partnership in the
United Kingdom. Through examining attitudes held towards civil partnership
Thomas considers issues such as control, discipline and the promotion of
normative behaviours to analyse civil partnership from a Foucauldian
perspective. Narrative analysis of interviews with gay couples highlights the
multiple ways in which understandings of civil partnership are created and
mediated both within couples and in their relationship to the wider social
world. This article provides valuable insight into the awareness couples have
of the potentially normalising role of civil partnership, raising new issues
viii
Preface
______________________________________________________________
around the political role of civil partnership and what this can mean for those
gay couples deciding whether to make a legal commitment or not.
Beatrice Gusmano’s chapter entitled ‘Forms of Resistance to the
Organization’s Symbolic Heteronormative Order’ discusses the ways sexual
minorities are constructed at work and their challenges to institutional
heteronormative settings. Gusmano presents five forms of resistance to the
institutional heteronormative order based on rich data collected from
interviews she conducted with Italian employees in various organisations.
Through their narratives the employees express their attitudes towards
sexuality policy in their job environments as well as their own attitudes
towards being out at work. Gusmano says that coming out is a process that
should involve not only workers who perform it but every subject in the
institutional setting. Thus, she reads sexual identity and coming out at work
as performance through which heteronormative discursive power relations
are subverted.
In the last chapter of this chapter ‘Deconstructing Sexual Identities
in Daniel MacIvor’s A Beautiful View’ Michaela Pnacekova takes a rather
different stance with regard to explorations of the homosexual self, sexuality
and identity, focusing on the discourse of the lesbian protagonists in
MacIvor’s play. By means of discourse analysis, Pnacekova investigates how
- by refusing to label their homosexual relationship - the two protagonists
actually not only deconstruct their sexual identities, but even their sexualities.
This chapter thus represents a thorough and conclusive discussion of
dynamics of homosexual identities in MacIvor’s play, but it also offers
valuable insight into the relationship of communication and (homo-) sexual
identity in general.
The chapters selected for PART II: ‘Examining Aspects of
Heterosexuality’ represent the exciting diversity and depth of current
scholarship on heterosexual desire and practice. The authors explore their
varied topics across global multi-media representations and within national
discourses and material realities. Their analyses reveal both the pleasures
and the pains, and the conflicts and celebrations of contemporary
heterosexuality.
In ‘What Drives the Human Sex Drive? Peering into the Portals of
Virtual Sex’, Derrell Cox II presents the findings from an empirical
examination of internet-based sexually explicit materials (iSEMs). His
survey of online sexual materials provides a valuable insight into this underresearched area. In contrast to previous studies, Cox II’s significant results
reveal that most of the content of iSEMs involves the heterosexual pairing of
two partners. This crucial finding sheds new light on evolutionary and sperm
competition theories of human sexuality.
Gemma Clarke’s chapter entitled ‘Uncomfortable Territory: The
Relationship between Gender, Intoxication and Rape’ presents empirical data
Gemma Clarke, et. al.
ix
______________________________________________________________
collected from reported rape cases in the London Metropolitan Police Service
between September 2006 and August 2008 to investigate the relationship
between gender, intoxication and rape. Through examining and comparing
reports of both female and male rape Clarke highlights gendered differences
in the reporting and interpreting of rape cases and proposes explanations for
these differences. By examining this rich data, Clarke has been extremely
successful in highlighting stark gendered differences in attitudes to
intoxication and how these affect both patterns of victimisation and reporting
behaviour.
Alicja Gescinska’s chapter named ‘Sex in Transition: Antisexuality
and the Church in Post-Communist Poland’ presents antisexual discourses
that hinder free sexuality discourses in Poland as a post-communist and
transitioning EU country. She looks at these discourses through the concepts
of sexual literacy and positive liberty as social liberalising processes. In the
second part of her chapter, Gescinska examines the role of the Catholic
Church and its representatives, such as Ksawery Knotz, a theologist and
monk, who wrote a ‘so-called’ liberalising book about sexuality for young
Catholic Polish couples. Gescinska however argues that these Catholic
discourses only strengthen the homophobic and antisexual attitudes in
Poland.
In ‘The Embodiment of Female Sexual Pleasure: Body as Object
and Body as Instrument’, Fiona McQueen considers how models of
embodiment contribute to understandings of women’s experiences of sexual
pleasure. Drawing on rich data gathered using in-depth interviews with
women in the UK, McQueen deftly reconstructs categorisations of the female
body. By re-formulating the body as object and instrument, she highlights
the difficulties of experiencing female sexual desire and pleasure within a
culture of sexual propriety and objectification.
While the first two parts of this book focus on various aspects of
homosexual or heterosexual relationships and identities respectively, part
three does so on a fictional level. These chapters investigate how both
homosexual and heterosexual identities and practices can be negotiated on a
fictional level. The authors explore topics such as gendered identities, violent
love and sexualities or sadism in novels, plays or film, hereby covering
disciplines that range from philosophy over English studies to performative
writing.
In her article ‘Spatial Sexualities: The Private, the Social and the
Distinctively Deadly in Othello on Screen’, Eleni Pilla proposes a reading of
Oliver Parker’s screen adaptation of William Shakespeare’s seminal work on
jealousy Othello. The main focus of this chapter lies in the connection
between space and the inner turmoil of the film’s main protagonist Othello
and how the film represents this. Centring on the bedroom as the site of
Othello’s anxieties, Pilla demonstrates how Parker’s film ‘constructs a
x
Preface
______________________________________________________________
distinctive spatial sexuality’. With its stress on the cinematic adaption, Pilla’s
chapter represents an important contribution to Shakespeare Studies, as well
as to film studies.
Moving from the domain of film into that of the novel, Ilaria Ricci’s
‘Feminine but Macho: Erotic Reshaping of the Self in Hanif Kureishi’s The
Black Album’ analyses the ‘erotic education’ of the black protagonist Shahid.
Focusing on aspects such as power, gender identities or the consequences of
sexual repression, Ricci suggests that it is the protaginist’s relation to his
white female university teacher Deedee that encourages him to accept both
the fluidity of his own identity as well as that of society. With her sensitive
article Ricci contributes to both the field of gender issues and to that of the
relation of sexuality (ies) and identity (ies).
Sabrina Sahli’s chapter entitled ‘I simply am not there’: Sadism and
the Lack of Subjectivity in Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho’ reflects upon
the nature of the perverse subject and its relationships to ‘the Other’ in the
classic novel American Psycho written by Easton Ellis. By examining the
ways in which the main character Patrick Bateman fails to undergo a
complete process of subjectification, Sahli considers how Lacanian
psychoanalysis can shed light on understanding how the social and sexual
space interlink. This interesting chapter discusses the nature of sadism in this
novel, the benefits of using Lacanian psychoanalysis to interpret this sadism,
and the importance of the central relationship between the main characters
sense of self and the Other’s position.
While Sahli’s chapter focuses on sadism from a literary perspective, Caleb
Heldt’s ‘Sade’s Doctrine of Creative Destruction’ takes a philosophical
stance and hereby investigates Sade’s writings as the fictional manifestations
of his own philosophy of destruction. Challenging the commonly held
opinion that Sade’s denial of the Other’s subjectivity equals freedom of the
subject, Heldt suggests that this reduction of the Other to a mere object
represents ‘the ability to create in its most purified form’. This chapter not
only sheds new light on traditional modes of reading Sade as a novelist; it
also proposes a way of reading Sade as a philosopher of libertinage.
Andrew Markham’s chapter ‘Memory, Excess & the Fictional Self’
represents a creative departure from the other chapters of the conference.
Using an innovative blend of narrative, fiction and theory, Markham
highlights the fluid nature of sexuality and desire in a memorable and
engaging way. Acts of remembrance form the basis of his research document,
which he uses to explore constructions and experiences of a person’s sense of
their queer sexual Self.
PART I
Examining Aspects of Homosexuality
Specifics of the Contemporary Czech Homosexual
Community: History, Evolution and Ambivalences
Zdeněk Sloboda
Abstract
In my chapter I would like to introduce, highlight and conceptualize some
specifics that Czech homosexual minority exhibits. I will focus on specific
factors of and ambivalences in gay and lesbian identity and the community. I
will discuss these with reference to specific Czech historical circumstances,
development and the current situation in the Czech Republic today. I will
emphasize ambivalences in the Czech homosexual community such as
visibility and invisibility, tolerance and homophobia, and inactivism versus
activism, focusing mainly on male homosexuality. I will elaborate on an
analysis of media representations of male homosexuals and an analysis of
selected gay-politic agendas. The purpose of this chapter is to open a
discussion on the topic of the existence and structure of the gay community
in the Czech Republic and how it differs from the evolution and current state
of homosexual communities in ‘western’ countries. I would like to offer
interpretations and a standpoint that leads to the conclusion of the nonexistence of a homosexual (respectively gay) community or a bustling
creation of post-modern one.
Key Words: Activism, Czech Republic, gay, homosexuality, homosexual
community, homosexual history, homosexuality in Eastern Europe, tolerance.
*****
1.
Introduction
The aim of this chapter is to summarize the few theoretical and
empirical texts dealing with aspects of the homosexual community that arose
during the aftermath of the collapse of communism 1989, which also brought
up the topic of homosexuality in Czech society. 1
The motivation behind my work on this chapter is to draw on
specifics – contemporary and partly historical – of the Czech homosexual
minority, because during my travels to west European countries, such as
Denmark, Germany or England I witnessed and experienced notable
differences with the Czech situation. One of the most crucial points to deal
with is whether or not there is something like a community. In the discussion
of the non-existence versus existence of a Czech homosexual community, I
will compare the concurrence of Czech homosexuals with the ‘western’
evolution and current state of the homosexual community. The knowledge
4
Specifics of the Contemporary Czech Community
______________________________________________________________
about the Czech situation I will frame with two influential concepts of how a
homosexual community can be identified. This frame is not comprehensive
but as it will be visible later, it can show notable differences and specifics.
The first concept is from Mark Blasius, who regards the homosexual
community as political. The characteristics I will further address he mentions
in his article An Ethos of Lesbian and Gay Existence.2 The second concept is
Jeffrey Weeks’ four elements of the homosexual community that he
described in his essay The Idea of Sexual Community.3
On the following lines I would put together various pieces and
create a mosaic that could be called ‘homosexuality in the Czech Republic’.
The mosaic certainly would not be a complete picture of this topic, but in my
opinion could offer an optic, a lens to look at, a Czech, perhaps if it is
possible to do such simplification a ‘post-communistic’ optic based on
specific historical experience and current dynamics. I am also aware of the
post-modern shift in the understanding of community and identity generally,
and also the deconstructive approach that melts and erases any social
categories and certainties. On the contrary, I think that when dealing with the
resemblance of the contemporary Czech homosexual ‘community’,
assumptions can arise that can contribute to current, post-modern discussion
on the topic of homosexuality.
2.
Gays-and-Lesbians or Gays and Lesbians?
The first considerable difference in the Czech environment is the
strong division between gays and lesbians not only in the level of lifestyle
and shared culture, but mainly in the level of political activism. I am aware of
the idealisation of the relationships of gays and lesbians in ‘western’
societies, but mainly the beginning of this shared history and political
activism dating back to late 1960’s – which did not occur in the Czech
Republic – there can be an ‘ongoing creation of a common lesbian and gay
male culture [that] includes the construction of a history, an anthropology
and, more generally, a scholarly and public discourse about lesbian and gay
existence (besides crone-ology)’4 despite the discussed separatist tendencies
of lesbians. It is also worth mentioning the view of Jeffrey Weeks who
admits that there are differences between the identities and lifestyles of gays
and lesbians. However, he argues that there are key similarities such as:
stigma, prejudice, legal inequality, a history of oppression, etc.5 I would
argue that these similarities are not that similar, with perhaps the exception of
stigma, but the prejudices, the history of oppression and the like have
different qualities and form, mainly based on gendered dissimilarities.
During the political changes of 1989 Sdružení organizací
homosexualních občanů (SOHO in 1990; Association of Organisations of
Homosexual Citizens) was established, but as Věra Sokolová notes, shortly
after it’s founding, discrepancies emerged in aims of gay-men (led by Ji í
Zdeněk Sloboda
5
______________________________________________________________
Hromada) and lesbian-women/organisations.6 It led to the abandoning of
SOHO by lesbian organisations and led to the media, political and public
invisibility of lesbians. SOHO later (in 1994) changed its name to
GayIniciativa.
Another specific detail contributed to this – the gender order of the
post-communistic and transitioning Czech Republic. Sokolová writes about
non-feministic (to the feminism disregardful) or even anti-feministic
positioning of not only the whole society, but also gay men and gay activists
themselves.7 Therefore lesbians were not only as women, the unfavoured
gender, but also unfavoured as homosexuals by homosexuals themselves.
They experienced double invisibility. In comparison to the ‘west’, Czech
homosexuals refused to use the synergy effect of slowly appearing feminism
after 1989 as ‘western’ homosexual movements did in the 1960s.
As Weeks explains, scholars and scientists debate (LGBT Studies
etc.) is the argument of co-establishing gay-and-lesbian community, in
contrary the few Czech scholars that are concerned with this issue agree on
the practical (and theoretical) division of gays and lesbians.8 Gay men and
lesbian women do not have much in common except: different gendered
experience with heterosexual dominance and homophobia; political interest
in the Czech Republic has reduced since Civil Partnership was enforced, and
the topic of homosexual parenthood was just recently opened and is
articulated only by lesbian women. The shared history was not invented in
the last 15 years because of absent common political aim due to separation of
gays and lesbians. This division was slightly reduced in the last year of the
‘fight for Registered Partnership’ in 2004/2005, thanks to the systematic
setting-on of lesbian spokes-women and gay spokes-men to the media by the
movement GL Liga, only established in the beginning of 2004 as an
alternative to the male-centred movement, exclusively by Ji í Hormada
represented GayIniciativa. But this one year of common political activity was
not constitutive, in my opinion, for the label of ‘homosexual community’ or
‘gay-and-lesbian community’. This specific is visible also in comparison to
the consistency that is articulated, organised and (at least a little bit) lived in
the ‘western’ countries such as Denmark, Germany or the USA.
The situation of lesbians is described as Miluš Kotišová and Věra
Vampolová as ‘far from a movement, far from feminism’.9 They argue that
since 1989 there were informal groups in all bigger cities but they usually
survived only thanks to the initiative of individuals. In Prague culture
festivals are organised, the first one took place from 1998 to 2003 and was
accompanied by problems in communication and cooperation. In 2002 there
were attempts to join small lesbian groups and individual activists and
actively participate in the politic issue of Civil Partnership but with a lack of
effect. As Vampolová and Kotišová note, activists at this festival articulated
the awareness of the double discrimination of lesbians. One of the festivals,
6
Specifics of the Contemporary Czech Community
______________________________________________________________
eLnadruhou, has been taking place since 2005 and it was here that the
informal L-platform was established and became part of GL Liga.
3.
Czech Homosexual History?
As I mentioned above, for the Czech Republic there is significant
absence of historical evolution and continuity as is described in the ‘West’ by
authors such as Blasius & Phelan or Chauncey.10 Indeed there can be, thanks
to the influence of one of the first sexologists Magnus Hirschfeld and Czech
sexologist from the 1920’s Kurt Freund, some homosexual history dated to
the end of 19th century, but the totalitarian regimes of 2nd World War and
Communism have severed all continuity for the present time.11 Maybe
paradoxically Czechoslovakia was one of first countries in the world to
decriminalise homosexuality in the mid of 1960’s, but as many authors note,
this decriminalisation was more or less only a legal move or re-labelling,
because with the new Criminal Code any homosexual displays in public
could be criminalized as a public offence.12 This legal change could be
interconnected with the ‘warming’ of the communist regime in the 1960’s
and sexological lobby, but after the Prague Spring in 1968 with the accession
of so called ‘normalisation’ homosexuality became totally invisible for a
whole society. The totalitarian apparatus also did not allow the establishment
of underground or a dissident homosexual environment (except one bar and
sauna, and monitoring two cruising areas, all solely in Prague) that could
have been then important for the establishing of homosexual community
and/or culture after 1989. Only to 1988 can the first gay activism be dated.
On the pages of SOHO’s magazine SOHO Revue there was an attempt to
contextualize homosexuality in the world and only slightly Czech (mainly
cultural – writers, actors) history. These articles were published later as
Fanel’s Gay History and symptomatically, as the title itself reveals, lesbians
were totally absent.
The ruptured continuity and history in 1990’s (and still in the year
2009) and articulation of biological normality as a key concept for obtaining
public tolerance for homosexuals – their lifestyle and Civil Partnership – and
with inaccurate but functional argumentation of ever presence of
homosexuality (accurately homo-sexual behaviour, from our contemporary
point of view) since Ancient Greece, there could not have come, in my
opinion, the reestablishment of homosexual history and sense for it, not even
among homosexual people, nor for the general population.13
4.
Non/Activism
The establishing and factual activity of the homosexual movement
and organisations can be dated back to the year 1989 when SOHO was
founded14. But the political activism only involved a small group of people
(mainly gay men), whereas in the ‘West’ there was a more positive
Zdeněk Sloboda
7
______________________________________________________________
relationship between political activists and the wider homosexual population,
or at least an awareness of political activism that was crucial to gain the
understanding of the homosexual community. Among the characteristics of
the homosexual community is one that Blasius calls institutional
completeness within the community. The organising of collective action in
the Czech Republic could be described as very passive and the presence of
institutions or actions as very rare. Not until 2008 did something like ‘gay
pride’ or ‘CSD’ (as in Germany) take place. It was attended by a few hundred
LGBT people, but only exceptionally attended and supported by the rest of
the population. This late emergence of such action, and as Kristýna Ciprová
notes ‘their unconceptionality’,15 as well as the fact that they were not held in
the Czech Republic’s biggest city, Prague, resulted in small media coverage
and a lack of awareness among the wider homosexual population. This can
be seen as symptomatic.
Generally, the participation of the Czech population in political and
public life has not been very high. This relates to a delayed and slow
evolution of civil society in CR and, as Ji í Kabele points out, the ‘impetus of
passive loyalty’ of the population that is dragged from the time of
‘normalisation’.16 Blasius mentions the deliberate voting of minority
candidates (i.e. black, Asian, disabled, or even women etc.) are not
documented and therefore monitoring the Czech political environment as
regards vote preferences and political inactivism of the general population is
very difficult.
Public coming outs could be seen as a specific form of activism.
Here it is important to point out that there were practically no public (or
media) coming outs of political or sport personalities, only few culture
personalities. Here are two notable points: the first is the ‘unwritten pact’
between journalists and celebrities (and also political and sports
personalities) that they will not ask questions about someone’s private or sex
life and reciprocally they will be provided with other information. The
second is that in the artistic (or show business) sphere a higher proportion of
homosexuals (mainly gay men) is stereotypically expected, the environment
is itself liberal and coming outs of such celebrities is acceptable for the
general population. Whereas politics and sports are seen as masculine – in a
heteronormative society such as ours, this refers to male heterosexuality, and
therefore the presence of homosexual men (or even women) is unacceptable
and considered to be very endangering. Such coming outs could be very
influential. In contrary coming outs of actors, singers or television
personalities, despite making homosexuals visible in the society, do not
contribute to the normalisation and toleration of homosexuality because they
can be seen as expected, unimportant, stereotypes, extravagant or laughable.
The absence of activism and of personal responsibility for the
homosexual community or so called gay pride (as often mentioned in the
8
Specifics of the Contemporary Czech Community
______________________________________________________________
‘West’ and seen, not only, by Weeks as elements of community17) can in the
Czech Republic lead to the reproduction of non-activism of homosexuals and
can lead to the invisibility of homosexuality and also to the internalisation of
homophobia by homosexuals themselves. In Czech politics, with exception
of the election of Václav Fischer as a senator (2nd Parliament Chamber) in
1999, where his probable homosexuality, which he never confirmed, nor
disproved was discussed coming out was never an issue.18 Even former
Minister of justice (2006-2009) Ji í Pospíšil was never confronted about his
homosexuality.
Related to activism and gay pride is the presence of themes or issues
that activism and pride provoke. Besides the ‘struggle for gay-marriage’ the
HIV/AIDS epidemic is widely mentioned in ‘western’ literature.19 This
activism around some issues relates to Weeks’ element of community –
social capital. It must be stated that in the topic of the threat of HIV/AIDS
can be traced and led to sexological-sociological research and small media
activity, but it never receives a wider social (or media) response. 20 In 2008 a
cultural activity called Art For Life arose, which tried to collect money for
anonymous HIV testing with art exhibitions and other cultural events.
Nevertheless HIV/AIDS is and never was an important issue for the Czech
homosexual minority.
As a last area I would like to mention in this discussion the nonactivism of the homosexual and general media in the Czech Republic in
reference to issues concerning homosexuality (and other LGBTQ issues).
Recently, except in the internet as I will discuss later, there was no lifestyle
or community medium though there were some in the past or were and still
are attempts to create one. From 1990 until 1996 SOHO Revue was
published, it was the only community addressing medium. During this time it
had various problems with financing, contents (short on topics) and in
attracting interest from homosexuals (gay men respectively). Later there were
a few more attempts to re-establish a community or ‘informative and
personal ads’ magazine but with marginal interest.
From 1998 to 2007 a weekly magazine for lesbian and gay people
called BonaDea was broadcast weekly on public radio (Český Rozhlas 1). In
the first approx. 5 years it had a certain impact in the community but in later
years it had a negligible audience. Czech public television (Česká televize)
broadcast a program program for LGBT minority called LeGaTo from 20042005. It ended due to disfavour from the broadcaster and because it had also
reached its limitation on topics and of people willing to appear in such a
program. Ironically a rather alternative program called Q has been
broadcasted on public television since 2007 with focus and also certain
popularity among a general audience. 21
A specific space for the homosexual community is the internet.
Regrettably I can not go into detail here, because it needs special analysis and
Zdeněk Sloboda
9
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conceptual insight. Generally it can be said that in the last few years there has
been a lasting shift from more or less informative, enlightening websites
(such as Kluci.cz, 004.cz, Lesba.cz) to entertaining content such as ‘gossip’
(Honilek.cz, Gaynet.cz, Luklife.cz) and dating/chat (iBoys.cz, iGirls.cz) sites,
where Colourplanet.cz is an example of an attempt of a gay lifestyle website.
5.
In/Visibility
The In/Visibiliy of homosexuality and homosexuals in public, social
or political life and also in media representations is, in my opinion, of a
circular character. On the one hand the above-described lack of activism
means the homosexual minority causes its own invisibility that is manifested
in the public arena (politics, media etc.). Reversely, the invisibility in the
public arena has an influence on the homosexual minority itself. A small
(marginal) presence of homosexuals in media and public life is characteristic
of this ambivalent visibility. Without the above mentioned lack of activism,
without any radical or visible political action without bold public coming
outs of respected personalities, or without larger media responses to
homosexuals in the cultural, sport or political fields, homosexuality and
homosexuals will remain invisible for the majority of the population and
marginalised by the media and politicians.
The media and political discussion during the time of passing of the
Registered Partnership Act could be seen as an exception, namely the last and
last but one attempt in the first half of 2006. This increase of interest,
supported also by the boom of television reality shows where a few
homosexual people appeared, did not last long.22 The debate on same-sex
marriages was also co-shaped with, as I call it, a ‘competence fight’ between
the then, newly established prime minister and the president, each from
different sides of the political spectrum. The conservative president vetoed
the Act. Therefore the more liberal prime minister ordered his party members
to outvote the veto. That meant to support the Registered Partnership not
from beliefs, or for the good of homosexual people, but in order to go against
the president.
Even the presence of homosexual people in fiction media content is
ambivalent.23 Here again the representations of homosexual characters in
original Czech fictional content does not offer a greater variability of models
of homosexual life, homosexuals are mainly either persons to be laughed at
or to feel sorry for. Despite this there can be, exceptionally, characters that
can contribute to the normalisation of homosexuality in society. But, these
exceptions can be also taken as the ones that create the rule.
Regarding the topic of in/visibility and concerning Blasius’
characteristics, it is worth noting that outside the media space, in everyday
life we can trace slight assessments of the geographical concentration of
homosexuals. Unequivocally Prague, as the biggest city, and Brno as the
10
Specifics of the Contemporary Czech Community
______________________________________________________________
smaller city and partly also Ostrava, are destinations of mobility of
homosexuals. 24 There is an area of Prague where there is a concentration of
gay clubs, bars, saunas or gyms, and partly also (thought restricted by
specific Czech property market) to residential concentration. However, it
cannot be compared to districts as they can be found in some ‘western’ cities.
6.
In/Tolerance
Another ambivalence can be linked with the above mentioned
invisibility – the tolerance of homosexual people and homosexuality. From
the beginning of the 1990’s, Czech society articulated quite a significant
tolerance of homosexuality. But looking at research on public opinion,
dissimilarities can be found. From 2000, the rate of tolerance of
homosexuality oscillates between 40 and 60 percent (last number from 2008
shows 53 %).25 On the other hand 56 % of the population think that coming
out would cause problems for the homosexual person in his/her
neighbourhood.26 Slowly (from 42 % in 2003) the reluctance of having
homosexuals as neighbours is sinking (29 % in 2008).25 Constantly high is
the acknowledgement of partner rights, where so called Registered
Partnership is supported by more than 70 % of population sample. This high
score is partly counterpoised by only less than 50 % (in 2009, but 36 % in
2007 shortly after passing of the Registered Partnership Act) acceptance of
possibility that marriage would be accessible for homosexuals also. Here is
an eminent correlation of the acceptance of homosexual rights and personal
acquaintance of a homosexual person. Almost half of the population noted
that they know someone who is gay or lesbian (still 45 % in 2009 and 53 %
in 2007 doesn’t know any).27 Adoption rights are unacceptable for almost 65
% of the population (thought slowly sinking, not at the account of acceptance
but on uncertainty).26 Homosexuality is constantly occupying 4th place of
intolerance (per sé or as neighbours) after drug and alcohol addicts and
people with a criminal past.25
Data about the discrimination of homosexuals (LGB people
respectively) are not very reliable. Only three lots of research has been
carried out on this topic; in 1995 by Stehlíková, Procházka and Hromada,
Procházka in 2001, and in 2003 on the sample of 267 individuals who
voluntarily replied to a questionnaire via email or mailed a printed copy. In
2008 similar research was carried out by Olga Pechová with the sample of
497 respondents (of those who emailed the questionnaire back; 63 % were
gay or bisexual men). In 2003 two thirds of respondents stated that they were
discriminated against, 15 % of them physically insulted.28 Rates in Pechová’s
sample are somehow lower: 35 % had encountered verbal or other
discrimination in their life (more than 50 % repeatedly), 11 % experienced
physical aggression.29 Two things are typical for all the research completed:
men (gay or bisexual) were more often targets of physical or symbolic
Zdeněk Sloboda
11
______________________________________________________________
discrimination, and there is very low if any announcement of such
discriminating behaviour to police or anywhere else.
Thought concerning all the positive results from the public polls, but
taking to account indices of ambivalent meanings, moment of stylisation of
respondents and mainly concerning everyday life experiences of homosexual
people and gender order of the Czech Republic, a ‘conditional tolerance’ as
Věra Sokolová in her research on gay mens parental desires writes, can be
discussed.30 This mainly bears upon homophobia in the Czech society and its
internalisation by gay and lesbian people. If we take in to account also the
above mentioned relative invisibility of positive homosexual lifestyles and
trajectories (in everyday life or media production), the concept of internalised
homophobia is a possible answer for staying in the closet. This could then
correspond with results from Weiss and Zvě ina’s research on the sexual
behaviour of the Czech population, where (in 1998) only 0,4 % men and 0,3
% of women identify themselves as gay or lesbian.31 Both sexologists
consider these numbers as very unrepresentative. Maybe symptomatically,
the label of bisexuality can be considered as a practical way of hiding one’s
homosexuality. In Weiss and Zvě ina’s sample 6,2 % men and 4,4 %
identified themselves as bisexual.
7.
Note on Czech Social Transition after 1989
In my point of view an important factor in the problematic of
non/activism, in/visibility and in/tolerance can be crudely defined as ‘typical
Czech nature’ or ‘inherited moral’ from the period of communist so called
normalisation (1969-1989) deformed and accelerated by transition years of
1990’s.32
The period of Normalisation taught Czech people to go with the
flow, not to step out of line, on the outside pretend to be active (go to
parades, or local party meetings) but live their private, true livesbehind
closed doors (or at their weekend houses). Holý writes about Normalisation
as people’s alienation from creational and active socialistic moral ideals and
society: ‘Czech this alienation characterised as ‘inner emigration’33 as
deficiency of ‘self-fulfillment’ in the public sphere and full ‘self-fulfillment’
in the privacy of friends and family circle. Or as an ‘escape’ or ‘withdrawl’
into privacy.’34 The long period of invisibility of homosexuality during the
communist era, the internalisation of homophobia (i.e. as illness) and the
specific construction of sexual and gender relations, feminity and mainly
masculinity (as non-feminity), together with the withdrawl into the private
sphere and quiet living behind closed doors; could all be (at least part of) the
explanation of articulated tolerance and implicit (and internalised)
homophobia – invisible but still somehow little present in the homosexual
minority. It could also be an aspect of absent activism and production of
pride in homosexuality. Homosexual people during Normalisation just went
12
Specifics of the Contemporary Czech Community
______________________________________________________________
with the flow and lived their life behind their closed door (not to be watched
by secret service and committed neighbours).
The bustling time of transformation after 1989 had not only its
economic but also more importantly its social dimensions. The main
characteristics are: individualisation in the environment of so called wild
capitalism (or neo-liberalism), almost zero evolution of civil society in the
first decade, as well as day-to-day relieving of sexual morale,
commodification of sex, boom of sexual tourism in the Czech Republic and,
in the sphere of homosexuality, an ‘effort’ to catch up the lost years. This all
couldn’t motivate people – inclusing homosexauls – to enter the public
sphere and take part on public, communal, local and also community life.
8.
Conclusion
Going shortly back to both Blasius’ and Weeks’ concepts there are
not many points that can be acknowledged for the Czech homosexual
situation partially or specifically. As a conclusion I afford a radical
explanation: Though particular communities or sub-communities and
lifestyles of homosexual men and women exist that are situated among
internet chats or dating sites, sports activities or other interest groups, among
single civil groups (mainly university or discussion groups), among single
bars or clubs that often experience small fluctuation and overlapping of their
members; one cannot refer to a single Czech homosexual or only gay (or
lesbian) community. Not in the way that it is understood, seen and lived in
Western countries. Yes, all these members of single sub-communities have
one thing in common – sexual and partner preference on people of the same
sex. They might but also might not, have been through the experience of
‘coming out’, being part of such sub-communities they can have prefix of
‘gay’, they often get called homosexual, homo (homouš), gay, fag (buzna,
buzerant) or with female names, they have a gay (or homosexual) identity,
but for the most part they are not proud of it, they are hiding it (in the family,
school or workplace), they are not motivated to lobby for homosexual rights,
they do not feel a belonging with each other across their sub-communities
and their individual lives. They are missing a common history, pride and
shared identity.
From such a statement that is in a way extreme and vulnerable to
criticism, but attacking in account all facts that I tried to sketch above in four
ambivalences (gay/lesbian, non/activism, in/visibility and in/tolerance) arise
four questions:
1.
Will the Czech homosexual minority evolve into a homosexual
community as we know it in the ‘West’? Will it re-invent its
historical continuity and gay pride?
Zdeněk Sloboda
13
______________________________________________________________
2.
3.
4.
Or is this what I have described in my chapter as a specific – postcommunistic or transitional – type of homosexual ‘community’;
different from the western one?
Or considering the post-modern shift in contemporary societies that
lead to individualisation, pluralisation and blurring of borders of any
social phenomena earlier taken for granted or given, including the
community and with transformation of intimacy or gender order.
Could this be an example of post-modern homosexual community?
Or is there any community at all, and will there be one? When
society itself is shifting and individualised, homosexuality is – after
gay marriages, adoption rights – quickly losing its political
potential, and acceptance of homosexuality as normal way of life
leads to the inclusion of homosexual people and homosexuality
itself, deconstructing the heteronormativity. And, my most heretical
thought, who needs a homosexual community at all when Czech
homosexuals, living their content small gay lives, articulate their
non-necessity of change, visibility or activisation?
Notes
1
This article is based on my conference chapter that I presented and was
published in Czech as a CD preceding at 2nd international scientific
conference Sexualities II held in Nitra, Slovakia, 31st Sept. – 1st Oct. 2008.
Following article went during my translation through certain reviewing and
adapting for outlandish audience.
This article and some of its containing analyses could have been done thank
to the financial support of Grant Agency of the Academy of Sciences of the
Czech Republic (GAAV, IAA70280804) and Development programme for
young researchers of the Faculty of Social Sciences of the Charles University
in Prague. For patient language review and text reduction I would like to
thank my good friend Kathryn Williams.
2
M Blasius, ‘An Ethos of Lesbian and Gay Existence’, in Sexual Identities:
Queer Politics, M Blasius (ed), Princeton University Press, Princeton/Oxford,
2001, p. 154.
3
First published in journal Soundings in 1996; reprinted with revision in J
Weeks, Making Sexual History, Polity, Cambridge, 2000.
4
Blasius, Ethos of Lesbian and Gay Existence, 2001, pp. 153-154.
5
Weeks, Making Sexual History, 2000, p. 183.
6
V Sokolová, ‘Representations of Homosexuality and the Separation of
Gender and Sexuality in the Czech Republic Before and After 1989’, in
Political Systems and Definitions of Gender Roles, A K Isaacs (ed),
Universita di Pisa, Pisa, 2001.
14
Specifics of the Contemporary Czech Community
______________________________________________________________
7
V Sokolová, ‘Identity politics an the (b)orders of heterosexism’, in Mediae
Welten in Tschechien nach 1989: Genderprojektionen und Codes des
Plebejismus, J van Leeuwen-Turnovcová and N Richter (eds), Verlag Otto
Sagner, München, 2005.
8
Here see historian and queer studies scholar Věra Sokolová 2001, or
sociologist Kate ina Nedbálková, ‘The Changing Space of the Gay and
Lesbian Community in the Czech Republic’, in Beyond the Pink Curtain:
Everyday Life of GLBT in Eastern Europe, R Kuhar and J Takacs (ed), Peace
Institut, Ljublana, 2007; or even the Analysis of Situation of GLBT minority
in Czech Republic, Ú ad vlády ČR, Prague, pp. 9-10.
9
M Kotišová, V Vampolová, ‘Far from a movement, far from feminism’, in
With More Words: Negotiating of Women’s Spaces after 1989, H Hašková, A
K ížková (eds), Sociologický ústav AV ČR, Prague, 2006.
10
M Blasius and S Phelan, We are everywhere: A historical sourcebook of
Gay and Lesbian Politics, Routledge, New York/London, 1997; or G
Chauncey, Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture and the Making of the
Gay Male World 1890-1940, BasicBooks, New York, 1994.
11
Attempt to re-invent he history was made on the conference on
Homosexuality in the Humanities organised by Charles University in March
2008. Notable is work of young historian Jan Seidl on homosexuality in the
so called First Republic (1918-1938) and Protectorate Bohemia and Moravia
(1938-1945). The 20th Century history of homosexuality will be published at
the end of 2010 in Homosexuality in history and present time (working title)
edited by J Himl, J Seidl, F Schindler; some subtle and eclectic notes can be
found in J Fanel’s Gay historie, Dauphin, Prague, 2001.
12
Also noted on the conference and will be published in the book
Homosexuality in history and present time. See also Analýza situace lesbické,
gay, bisexuální a transgender menšiny v ČR, 2007.
13
see i.e. V Sokolová, ‘Otec, otec a dítě: Gay muži a otcovství’, Sociologický
časopis. 2009. Or K Ciprová, ‘Reprodukční a sexuální práva – Proměny
postavení LGBT komunity’, in Gender a demokracie, L Sokačová (ed),
Gender Studies, Prague, 2009.
14
As activist I will subsume organising and participation on an action that
leads to drawing attention to issues connected with homosexuality, mainly
political ones or encouraging so called gay-pride, also individual involvement
in homosexual issues that have wider public impact, i.e. public coming outs,
support of Gay Rights etc., also media activities, marches or political
lobbing.
15
Ciprová, 2009.
16
For evolution of civil society see i.e. P Rakušanová and B eháková
Participace, demokracie a občanství, SOU AV ČR, Prague, 2006, and Ji í
Zdeněk Sloboda
15
______________________________________________________________
Kabele’s work From Capitalism to Socialism and Back, Karolinum, Prague,
2005.
17
see Weeks 2000.
18
Fanel, 2001, p. 459.
19
see only as few examples Weeks 2000, Blasius 2001, or Mendes-Leite and
de Zwart, ‘Fighitng the Epidemic: Social AIDS Studies’, in Lesbian and Gay
Studies: An Introductory, Interdisciplinary Approach, T Sandfort, J Schuyf et
al. (ed) Sage, London, 2000.
20
Stehlíková, Procházka et al., Homosexualita, společnost a AIDS v ČR.
SOHO, Prague, 1995; Procházka, et al., HIV infekce a homosexualita. Česká
společnost AIDS pomoc, Prague, 2005; Procházka, Janík and Hromada,
Společenská diskriminace lesbických žen, gay mužů a bisexuálů v ČR. Gay
Iniciativa, Prague, 2003.
21
Q as queer but using it more as a re-labelling of homosexual, plus
transgender or gender topics. As Kristýna Ciprová, 2009, mentions, the
creators and authors of the program themselves are not aware of the meaning
of queer. They see queer more as a performance and avant-garde of gays and
lesbians.
22
Though everyday presence and the victory of quite ‘normal’ gay man in the
first VyVoleni show, the reality shows, full of extraordinary homosexuals,
could not contribute to normalisation of homosexuality, in contrary, it led to
the petrifaction of stereotypes.
23
Concerning homosexual characters in film and series see my chapter from
the Sexualities III, held in Nitra, Slovakia 5.-6. 10. 2009 that will be
published in the conference proceedings in 2010 (Z Sloboda, ‘Homosexualita
v současných českých seriálech’, in Sexualities III: Collection of Chapters
from the Second International Conference Held on 5. – 6. Oct. 2009, D
Marková (ed), UKF, Nitra, unpublished/2010).
24
Some aspects of homosexual ‘community’ in Brno were described by
Kate ina Nedbálková in her ‘Subkultura homosexuálů v Brně’, Sociologický
časopis, 2000.
25
Data from Press Release of CVVM (Centrum for Public Opinion
Research), Czechs and tolerance, 2008.
26
CVVM’s population’s attitude towards rights of homosexual couples,
2009.
27
CVVM’s data from 2009 Attitudes to homosexual rights and 2007’s
research on tolerance.
28
Procházka, Janík and Hromada, 2003.
29
O Pechová, ‘Diskriminace na základě sexuální orientace’, in Epsychologie, 2009, pp. 1-16.
30
Sokolová, 2009.
16
Specifics of the Contemporary Czech Community
______________________________________________________________
31
Sexologists P Weiss and J Zvě ina book on Sexual behaviour of Czech
population, Portál, Prague, 2001, based on results from quantitative
representative research from 1998 (and previous 1993). Based on personal
communication on colleague of both researchers, sexologist Ivo Procházka
there are no big differences in the results of researches done in 2003 and
2008 that were still not published.
32
see Kabele’s From capitalism to communism and back, p. 336ff.
33
B Wheaton and Z Kavan, The Velvet Revolution, Westview Press, Boulder
1992, p. 9.
34
L Holý, Malý český člověk a skvělý český národ, SLON, Prague, 2001, p.
31.
Bibliography
Analýza situace lesbické, gay, bisexuální a transgender menšiny v ČR.
[Analysis of the situation of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender minority
in the Czech Republic] Ú ad vlády ČR, Prague, 2007.
Blasius, M., ‘An Ethos of Lesbian and Gay Existence’, in Sexual Identities:
Queer Politics. M. Blasius (ed), Princeton University Press,
Princeton/Oxford, 2001, pp. 143-177.
Blasius, M., Phelan, S., We are everywhere: A historical sourcebook of Gay
and Lesbian Politics. Routledge, New York/London, 1997.
Ciprová, K.., ‘Reprodukční a sexuální práva – Proměny postavení LGBT
komunity’, [Reproductional and sexual rights – Changes of the situation of
LGBT community] in Gender a demokracie. L. Sokačová (ed), Gender
Studies, Prague, 2009.
Chauncey, G., Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture and the Making of the
Gay Male World 1890-1940. BasicBooks, New York, 1994.
CVVM, Postoje české veřejnosti k právům homosexuálních párů. [Attitudes
of Czech public rights of homosexual couples] CVVM/SOU, Prague, 2009,
viewed
on
Dec
8,
2009,
<http://www.cvvm.cas.cz/upl/zpravy/100933s_ov90707.pdf>.
Zdeněk Sloboda
17
______________________________________________________________
CVVM, Češi a tolerance. [Czechs and tolerance] CVVM/SOU, Prague,
2008, viewed on Dec 8, 2009,
http://www.cvvm.cas.cz/upl/zpravy/100780s_ov80430.pdf
CVVM, Jak jsou na tom Češi s tolerance? [How are the Czechs tolerant?]
CVVM/SOU, Prague, 2007, viewed on Dec 8, 2009,
http://www.cvvm.cas.cz/upl/zpravy/100676s_ov70413.pdf
Fanel, J., Gay historie. [Gay History] Dauphin, Prague, 2000.
Hašková, H., K ížková, A., Linková, M., Mnohohlasem: Vyjednávání
ženských prostorů po roce 1989. [In Multiple Voices. Negotiating women’s
spaces after 1989] SOU AV ČR, Prague, 2006.
Holý, L., Malý český člověk a skvělý český národ. [Small Czech man and
great Czech nation] SLON, Prague, 2001.
Kabele, J., Z kapitalizmu do socializmu a zpět. [From capitalism to socialism
and back] Karolinum, Prague, 2005.
Mendes-Leite, R., de Zwart, O., ‘Fighitng the Epidemic: Social AIDS
Studies’, in Lesbian and Gay Studies: An Introductory, Interdisciplinary
Approach. T. Sandfort and J. Schuyf et al. (ed) Sage, London, 2000, pp. 195214.
Nedbálková, K., ‘Subkultura homosexuálů v Brně’, [Homosexual subculture
in Brno] Sociologický časopis, vol 3, 2000, pp. 317-332.
Nedbálková, K., ‘The Changing Space of the Gay and Lesbian Community in
the Czech Republic’, in Beyond the Pink Curtain: Everyday Life of GLBT in
Eastern Europe. R. Kuhar and J. Takacs (ed), Peace Institut, Ljublana, 2007,
pp. 67-80.
Pechová, O., ‘Diskriminace na základě sexuální orientace’ [Discrimination
based on sexual orientation] in E-psychologie, vol. 3(3), 2009, pp. 1-16,
viewed on Dec 8, 2009, <http://e-psycholog.eu/pdf/pechova.pdf>.
Procházka, I., Společenská diskriminace gay mužů. Sexuologický ústav 1. LF
UK/VFN, Prague, 2001, viewed on Dec 12, 2009,
<http://gay.iniciativa.cz/www/index.php?page=clanek&id=11>.
18
Specifics of the Contemporary Czech Community
______________________________________________________________
Procházka, I., et al. HIV infekce a homosexualita. Česká společnost AIDS
pomoc, Prague, 2005.
Procházka, I., Janík, D., Hromada, J., Společenská diskriminace lesbických
žen, gay mužů a bisexuálů v ČR. Gay Iniciativa, Prague, 2003.
Rakušanová, P., eháková, B., Participace, demokracie a občanství.
[Participation, democracy and citizenship] SOU AV ČR, Prague, 2006.
Sloboda, Z., ‘Homosexualita v současných českých seriálech’,
[Homosexuality in contemporary Czech TV series] in Sexualities III:
Collection of Chapters from the Second International Conference Held on 5.
– 6. Oct. 2009. D Marková (ed), UKF, Nitra, unpublished/2010. [CD-ROM]
Sokolová, V., ‘Otec, otec a dítě: Gay muži a otcovství’, [Father, father and
child: Gay men and fatherhood] Sociologický časopis, vol 45(1), 2009, pp.
115-146.
—, ‘Identity politics an the (b)orders of heterosexism’, in Mediale Welten in
Tschechien nach 1989: Genderprojektionen und Codes des Plebejismus. J.
van Leeuwen-Turnovcová and N. Richter (eds), Verlag Otto Sagner,
München, 2005, pp. 29-44.
—, ‘Representations of Homosexuality and the Separation of Gender and
Sexuality in the Czech Republic Before and After 1989’, in Political Systems
and Definitions of Gender Roles. A. K. Isaacs (ed), Universita di Pisa, Pisa,
2001, pp. 273-290.
Stehlíková, D., Procházka, I., Hromada, J., Homosexualita, společnost a
AIDS v ČR. [Homosexuality, society and AIDS in Czech Republic] SOHO,
Prague, 1995.
Weeks, J., Making Sexual History. Polity, Cambridge, 2000.
Weiss, P., Zvě ina, J., Sexuální chování v ČR - situace a trendy. [Sexual
behaviour in Czech Republic – current stand and trends] Portál, Prague,
2001.
Wheaton, B., Kavan, Z., The Velvet Revolution. Westview Press, Boulder,
1992.
Zdeněk Sloboda
19
______________________________________________________________
Zdeněk Sloboda is a researcher at the Centre for Social and Economic
Strategies of the Faculty of Social Sciences at the Charles University in
Prague where he received his Masters in Media Studies in 2005 and
continues studying towards a Ph.D. in Sociology. Simultaneously he is a
doctoral student in Media Pedagogy/Education at the University of Leipzig.
From 2008 to 2009 he was a junior researcher at the Department of Gender &
Sociology, Institute of Sociology, Czech Academy of Sciences. He publishes
and teaches in the area of gender and sexuality studies, media studies, media
education and qualitative research.
Recognition and Regulation of Same-Sex Couples
in the U. K.: An Exploratory Study of Civil Partnership
Mike Thomas
Abstract
This chapter offers an exploratory analysis of civil partnership as a form of
legal recognition for lesbian and gay couples in the United Kingdom.
Although presented by the UK Government as a matter of equality and
fairness, civil partnership carries a number of apparently contradictory
messages around control, discipline and the promotion of highly normative
behaviours and attitudes. A Foucauldian theoretical framework, drawing
upon concepts of sexuality, discourse and discipline, makes clear that civil
partnership submits same-sex couples to unprecedented levels of state
intervention and social scrutiny. This theoretical framework is applied to
data gathered through interviews with seventeen same-sex couples, offering
an engagement between government objectives and couples’ own motivation
in seeking official recognition. Narrative analysis of interview data suggests
that lesbian and gay couples are aware of the numerous and contradictory
themes within civil partnership and are able to demonstrate both acceptance
and resistance with regard to disciplinary discourses. A Foucauldian policy
critique combined with narrative analysis of qualitative data presents a highly
nuanced examination of civil partnership as a form of social regulation that
implies moral responsibility as well as financial and legal entitlements. With
the number of countries offering same-sex marriage and other forms of
recognition increasing year on year, the findings of this research offer a
timely and highly relevant assessment of contradictory and unforeseen
aspects of recognition as applied in the United Kingdom.
Key Words: Civil partnership, lesbian and gay studies, same-sex marriage,
same-sex relationships, recognition, sexuality, social policy
*****
1.
Introduction
This chapter presents an exploratory analysis of civil partnership as
a form of legal and social recognition available to lesbian and gay couples in
the UK. Civil Partnership is defined as, ‘a relationship of two people of the
same sex… which is formed when they register as civil partners’. 1 The Civil
Partnership Act, 2004 extends a package of rights and responsibilities with
regard to financial maintenance, taxation and benefits, family law,
immigration and next of kin rights. These rights are functionally identical to
those available to heterosexual couples in the UK through civil marriage.
22
Recognition and Regulation of Same-sex Couples in the U.K.
______________________________________________________________
Between December 2005 (when the legislation came into force), and
December 2008 some 34,000 civil partnerships were formed.2
Civil partnership is one of a number of sexual orientation equality
reforms introduced by successive New Labour governments. Since 1997,
pro-gay reforms have included an equal age of consent, access to joint
adoption of children by lesbian and gay couples and anti-discrimination
legislation in employment and access to goods and services. Sexual
orientation is also a key strand for the United Kingdom’s overarching
equalities body, the Equality and Human Rights Commission. In offering
positive legal recognition, civil partnership can be seen as extending a
comprehensive form of sexual citizenship to lesbian and gay couples. The
prospects for recognition for lesbian and gay couples in the United Kingdom
have been transformed within a relatively short timeframe. There is a
particularly clear contrast between Section 28 of the Local Government Act,
1988 which dismissed homosexuality as ‘a pretended family relationship,’3
and civil partnership as a vehicle for, ‘publicly valuing same-sex
relationships’.4
However, legal recognition for lesbian and gay couples is by no
means a British innovation. Since Denmark was first to legislate in 1989,
governments in all continents have extended legal protections to same-sex
couples, with a small number of countries including Spain, South Africa,
Canada, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands and Belgium, going further in
extending full marriage equality to lesbian and gay couples.5 Queer critiques
of recognition have drawn attention to its potentially oppressive effects in
encouraging conformity and facilitating the dominance of heterosexist
norms.6 However, in terms of public policy, the international spread of
recognition suggests that contrary arguments highlighting the social
significance of marriage rights and the importance of legal recognition have
won the day.7
2.
Theoretical Framework
The popularity of recognition as a policy choice does not diminish
the usefulness of queer critiques in offering illuminating insights into its
broader implications. This exploratory research draws upon a Foucauldian
framework to develop a critical analysis of civil partnership as a policy
intervention, highlighting Michel Foucault’s theorisation of sexuality,
discourse and discipline.
Taking these elements of this theoretical framework in turn,
Foucault’s first volume of The History of Sexuality presents a critique of
modern notions of sexuality as a fixed identity. Foucault traces the
transposition of homosexual acts onto a new species; the homosexual
individual:
Mike Thomas
23
______________________________________________________________
It was everywhere present in him: at the root of all his
actions… The sodomite had been a temporary aberration;
the homosexuality was now a species.8
Foucault traces this discovery of homosexual identities back to the
nineteenth century and highlights this process as a means of exercising
control through the criminalisation of homosexual acts and the promotion of
heterosexual models of family life. Foucault sets out this creation of deviant
homosexual subjects as an oppressive use of power aimed at disciplining and
shaping desire. Although the idea of sexual identities as a form of oppression
might appear incongruous in the current era of identity politics and lesbian
and gay pride, it is worth recalling that the marginalisation of LGBT people
in the UK has itself been made possible by the framing of sexuality as both a
personal characteristic and a matter of legitimate government interest.
Although offering an apparently more progressive approach to the regulation
of sexuality, civil partnership can be seen as a more recent outcome of these
same processes and forces that, at different points in history, have been used
to imprison, punish and pathologise homosexuals.
Foucault also highlighted the role of discourse, or language
practices, in cementing new truths and extending the penetration of power
into new areas of social life. In terms of civil partnership, this new form of
recognition can be seen as enabling a range of new discourses, or regimes of
truth, about what it is to be gay or lesbian in twenty-first century Britain. In
policy terms, civil partnership defines what it means to be a socially
responsible, caring, monogamous, financially independent same-sex couple.
The normative nature of this new regime of truth leads on to Foucault’s
exploration of the disciplinary society. In Discipline and Punish, Foucault
asserts that the exercise of absolute, monarchical authority, with power over
life and death, has become both impractical and untenable. Instead, Foucault
conceives of a modern form of disciplinary power achieved through
surveillance, or rather the possibility of surveillance. Foucault reasons that
an awareness of being under the gaze of others is a sufficiently powerful tool
of control as to instil self-discipline. In the contemporary context, this is
perhaps most clearly illustrated by the role of closed-circuit television
cameras in public spaces. The rationale for the presence of these cameras is
that if a subject is under the impression that she or he is being watched, they
will refrain from criminal activity. This of course is irrespective of whether or
not they are being watched; it is the possibility of surveillance that instils
discipline.
In terms of applying this theoretical framework to civil partnership,
it is clear that this reform means that same-sex couples have suddenly
become both visible and identifiable in terms of public policy. With regard
to the notion of instilling discipline, civil partnership can be seen as a highly
24
Recognition and Regulation of Same-sex Couples in the U.K.
______________________________________________________________
moral, normative instrument of public policy. For example, government
guidance makes clear that civil partnership is intended for permanent
relationships and civil partners are required to perform particular roles,
including caring roles and providing for each other financially.9 In public
policy, civil partnership can be seen as raising the visibility of same-sex
couples to unprecedented levels. This visibility is created through the public
ceremony and through the inclusion of couple’s names, dates of birth and
addresses on official databases. This heightened visibility is maintained by
the mundane disclosure of one’s relationship status in daily life, for example
when discussing one’s civil partner with family, friends or work colleagues
or accessing public- or private sector services. This visibility is accompanied
by clear moral messages about the conduct expected of same-sex civil
partners. In this respect, same-sex couples are to be made more visible and
subject to surveillance from others. The moral characteristics of this new
legal relationship suggest that although the state’s response to homosexuality
can no longer be expressed through physical punishment or medical
intervention, the creation of state-sanctioned, ‘acceptable’ homosexual
identities may serve to establish an equally powerful regime of control.
3.
Methods
In terms of a methodology for applying this critique, I carried out indepth, qualitative interviews with eighteen lesbian and gay couples in the UK
during 2007 and 2008. One of these couples was about to have their civil
partnership ceremony and all the other participants were already civil
partners. All couples were interviewed jointly as a means of enabling
couples to work together to construct narratives of their experience of civil
partnership. The data extracts set out below, reflect the joint approach taken
by couples in the research sample to constructing and interpreting narratives
on civil partnership. In terms of accessing the meanings contained within the
interview data, narrative analysis, following, offered a relatively naturalistic
means of deconstructing the stories related by the couples and highlighting
the meanings that they themselves attached to their experience of civil
partnership.10
4.
Couples’ Perspectives on Civil Partnership
The next section of this chapter will consider the articulation of
Foucauldian themes of regulation, discipline and control as revealed in the
research data. In this first extract, Bella and Mary are discussing their visit to
the register office at the town hall to arrange their civil partnership:
Bella11: That was a funny experience. I thought it was
hilarious, that whole thing about waiting. And also I felt
really self-conscious about being in the waiting room. And
Mike Thomas
25
______________________________________________________________
because a lot of people were there to register births and
deaths and marriages, I felt like I was the only gay person
and then everyone can hear, you know, when you go up to
the desk. I remember feeling really self-conscious. And it
unleashed this stuff about, how open are we going to be.
Mary: And I felt a bit differently actually. I felt, wow, this
is amazing that I can come into this place and say, you
know, we’d like to (.) make an appointment about being
civil partnered. I can pick up a brochure and say, look,
there’s a brochure about it, it really is ok.
Bella and Mary present two very different narratives about attending
the register office to arrange their civil partnership. Although Bella recalls
this experience as being hilarious, there is a clear sense of discomfort at being
in the straight space of the register office as a member of a same-sex couple.
Her account of the visit betrays a feeling of difference and a sense of unease
at a new and particular kind of visibility. Bella makes it clear that she feels a
loss of control in disclosing her sexuality in this context and being marked
out as different. Mary responds with her own narrative that seems to be more
positive about being in the register office. Indeed, she seems to relish going
into the register office as a lesbian woman and sees this as a form of
empowerment.
Mary’s comment about the brochure is particularly interesting. In
terms of Foucault’s analysis of discourse, the brochure that Mary refers to
can be seen as setting out a new truth; that same-sex couples can achieve
formal recognition and a new social status. For Mary there appears to be a
sense of legitimation here, and her account suggests that the brochure is
somehow acting to bring same-sex couples into being; as if this form of
recognition extends same-sex couples a kind of permission to exist.
Recalling the moral aspects of civil partnership around the qualities that civil
partners are required to display, this new regime of truth has explicitly
disciplinary overtones.
The moral aspect of these disciplinary overtones is witnessed in this
next narrative:
Peter: Most of our friends really are straight (.) men,
straight women and we’re completely open with them.
And (..) the acceptance there is that I think we’ve broken
the stereotypical model they had of a gay man or a gay
couple.
Martin: I think so.
Peter: And what our friends have witnessed or have been
26
Recognition and Regulation of Same-sex Couples in the U.K.
______________________________________________________________
getting to know over the years is that actually we’re just
like everybody else. At the end of the day, the fact that I’m
waking up next to a man and not waking up next to a
woman, you know, our activities are no different from
anybody else.
In this extract, Peter is talking about the impact of his civil
partnership within his largely heterosexual social network. Civil partnership
appears to be a vehicle for tackling homophobic stereotypes around
promiscuity. When Peter speaks of acceptance, this seems to be defined by
conformity with particular norms. In the context of civil partnership, these are
straight norms. There is a particular implication here that acceptance is
something that is earned by rejecting stereotypical behaviour. Thus,
acceptance is linked to a narrow definition of what it means to be a ‘good’
gay couple, apparently reflecting Peter’s own view of his relationship with
his partner.
At the same time, Peter seems to express a desire to be seen as being
like everyone else. This assimilation appears so total that Peter maintains that
there is no difference between him and his partner’s relationship and a
straight relationship. This kind of erasing of the sexuality and the gayness of
their relationship can once again be seen as a response to moral norms that
rule out sexual diversity and narrow the parameters of acceptability.
Whereas Peter accepts and appears to welcome inclusion within the
mainstream, another couple in the research sample were much more critical
of this aspect of civil partnership. This more critical approach is reflected in
the next extract:
Sue: It was quite an opportunity for some people, I think, to
say ‘I’m fine about it.’
Jane: To say ‘we’re not like that, we’re really fine about it,
we know about you and we’re really OK about it.’ Which
was really, really quite lovely actually. People falling over
themselves to be thrilled for us. Yes, you’re really not so
different from us, are you, really? And we’re like, YES
WE ARE. (laughs). We’re really different. But you know,
yeah. (…) It was lovely, really.
This exchange brings out the seductive nature of recognition and
acceptance for couples who have historically been excluded and
marginalised. Here, Sue acknowledges that their civil partnership was an
opportunity for affirmation, though her partner Jane interrupts, apparently
seeing a potentially negative side to this kind of affirmation. Despite Jane’s
critique of apparently assimilationist aspects of civil partnership and the
Mike Thomas
27
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erasing or negating of the couple’s lesbian identity, it is clear that the
affirmation which civil partnership implies is seductive and hard to resist.
This is another key strand of civil partnership, in terms of same-sex couples
being drawn closer into the straight world. Although Sue and Jane appear to
be aware of some of the identity risks associated with civil partnership, and
are prepared to resist them, this kind of assimilatory process is clearly a
powerful force. At the end of this extract, Jane appears to give in and concede
the sense of affirmation that her civil partnership offered from within her
social network.
As has already been implied, the disciplinary aspects of civil
partnership extend to sexual behaviour. This final exchange betrays a number
of apparently contradictory statements on the degree to which civil
partnership ceremony can be seen as extending equality and recognition to
lesbian and gay couples:
Mark: We just want to turn up on the day, get it done and
over with, I mean, there’s certain things we’re not going to
do on the day. We’re not going to kiss on the day because
of Joe’s parents, because (.) you know,
Joe: I think my mother always knew, but initially (.) they,
you know, they want me to be happy and [addressing
Mark] they accept you. I think that’s more us, probably out
of respect for them, not wanting to do that. My parents are
quite traditional and you don’t talk about that, you know,
that kind of aspect of the relationship. But I don’t think, I
don’t think they’d be shocked by it at all.
Mark: Yeah.
Joe: And I don’t think that comes into it, I think that’s more
us, probably out of respect.
Mark: Mmm. I just think (.) it would purely be the
embarrassment factor.
Mark and Joe appear to have ruled out a kiss at the end of their
ceremony, even a peck on the cheek, for fear of causing offence to others.
This discussion reveals that the taboo on lesbian and gay sexuality in the
public sphere remains a powerful one, even to the extent of showing physical
affection. Joe and Mark appear to be aware of the limits of the acceptability
of their sexuality. Even within the context of their civil partnership ceremony,
physical contact that might betray sexuality is seen as disrespectful to others.
This is perhaps hard to reconcile for Joe and Mark, talking about their big
day, the affirmation that the ceremony will bring. In this context, the
couple’s civil partnership ceremony can be seen as a social occasion that
accommodates homophobia, reinforces heteronormativity and reminds the
28
Recognition and Regulation of Same-sex Couples in the U.K.
______________________________________________________________
couple of their secondary status as gay men.
Here, there is a no suggestion that this discipline is being imposed
by others; for example Joe’s parents are not calling the shots, or at least not
explicitly. Indeed, Joe and Mark are using their understanding of acceptable
conduct to restrict their own behaviour. They are therefore disciplining
themselves; a task that same-sex couples are routinely required to perform in
public spaces. This exchange recalls Foucault’s understanding of the
disciplinary society, where the mere awareness of potentially being under the
gaze of others is enough to provoke a disciplinary reaction.
5. Conclusion
This exploratory research study suggests that civil partnership as a
form of recognition for same-sex couples presents a number of ambiguities.
Although civil partnership has been presented as an instrument of equality
and recognition, it is clear that civil partnership can also present a focal point
for control and disciplinary behaviours.
There are highly moral expectations about the roles and
responsibilities attached to civil partnership in terms of caring, financial
provision and the stability of relationships as shorthand for monogamy.
These expectations are made clear to civil partners through government
documents aimed specifically at lesbian and gay couples and are reiterated
through the civil partnership ceremony, by means of the making of
commitments witnessed by family and friends. This awareness of lesbian
and gay couples’ new status as civil partners is reinforced constantly in daily
life through social interaction with colleagues, friends and family and in their
dealings with public and commercial service providers.
Although offering opportunities for recognition and social
affirmation, couples in the research sample also highlighted the process of
entering into a civil partnership as an occasion that brought heteronormativity
and homophobia to the fore. This suggests that recognition offers an uneasy,
contested form of citizenship. The civil partnership ceremony is merely the
starting point for an ongoing process of negotiating and performing couple
identities through interaction with the state, public and private service
providers and within their social networks comprising family, friends,
neighbours and work colleagues. In a wider context, civil partnership is still
in its infancy as a social institution and is likely to provide a highly fruitful
context for further sociological research.
Mike Thomas
29
______________________________________________________________
Notes
1
Civil Partnership Act, 2004 Section 1(1).
‘Civil partnerships down 18 per cent in 2008’, Office for National
Statistics, 4th August 2009, viewed on 30th October 2009,
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/cpuknr0809.pdf
3
Local Government Act, 1988. Section 28.
4
Department of Trade and Industry, Final Regulatory Impact Assessment:
Civil Partnership Act, 2004. HMSO, London, 2004, p. 17.
5
Lesbian and Gay Rights in the World. International Lesbian and Gay
Association, 2009. viewed on 30th October 2009,
http://www.ilga.org/Statehomophobia/ILGA_map_2009_A4.pdf.
6
R Auchmuty, ‘Same-sex marriage revived: feminist critique and legal
strategy’.Feminism and Psychology, vol 14, issue 1, 2004, pp. 101-126.
7
C Calhoun, , Feminism, the Family and the Politics of the Closet: Lesbian
and Gay Displacement, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2000.
8
M Foucault, The History of Sexuality, 1: The Will to Knowledge, Penguin,
Harmondsworth, 1980, p.43.
9
Department of Trade and Industry, Final Regulatory Impact Assessment:
Civil Partnership Act, 2004. HMSO, London, 2004, p. 17.
10
W Labov, Language in the Inner City, Philadelphia University Press
Philadelphia, 1972.
11
The names of all participants in the research study have been changed to
maintain anonymity.
2
Bibliography
Auchmuty, R., ‘Same-sex marriage revived: feminist critique and legal
strategy.’ Feminism and Psychology, Vol 14, Issue 1, 2004, pp. 101-126.
Calhoun, C., Feminism, the Family and the Politics of the Closet: Lesbian
and Gay Displacement. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2000.
Foucault, M., The History of Sexuality, 1. The Will To Knowledge. Penguin,
Harmondsworth, 1980.
Foucault, M., Discipline and Punish. Allen Lane, London, 1977.
Labov, W., Language in the Inner City. Philadelphia University Press
Philadelphia, 1972.
30
Recognition and Regulation of Same-sex Couples in the U.K.
______________________________________________________________
Mike Thomas is a Doctoral Candidate in the School of Social Sciences at
Cardiff University. The research study reported in this chapter is part of an
ESRC-funded comparative study of legal and social recognition for lesbian
and gay couples in the United Kingdom, Canada and the U. S. State of
California.
Forms of Resistance to the Organization’s
Symbolic Heteronormative Order
Beatrice Gusmano
Abstract
This chapter presents five challenges that non-heterosexual workers pose to
Italian public and private workplaces in order to counteract the
heteronormative hegemony of organizations. The empirical background is
based on 34 narrative interviews conducted with self-defined nonheterosexuals who had come out with at least one person in their workplace.
Following the stories’ analysis about challenging the symbolic gender order
in organizations, I identified five ways of resisting the heteronormative order
of workplaces, taking into consideration three features characterizing nonheterosexuals' narratives about work life (the degree of visibility, the
commitment showed towards work, and the centrality of sexual identity in
the workplace).1
Key Words: Coming out, heteronormativity, Italian workplaces, narrative
interviews, sexual identity.
*****
Although workplaces could be meant as heteronormative contexts
from a structural, discursive, normative and practical point of view, sexual
orientation is still an under-researched area in work organizations due to the
difficulty accessing information around themes connected to sexuality.2 The
framework provided by this research produces a significant contribution to
our understanding of how minority sexual identity is constructed and
managed at work because this chapter’s aim is to give voice to every
individual that does not recognize her/himself in a heterosexual definition of
her/his orientation, desires, behaviours, emotions, and identities. In order to
do so, I will present five forms of resistance to the organization’s symbolic
heteronormative order that represents the bias of workplaces.
1.
Theoretical Background
The field of organizational studies offers an interesting starting point
in dismantling taken-for-granted notions about sexuality, since
‘organizational cultures are sexualized and their claims not to be it derive
from the fact that they have a moral commitment toward an ethic of
universality’.3 In Gherardi’s book, Gender and Organizations, it is clear how
in organizations sexuality becomes neutralized in a double meaning: it is
erased and made neutral, that means taking heterosexuality as it were
32
Forms of Resistance
______________________________________________________________
universal. Researchers have bonded gender and sexuality into one, shaping ‘a
concept of gender overloaded with meaning while sexuality is rendered
invisible and heterosexuality is normalized’.4 The questions at this point are:
in an organizational culture, what is the meaning attached to sexuality and
gender, and how are they shaped? Following Ward and Winstanley5, there
has been little research focused upon the construction of sexual identity in
relation to the organizational context: the majority of the studies has
considered the term ‘sexuality’ along with other acceptations of the umbrella
term ‘diversity’, analysing it as an individual property rather than a process
determined by the context in which it takes place.6
One of the topics correlated with my chapter is the matrix of domain
that permeates relations within organizations, made by three levels:
individual, of the group, of the system.7 Following Foucault, I deem sexuality
not as an individual property, but as an available category and a discursive
effect of power relations.8 This is why Foucault suggests to analyse the
genesis of a certain knowledge about sexuality in terms of power, breaking
with previous conceptualizations that took into consideration sexuality as a
result of repressions and laws.9
Therefore, a model of sexual orientation does exist, legitimized
within society, that is learnt and acted within organizational contexts:
sexuality - meant as corporal desires, attractions and erotic behaviour - is
underwritten within organizational discourse following the norms that
organize it within social context, that are heterosexual rules. 10 Organizational
studies have pointed out how ‘organizational cultures differ one from the
other according to the way in which they conceive gender’11 and how ‘gender
and (hetero) sexual practices are thus organizational resources to be activated
and mobilized in everyday working life,’12 even though sexuality still
represents a taboo argument in organizational contemporary theories.13
Recent studies on gender and sexuality in organizations have underlined how
individuals enter their workplaces with a set of corporal desires and
attractions that are sewn into the fabric of everyday working life. At the same
time, though, ‘the individual agency involved in these performances is, of
course, constrained by a social system of economic imperatives and the
patriarchal power structure which constructs male and female unequally’.14
Following the assumption of many studies in organizational
research,15 I deem gender and sexuality as components of identity and as
social productions that stand out during daily interactions: ‘individuals ‘do
gender’ and simultaneously ‘do sexuality’ with an awareness of the dominant
societal norms and in anticipation of the judgments of others’.16 It is possible
to affirm that the hostile attitude of the society towards sexual minorities
moves to workplace, making it difficult to come out for people carrying a
different kind of sexual orientation, and to make research in this particular
Beatrice Gusmano
33
______________________________________________________________
field of studies, since sexual orientation is an invisible stigma that a person
can decide not to reveal. 17
Studying how sexual identity is created, constructed and maintained
implies referring to the wider reference setting, that is the Occidental culture,
where homosexual experience is still considered a transgression from THE
norm: the heterosexual norm. This goal becomes even more essential since
we are witnessing an attempt to keep quiet, as patterns of existence different
from the heterosexual ones did not exist,. This prevarication rests upon nonexplicit power dynamics that need to be revealed since ‘we are struck by the
intractable and enduring nature of organizational power structures and the
shocking inequalities they perpetuate in our society’.18
Heteronormativity is defined as the practices and institutions ‘that
legitimise and privilege heterosexuality and heterosexual relationships as
fundamental and ‘natural’ within society’.19 The assumption of every
research about sexuality in the workplace is that the context in which workers
are embedded is shaped by heteronormativity and heterosexuality: in
organizational studies, heterosexuality is presented as ‘the natural order of
things’20 that reinforces the domain of ‘compulsory heterosexuality,’21 whose
power is given by a principle of ‘non examinated heterocentrality’.22 This
assumption of heterosexuality means that, unless it is demonstrated to the
contrary, every individual that interacts in the workplace is considered to be
heterosexual. Therefore, the construction of other sexual identities brings to
light the heterosexual character of workplaces, making it necessary to analyse
‘the ways in which heterosexuality, discursively, structurally and
institutionally, is reproduced and perpetuated in the workplace’.23
One of the approaches undertaken by my research is that of queer
theory, which explores ‘what has been rendered ‘abnormal’ during processes
of normalization’.24 With the concept of ‘normalization’ I refer to those
notions of normality that manage the daily life of people’s activities and
expression of selfhood. Thanks to queer theories it is then possible to
discover ‘diverse reading strategies and multiple interpretative stances’ that
facilitate ‘resistance to regimes of the normal’.25 Sexual identity is then
studied as a performative act (staged by non heterosexual workers with the
collaboration of other actors) that has effects on the organizational culture by
producing some kind of change, as it will be showed in the findings section
of this chapter.
2.
Research Design and Methodology
The empirical background of my PhD research is based on 32
narrative interviews conducted with non-heterosexual people working in the
public and private sectors. According to Glazer and Strauss,26 this research
has followed a theoretical sampling: this non-probability sample was not
representative in a quantitative sense, but nor it intended to be, given the
34
Forms of Resistance
______________________________________________________________
qualitative approach of the study.27 Thus, sampling was selected trying to
collect qualitative data concerning different ways of constructing and
managing sexual identities at work. Through snowball sampling, people were
selected because they have come out at least once in their workplace.
Moreover, I interviewed two gay men who had not come out in the
workplace, this was realized during interviewing. It was after the research
was finished that I realized the importance of this two interviews: they
represent the ‘point 0’ of the process of coming out conceived as a
continuum. In fact, this kind of analysis is possible if we conceive coming
out not as a single event that happens once, as Seidman explains it in Beyond
the closet. 28 Coming out is defined as a process, being a performative act that
does not happen just once but is reiterated,29 following Butler’s definition of
performance as a reiterated ritual.30 This is one of the reasons why, following
Spradley, the interview design consisted of a wide open generating question
about the subject’s working life, followed by framing and focused questions;
nevertheless, a high degree of flexibility was retained in order to allow the
conversation to flow in directions decided by the person interviewed. 31
All transcriptions were manually coded and analysed along narrative
criteria that aimed to unveil how people construct and manage their sexual
identity at work in the constant process that is commonly called coming out.
3.
Challenges to the Workplace’s Heteronormative Order
I use a reading described by Gherardi and Poggio’s analysis about
challenging the symbolic gender order in organizations.32 This is a challenge
raised against the way in which the members of the organization define
specific domains of gender reference. When women enter male workplaces,
they activate a double challenge to the symbolic order represented by
hegemonic masculinity since they perform a challenge predicated on
diversity: they identify themselves as women, supposing a distance with male
colleagues, but at the same time they distinct themselves from women in the
same organization but with lower positions. I have then interpreted my
interviews on the basis of a double challenge that non heterosexual subjects
pose when they enter a heteronormative workplace: they have to constantly
negotiate an ambivalence toward their sexual identity, and this ambivalence
is translated in forms of distinctions and identification with the identity that
represents a rupture with the heteronormative symbolic order of the
workplace. As Goffman taught us, at this point the concept of moral careers
is useful: to have a stigma doesn’t mean to become stigmatized since it
depends on the relations that any of us is able to construct. 33
First of all, I have recognized three distinctive features
characterizing non-heterosexuals’ narratives about working life:
Beatrice Gusmano
35
______________________________________________________________
a.
b.
c.
the degree of visibility (coming out stories);
the commitment showed towards work;
the centrality of sexual identity in the workplace.
As it is possible to see from the diagram above, there are two
challenges that are at opposite sides of the continuum, and they are the
challenge through professionalism and the challenge through struggle. In the
middle, the challenge to the workplace’s heteronormative order is made
possible simply by the symbolic presence of non-heterosexual workers. This
symbolic presence can be defined as peripheral, temporary or constant, as we
will see more in detail below.
3.1
Challenge through Professionalism
This challenge characterizes men occupied in managerial positions
that give value to a sharp division between private and professional sphere.
They usually try to silence their sexual identity at work, while presenting a
high level of commitment and alignment to the heteronormative structure of
workplaces, showing a stereotypical vision of homosexuality: they openly
declare to be different from ‘other’ homosexuals.
People can accept homosexuals like me: I get up at 7 to go
to work and I come back home at nine in the evening after
15 hours of work. They see that I’m honest, that I’m a good
seller, that I have a quiet way of living. (Christian,
entrepreneur, 28)
This is a strategy of legitimacy and self-representation of the self as
belonging to the norm. A central issue of these narratives regards the fact of
36
Forms of Resistance
______________________________________________________________
‘knowing how to present oneself’: to be accepted, men whose challenge is
made possible through professionalism adhere to the hegemonic masculinity
of the workplace, that is heteronormative masculinity. This attitude, though,
contributes to create a hierarchy between honourable and unrespectable
homosexuals and it reproduces the discourse of exclusion underpinned by the
concept of sexual citizenship. Talking about rights, this attitude is at the core
of the debate about sexual citizenship, which main lack is represented by this
taken for granted primacy of subjects whose desire is homologation to the
hegemonic discourse.
At the same time though, resistance is made possible thanks to the
creation of a community of practices based on sexual identity: this process
will be better understood through the concept of ‘sexuality switching’.
Following the concept of gender switching used by Bruni and
Gherardi, I suggest the notion of sexuality switching, meaning those
situations in which non-heterosexual people have to engineer their identity
ceaselessly, according to the community (professional or sexual) to which
they feel to belong.34 I consider this sexuality switching as a way of
resistance to ‘the onus upon lesbians and gays to leave their homosexuality at
home and to ensure that their professional clothes double up as personal
closets, in order to preserve the heterosexual hegemony of the occupation’.35
3.2
Challenge through the Peripheral Symbolic Presence
The second challenge is characterized by the scant importance of
sexual identity in the working sphere: interviewees retain that workplace is
not the right location to perform sexual identity.
[The advice I would give to a homosexual colleague is] not
to come out because it is not necessary. It would be
provoking. I can’t see the need to come out. (Marta,
technical saleswoman, 50)
This challenge is performed by workers that have a high degree of
commitment who try to manage both professional and relational satisfaction
by coming out only with colleagues they trust. The strategy adopted is that of
a ‘selective coming out’ performed only with few colleagues that are
considered friends. These workers have been able to cleave the workplace
into two spheres based on the type of relationship they have been able to
weave together: coming out is then experienced not as a political choice, but
as a way of talking about private issues.
When there is the opportunity, sexual identity is used as a practical
knowledge to carry on educational projects in the workplace, as it has been
narrated by teachers.
Beatrice Gusmano
37
______________________________________________________________
This is a strategy that does not posit a direct challenge to the
heteronormative order, but there is an attempt to negotiate their sexual
identity only with some colleagues.
3.3
Challenge through the Temporary Symbolic Presence
This challenge is characterized by a lower commitment, since work
is presented as a way of obtaining economic independence, not as a path to
personal fulfilment. In these narratives, the concept of ‘luck’ often occurs as
a way of shrugging off the challenge created by the symbolic presence of
non-heterosexual workers: the subversion of the heteronormative
organizational culture's norms is an implicit but not pursued aspect of their
working life. Usually, these workers say that they didn’t want to change the
organizational context: they were just luck in finding such great colleagues to
talk with. These workers have come out with everybody in the organizational
context because they hope for a surpassing of gender and sexual identity
(more from an egalitarian point of view than from a queer approach).
I don’t like to put a line between homosexuals and
heterosexuals. The most wonderful thing is when you start
to be nothing; that you are considered as anyone else. Then
you realize that people have accepted you, you are invisible
as the rest of humanity, and it is a great experience. (Eva,
call centre employee, 33)
From the interview’s excerpt it is clear how Eva, a call centre
employee, hopes to become equal to heterosexual workers: this process is
what mainstream homosexual associations have made in Italy, trying to give
an image of homosexuality that follows the same paths of heterosexuality. In
this discourse, the only homosexual that can be accepted is the one that
reproduces heteronormative rules such as monogamy, the desire for a family,
the everlasting love, a form of sex that can be inscribed in the norm, an
appearance that can be defined as conventional, and so on.
3.4
Challenge through the Constant Symbolic Presence
The challenge through the constant symbolic presence aims to
completely change the organizational culture through practice and explicit
reference to non-heterosexual way of living.
I tell you something…we usually say that there are three
phases in homosexuality: the ‘?-phase’ is when you ask
yourself which sexual orientation you have; the ‘!-phase’ is
when you would like to tell everybody; the ‘…-phase’ is
38
Forms of Resistance
______________________________________________________________
when you get used to it, and it is the best phase ever! (Lino,
cruise ship’s shop manager, 46)
Visibility has been reached gradually after evaluating how
workplace could have reacted to coming out: at the same to time, as you can
imagine from the excerpt, there is a gradual path of self-acceptance. The
commitment is high because work is invested with an emotional meaning, as
well. The conflict with the heteronormative workplace is not direct, but is
constantly carried out through irony and daily work oriented to spread the
positive reading of homosexuality.
3.5
Challenge as Struggle
The challenge through struggle is carried out by workers who take a
stand daily toward discriminations. Coming out has been completed by
everybody in the organization because these interviewees do not want to
silence any aspect of their identity, especially at work: coming out is a need
since silence is deemed as compliance with the heteronormative context.
How do I consider my attitude? Of struggle. If a person
attacks me, I react. Because if you don’t react, you’ll die.
It’s my experience. (Alberto, policeman, 29)
I live my being lesbian as a daily struggle. (Viola, public
sector employee, 34)
The level of commitment presented by these interviewees is high,
since work is considered as an important and satisfactory sphere of their life:
thanks to work, these workers have been able to become economically
indipendent and, consequently, to affirm their identity.
4.
Conclusive Thoughts
The empirical field that I have discussed is Italy, a country where a
clear anti-discriminatory legislation against homophobia does not exist: this
is the reason why the majority of respondents report having looked for
personal solutions such as interactional strategies instead of posing an open
political conflict. In order to avoid these personal strategies, coming out
should be read as a process that regards not only workers who perform it, but
as a process that involves any subject that works in the organization.
In this sense, my contribution aims at reading sexual identity not in
terms of a property but in terms of a performance in order to counteract the
discursive construction of sexual identity based on the dichotomy of
heterosexuality/homosexuality. In fact, this essentialist reading reproduces
the disposal of power that defines the second term as hierarchically inferior.
Beatrice Gusmano
39
______________________________________________________________
To me, reading the process of coming out as a performance is a way of
surpassing this dichotomy.
Notes
1
S Gherardi, B Poggio, Gendertelling in organizations: narratives from
male-dominated environments, Liber, Copenhagen Business School Press,
Copenhaagen, 2007.
2
J H Ward, D C Winstanley, ‘Watching the watch: the UK Fire Service and
its impact on sexual minorities in the workplace’. Gender, work and
organization, vol. 13, 2006, pp. 193-219.
3
S Gherardi, Gender, Symbolism and Organizational Cultures, London,
Sage, 1995, p. 24.
4
J K Pringle, ‘Gender in management: Theorizing gender as heterogender’.
British Journal of Management, vol. 19, 2008, p. S110.
5
J H Ward, D C Winstanley, ‘The absent presence: negative space within
discourse and the construction of minority sexual identity in the workplace’.
Human relations, vol. 56, 2003, pp. 1255-1280.
6
Ward and Winstanley, Gender, work and organization.
7
J Martin, ‘The Organization of Exclusion: Institutionalization of Sex
Inequality, Gendered Faculty Jobs and Gendered Knowledge in
Organizational Theory and Research’. Organization, vol. 1, 1994, pp. 401431.
8
M Foucault, La volontè de savoir, Gallimard, Paris, 1976.
9
Ibid.
10
J Brewis, ‘‘When a body meets a body…’: experiencing the female body at
work’, in Organizing bodies: institutions, policy and work, L McKie and N
Watson (eds), MacMillan, London, 2002, pp. 166-184.
11
Gherardi, op. cit., p. 4.
12
A Bruni, ‘‘Have you got a boyfriend or are you single?’: on the importance
of being ‘straight’ in organizational research’. Gender, Work and
Organization, vol. 13, 2006, p. 303.
13
P Hancock, M Tyler, Work, postmodernism and organization, Sage,
London, 2001.
14
M Jackson, ‘Heterosexuality as a problem for feminist theory’, in
Sexualizing the social: power and the organization of sexuality, L Adkins
and V Merchant (eds), MacMillan, London, 1996, p. 18.
15
S E Martin, N C Jurik, Doing justice, doing gender: women in criminal
justice occupations, Sage, Thousand Hoaks: CA, 1996.
16
S L Miller, K B Forest, N C Jurik, ‘Diversity in blue: lesbian and gay
police officers in a masculine occupation’. Men and masculinities, vol. 5,
2003, p. 357.
40
Forms of Resistance
______________________________________________________________
17
Ward, J.H., Winstanley, D.C., ‘The absent presence: negative space within
discourse and the construction of minority sexual identity in the workplace’.
Human relations, vol. 56, 2003, pp. 1255-1280.
18
M Macalpine, S Marsh, ‘‘On being white: there’s nothing I can say’.
Exploring whiteness and power in organizations’. Management Learning,
vol. 36, 2005, pp. 429.
19
C J Cohen, ‘Punks, bulldaggers, and welfare queen: The radical potential
of queer politics?’, in Black Queer Studies, E P Johnson and M G Henderson
(eds), Duke: Duke UP, 2005, p. 24.
20
J C Humphrey, ‘Organizing sexualities, organized inequalities: lesbians
and gay men in public service occupations’. Gender, work and organization,
vol. 6, 1999, pp. 134-151.
21
A Rich, ‘Compulsory heterosexuality and lesbian existence’. Signs:
journal of women in culture and society, vol. 5, 1980, pp. 631-660.
22
A Rich, ‘Forward to ‘Compulsory heterosexuality and lesbian existence’’,
in Feminist frontiers II: rethinking sex, gender and society, L Richardson and
V Taylors (eds), Random House, New York, 1989, p. III.
23
E McDermott, ‘Surviving in dangerous places: lesbian identity
performances in the workplace, social class and psychological health’,
Feminism Psychology, vol. 16, 2006, p. 194.
24
H Lee, M Learmonth, N Harding, ‘Queer(y)ing public administration’,
Public Administration, 2008, vol. 86, pp. 150.
25
D E Hall, Queer theories, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2003, p. XXVI.
26
B Glaser, A Strauss, The discovery of grounded theory: strategies for
qualitative research, Aldine, Chicago, 1967.
27
D Silverman, Interpreting qualitative data: Methods for analysing talk, text
and interaction, 2nd edition, Sage, London, 2001.
28
S Seidman, Beyond the closet: The transformation of gay and lesbian life.
Routledge, New York, 2002.
29
J H Ward, D C Winstanley, ‘Coming out at work: performativity and the
recognition and negotiation of identity’. The sociological review, vol. 53,
2005, pp. 447-475.
30
J Butler, ‘Critically queer’, GLQ, vol. 1, 1993, pp. 17-32.
31
J P Spradley, The ethnographic interview. Wadsworth Group/Thomas
Learning, Belmont, 1979.
32
Gherardi and Poggio, op. cit.
33
E Goffman, Stigma: notes on the management of spoiled identity, Prentice
Hall, New York, 1963.
34
A Bruni, S Gherardi, ‘Omega’s history. The heterogeneous engineering of
a gendered professional self’, in Mapping professional identities. Knowledge,
Beatrice Gusmano
41
______________________________________________________________
performativity, and the ‘new’ professional, M Dent and S Whitehead (eds)
Routledge, London, 2002, pp. 174-198.
35
Humphrey, op. cit., p. 146.
Bibliography
Brewis, J., ‘‘When a body meets a body…’: experiencing the female body at
work’, in Organizing bodies: institutions, policy and work. L. McKie, N.
Watson (eds), MacMillan, London, 2002, pp. 166-184.
Bruner, J. S., Actual minds, possible worlds. Harvard University Press,
Cambridge, 1986.
Bruni, A., ‘‘Have you got a boyfriend or are you single?’: on the importance
of being ‘straight’ in organizational research’. Gender, Work and
Organization, vol. 13, 2006, pp. 299-316.
_______
, & Gherardi, S., ‘Omega’s history. The heterogeneous engineering of a
gendered professional self’, in M. Dent and S. Whitehead (eds), Mapping
professional identities. Knowledge, performativity, and the ‘new’
professional. Routledge, London, 2002, pp. 174-198.
Butler, J., ‘Critically queer’. GLQ, vol. 1, 1993, pp. 17-32.
Cohen, C. J., ‘Punks, bulldaggers, and welfare queen: The radical potential of
queer politics?’, in Black Queer Studies. E P Johnson and M G Henderson
(eds), Duke: Duke UP, 2005.
Foucault, M., La volontè de savoir. Gallimard, Paris, 1976.
Gherardi, S., Gender, Symbolism and Organizational Cultures. London,
Sage, 1995.
Gherardi, S., Poggio, B., Gendertelling in organizations: narratives from
male-dominated environments. Liber, Copenhagen Business School Press,
Copenhaagen, 2007.
Glaser, B., Strauss, A., The discovery of grounded theory: strategies for
qualitative research. Aldine, Chicago, 1967.
42
Forms of Resistance
______________________________________________________________
Goffman, E., Stigma: notes on the management of spoiled identity. Prentice
Hall, New York, 1963.
Hall, D.E., Queer theories. Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2003.
Hancock, P., Tyler, M., Work, postmodernism and organization. Sage,
London, 2001.
Humphrey, J.C., ‘Organizing sexualities, organized inequalities: lesbians and
gay men in public service occupations’. Gender, work and organization, vol.
6, 1999, pp.134-151.
Jackson, M., ‘Heterosexuality as a problem for feminist theory’, in
Sexualizing the social: power and the organization of sexuality. L. Adkins,
V. Merchant (eds), MacMillan, London, 1996, pp. 12-33.
Lee, H., Learmonth, M., Harding, N. ‘Queer(y)ing public administration’.
Public Administration, 2008, vol. 86, pp. 149-167.
Lyotard, J.F., La condition postmoderne. Les Editions de Minuit, Paris, 1979.
Macalpine, M., Marsh, S., ‘‘On being white: there’s nothing I can say’.
Exploring whiteness and power in organizations’. Management Learning,
vol. 36, 2005, pp. 429-450.
Martin, J., ‘The Organization of Exclusion: Institutionalization of Sex
Inequality, Gendered Faculty Jobs and Gendered Knowledge in
Organizational Theory and Research’. Organization, vol. 1, 1994, pp. 401431.
Martin, S.E., Jurik, N.C., Doing justice, doing gender: women in criminal
justice occupations. Sage, Thousand Hoaks: CA, 1996.
McDermott, E., ‘Surviving in dangerous places: lesbian identity
performances in the workplace, social class and psychological health’.
Feminism Psychology, vol. 16, 2006, pp. 193-211.
Miller, S.L., Forest, K.B., Jurik, N.C., ‘Diversity in blue: lesbian and gay
police officers in a masculine occupation’. Men and masculinities, vol. 5,
2003, pp. 355-385.
Beatrice Gusmano
43
______________________________________________________________
Pringle, J.K., ‘Gender in management: Theorizing gender as heterogender’.
British Journal of Management, vol. 19, 2008, S110–S119.
Rich, A., ‘Compulsory heterosexuality and lesbian existence’. Signs: journal
of women in culture and society, vol. 5, 1980, pp. 631-660.
_______
, ‘Forward to ‘Compulsory heterosexuality and lesbian existence’’, in
Feminist frontiers II: rethinking sex, gender and society. L. Richardson, V.
Taylors (eds), Random House, New York, 1989, pp. I-VII.
_______
, Beyond the closet: The transformation of gay and lesbian life.
Routledge, New York, 2002.
Silverman, D., Interpreting qualitative data: Methods for analysing talk, text
and interaction. 2nd edition, Sage, London, 2001.
Spradley, J.P., The ethnographic interview. Wadsworth Group/Thomas
Learning, Belmont, 1979.
Ward, J.H., Winstanley, D.C., ‘The absent presence: negative space within
discourse and the construction of minority sexual identity in the workplace’.
Human relations, vol. 56, 2003, pp. 1255-1280.
_______
, ‘Sexuality and the city: exploring the experience of minority sexual
identity through storytelling’. Culture and organization, vol. 10, 2004, pp.
219-236.
_______
, ‘Coming out at work: performativity and the recognition and
negotiation of identity’. The sociological review, vol. 53, 2005, pp. 447-475.
_______
, ‘Watching the watch: the UK Fire Service and its impact on sexual
minorities in the workplace’. Gender, work and organization, vol. 13, 2006,
pp. 193-219.
Beatrice Gusmano is a PhD researcher in Sociology at the University of
Trento, Italy. She is interested in queer studies, the deconstruction of gender,
sex and sexuality applied to organizational studies and in the narrative
methodological approach.
Deconstructing Sexual Identities in Daniel MacIvor’s
A Beautiful View
Michaela Pňačeková
Abstract
The chapter analyses linguistic deconstruction of sexual identities in the text
by Daniel MacIvor A Beautiful View. The author looks into the way the
characters’ relationship is indexed in their language as well as the
deconstruction of their sexual identities by refusing to label them, which
consequently deconstructs their sexualities, both contextually and
discursively constructed. The relationship, which functions as a context cocreating their characters’ sexualities, gradually becomes a problem; it is
sabotaged by the pressure of its own definition as well as the pressure of the
definition of one’s own sexual identity, which is constructed via language.
Yet, does the refusal of defining and labelling sexual identity as well as one’s
relationship deconstruct the concept of sexuality itself? Sexuality is
discursively constructed, words carry performative force and therefore they
co-construct or deconstruct sexual identities and sexualities - they deconstruct
the concepts themselves, which is due to discursive cyclicality. This chapter
will research this premise on MacIvor’s dramatic text as it is an example of
linguistic deconstruction of sexual identity and consequently the
deconstruction of characters’ sexuality.
Key Words: Context, discursive cyclicality, heteronormative discourse,
language, sexuality, sexual identity.
*****
Contrary to the mainstream media, i.e. television and film, theatre
has nowadays become an alternative sort of medium that can subvert
stereotypes by pointing at them and thus it also has the power to shift
viewers’ concepts of these stereotypes. This chapter focuses on linguistic
deconstruction of sexuality and sexual identity in dramatic discourse based
on a study of Daniel MacIvor’s A Beautiful View.1
In the play the main theme is a relationship between two women,
through which feminine gender and homosexuality are addressed. This theme
essentially becomes the plot of the play, and it develops as the two
protagonists enact various scenes from their relationship from the beginning
to the very end. The two characters - Liz and Mitch - ‘perform’ a show about
their relationship: i.e. their first encounter, first lovemaking, first fight etc.
Their relationship gradually becomes a problem, and it is sabotaged
by the pressure of its own definition, as well as the pressure for Mitch and
46 Deconstructing Sexual Identities in Daniel MacIvor’s A Beautiful View
______________________________________________________________
Liz to define their sexual identity. Yet, does the refusal to define and label
sexual identity deconstruct the concept itself? Does it also deconstruct
sexuality? From a Foucauldian point of view, our understanding of sexuality
‘is always dependent on the kind of discourse about sex that circulates in a
given time and place’.2 Thus, if sexuality is discursively constructed, the
question that arises is: if a woman has a relationship with another woman,
does she deconstruct her sexuality by refusing to sexually define herself, by
denying her desire? I will focus here on linguistic features in the dramatic
text that deal with sexual identities and their labelling and the issue of
performativity, as well as on the interaction with heteronormative discourse
that becomes the reason for the characters to break-up.
Linguistically, some speech acts create context, which becomes a
crucial factor in constructing sexual identities. In the play, the context is their
relationship while heteronormative discourse is what forces them to refuse
labels like ‘lesbian’ or ‘gay’ (in positive as well as negative ways). The
denial of naming one’s relationship as well as one’s own sexual identity
means deconstructing it.
For this analysis, there are a few crucial terms that need to be
clarified. First of all, let us clarify the terms sexuality and sexual identity.
Sexuality might be understood as generically encompassing sexual desires
and basic biological drives, but it can also be understood from a Foucauldian
view as a discursive construct; a factor that influences our personal identity,
i.e. sexual identity. I will use the following meanings of sexuality here:
sexuality as desire and practice and sexuality as discourse about sex. Our
personal identity might not be defined around our sexuality but it sometimes
is defined around it. Secondly, identity is a social act. Zábrodská defines
identity as, ‘...complicated social activities…Identities are performative,
always acted out through the subject positions created by language…’.3
Therefore, the premises are: identity is a social act, it is performative
and it is co-produced by language. The question that is posed here is: why do
we need to deconstruct our sexual identities then? Answers are to be found
with the help of a discourse analysis of MacIvor’s text.
Secondly, context and discourse are crucial terms that need to be
clarified. Discourse is used in both senses - in the linguistic sense (discourse
analysis) meaning language in use. ‘The way language is used in particular
contexts for particular purposes’.4 On the other hand, the term discourse will
be used in critical sense to refer to, ‘practices that systematically form the
objects of which they speak’.5 The above mentioned heteronormative
discourse is used in the Foucauldian sense as ‘the linguistic apparatus through
which the articulation of knowledge becomes an expression of power’.6
Now let us look at the term context and what it means in dramatic
discourse analysis. In the play, context is the show itself - the two characters
perform their relationship; basically they construct the context throughout the
Michaela Pňačeková
47
______________________________________________________________
play. At the beginning, the reader/viewer does not know what is going to
happen; nonetheless she/he is given cues, as in the following example: ‘LIZ.
We should start./MITCH. From where?/LIZ. From the very beginning’.7
Hanks says, ‘verbal deixis is a central aspect of the social matrix of
orientation and perception through which speakers produce context’.8 The
two characters are going to depict the story of their relationship to the
audience. In the example above, the three speech acts9 presuppose certain
context, i.e. their relationship; they index the context via
‘secondary’/‘indirect’ deictical means10: ‘From where?’, ‘The beginning’. In
this way they create their relationship through language (it is not produced in
Nebentext only) and consequently the story of their relationship functions as a
certain context in which sexuality is constructed as the relationship is based
on sexual desire and practice.
I used the word Nebentext and so let me explain how this term
functions theatrically. In Fischer-Lichte’s terminology, the dramatic text is
divided in Haupttext (the main text) - the dialogue itself (speech acts);
Nebentext11 - the extra-dialogic text which contextualizes the dialogue.
Nebentext comprises the names of the characters and stage directions which
create extra-linguistic reality of the text being produced on the stage and the
context the characters produce by their speech acts (context 1).
Then in Pavis’ terminology, there is metatext, which comprises the
author’s and the reader’s and finally the viewer’s contexts (context 2).12
These contexts work dialogically. ‘The concretisation is not given beforehand
in toto by the performance text; it is the result of a directorial concretisation
that proceeds from the directorial metatext, and then is confronted by the
spectatorial metatext. Both metatexts have something in common: the sociocultural context’13 - context 3. In this analysis, context 1 and 3 will be
important.
At the beginning of the play, both characters consider themselves
‘straight’ and they consider the other one ‘lesbian’.
LIZ. (to the audience) …And so she's trying to pick me up.
Big deal. Not my thing. But you know, who cares? I'm off
people generally, not even hiring in the friend department.
Plus I once had a guy I met at a play who came out to the
airport ‘for a drink’ and that was a bit strange. And anyway
I don't know for sure that she's a lesbian.14
Liz explains to the audience that she is not a lesbian and also that
she is uncertain about Mitch’s identity. From the heteronormative point of
view, it seems that if Mitch was straight, it would be all right if Liz went for a
drink with her. If she is homosexual, a problem might arise. However, Mitch
figures out Liz’s sexual orientation in the same situation, ‘And I think, oh my
48 Deconstructing Sexual Identities in Daniel MacIvor’s A Beautiful View
______________________________________________________________
god, she is a lesbian!’15 Although Mitch comes to the airport to see Liz, she
does not consider herself a lesbian. Though they both feel a certain attraction,
they can never call themselves ‘lesbians’. They do not define their identities
around their desires and sexualities. It might be said that this reluctance to
label one’s own sexual identity is due to the performative force of labels,
therefore the label would make it ‘real’.
Let us look at speech acts that include labels and their performative
force. Every utterance pronounced by the character is a speech act; and
‘within speech act theory, a performative is that discursive practice that
enacts or produces that which it names’.16 A speech act can thus produce that
which it names, however, only by reference to the law (or the accepted norm,
code, or contract), which is cited or repeated (and thus performed) in the
pronouncement. The characters arise via speech acts, and thus in drama,
speech acts are performative. They not only change the world but also recreate it. As theatre is an imaginative system where the characters ‘act’ and
‘the stage is the world’, speech acts are acts in their very existence. In
Butler’s theory of performativity, speech acts construct gender (and identity
as Zábrodská states) and reality itself; but on the other hand, they are a series
of repeated discursive acts. If we work within these terms, the speech acts
constitute dramatic discourse and sexual labels create characters’ sexualities.
Cameron and Kulick say,
The classification of sexual desires, practices and identities
does two things simultaneously: it produces categories and
it labels them, gives them names.17
Consequently, according to queer theory, gender and sexual
identities are performative and therefore it can be said that they are
constituted through discursive histories of repeated acts of identification. In
that case, does it suggest that not labelling one’s own identity also means
deconstructing one’s sexuality?
The pronunciation of a character’s identity is performative and
therefore both of the characters refuse to label themselves as lesbians because
they do not want to ‘produce’ their homosexuality. After the ‘sexual act’
between them, Mitch says,
MITCH. …The music was a sign that I should, you know,
let go, for a second, for a minute, for a night. And so, well,
I did and it was... I mean, I wasn't thinking about it, it just
was, and it was.... But then when I did think about it later
on, at four in the morning, I just couldn't. I mean. I couldn't
go getting bisexual on myself. I mean that might work for
Michaela Pňačeková
49
______________________________________________________________
some people but trust me I do not have the constitution for
it.18
After the sexual intercourse with Liz, Mitch does not want to admit
any other sexual identity than heterosexuality. Interestingly she mentions
‘bisexuality’, not ‘homosexuality’, which is less marked and more socially
accepted. Her speech act constitutes a certain context (the night they spent
together); nonetheless, she does not want to admit that she might be
‘bisexual’. Again, this fact demonstrates the performative force labels carry,
and here the heteronormative discourse comes into play. Although
McConnell-Ginet states that ‘lesbian has been the least marked designator of
homosexual women,’19 there are negative ideological connotations to the ‘L’
word. These connotations are produced by the heteronormative discourse and
sexuality discourse; and gradually, they can become the core meaning of the
word. McConnell-Ginet stresses this social production of meaning when she
says, ‘meaning is a matter of not only individual will but of social relations
embedded in political structures’.20 Because Mitch is afraid to use the word
‘lesbian’, which encompasses the social stigma of negative and
heteronormative connotations (e.g. lesbians are frigid and man-haters), she
uses the word ‘bisexual’ - although she cannot identify with that either.
Later on, there are other examples when the characters deny sexual
labels. After they sleep with each other, they do not see each other and then
they meet again and Liz is married:
MITCH. Have you switched over entirely?/LIZ. To
what?/MITCH. …Men?/LIZ. I never left men, I mean,
there was you./MITCH. What do you mean? There was
more than me./LIZ No./MITCH. I thought you were a
lesbian./LIZ. No. Does that matter?/MITCH. Well.
No./LIZ. Do you only sleep with other lesbians?/MITCH.
I’m not a lesbian.21
In the dialogue above both characters realise that none of them
perceive themselves as a lesbian and that the sexual experience was probably
a first time experience for them. Although both deny having slept with other
women before and therefore they do not have a ‘solid reason’ to call
themselves lesbians, both of them feel desire for other women and a strong
urge to refuse labelling.
There is a female character called Sasha that the viewer never sees.
At first, she is just a drummer Liz knows but both of them gradually develop
an interest in her, ‘MITCH. What did Sasha think? What did Sasha
think?/LIZ. About what? /MITCH Ukular? /LIZ She said it was fun’.22
50 Deconstructing Sexual Identities in Daniel MacIvor’s A Beautiful View
______________________________________________________________
Continuously, Liz and Mitch get closer again; they set up a ukulele
band and become friends with Sasha. Despite spending more time together,
their relationship is ambiguous. Liz tries to be more open about their
relationship; she talks about it with Sasha:
LIZ. She wanted to know who seduced who./MITCH. Of
whom?/LIZ. Me and you./MITCH. She knows about
that?/LIZ A few people know about that.23
Interestingly, Mitch refers to their sexual experience (was it only
once?) with the deictical demonstrative ‘that’ – which presupposes a certain
context (the sexual act), on the other hand by being incapable of naming it,
Mitch sabotages it and in the end the relationship is destroyed.
As they are unable/unwilling to identify their own sexual identities,
they are unable to identify their own relationship and in a way, they question
their own sexualities. The next dialogue takes place before a Halloween party
and Mitch dresses as Anne Shirley from Green Gables.
LIZ. We're like a couple, aren't we?/MITCH. A couple of
what?/LIZ. What are you afraid of?/MITCH. That
everyone's going to think I'm Dorothy.24
As we can see, Liz tries to be more open about their relationship and
also her sexuality; she tries to define their relationship although she hedges it,
‘we’re like a couple’ means not really a couple but something like a couple.
Mitch ignores the logical connotation and asks Liz to complete the question
(a couple of friends?). However, this time Liz addresses the problem straight
‘what are you afraid of?’ But Mitch changes the subject and responds
referring to her Halloween costume. What gradually happens is that by
refusing to label their own sexual identities, they refuse to label their
relationship, to name it in a clear way so that both of them can identify with it
and in a way they question their sexualities. Mitch’s sexuality is depicted
only once through the sexual act with Liz, since then Mitch does not show
her sexuality and it seems as if she slowly deconstructed it. The
deconstruction of labels is performative in such a way that it deconstructs the
context itself. The relationship ceases to exist. There are no clear rules (is it a
friendship, a love affair?) and so what happens is that Liz sleeps with Sasha
in the end:
LIZ. I'm upstairs./MITCH. With Sasha./LIZ. With Sasha./
MITCH. And they're not just talking./LIZ. We ended up
having sex./MITCH. ‘Ended up?’ Whatever. And I walk in.
It's dark but I can make out two people on the bed. One of
Michaela Pňačeková
51
______________________________________________________________
them is Sasha and the other one is her. Her hair is a mess
and her shirt is pulled way up. And all I can think to say is:
‘Pull your shirt down I can see your nipples.’/LIZ. What
are you doing in here? Get out. Get out. Get out.25
Liz’s behaviour is the consequence of not setting up rules, which
comes along with defining relationships. Although the original idea is to
deconstruct one’s sexual identity by not naming it to get rid of the negative
connotations the words carry in themselves (to be what we are); it slowly
deconstructs the context by which it is originally constructed, which means
their relationship and Mitch’s sexuality who is the resilient one in the end.
Her utterance, ‘Pull your shirt down, I can see your nipples’ means that she
actually does not show signs of jealousy, it is embarrassment of the other’s
nakedness. Mitch hides (deconstructs) her sexuality. This is due to the
discursive cyclicality of sexuality. Liz and Mitch are literally products of
discourse - the dramatic discourse, as well as the socio-cultural discourse - as
they are dramatic characters, nonetheless as figures that mirror reality, they
seem to fall victim to their own struggle because of the cyclical discursive
processes. According to Butler,
the distinction between the personal and the political or
between private and public is itself a fiction designed to
support an oppressive status quo: our most personal acts
are, in fact, continually being scripted by hegemonic social
conventions and ideologies.26
Liz and Mitch try to escape the heteronormative discourse by trying
not to label their identities on the one hand, on the other, they are products of
the discourse as they are unable to get out of the vicious cycle - they cannot
define their own relationship and therefore they break-up.
After Liz sleeps with Sasha, Liz and Mitch stop talking (they cannot
break up because they were never together). After some time, they
accidentally meet again. Liz reproaches Mitch for being quiet then, which
was one of the reasons Liz cheated on her:
LIZ. Why didn't you say anything?/MITCH. What did you
want me to say?/LIZ. Whatever you were
thinking?/MITCH. What did you want me to think?/LIZ. ‘I
wonder if she's lonely’?/A moment./MITCH. I'll see
ya./LIZ. See ya.27
In one of the last scenes, we hear Liz talking about labels and names
and her attempt to stop using them:
52 Deconstructing Sexual Identities in Daniel MacIvor’s A Beautiful View
______________________________________________________________
LIZ. …if I had to say something - and since I can, I'd have
to say, stop naming things. ‘I am a,’ ‘We are a.’ ‘She is a.’
If we could only let it be what it is and be what it is and be
okay with that. ‘A friendship.’ ‘A love affair.’ ‘A
soulmate.’ Those are just names so other people can feel
comfortable…It's not about other people. Or maybe... I
guess for me it was about her, at this point anyway…28
MacIvor’s text shows us that trying to escape labels - hence
deconstructing one’s sexual identity - is a complex issue. Although one’s
sexuality might be created in a context outside language, words carry
performative force and therefore by defining their sexual identity, the
characters co-construct or deconstruct their identities and thus they
deconstruct their sexualities. Liz and Mitch try to escape the heteronormative
discourse by trying not to label their identities and let their sexualities be for
what they are with no need to define their identities around them; however,
because their relationship is defined around sexual pleasure and desire, by
deconstructing their sexual identities, they fall victims to the performative
force of labels and by deconstructing them they deconstruct their own
relationship.
All in all, the language deconstructs the concepts in the same way as
it creates them. Even though the cyclicality of discursive processes seems
inescapable, there are always attempts to escape the discursive constructs and
live outside words and concepts.
Notes
1
In this case dramatic discourse means written dramatic text, a script to be
played. For the lack of space, I am not concerned with the performance
aspect although it plays an important role.
2
D Cameron, D Kulick, The Language and Sexuality Reader, Routledge,
New York, 2006, p. 10.
3
K Zábrodská, Variace na gender, Academia, Praha, 2009, p. 13.
4
D Cameron, D Kulick, The Language and Sexuality Reader, Routledge,
New York, 2006, p. 16.
5
M Foucault, Archaeology of Knowledge, Pantheon Books, New York, 1972,
p. 149.
6
J MacKenzie, Orientalism: History, Theory and the Arts, University of
Manchester, Manchester, 1995, p. 18.
7
D MacIvor, ‘A Beautiful View’, in I Still Love You, D MacIvor, Playwrights
Canada Press, Toronto, 2006, p. 206.
Michaela Pňačeková
53
______________________________________________________________
8
W F Hanks, ‘The Indexical Ground of Deictic Reference’, in Rethinking
Context, A Duranti and C Goodwin (eds), Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge, 1993, p. 44.
9
A speech act is ‘a communicative activity, defined with reference to the
intentions of the speaker while speaking and the effects he achieves on his
listener’ (D Crystal, The English Language, Penguin Books, London, 2002,
p. 285).
10
Deixis is the means by which the relationship between language and
context is expressed in the structure of language. The grammatical features it
uses are demonstratives, first and second person pronouns, tense, specific
time and place adverbs like now and here.
11
E Ficher-Lichte, Semiotik des Theaters, Gunter Narr Verlag,
Tübingen,1983.
12
P Pavis, Dictionnaire du Théâtre: termes et concepts de l'analyse théâtrale,
Éditions sociales, Paris, 1980.
13
F De Toro, Theatre Semiotics: text and staging in the modern theatre,
University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 1995, p. 110.
14
D MacIvor, ‘A Beautiful View’, in I Still Love You, D MacIvor,
Playwrights Canada Press, Toronto, 2006, p. 213.
15
D MacIvor, ‘A Beautiful View’, in I Still Love You, D MacIvor,
Playwrights Canada Press, Toronto, 2006, p. 214.
16
J Butler, Bodies that matter: on the discursive limits of ‘sex’, Routledge
New York, 1993, p. 13.
17
D Cameron, D Kulick, The Language and Sexuality Reader, Routledge,
New York, 2006, p. 24.
18
D MacIvor, ‘A Beautiful View’, in I Still Love You, D MacIvor,
Playwrights Canada Press, Toronto, 2006, p. 220.
19
S McConnell-Ginet, ‘Queering Semantics’, in Language and sexuality,
contesting meaning in theory and practice, K Campbell-Kibler, R J Podesva
(eds), Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford, 2002, p.
144.
20
S McConnell-Ginet, ‘The Sexual (Re)Production of Meaning: A
Discourse-based Theory’, in The Feminist Critique of Language, D Cameron
(ed), Routledge, London, 1998, p. 199.
21
D MacIvor, ‘A Beautiful View’, in I Still Love You, D MacIvor,
Playwrights Canada Press, Toronto, 2006, p. 220.
22
D MacIvor, ‘A Beautiful View’, in I Still Love You, D MacIvor,
Playwrights Canada Press, Toronto, 2006, p. 226.
23
Ibid, p. 227
24
Ibid, p. 236
25
Ibid, p. 237
54 Deconstructing Sexual Identities in Daniel MacIvor’s A Beautiful View
______________________________________________________________
26
D Felluga, ‘Modules on Butler: On Performativity’, Introductory Guide to
Critical Theory, 2003, viewed on 3 March2009)
<http://www.purdue.edu/guidetotheory/genderandsex/modules/butlerperform
ativity.html>.
27
D MacIvor, ‘A Beautiful View’, in I Still Love You, D MacIvor,
Playwrights Canada Press, Toronto, 2006, p. 240.
28
Ibid, p. 241
Bibliography
Butler, J., Bodies that matter: on the discursive limits of ‘sex’. Routledge,
New York, 1993.
Cameron, D., Kulick, D., The Language and Sexuality Reader. Routledge,
New York, 2006.
Crystal, D., The English Language. Penguin Books, London, 2002.
De Toro, F., Theatre Semiotics: text and staging in the modern theatre.
University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 1995.
Eckert, P., McConell-Ginet S., Language and Gender. Cambridge University
Press, Cambridge, 2003.
Felluga, D., ‘Modules on Butler: On Performativity’, Introductory Guide to
Critical Theory, 2003, viewed on March 3, 2009
<http://www.purdue.edu/guidetotheory/genderandsex/modules/butlerperform
ativity.html>.
Ficher-Lichte, E., Semiotik des Theaters. Gunter Narr Verlag, Tübingen,
1983.
Foucault, M., Archaeology of Knowledge. Pantheon Books,
1972.
New York,
–––, History of Sexuality, An Introduction. Vintage Books, New York, 1990.
Hanks, W. F., ‘The Indexical Ground of Deictic Reference’, in Rethinking
Context. A. Duranti and C. Goodwin (eds), Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge, 1993, pp. 43-76.
Michaela Pňačeková
55
______________________________________________________________
MacIvor, D., ‘A Beautiful View’, in I Still Love You. D. MacIvor (ed),
Playwrights Canada Press, Toronto, 2006.
MacKenzie, John M., Orientalism: History, Theory and the Arts. University
of Manchester, Manchester, 1995.
McConnell-Ginet, S., ‘Queering Semantics’, in Language and sexuality,
contesting meaning in theory and practice. K. Campbell-Kibler, R. J.
Podesva (eds), Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford,
2002, pp. 137–160.
–––, ‘The Sexual (Re)Production of Meaning: A Discourse-based Theory’, in
The Feminist Critique of Language. D. Cameron (ed), Routledge, London,
1998, pp. 198-210.
Pavis, P., Dictionnaire du Théâtre: termes et concepts de l'analyse théâtrale.
Éditions sociales Paris, 1980.
Zábrodská, K., Variace na gender. Academia, Praha, 2009.
Michaela Pňačeková is a PhD candidate at the Department of English and
American Studies at Masaryk University, Czech Republic. She is interested
in interdisciplinary studies and focuses on linguistic reconstruction and
deconstruction of gender in dialogic discourse.
PART II
Examining Aspects of Heterosexuality
What Drives the Human Sex Drive? Peering into the Portals
of Virtual Sex
Derrell Cox II
Abstract
Internet-based sexually explicit materials (iSEMs) continue to attract millions
of viewers around the globe on a daily basis. The types of websites visited
and the content viewed provide a window into the erotic souls of millions of
people worldwide. There have been few studies of what these millions of
viewers are seeking and why they are seeking iSEM. These websites cater to
individuals seeking erotic entertainment for many reasons, such as: curiosity;
to vicariously fulfil sexual fantasies otherwise unattainable, including novel
behaviours, novel partners, and harem fantasies; to participate in a virtual
form of voyeurism and exhibitionism; to facilitate arousal and sexual release;
to reduce boredom; to enhance or incite foreplay between intimates; a source
of sexual information; and others. This paper examines the popularity,
content, and viewer demographics of three of the most popular websites
featuring iSEMs, Youporn.com, RedTube.com, and Pornhub.com. Two
hundred and sixty videos are analysed based on sex acts, number and gender
of the participants, geographic region of origin, theme /plot, location of the
scene (outdoors, office, bedroom, et cetera), and whether or not a condom
was used. The total number of views of these videos exceeds 1.7 Billion. In
addition, the total number of views of free videos alone on these sites exceeds
110 Billion! Though viewers peruse these websites from diverse regions of
the globe, the videos they upload and watch reveal sexual behaviours and
erotic desires which are common to humanity, but also have regional
distinctions. Based upon data obtained from these videos, a comparison is
made with previous research conducted a decade ago, which explored the
evolutionary motivations for sexual arousal. The results of this present study
are statistically significant and in distinct contradiction to those found in the
previous study, which have significant impacts upon contemporary
perspectives of evolved sexual desire.
Key Words: Online sexually explicit material (iSEM), PornHub,
pornography, RedTube, sex, sperm competition theory, Tube8, YouPorn.
*****
1.
Introduction: Porn and Sperm Competition Theory
In the introduction to his paper, Pound provides a background of the
theory behind the production and use of pornography, which is in essence to
allow men (or women) to experience their sexual fantasies vicariously.1
60
What Drives the Human Sex Drive?
______________________________________________________________
Women have a limited supply of ova and bear the high cost of reproduction.
As such, women generally prefer to mate with males of high gene quality and
who are willing to invest in their offspring. They often do not come in the
same package though. Men, on the other hand, have a virtually unlimited
supply of sperm and would increase their reproductive success by mating
with as many fertile women as possible with minimal investment.
Mosher suggests that a key feature of pornography is to facilitate
sexual arousal and it does this by catering to the sexual fantasies of its
intended audience.2 Malamuth argues exactly this case and that male targeted
pornography includes cues which appeal to the evolved interests of males by
depicting “multiple, low-investment matings with highly fertile females”.3
Having described what many assume to be true, Pound introduces
the tension that gives intrigue and interest to his paper. He sets out to
investigate if these assumptions are, in fact, correct. The remainder of his
paper discusses the different data that were collected in the form of online
photographs and videos, and which suggest this intuitive knowledge is false.
He writes:
a cursory examination of commercially produced
pornographic videos and photographs reveals that
depictions of situations in which a man gains exclusive
sexual access to multiple women are, in fact, relatively rare.
Moreover depictions of sexual activity involving a woman
and several men appear to be much more common. In
extreme forms, this type of orgiastic sexual activity can
involve one woman and a very large number of men.4
From thence, Pound gives a literature review of the evidence for
sperm competition among the animal kingdom. Among many species, when
males experience competition for mates, sperm competition is evidenced by
an increase in testes size. Besides discovering copulation in the act, males
from the animal kingdom will infer sperm competition by the presence of
other sexually mature males, amount of time spent with a particular female
and even sexual disinterest in a rival male while in the presence of fertile
females. Some species inseminate the female with more sperm when mating
occurs in the presence of rivals and at times this increase is proportionate to
the number of rivals present.
Baker and Bellis found that men would inseminate more sperm in an
established partner when the risk of sperm competition is high and when they
have spent more time apart from a mate.5 Drawing from this evidence and
from the sperm competition demonstrated in the animal kingdom, Pound
argues that the presence of rival males will result in sexual arousal. It is from
this point of view that he seeks to explain the findings from his survey of
Derrell Cox II
61
______________________________________________________________
online pornography. While acknowledging that "harem fantasies" will be a
common occurrence in male-centred pornography, he generates three
hypotheses that suggest that men will actually prefer pornography with
multiple males and a single female.6
Pound analysed 169 videos that contained 737 scenes where all
individuals along with the type of sexual activity could be identified.7 Of
these, 8.7% involved one participant, 56.0% involved two participants, and
35.3% involved three or more participants. Of the video scenes with three or
more participants, 12.3% involved multiple females, 51.9% involved multiple
males and one female, 21.5% involved multiple females and one male, and
14.2% involved another combination.8 A chi-square test confirmed (what was
clearly obvious) that the four different categories were not equally
represented (χ2=105.4, df=3, p<0.0001).9
I argue that, while these results are statistically significant, they
likely reflected a historical trend of emerging online sexually explicit
material (iSEM) which specialised in providing anonymous access to novel
sexual behaviour, but they do not reflect what men desire in the norm for
SEM.
2.
Porn and Sperm Competition Theory Revisited
Compared to Pound, I found very different results in an analysis of
the types of sexually explicit videos favoured by viewers of the websites
YouPorn.com, PornHub.com, RedTube.com, and Tube8.com. Each of these
sites is an online service, which allows individuals and commercial sources to
upload videos of sexually explicit content. On each site, there is a section
(from which this study draws its data) that is available free to the general
adult public, and a premium adult section, which is not considered here.
I analysed the contents of the top 260 ‘most-viewed’, videos in late
September and early October of 2009.10 While many of these videos had
multiple scenes, similar to those analysed by Pound, I did not separate these
scenes for analysis. All of these videos were categorised as ‘straight sex’,
though there are 13 (5.0%) all-female videos and 2 (0.8%) videos featuring at
least one transsexual. Eighty of the videos were from YouPorn, and sixty
each from the remaining three sites. These 260 videos have total views in
excess of 1.7 Billion. Across the websites, the total number of free-access
videos numbered more than 92,000 and had total views in excess of 110
Billion!
I analysed the top 260 videos based on all-time viewership and
noted the number and sex of the participants in the videos, the types of sexual
activity (up to 12 different scenes per video and up to 140 different sexual
activities), the scene or plot (23 different possibilities), the geographic origin
of the video (13 geographic regions), the location of the sexual activity (11
different locations based upon an indoor-outdoor dichotomy), the production
62
What Drives the Human Sex Drive?
______________________________________________________________
source of the video (amateur, semi-commercial, and commercial), whether a
condom was used (yes or no), and the site of ejaculation (for the males, 14
different sites or combinations). In choosing the coding for each of these
different data points, I tried to strike a balance between risk-taking and novel
sexual behaviours to weight the overall scores. For example, an erotic strip
tease was considered low-risk with minimal novelty, while a Male-FemaleTranssexual threesome with double-anal penetration was considered high-risk
and significantly novel sexual behaviour. I am fully aware that there are far
more novel and higher-risk sexual practices, and for many, an erotic
striptease would be scandalous bedroom behaviour, but the evaluations and
coding variations are based upon the types of activities actually demonstrated
in the videos and a skewed norm based upon internet porn. In most videos,
sexual activities were repeated multiple times after a new behaviour. Most
commonly, fellatio was the transitional sexual act between new behaviours.
However, I recorded a particular sexual activity only once per video
regardless of how many times it actually occurred.
In seventeen (7.0%) of the videos depicting heterosexual sex, the
ejaculation site was not noted; these videos ended before ejaculation
occurred. Safe sexual practices are somewhat subjective to judge. Eighteen
(7.4%) of the males in the videos used condoms. While some of the videos of
dyads only may have been monogamous couples, it appears that most were
not. Out of the 260 videos analysed, 191 (73.5%) were heterosexual dyads.
Fifty-four (20.8%) of the videos were comprised of multiple sexual partners.
Since the possibility of a sexually exclusive triad, or other multiple partnering
configurations is highly unlikely in these videos, it is possible that these
multiple partner sexual encounters are risky. This may in fact be relevant to
the popularity of the video as well as sperm competition theory. Risk is erotic
and condoms essentially eliminate sperm competition.
Condoms were rarely seen in any of the videos. I noted condom use
if one was seen in the video, not just if they were used consistently and
correctly. In nearly all cases where they were used, they were not used in
such a way to insure safer sex. This may have implications for the failure to
practice safer-sex techniques among young adult couples and the epidemic of
STIs in the global population, since many viewers of video SEM reference its
educational merit. Condom use was infrequent among professional porn
actors and actresses.
However, this does not mean that professional adult performers are
practising unsafe sex when they do not use condoms. The Adult Industry
Medical Healthcare Foundation (AIM) has been administering free testing for
adult performers since 1998.11 Since then, the overall STI rates have dropped
from about 12.0% to 1.9%-3.4% in any given month, while HIV infections
between performers have been reduced to zero since 2004.12 Likewise,
individuals who participate in swinging communities are conscientious of the
Derrell Cox II
63
______________________________________________________________
risks of STI exposure and routinely require recent STI tests from or condom
use by potential partners. Polyamorous relationships are theoretically at no
more risk for STI than are monogamous couples.
Some of the findings of these analyses reveal significant differences
in the geographic regions from which individual sites draw visitors, unique
socio-cultural patterns of erotic preferences within the different geographic
regions, as well as some commonalities across the globe. For this paper,
space does not permit a detailed discussion of the information recorded from
the video analyses. Rather, it will summarise some of the findings and
highlight some general trends of what young adult males around the globe
seek out for erotic entertainment.
3.
Discussion
At the time of this writing, these 260 videos had a total in excess of
1.71 billion views and growing. In Pound’s findings, 56.0% of the video
scenes were of two participants. In the videos viewed in this analysis, 77.3%
(201) were of two participants. The most commonly viewed (73.5%, n=191)
types of videos were between one man and one woman. Four single females
and one transsexual were viewed in 1.9% of the total, nine (3.5%) videos
were comprised of female dyads, and one (0.4%) was of a male dyad.
Next, videos with three or more participants comprised 20.8%
(n=54) compared to 35.3% in Pound. In contrast to the findings of Pound;
only 38.9% (n=21), compared with 51.9% in Pound, of these videos chosen
were of multiple males with one female. Again in contrast with Pound's
findings of 21.5%, 38.9% (n=21) of the videos with multiple partners were of
one male with multiple females. While Pound found that 12.3% of videos
selected were of multiple females, only four (7.4%) of the 54 videos with
multiple participants from this study featured multiple females. Pound
documents that ‘other combinations’ comprise 14.2% of the video scenes in
his study. In this study, other combinations comprised 22.2% (n=12) of the
video scenes. Of these twelve other combinations, one (1.9%) was of a malefemale-transsexual triad and the other eleven (20.4%) were combinations
involving 2 males and multiple females. Overall, 51.8% (n=28) of the 54
videos with multiple participants were in sexual situations where the females
outnumbered the males. This argues against Pound’s hypothesis that sperm
competition theory suggests that men will prefer SEM with multiple males
and a single female.
I performed a chi square test comparing the percentage of expected
types of participant arrangements in the scenes based on Pound’s previous
research with what was observed in this present study. (See Table 1 below.)
The distribution of the number of sex partners in the videos observed were
significantly different (χ2=50.186, df=2, p<0.0000) than what was expected
based upon Pound’s findings. Likewise, there was a statistically significant
64
What Drives the Human Sex Drive?
______________________________________________________________
difference (χ2=12.803, df=3, p=0.0051) in the frequency of multiple females,
single male-multiple female, single female-multiple male, and other sexual
couplings. I also calculated a chi-square test comparing Pound’s results of the
frequency of multiple male-one female and multiple female-one male scenes
(not shown in table 1 below). The results were statistically significantly
different (χ2=9.317, df=1, p=0.0023).
Table 1
Participants
Single
Dyad
3 or more
>2F
1F-2+M
1M-2+F
Other
Pound
8.7%
56.0%
35.3%
12.3%
51.9%
21.5%
14.2%
Present
1.9%
77.3%
20.8%
7.41%
38.9%
38.9%
22.2%
χ2
Df
p
50.186
2
<0.0000
12.803
3
0.0051
Thus, Pound’s findings, which are counter intuitive, were not
replicated by this study. In fact, the results coincide more closely with what
might be expected in natural selection theory; that is, males seeking out
actual (or, in the case of iSEM, vicarious) matings with multiple females. In
this survey of online erotic materials, the large majority of what these young
adult, single males seem to prefer is more mundane than might be expected;
sex with only one female partner at a time. However, since it can be assumed
that the visitors to each of these sites make multiple visits and view multiple
pages (which includes a variety of females), it could be argued that these
young men want multiple partners, but only one at a time.
It is interesting to note that the most explosive video in terms of
increasing views during this study was a video labelled as depicting a “real
couple having real, passionate sex”. This video was exceptional in that it was
clearly professionally filmed and produced with artistic lighting and
choreography, took place in an aesthetically pleasing bedroom environment,
with an attractive, fit, and young couple. The video was less sexually explicit
than the others, and much more time was given on film to caressing, kissing,
and affectionate foreplay than other videos observed in this study. In
addition, this video clearly portrayed gender equity and was free from
coercive and non-consensual sexual activity. It was one of a handful of
videos that simultaneously appeared on more than one site, which suggests its
popularity is more global and resonates across many cultures.
Derrell Cox II
65
______________________________________________________________
One way in which evidence is given for sperm competition theory
associated with the use of pornography, regardless of the type of scene or
number of participants (or even sexual behaviours engaged in), is that the
mere act of voyeurism provides a type of cognitive sexual foreplay. Several
research studies have demonstrated a positive correlation between time spent
viewing SEM and the number of sperm, as well as a higher proportion of
normal, motile sperm, in ejaculate.13 It appears that there is an advantage in
sperm competition conferred upon men who seek out visual and other erotic
cues and then proceed to ejaculate by whatever means possible at the time.
By masturbating, the quality of the sperm, which will be ejaculated at the
next copulation, will be improved. Alternatively, if the erotic cues lead to
successful copulation with a female, then the deposition of sperm into the
vagina significantly increases the odds of sexual reproduction.
4.
Conclusions
From evidence discussed above and in other literature it is likely that
sperm competition has played a role in natural selection. Indeed, sperm,
semen, and human genitals have evolved as a result of natural and sexual
selection via sperm competition. In birds and insects, and even other
primates, the evidence for sperm competition is much clearer than it is in
humans. Based on the ratio between human testes mass to body mass,
humans have experienced significant sperm competition throughout our
history. Females have also played a significant role in selecting for males
whose sperm are more competitive. It is also likely that men have evolved to
become sexually aroused by scenes, which are reminiscent of sperm
competition, at least as the sole motivating factor. Men who seek out visual
cues for erotic behaviour and either masturbate or copulate with females are
more likely to be reproductively successful. The finding of this survey of the
most viewed, all-time 260 videos confirms the fact that male ‘harem
fantasies’ remain a significant source of psychosexual arousal, and this fits
well with the male’s evolved desire to mate with as many novel females as
possible with the least investment.
Another overlooked element of both this analysis and that conducted
by Pound was the fact that by far, the most sought after source of erotic
visual stimuli was not related to multiple partners at all. Rather, they were
male-female dyads involved in fellatio, cunnilingus, various positions of
penile-vaginal penetrative sex, and anal intercourse. Perhaps just observing
any erotic behaviour promotes reproductive success. However, in only eleven
(4.5%) of these 260 videos was conception or sperm competition a
possibility. 211 of 226 (93.4%) observable ejaculations were on the face,
mouth and tongue, breasts, vulva, bum, or other areas of the torso of the
women. For the remaining four known ejaculation sites, the place of deposit
was intra-rectal.
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What Drives the Human Sex Drive?
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It seems that the search for sexual variety, for erotic rumination
material, for a quick release to relieve stress or sexual tension or even for
premature ejaculation prevention when a male anticipates actual sexual
activity with a partner, or even to participate vicariously in sexual activities
otherwise unavailable figures prominently in the motives behind the search
for iSEM. Another possibility is that ancient voyeuristic and smaller males
found reproductive success and reduced chances of injury by waiting and
watching for the larger male to complete sexual intercourse with a receptive
female. This would require the smaller males to be ready to quickly penetrate
and ejaculate. This dovetails well with sperm competition theory and it aligns
with Pound’s argument that the presence of rival males will result in sexual
arousal. However, it may be the presence of any one rival male, rather than
only multiple males, that produces this reaction.
Finally, this survey cannot tease out the actual demographics of
those viewing these video clips, which number into the billions of views for
the websites as a whole. What percentage of these viewers are women,
couples, men, or others is not known. Women’s consumption of SEM has
increased over the past decade and more, but how many women visit these
sites and how their choices of iSEM affect the ratings and popularity of these
videos is unknown. Since it involved such a large number of people both in
the consumption and production, further investigation is warranted to
examine the connection between iSEM use and STI infection rates, iSEM as
educational tools for promoting risk-reductive sexual practices, and for
improving sexual relationship skills.
Notes
1
N Pound, ‘Male interest in visual cues of sperm competition risk’. Evolution
and Human Behavior, vol. 23, 2002, pp. 443-466.
2
ibid., p. 442.
3
ibid., p. 444.
4
ibid., p. 445.
5
ibid., p. 448.
6
ibid., pp. 449-450.
7
ibid., p. 453.
8
ibid., p. 452.
9
ibid., p. 453.
10
SPSS® version 15.0 was used to complete the statistical analyses of these
data.
11
S Mitchell, ‘Has the Whole World Lost Its Mind? We Think So!’. Adult
Industry Medical Healthcare Foundation, viewed on 6 November 2009,
<http://www.aim-med.org/news/2009/07/17/1247872245/ >.
Derrell Cox II
67
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12
ibid.
K Shakelford, N Pound, and AT Goetz, ‘Psychological and Physiological
Adaptations to Sperm Competition in Humans’. Review of General
Psychology, vol. 9, no. 3, 2005, p. 236.
13
Bibliography
Alexa, the Web Information Company, Alexa Internet, Inc., An Amazon
Company, viewed on 12 October 2009, <http://www.alexa.com/>.
Alexa, the Web Information Company, 2009, google.com site info, viewed
on 12 October 2009, <http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/google.com>.
Alexa, the Web Information Company, pornhub.com site info, viewed on 12
October 2009, <http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/pornhub.com>.
Alexa, the Web Information Company, redtube.com site info, viewed on 12
October 2009, <http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/redtube.com>.
Alexa, the Web Information Company, tube8.com site info, viewed on 12
October 2009, <http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/tube8.com>.
Alexa, the Web Information Company, youporn.com site info, viewed on 12
October 2009, <http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/youporn.com>.
Mitchell, S., ‘Has the Whole World Lost Its Mind? We Think So!’. Adult
Industry Medical Healthcare Foundation, viewed on 6 November 2009,
<http://www.aim-med.org/news/2009/07/17/1247872245/>.
Pound, N., ‘Male interest in visual cues of sperm competition risk’. Evolution
and Human Behavior, vol. 23, 2002, pp. 443-466.
PornHub.com, it makes your dick bigger, 2009, viewed on 12 October 2009,
<http://www.pornhub.com/ >.
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Physiological Adaptations to Sperm Competition in Humans’. Review of
General Psychology, vol. 9, no. 3, 2005, pp. 228-248.
68
What Drives the Human Sex Drive?
______________________________________________________________
Tube8.com, 2009, viewed on 12 October 2009, <http://www.tube8.com/>.
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Derrell Cox II is a graduate student in the Department of Anthropology, at
the University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, USA.
Uncomfortable Territory?
The Relationship between Gender, Intoxication and Rape
Gemma Clarke
Abstract
This chapter explores the relationship between gender and intoxication within
reported rape. Drawing upon a sample of 1,743 allegations of victimintoxicated rape made to the London Metropolitan Police Service over two
years between September 2006 and August 2008, it is established that
patterns of reported rape are significantly divided along gender lines. The
findings show that men and women who report intoxicated rape differ in
terms of age, vulnerabilities and type of intoxication. Using gender and
gendered discourses as lenses with which to view reported rape, the chapter
explores the way in which rape myths, victim-blame and ambivalent attitudes
towards sex and intoxication affect men and women differently, engendering
differences in patterns of victimisation and reporting behaviour.
Key Words: Alcohol, drink-spiking, drugs, drug-facilitated sexual assault,
gender, intoxication, police, rape, reporting behaviour, sexual assault.
*****
‘It wasn’t rape-rape’1
Whoopi Goldberg on Roman Polanski’s 1977 conviction
‘Drunken consent is still consent’ 2
Judge Mr Justice Roderick Evans
1.
Introduction
What is - and what isn’t rape - has become a controversial topic. It
is a distinction that becomes particularly contentious and emotive when
alcohol and drugs are involved. Whoopi Goldberg’s recent declaration that
Roman Polanski’s conviction for unlawful sexual intercourse in which he
admitted to drugging and raping a thirteen-year-old girl, ‘wasn’t rape-rape’3
has focused media attention onto the issue. Four years earlier Judge Mr
Justice Roderick Evans created much legal and public confusion when he
ruled, ‘drunken consent is still consent’.4 These continuing controversies
expose the deep cultural entanglement of sex with substance intoxication in
contemporary Britain and the US. Moreover, the public and media discourse
surrounding these controversies reveals deep-seated attitudes about women,
men and appropriate sexual behaviour.
While the sexual victimisation of women under the influence of
alcohol and drugs is not a new phenomenon, the cultural backdrop has
70
Uncomfortable Territory?
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changed. In Great Britain, the increased pattern of drug and alcohol
consumption among both men and women5 and a turn towards the analysis of
risk in victimology6 has focussed attention on the role of intoxicants in rape.
The drink-spiking panic of the 1990s and a series of high profile drug and
alcohol related rapes have attracted further debate.
The Sexual Offences Act 2003 sought to deal with the new cultural
context. The definition of sexual consent now contains a requirement for
‘capacity’. However, a lack of guidance on meaning, and a series of contested
legal decisions - such as ‘drunken consent is still consent’7 - have created
confusion. The line between normal sexual behaviour and criminal activity
has become a contested and uncomfortable territory.
In this chapter I will explore the ambivalent and often
uncomfortable discourses about gender, intoxication and rape in one area of
the criminal justice system: rapes reported to the police. Using an official
police data set of reported rapes, I investigate the differences for men and
women who report rape. I discuss these differences in light of the different
gendered cultural norms for men and women. Finally, I suggest directions for
future research on this topic.
2.
Researching Reported Rapes
Using police data as a method for investigating rape is controversial.
The difficulties of working with official data have been noted and debated
since the 1960s. There is an iceberg effect with data collected on crime: only
a small portion is visible while the majority of offences remain below the
surface; invisible and unreported. This persistent problem of the ‘dark
figure’8 is yet to be resolved. Critiques of official crime data have been
traditionally divided into two broad schools: the realists, who question the
reliability of official data and seek to bridge the gap between recorded and
actual crime;9 and the social constructionists, who question the validity of
crime statistics, regarding them - not as neutrally observed facts – but as
revealing of the organisational processes which create them.10
Official figures on the crime of rape present further difficulties. It is
widely acknowledged that most rape goes unreported, but the extent is
unknown. British Crime Survey (BCS) figures report that about one in twenty
women said they had been raped since age sixteen, an estimated 754,000
victims.11 However, only twenty per cent of these incidents were reported to
the police.12 Academic studies have revealed wildly varying rates of reporting
to the police depending on the population studied. Two studies from the USA
demonstrate this disparity: a review of rape victims admitted to hospital
found that the police were aware of seventy-five per cent of the cases in the
study;13 while a study of young female victims of rape or attempted rape
found that only one per cent informed the police and forty-two per cent told
nobody.14
Gemma Clarke
71
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Despite limitations, police data on rape should not be dismissed.
Evidence collected by the police needs to stand up to the levels of plausibility
and corroboration required by the courts and the Crown Prosecution Service
(CPS). Police investigative procedures are subject to review, scrutiny and
reform to enable the best possible methods and practices. Problems with
police data and procedure have been well documented and open to scrutiny in
a way in which many private or academic studies have not been. All of which
means there is a good level of reliability of the information collected and a
good knowledge base of where the problems and gaps lie. Using this data
also offers ethical benefits, providing an excellent source of data which can
be utilised without re-interviewing victims. Police files can supply useful
baseline data on rape. They are ‘…a suitable and valuable starting point for
establishing basic descriptive information about victims, the offender and
offence behaviours’.15
Recently in the UK, research into rape has come under much
criticism. Charities and women’s action groups have been critical of the
amount of research, which has taken place without any associated follow-up
or action. A spokesperson for Rape Crisis stated:
We are concerned that as we receive the recommendations
from this review in 2010 we will be in exactly the same
position - with more promises, when what we really need is
change.16
This criticism could be further extended to research on rape relying
solely on police victim data. The excessive focus on the behaviour of victims
in studies of rape can create a space in which there is an easy conceptual
slippage between identifying risk factors and identifying victim behaviours or
characteristics which have produced the rape. This subtle slippage can be
easily co-opted into essentialist discourses of rape and victim blame, both of
which are lent more credence if no action is taken by the criminal justice
system to change the current state of affairs. However, many researchers in
this area have refuted these claims arguing that:
… a risk factor is not the same as the cause of the violence
since it might be correlated with something else that is
associated with the underlying cause.17
Additionally, and as stated earlier, others have argued that victimbased research is important because it utilises what data is available to help
prevent future rapes.18 All of these critiques are valid. In this chapter I hope
to bridge the gap between them; utilising police data for victim based
research and engaging with the criticisms rather than disregarding them.
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Uncomfortable Territory?
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Using gender and gendered discourses as a lens through which to view
reported rapes: I aim to unravel and dispute victim blaming myths as these
are applied differently to men and women. For example, by examining men as well as women - as victims of rape, I aim to disentangle dominant rape
myths which view men only in relation to perpetration.
3.
Method
London was selected as the research site to provide access to the
widest possible research population. The London Metropolitan Police Service
(MPS) is the biggest police force in England and Wales and London is the
largest city. The MPS covers an area of 620 square miles and a population of
7.2 million people. The MPS were also chosen because of their special focus
on investigating claims of rape. Project Sapphire teams are located in every
borough and have specially trained officers dedicated to investigating
allegations of rape. Additionally, the MPS has one of the most advanced and
comprehensive crime recording databases in the UK; the Crime Report
Information System (CRIS).
A two year sample of rape allegations made to the MPS involving
an intoxicated victim was taken using the Crime Report Information System
(CRIS).19 Data from CRIS is made up of victim reports based solely on
victim statements. Therefore drug and alcohol use is not substantiated by
toxicology, it is only reported. To focus on adult victims, crimes that were
being investigated by child protection were excluded. Through initial
literature searches it was decided that the nature and etiology of sexual
offences against children would be substantially different enough to warrant
exclusion. Data was collected on: victim age; victim ethnicity; victim gender;
relationship to suspect; offence location; date crime was committed; report
date; and victim intoxication. The data was sanitised, duplicates were
removed and the variables were recoded. Case exclusions were made on the
basis of: missing gender data; withdrawn cases; and age.20 The final sample
contained 1,743 allegations reported between September 2006 and August
2008.
The key research question is: Is there a gendered difference in
reporting rape when the victim is intoxicated? The data was explored using
SPSS. A non-parametric statistical significance test - the Chi Square test was selected as non-parametric methods require fewer assumptions about a
population or probability distribution and are applicable in a wider range of
situations
4.
Rape, Intoxication and Gender
The vast majority of those who reported rape whilst intoxicated
were female (ninety-two per cent). A small percentage of victims were male
(eight per cent). Comparing the gender distribution of victims in this study to
Gemma Clarke
73
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other studies of rape is difficult because male rape is an under-researched
area. Most studies of rape focus solely on female victims. However, some
general statistics on the gender distribution of reported rapes are available.
The proportion of men and women reporting intoxicated rape in this study is
comparable with the gender proportions revealed by other studies and in
official rape statistics. In England and Wales the official crime statistics
reveal that seven per cent of victims of any type of rape were male in
2008/2009 and eight per cent were male in 2007/2008.21 In an internal review
of rape allegations which examined all types of rape reported in London, the
London Metropolitan Police Service also found that around eight per cent of
victims reporting rape were male.22
Figure 1 Histogram illustrating age of female victims in a two-year sample
of rape allegations involving an intoxicated victim (N= 1604).
74
Uncomfortable Territory?
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The distribution of ages for female victims produced noteworthy
findings (see Figure 1). As this study is examining only adult cases of rape,
the full probability distribution of victim age cannot be examined.23
However, even though child cases of intoxicated rape have been excluded the
probability distribution still reveals a positive skew towards the younger age
range (Figure 1). The modal age for female victims is eighteen years, the
median age is twenty-four and the mean age is twenty-six (N= 1,604). This
may mean that younger women are more vulnerable to drug and alcohol
intoxicated rape than older women, or it may mean that older women are less
likely to come forward and report their victimisation to police. In either case
it means the majority of female victims who come into contact with the
criminal justice system are of a younger age and this has specific implications
for the police and CPS.
Following the Home Office report on vulnerable witnesses and
victims; Speaking Up For Justice in 1998, some general police service
guidelines were issued by the Home Office that defined victims and
witnesses under the age of seventeen as ‘vulnerable’.24 It is understood that
victims and witnesses identified as vulnerable may need greater assistance
from criminal justice professionals at both the pre-trial and trial stage. For
those recognised as vulnerable, special measures are put in place to ensure
equal access to the justice system and adherence to the standards outlined in
The Victims’ Charter (2005).25
In a study of the attrition of rapes reported to the London
Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), Stanko and Williams examined
vulnerability in detail.26 In the context of their research they defined
vulnerable to mean; ‘the context of the rape which occurs in situations where
the victim is disadvantaged - in terms of social believability - as a witness’.27
Pertaining to the age of victims they defined victims under eighteen years as
vulnerable. The study found that eighty-seven per cent of victims had at least
one or more vulnerabilities, which increased the likelihood of attrition.28
The findings from this research reveal that the majority of female
adult victims reporting intoxicated rape would not be classed as vulnerable by
Home Office guidelines or the MPS research by virtue of their age.29
However, despite this, the findings reveal a very large number of young
women reporting rape, very close to an age where they would be classified as
vulnerable and receive special police measures. The modal majority of the
female victims is eighteen years old. In fact, in cases of rape in which the
victim is intoxicated, it could be argued that eighteen-year-old victims may
be more vulnerable. Eighteen year olds may not necessarily be more
vulnerable as victims and witnesses within the criminal justice system, but
may be more vulnerable to becoming the victim of an intoxicated rape. The
legal drinking age in England and Wales is eighteen years old. Therefore,
large numbers of young women (and men) are more likely to be out
Gemma Clarke
75
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consuming alcohol and attending licensed establishments such as pubs and
nightclubs for the first time. Consequently, they may be more inexperienced
in these locations and situations than older people would be.
The need to retain a distinction between vulnerable and nonvulnerable victims is understandable. So, while it is recognised that there will
always be individuals who fall close to the cut-off point for special provisions
- a line which cannot be infinitely moved - it is still worth considering the
young age of most victims who report they have been raped while
intoxicated. Moreover, the unique vulnerability of individuals who are
eighteen years old to victim-intoxicated rape is something which criminal
justice professionals may want to consider when dealing with allegations.
The histogram of the ages of the male victims reporting intoxicated
rape reveals a different probability distribution.
Figure 2 Histogram illustrating age of male victims in a two-year sample of
rape allegations involving an intoxicated victim (N= 139).
76
Uncomfortable Territory?
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As Figure 2 demonstrates, the distribution of male victims is
bimodal with slight positive skew. There are dual modal ages for the male
victims; eighteen years and twenty-nine years old; the median age is twentyeight years and the mean age is twenty-nine years. Overall, the male victims
were of an older age with fewer close to an age where they would be classed
as vulnerable victims within the criminal justice system. Due to the small
number of male victims in the sample (N =139) it is harder to draw
conclusions from these findings. The dual modal ages of eighteen and
twenty-nine years may mean that there are two age-risk points for men
becoming victims of an intoxicated rape or it may mean that men are more
likely to forward to the police at these ages. Regarding the latter proposition,
it is possible that the distribution of male ages should more closely resemble
that of the female victims with a larger number of younger victims at age
eighteen but younger men are simply not coming forward.
There is some support for this in the research literature, indicating
that younger men do not have the same levels of trust in the police that
younger female victims do, particularly young men of ethnic minority
population.30 Regarding the former hypothesis, it is also reasonable to
theorise that there may be something about men’s drinking and drug use that
increases their risk of rape in their late twenties in way in which women’s
patterns of intoxicant use does not. It is clear that this is an area in need of
greater research.
Examining the relationship between the gender of the victim and the
type of intoxication they reported proceeding victimisation produces some
interesting results (see Figure 3). If this is formulated as a research
hypothesis: ‘there is a relationship between the gender of victims and the
self-reported type of intoxication in rapes reported to the police’, a Chisquare distribution test reveals that the null hypothesis can be rejected and the
research hypothesis accepted at the 0.05 level of significance. However, in
accepting the research hypothesis it is important to note several things: that
this study only includes victims who have chosen to come forward and report
their rapes to police and that the level of intoxication is self-reported and not
externally verified.
One of the most noticeable findings is the proportion of men
reporting that they were under the influence of both drugs and alcohol when
they were raped. This proportion is substantially higher than the proportion of
women reporting both (see Figure 3, third column on the X axis). The crosstabulation reveals that the observed count of men reporting both drugs and
alcohol (32 men) is much higher than the expected count (20 men). In fact it
is over 50 per cent higher. This finding could be interpreted in several ways.
Primarily, it may mean that men are at greater risk of rape when consuming
both drugs and alcohol than is currently recognised. More research would be
needed to establish this connection.
Gemma Clarke
77
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Bar chart illustrating intoxication status by victim gender in a in
a two year sample of rape allegations involving an intoxicated victim
(N=1,743) (Figure 3)
Female –
Male -
However, as these studies do not compare men’s rape victimisation directly
with women’s, more research is needed to establish this connection and its
strength of association.
Alternatively though, there are two other ways of interpreting this
finding: that women are under-reporting rape which occurs when they have
78
Uncomfortable Territory?
______________________________________________________________
consumed both drugs and alcohol; and/or that men are over-reporting rape
which occurs when they have consumed both drugs and alcohol. Firstly,
hypothetically; why might women be under-reporting rape which occurs
when they have voluntarily consumed both drugs and alcohol? In this
interpretation of Figure 3 it is assumed there is data missing from the bar
chart in the third column on the X axis. What has happened to this data? The
consumption of either alcohol or drugs - and particularly both - is more
stigmatising for women than for men. Voluntary intoxication is seen as
unfeminine and more risky for women. Women may be choosing to play
down any intoxicating substance they consumed, as they may fear being
blamed or not believed. There is much research evidence which supports this
conclusion. If a woman has voluntarily consumed alcohol or recreational
drugs, they are more likely to be held as partially accountable for what
happened. A survey conducted by ICM on behalf of Amnesty International in
2005 found that thirty per cent of respondents believed being drunk makes a
woman in some way responsible for being raped.31 As Margaret Malloch
surmises, for women who in engage in ‘risky’ behaviour such as drinking or
drug-taking; ‘the harm of sexual victimisation is denied by legal agency and
society in general’32 in a process of delegitimisation. Indeed ‘a woman’s right
and indeed, her portrayed ability, to withhold consent is dependant on
reputation and status, on her perceived ‘respectability’’.33
So in this interpretation of the findings, where might the missing
data from column three have gone? The women coming forward to the police
to report they have been raped may be under-reporting drug use, stating that
they have only drunk alcohol instead of admitting to both. Or the data may be
missing because women who have consumed both kinds of intoxicants are
not coming forward at all. The role of intoxicants and female victims of rape
sits in an ambivalent position with the criminal justice system, and indeed
criminal justice research. On the one hand, the police and criminologists are
collecting increasing information about intoxication and rape to assist in
crime prevention efforts; on the other hand the intensive focus on collecting
data on intoxication is involved in the process of delegitimising women’s
claims of rape and may - as in the case of the missing data - be preventing
women from coming forward or making them feel as if they have to lie to
police officers.
The second interpretation of the finding is that men may be overstating the role of intoxicants. In effect, this interpretation assumes that there
is too much data in the men’s bar in column three of the bar chart in Figure 4.
So why might men be over-reporting the role of intoxicants? First, it is
important to note that this is not implying that men are simply lying. Rather,
it may be the case that they are emphasising the role that intoxicants took in
their victimisation, in a way in which a woman might not. For instance, they
may be mentioning any prescribed drugs they were taking and the way in
Gemma Clarke
79
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which this increased their intoxication when combined with alcohol. Or they
may be mentioning drugs which women considered irrelevant to their
victimisation, such as cannabis or other recreational drugs. Moreover, men
might only be coming forward to report rape, if they have consumed both
drugs and alcohol. This would create an effect in the data in which the
proportion of men reporting rape after they were consuming both drugs and
alcohol is falsely inflated because men consuming just one type of intoxicant
are not coming forward.
Contemporary discourses of hegemonic masculinity emphasise the
role of self-reliance and self-protection and autonomy for attaining full adult
manhood.34 Becoming the victim of rape impinges deeply on personhood and
the right to sexual and personal autonomy. It would be wrong, and
misleading, to suggest that becoming the victim of a rape is more damaging
to the personhood of men than that of women. However, contemporary
discourses of hegemonic masculinity mean that rape victimisation is more
destructive for men’s gendered identities ‘as men’ than for women’s
identities ‘as women’. Men may feel they will be perceived as less masculine
if they report they have been raped. This is often one of the cited reasons for
the under-reporting of male-on-male rape,35 it may also partially account for
the situation here. Men may want to emphasise the external factors in their
victimisation i.e. the influence of intoxicants rather than factors they may see
as internal or more deeply imbricated with their masculine-self i.e. being
unable to defend themselves. Moreover, men are not stigmatised by drinking
or drug-taking in the way in which women are so they may feel more
comfortable talking about these issues.
5.
Conclusions: Uncomfortable Territory
Gender is essential to understanding victim-intoxicated rape. The
analysis of reported rapes indicates that there are gendered differences in
patterns of age and intoxication type. These differences are in need of further
action and investigation. The vast majority of victims are young women of
age 18 years. The bulk of rape-prevention resources should be targeted at this
group. The vulnerability of men under the influence of drugs and alcohol
needs further research using toxicology to identify whether this is a pattern in
victimisation or reporting behaviour.
It is important however, not to essentialise these differences and let
understandings of gendered difference merge into gender stereotypes. As
highlighted in this chapter, crude gender stereotypes circulated in the media
and popular discourse may affect patterns of reporting. So how can the
application of gender stereotypes be avoided whilst recognising gendered
difference? This is a difficult question. The first step, and a good start, might
be to begin to deal more openly and honestly with the uncomfortable territory
of sexuality, gender and intoxication. The psychologist David Canter,
80
Uncomfortable Territory?
______________________________________________________________
working in the contested area of criminal profiling, has asserted that an
offender’s behaviour during the commission of an offence will mirror other
aspects of their everyday life.36 This assertion from criminal profiling has an
uncomfortable resonance when considered in relation to victim-intoxicated
rape. Rape, which occurs while the victim is intoxicated, sits in ambivalent
space on a continuum between drinking on romantic dates and drugfacilitated sexual assaults. The normalisation of high levels of alcohol
consumption by young women continues to rise,37 yet police figures show
young women are the most at risk for victim-intoxicated rape and women are
more likely to be blamed for their own victimisation if they have consumed
any intoxicant. Discourses of intoxication and rape operate differently for
male victims. Men remain invisible in much legal and media discourse, and
consequently may be less likely to come forward and report their rape at all,
or they may feel less stigmatised by the discourses surrounding victim-blame
and intoxication if they do come forward.
It is in this uncomfortable territory, in space created by the
ambivalence towards gender, sex and intoxication that circumstantial and
extra-legal factors gendered stereotypical assumptions and myths about rape
come to influence what constitutes a real victim and who can access justice.
Until these attitudes are openly addressed and debated little progress can be
made. Such inconsistencies are revealing of the uncomfortable contradictions
at the heart of gender relations and contemporary attitudes to intoxicants.
Coherent strategies for policing cannot be drawn up for an area which in
itself is fundamentally incoherent.
Notes
1
M. Kennedy, ‘Polanski was not guilty of 'rape-rape', says Whoopi
Goldberg’, in guardian.co.uk, The Guardian Media Group, London, 29
September 2009, viewed on 8 October 2009,
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/sep/29/roman-polanski-whoopigoldberg >
2
C. Dyer, ‘Call for inquiry after rape case collapses over 'drunken consent'’,
in The Guardian, The Guardian Media Group, London, 24 November 2005,
p.4.
3
Kennedy, op. cit.
4
Dyer, op.cit., p.4.
5
National Statistics Online, ‘A summary of changes over time: Drinking’,
Office for National Statistics, last updated 20 April 2004, viewed on 25
September 2009,
< http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=829 >
Gemma Clarke
81
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6
G. Mythen, ‘Cultural victimology: are we all victims now?’, in Handbook of
victims and victimology, S. Walklate (ed), Willan Publishing, London, 2007,
pp. 464-483.
7
Dyer, op.cit., p.4.
8
F. McClintock, ‘The Dark Figure’, in Collected Studies in Criminological
Research, Volume 4, Strasbourg, Council of Europe, 1970, pp. 7-34.
9
c.f. D. Glaser, ‘National goals and indicators for the reduction of crime and
delinquency’, in The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social
Science, volume 371, issue 1, 1967, pp.104-126.
10
c.f. A. Biderman, and A. Reiss.‘On Exploring the ‘Dark Figure’ of Crime’,
in Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, volume
374, number 1, 1967, pp. 1-15. Also c.f. J. Kitsuse, and A. Cicourel, ‘A note
on the uses of official statistics’, Social Problems, vol. 11, 1963, pp.131-39.
11
A. Myhill and J. Allen, Rape and sexual assault of women: findings from
the British Crime Survey, Development and Statistics Directorate Home
Office, HMSO, London, 2002.
12
ibid.
13
J. Jones et al., ‘Why women don't report sexual assault to the police: The
influence of psychosocial variables and traumatic injury’, in Journal of
Emergency Medicine, vol. 36, issue 4, May 2009, pp. 417-12.
14
V. Rickert, et al., ‘Disclosure of Date/Acquaintance Rape: Who Reports
and When’, Journal of Pediatric Adolescent Gynecology, vol. 18, issue 1,
February 2005, pp.17-24.
15
M. Horvath, Drug-Assisted Rape: An Investigation, PhD thesis, University
of Surrey, 2006, p. 80.
16
A. Gentleman, ‘Government rape review fails to convince women’s
groups’, The Guardian, The Guardian Media Group, London, 22 September
2009, p. 14.
17
S. Walby, and J. Allen, Domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking:
Findings from the British Crime Survey, Development and Statistics
Directorate Home Office, Home Office Research Study 276, Home Office,
London, 2004, p.73.
18
Horvath, op.cit.
19
This study uses the legal definition of rape in England and Wales. This
definition determines that rape can only be perpetrated by a male but can be
against either a male or a female victim. The current legal definition of rape
according to Section 1(1) of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 is as follows: (1) A
person (A) commits an offence if— (a) he intentionally penetrates the vagina,
anus or mouth of another person (B) with his penis, (b) B does not consent to
the penetration, and (c) A does not reasonably believe that B consents.
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Uncomfortable Territory?
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20
Seven cases in which the victim was under thirteen years old were found
by the search. Child protection cases being investigated by the police had
already been excluded from the search criteria. It is therefore unknown why
these cases involving young children were not being investigated and were
found by the search. As they involve young children, it was decided that an
age criteria should be applied to the search results and all cases with victims
under the age of thirteen years were excluded. As stated above, the nature and
etiology of sexual offences against children is substantially different enough
to warrant exclusion. The age of thirteen years was selected as the cut off
point because Sections (5-8) of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, which deal
separately with offences against children, define a child as being under
thirteen.
21
A. Walker, et al., Crime in England and Wales 2008/09 - Volume 1:
Findings from the British Crime Survey and police recorded crime, Home
Office Development and Statistics Directorate, Home Office, London, 2009.
22
B. Stanko, and E. Williams, ‘‘Real’ rape and ‘real’ rape allegations: What
are the vulnerabilities of the women who report to the police?’, in Rape:
Challenging contemporary thinking, J. Brown and M. Horvath (eds), Willan
Publishing, London, 2009, pp.207.
23
As stated above, adult cases have been defined as those not being
investigated by the Child Protection Teams or other parts of SCD5 Child
Protection Command Unit.
24
Action for Justice, Vulnerable Victims: A Police Service Guide, Home
Office, London, 2006, p.5.
25
Criminal Justice Service, The Victims’ Charter: A statement of service
standards for victims of crime, Home Office, London, 2005, viewed on 6
October 2009,
< http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/documents/victims-charter?view=Binary >
26
Stanko and Williams, op. cit.
27
ibid., p. 210.
28
ibid.
29
As defined earlier in Section 3: Methods.
30
Much of the research into police legitimacy and young men of ethnic
minorities is based in the USA (cf. C. Solis, ‘Latino Youths’ Experiences
with and Perceptions of Involuntary Police Encounters’, The Annals of the
American Academy of Political and Social Science, vol. 623, number 1, 2009,
pp. 39-51. Also, R. Brunson, and J. Miller, ‘Young Black Men and Urban
Policing in the United States’, The British Journal of Criminology , vol. 46,
issue 4, 2006, pp. 613-640.).
31
ICM, Sexual Assault Research Summary Report, prepared for Amnesty
International, ICM Research, London, 12 October 2005.
Gemma Clarke
83
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32
M. Malloch, ‘Risky' Women, Sexual Consent and Criminal Justice’,
Making Sense of Sexual Consent, M. Cowling and P. Reynolds, P. (eds),
Ashgate, Aldershot, 2004, pp. 112.
33
ibid.
34
R. Connell, and J. Messerschmidt, ‘Hegemonic Masculinity: Rethinking
the Concept’ in Gender & Society, vol. 19, number 6, 2005, pp. 829-859.
35
M. Mulkey, ‘Recreating masculinity: drama therapy with male survivors of
sexual assault’, in The Arts in Psychotherapy, vol. 31, issue 1, 2004, pp.1928.
36
D. Canter, Criminal Shadows, Harper Collins Publishers, London, 1995.
37
National Statistics Online, op. cit.
Bibliography
Action for Justice, Vulnerable Victims: A Police Service Guide, Home Office,
London, 2006.
Biderman, A., and Reiss. A., ‘On Exploring the ‘Dark Figure’ of Crime’.
Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, volume
374, number 1, 1967, pp. 1-15.
Brunson, R and Miller, J., ‘Young Black Men and Urban Policing in the
United States’. The British Journal of Criminology , volume 46, issue 4,
2006, pp. 613-640.
Canter, D., Criminal Shadows. Harper Collins Publishers, London, 1995.
Connell, R. and Messerschmidt, J., ‘Hegemonic Masculinity: Rethinking the
Concept’. Gender & Society, volume 19, number 6, 2005, pp. 829-859.
Dyer, C., ‘Call for inquiry after rape case collapses over 'drunken consent'’.
The Guardian, The Guardian Media Group, London, 24 Nov 2005, p.4.
Gentleman, A., ‘Government rape review fails to convince women’s groups’.
The Guardian, The Guardian Media Group, London, 22 Sept 2009, p. 14.
Glaser, D., ‘National goals and indicators for the reduction of crime and
delinquency’.The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social
Science, volume 371, number 1, 1967, pp.104-126.
84
Uncomfortable Territory?
______________________________________________________________
Horvath, M., Drug-Assisted Rape: An Investigation. PhD thesis, University
of Surrey, 2006.
ICM, Sexual Assault Research Summary Report, prepared for Amnesty
International, ICM Research, London, 12 October 2005.
Jones, J., Alexander, C., Wynn, B., Rossman, L and Dunnuck, C., ‘Why
women don't report sexual assault to the police: The influence of
psychosocial variables and traumatic injury’. Journal of Emergency
Medicine, volume 36, issue 4, May 2009, pp. 417-12.
Kennedy, M., ‘Polanski was not guilty of 'rape-rape', says Whoopi
Goldberg’, in guardian.co.uk, The Guardian Media Group, London, 29
September
2009,
viewed
on
8
Oct
2009.
<
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/sep/29/roman-polanski-whoopigoldberg >
Kitsuse, J., and Cicourel, A., ‘A note on the uses of official statistics’. Social
Problems, volume 11, 1963, pp.131-39.
Malloch, M. ‘Risky' Women, Sexual Consent and Criminal Justice’, in
Making Sense of Sexual Consent, M. Cowling and P. Reynolds, P. (eds),
Ashgate, Aldershot, 2004, pp. 111-126.
McClintock, F., ‘The Dark Figure’. Collected Studies in Criminological
Research, Volume 4, Strasbourg, Council of Europe, 1970, pp. 7-34.
Myhill, A. and Allen, J., Rape and sexual assault of women: findings from
the British Crime Survey. Development and Statistics Directorate Home
Office, HMSO, London, 2002.
Mythen, G., ‘Cultural victimology: are we all victims now?’, in Handbook of
victims and victimology, S. Walklate (ed), Willan Publishing, London, 2007,
pp. 464-483.
Mulkey, M., ‘Recreating masculinity: drama therapy with male survivors of
sexual assault’. The Arts in Psychotherapy, volume 31, issue 1, 2004, pp.1928.
Gemma Clarke
85
______________________________________________________________
National Statistics Online, ‘A summary of changes over time: Drinking’,
Office for National Statistics, last updated 20 April 2004, viewed on 25
September 2009. < http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=829 >
Rickert, V., Wiemann, C., and Vaughan, R., ‘Disclosure of
Date/Acquaintance Rape: Who Reports and When’. Journal of Pediatric
Adolescent Gynecology, volume 18, issue 1, February 2005, pp.17-24.
Solis, C., Portillos, E., and Brunson, R., ‘Latino Youths’ Experiences with
and Perceptions of Involuntary Police Encounters’. The Annals of the
American Academy of Political and Social Science, volume 623, number 1,
2009, pp. 39-51.
Stanko, B. and Williams, E., ‘‘Real’ rape and ‘real’ rape allegations: What
are the vulnerabilities of the women who report to the police?’, in Rape:
Challenging contemporary thinking, J. Brown and M. Horvath (eds), Willan
Publishing, London, 2009, pp.207-225.
Criminal Justice Service, The Victims’ Charter: A statement of service
standards for victims of crime, Home Office, London, 2005, viewed online
on 6 October 2009. < http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/documents/victimscharter?view=Binary >
Walby, S. and Allen, J., Domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking:
Findings from the British Crime Survey. Development and Statistics
Directorate, Home Office Research Study 276, Home Office, London, 2004.
Walker, A. Flatley, J., Kershaw, C., and Moon, D., Crime in England and
Wales 2008/09 - Volume 1: Findings from the British Crime Survey and
police recorded crime. Development and Statistics Directorate, Home Office,
London, 2009.
Gemma Clarke is Doctoral Researcher at the Institute of Criminology,
University of Cambridge. Her doctoral research examines drug and alcohol
related sexual assaults.
Sex in Transition: Anti-Sexuality and the Church in PostCommunist Poland
Alicja A. Gescinska
Abstract
This chapter offers a critical evaluation of several aspects (of legal and social
kind) of sexuality in postcommunist Poland. Special emphasis will be put on
the role of the Church in the spread of antisexual opinions and attitudes in
Poland and the threats and challenges this poses to a striving for sexual
literacy and positive liberty. Contemporary attempts, like those of theologian
and priest Ksawery Knotz, to refute these antisexual attitudes, will be
dismissed as neither renewing nor really liberalising.
Key Words: Catholicism, Ksawery Knotz, positive liberty, sexual ethics,
sexual literacy.
*****
1.
Introduction
In the years following the fall of the Berlin Wall, the CentralEuropean countries went through a period of transition in which the
economic foundations of society were completely changed. Although
economic phenomena unmistakably exercise an influence on our sexuality,
the case of Poland shows that this economic transition hardly affected sexual
relations and standards. The entire society was changing and developing
towards a liberal democracy, but in the bedrooms of the Poles not much
liberalisation could be noticed. As H. David wrote in a voluminous study of
sexuality in the Central-European countries:
The Polish experience shows that economic development,
processes of urbanization and modernization, as well as
achievements of legal and educational equality by women,
are not necessarily synonymous with or a guarantee of an
enlightened sex life.1
In the first part of this chapter I will briefly sketch the inadequacy of
the ‘sexual transition’ in Poland. The emphasis will be put on abortion policy,
homosexuality, and the conservative - Catholic resistence against sexual
education in schools and any sexual liberalisation and liberation. I will
critically evaluate these phenomena from the perspective of the concepts of
sexual literacy and positive liberty.
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Sex in Transition
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In the second part of this chapter I will talk about the way the
Catholic Church has recently tried to formulate a less rigid sexual ethics in
Poland. Especially the popular writings of Ksawery Knotz, theologian and
monk, are significant in this regard and have caused quite some fuss in the
media. However, a critical reading and evaluation of Knotz’ writings reveal
that Knotz is not at all an advocate of a more liberal sexual ethics.
2.
What is Sexual Literacy?
Before I continue, I would like to clarify what I mean with the term
sexual literacy. In general, I think we, as a society and as individuals should
strive towards more positive liberty: personal mastery, ability, autonomy and
an active stance in moral life, accepting that external limitations can increase
your freedom, as freedom without limits is anything but freedom at all. A
merely negative freedom, defined as the absence of external limitations and
restrictions, does not suffice to be really free. And it certainly does not
contribute to any moral uplifting of society.
I have previously tried to argue that positive liberty is what we
should aim for, also when it comes to our sexuality.2 I have defined sexual
literacy as the aim of our sexuality and defined it from the perspective of
positive liberty. Sexual literacy is about personal mastery, acquired through
conscious and unconscious learning, in which personal autonomy and an
active, dynamic stance are of the utmost importance. I will now try to argue
that the abortion policy, views on homosexuality and sexual education in
Poland pose great threats and challenges to these principles.
3.
Abortion, Homosexuality and Sexual Education
In 1956 Poland legalised abortion. Already in the seventies, but
especially in the eighties (as communist power diminished) catholic
resistance against this free abortion policy grew. This ultimately resulted in
an anti-abortion law in 1993 after the system had collapsed. What is
remarkable, is that an explicit antisexual discourse from the church and
conservative catholics went hand in hand with this blunt resistance against
abortion; an antisexual attitude which is above all evident in the fact that the
church argued against any sexual education at schools and advocated
abstinence only.
Although one can doubt whether abortion policies have any direct
influence on the quality of people’s sex life, the antisexual attitude which was
stimulated with the anti-abortion policy in Poland is definitely opposed to an
enlightened sexual life. Sociological research has for example shown that
during the transition there was a significant increase of women in Poland who
no longer wanted to have sex with their husbands; a phenomenon which was
subtly described by Maria Nurowska in her novel Grzy malzenskie (1994).
The main character of the novel sinks into an antisexual attitude which brings
Alicja A. Gescinska
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her to kill her husband. Although the novel is not a sociological or
psychological study, Nurowska sometimes expresses a sharp insight into
Polish society and public opinions:
In Poland everybody is sexually underdeveloped; we are
about hundred years behind compared with the West. We
live in the 19th century when it comes to our mentality and
on the field of love we live in the Stone Age.3
This is of course literary hyperbole, but it shows how the antisexual
attitude was or still is a real issue in postcommunist Poland, and that a critical
evaluation of it is desirable from the perspective of sexual literacy. I could
also refer to statistic research which has shown that Poland stands at the
bottom of the ‘frequency of lovemaking’ in Europe, which obviously also
relates to the problem of antisexuality.4
This antisexuality does not contribute to an enlightened sex life and
sexual literacy at all, as it hinders the active stance and dynamic process of
learning which precedes all true positive liberty.
Neither does the negative public opinion about homosexuality in
Poland contribute to an enlightenment of sexuality. A pluriform society with
respect for others and their sexual preferences (as long as they are legal) is a
main characteristic of a modern liberal democracy, and a precondition for
sexual literacy. When a significant percentage of our citizens is limited and
hindered in the exercise of their own sexual preferences and desires, this
cannot be conducive to a more enlightened sexuality.
From the perspective of positive liberty and sexual literacy,
especially the principle of autonomy – so central and sacred in positive
liberty – seems to be threatened by a severe resistance to homosexuality:
everyone should be able to pursue his or her own good; not only as a mere
formal right (negative liberty), but as a real ability. And what are rights, when
one is unable to enjoy them?
Autonomy is a crucial feature of sexual literacy. It is reflected in
Anthony Gidden’s assumption that a democratization of intimacy is
necessary and that autonomy is the pillar of this democratization. Autonomy
will provide and guard the personal boundaries necessary for an enlightened
citizenry.5
An intolerant attitude towards homosexuality hinders this
democratization and this forms an obstacle on the road to sexual literacy and
true liberty. And there are of course many examples of the extremely
negative attitude towards homosexuality in Polish society: the Polish gayparade is known as the ‘march of the barbarians’, the Polish philosopher of
law and senator Maria Szyszkowskawa - who has argued for more legal
protection and advantages for same-sex-couples - has been threatened more
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than once, feminist and homosexual demonstrators were violently attacked
during a manifestation in Poznan in 2004, and one could go on.
Homosexuality is not only considered as reprehensible, but it is actively
suppressed. This seems all the more astonishing, knowing that Poland had
quite early legalised homosexuality. In 1932 it was decriminalised; however
‘this legal situation has not changed perceptions of homosexuality as
deviant’.6
The antisexual attitude of conservative Catholics, and the negative
effect this has on sexual literacy, is above all evident in the fact that they try
to oppose the spread of contraceptives and sexual education. The antiabortion law of 1993 also stipulated that the availability of contraceptives
should increase as well as the amount and quality of sexual education in
schools. Due to pressure from conservatives, these aspects of the law were
never implemented. In 1997 a new law was voted to restrict all sexual
education:
Sex education has been replaced in schools by ‘family life
education’ which exhorts young people to remain sexually
abstinent until marriage, while perpetuating myths and
misconceptions related to gender, sexuality and family
planning.7
This situation of course reminds us of what happens in the US and
which was critically sketched by Simon Blackburn:
Within the United States, the federal government spends
some $ 100,000,000 a year of American tax dollars on
abstinence-only programs of sex education. This in spite of
the fact that abstinence-only programs markedly increase
young peoples’ health risks by making sporadic, furtive,
and unprotected copulations their only option.8
I assume I don’t need to argue that a lack of sexual education and a
simplistic stress on abstinence cannot be conducive to sexual experience. The
importance of education in sexual, positive liberation and the development of
‘sexual literacy’ cannot sufficiently be stressed. Like any ability and mastery,
sexual literacy is the result of a learning process. This process is in Poland
entirely curtailed by the Catholic Church and conservatives. What counts as
sexual education in Poland are the obligatory meetings with a priest for those
couples who wish to marry in which they are told about natural birth control
and their ‘marital duties’.
So the lack of sexual education can be identified as yet another
aspect of Polish post-communist society and legislation which is anything but
Alicja A. Gescinska
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conducive to a more enlightened sexual life. The need for change grows, and
in the following section I will question whether the writings of Ksawery
Knotz really give in to this need for liberalisation and change, as is often and
generally assumed.
4.
The Problem of Unnatural Sex
The books of Father Knotz on sexuality got a lot of attention from
the media; not only in Poland, but also abroad. An English translation of his
latest book should appear next year, and one could speak of a real hype. His
latest book was received as ‘the Catholic Kamasutra’ and the first part of its
title – Sex like you didn’t know it – does also arouse high hopes. But the
books of Knotz do not meet these hopes and expectations. They definitely
have some relevance: Knotz argues against anti-sexuality and says
Catholicism should function as an excuse for not having sex. Knotz stresses
the importance of sexuality as part of our condition humane, and he explicitly
states that it is incorrect to assume sex can only be justified within
Catholicism from the perspective of procreation.
But is all this really that renewing for a catholic thinker? Certainly
not, and I would like to mention especially the name of Nikolaj Berdjaev, the
greatest Russian philosopher of the 20th century, whose role in Polish thought
is not insignificant. Already in 1916 Berdjaev criticised Christian antisexuality and abstinence-only discourses and in many ways Berdjaev was
much more progressive than Knotz, while almost 100 years have gone by
since! This is above all evident in the fact that Knotz more than once talks
about natural and unnatural sex, dismissing as unnatural or abnormal sex
those activities that for example imply the use of contraception or anal
penetration.
Not only how Knotz defines ‘natural sex’ / ‘normal sex’, but the fact
that he talks of ‘normality’ as a criteria to condemn certain activities, is a
proof that Knotz is certainly not way ahead of his time. Once more I can refer
to Berdjaev who wrote in The Meaning of Creation that normality is not
applicable to sexuality, and certainly not to condemn certain sexual activities
or to force one’s own views upon others. In a way one could say that
Berdjaev - although he was a conservative Christian philosopher - was an
ideological predecessor of many modern thinkers who sought to define
perversion and who came to the conclusion that it is almost impossible to
define what is perverse and what is normal. As Berdjaev wrote himself:
Scientifically, nothing allows in fact to establish such a
strict division between that, which is in this regard,
‘normal’ and ‘natural’, and that, which on the contrary is
abnormal’ and ‘unnatural’. From a philosophical point of
view, the category of ‘the natural’ must be rejected.9
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5.
The Sanctification of the Vagina and Other Arguments
Knotz’ definition of ‘normal’ and ‘natural’ sex does not approve of
anal sex, the use of contraception, homosexuality, masturbation, and so on.
Obviously Knotz does little to contribute to a reconciliation of catholic
teachings on the one hand, and those sexual activities which are part of every
daily life of many people but which the church does not recognise.
Knotz’s view on good sex is almost solely defined by the
penetration of the vagina. Any orgasm which does not result from the vaginal
penetration of the woman, is incomplete, unsatisfactory, and ultimately, not
worth much, according to Knotz. It even leads to a ‘falsification of the love
between man and woman’.10 These are harsh words for lovers who think they
come closer to each other through mutual masturbation and oral sex, while
they apparently undermine the love that exists between them through those
acts.
In order to obtain more persuasiveness, Knotz makes use of much
false information concerning the influence on people’s health of these
activities which he defines as inferior and quite worthless. He states that
orgasms which do not result from the penetration of the vagina are
unsatisfactory and this dissatisfaction leads to mental problems. Such way of
argumentation is of course very typical of the catholic way of thinking on
sexuality.
The most remarkable of Knotz’s ‘medical arguments’, is probably
his claim that sperm is a source of vitamins, works as a natural Prozac,
prevents breast cancer and improves the quality of the female skin.11 That is
of course, if this ‘miracle drug’ is taken vaginal, and certainly not oral or
certainly not anally!
There are many such statements in Knotz’s writings which are either
morally or scientifically objectionable. He uses cheap, stereotypic, strange
and sometimes even totally reprehensible arguments. One could perhaps find
it amusing that Knotz claims that religion works as an aphrodisiac and
increases the sexual urge. That may seem amusing, not very convincing, but
it does not do much harm. But when Knotz writes that certain diseases aren’t
that frequently sexually transmitted as is often said, in order to condemn the
use of contraception, we must find this less amusing and all the more
worrying.
5.
Conclusion
The fact that Knotz is not at all that renewing, and certainly hasn’t
written anything that could come near a ‘Catholic Kamasutra’, is perhaps
most evident in the sources on which he grounds his views: the encyclical
Humanae Vitae (1968) of pope Paul VI and the thought of Karol Wojtyla /
pope John Paul II. The influence of the latter was of course very big in
Poland in many ways, and his antisexual views have obviously determined
Alicja A. Gescinska
93
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Knotz’s own views. The fact that Knotz’s thought is derived from such an
explicit antisexual discourse, shows he cannot possibly be the liberator of
catholic teachings relating to sexuality, as he is often said to be in Poland.
I have argued how certain legal and social phenomena in Poland
hinder the development of sexual literacy and positive liberty. Antisexual
discourses do not contribute to the dynamic process of learning which is
inherent to sexual education and sexual literacy. The harsh and intolerant
attitude towards homosexuality does form a threat to the principle of
autonomy, so important in positive liberty, and therefore also to sexual
literacy. The writings of Knotz do little to contribute to a change and
improvement in this regard. There are far too many internal paradoxes,
morally and scientifically objectionable statements in his writings. Whether
there is a real process of liberalisation within the Catholic Church regarding
sexuality in Poland, is therefore more than doubtful.12
Notes
1
H David, From Abortion to Contraception. A Resource to Public Policies
and Reproductive Behavior in Central and Eastern Europe from 1917 to the
Present, Greenwood Press, Westport, 1999, p. 187.
2
I refer to my article From Sexual Liberty to Sexual Liberation which was
presented at the Interdisciplinary.net Good Sex / Bad Sex conference in
Budapest (May 2009)
3
M Nurowska, Het huwelijksspel, De Geus, Breda, 1997, pp. 106-107. (My
own translation from the Dutch edition.)
4
H David, op. cit., p. 186.
5
A Giddens, The Transformation of Intimacy, Polity Press, Oxford, 1993, p.
189.
6
M Baer, ‘Let Them Hear Us! The Politics of Same-sex: Transgression in
Contemporary Poland’, in Transgressive Sex: Subversion and Control in
Erotic Encounters, H Donnan & F Magonan (eds), Berdhan books, 2009,
p.133.
7
F Girard. & W Nowicka (2002), ‘Clear and Compelling Evidence: The
Polish Tribunal on Abortion Rights’. Reproductive Health Matters, vol. 10,
no. 19, 2002, p. 23.
8
S Blackburn, Lust: The Seven Deadly Sins, Oxford University Press,
Oxford, 2004, pp. 6-7.
9
N Berdjaev, Le sens de la création, Desclée De Brouwer, Brugge, 1955, pp.
234-235. (My own translation from the French edition.)
10
K Knotz, Seks jakiego nie znacie: Dla malzonkow kochajacycj Boga,
Swiety Pawel, Czestochowa, 2009, p. 81. (My own translation from the
Polish original.)
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Sex in Transition
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11
ibid., 146.
Bibliography
Baer, M., ‘Let Them Hear Us! The Politics of Same-sex: Transgression in
Contemporary Poland’, in Transgressive Sex: Subversion and Control in
Erotic Encounters. H. Donnan and F. Magonan (eds), Berdhan Books, pp.
131-151.
Berdjaev, N., Le sens de la création. Desclée De Brouwer, Brugge, 1955.
Blackburn, S., Lust: The Seven Deadly Sins. Oxford University Press,
Oxford, 2004.
David, H., From Abortion to Contraception. A Resource to Public Policies
and Reproductive Behavior in Central and Eastern Europe from 1917 to the
Present. Greenwood Press, Westport, 1999.
Giddens, A., The Transformation of Intimacy. Polity Press, Oxford, 1993.
Girard, F. and Nowicka W., ‘Clear and Compelling Evidence: The Polish
Tribunal on Abortion Rights’. Reproductive Health Matters, vol. 10, no. 19,
2002, pp. 22-30.
Knotz, K., Akt malzenski. Wydawnictwo M, Krakau, 2001.
–––, Seks jakiego nie znacie: Dla malzonkow kochajacycj Boga. Swiety
Pawel, Czestochowa, 2009.
Nurowska, M., Het huwelijksspel, De Geus, Breda, 1997.
Alicja A. Gescinska is a PhD-candidate (FWO) affiliated to Ghent
University and the Center for Ethics and Value Inquiry. She does research on
the concept of moral responsibility and its anthropological foundations in the
thought of Max Scheler and Karol Wojtyla and how moral responsibility
relates to human freedom and autonomy, which she also applies to the
domain of sexual ethics.
The Embodiment of Female Sexual Pleasure: Body as
Object and Body as Instrument
Fiona McQueen
Abstract
This chapter will consider how models of embodiment can contribute to an
understanding of the experience of sexual pleasure. Data was collected from
thirteen women aged 21 to 53 years based in the UK, interviewed in a semi
structured style about their experiences of their sexuality. This research
proposes that in empirical work, models of embodiment which categorise the
body as made up of three bodies: the objectified body, the experiencing body
and the experienced body could be more usefully reconstructed only two
female bodies. By re-formulating the female body into the body as object and
the body as instrument, the difficulties of experiencing female sexual desire
and pleasure within a culture of sexual propriety and objectification is
emphasised. Specifically highlighted was the importance of the situational
and relational context in which sexual pleasure can be achieved for women,
this was paramount in understanding what factors were conductive to
attaining a positive sexual self-image.
This research highlights important points of connection between the body as:
object of desire; site of experience of emotion and sensation; as well as the
vehicle through which the sexual is defined. These three competing roles of
the sexual body reflect the multiple ways in which bodies are required to reinvent themselves daily through their role as both source of contact with the
material world, and site of interpreting and constructing the social world. By
connecting these two worlds, sexual pleasure is conceptualised as being
reflexive; influenced through social interaction and experiences, leading to
female bodies being reconstructed in multiple ways in the pursuit of sexual
pleasure. With those women who have achieved their own state of sexual
pleasure, they have experienced this as a point at which the self-conscious
body as object is dispelled so that the sexual body as instrument can be fully
enjoyed.
Key Words: Embodiment, female, sexual pleasure, sociology.
*****
1.
Background
Through time female sexual pleasure has been a highly politicised
issue, medicalised as long ago as the 5th century BC when the definition of
hysteria was agreed upon. Aspects of women’s sexuality which do not serve
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men’s desires, or are not wholly related to reproduction, have been
consistently denied in public discourse.1 It has been argued that historically
women are seen through the male gaze as the object of desire, their bodies
devoid of subjectivity, lacking their own separate sexuality, contingent upon
male desire and competing for male approval.2 This leads many feminists to
consider the objectification of women as a process undergone from childhood
whereby girls are made aware of the need to control their bodily movements
from a young age.3 Some researchers go so far as to say that one of the first
lessons taught to women in a patriarchal society is to view oneself as an
object in a process of self objectification.4 Young has concluded through her
phenomenological research into female bodily movement, that women
experience their bodies with an “ambiguous transcendence” aware of
themselves as objects under the male gaze of unwanted attention.5 Masters
and Johnson, leading sex researchers of their time, described a process of
‘spectatoring’ as “the loss of sexual agency through viewing oneself as a
sexual object” which “impedes sexual functioning because it distracts women
from their own pleasure”.6 The connection between the objectification of
women, self-objectification and sexual pleasure will be explored in this
chapter.
Jackson and Scott argue that in order to interpret one’s own body (as
well as the bodies of others) as sexual, we need socially agreed norms
defining what is sexual.7 The term ‘sexually schizophrenic society’ describes
the ways in which Western societies hold sexuality to be both a source of dirt,
disease and denigration as well as a gateway to ecstasy, enlightenment and
emancipation. This conflict has been argued to be more acutely felt by
women, needing to be both chaste and pure, as well as sexually available and
attractive at the same time.8 Women are expected to walk a ‘very narrow
tightrope’ of sexual propriety that controls the expression of female sexual
desire or pleasure.9 So that despite our society being proliferated with
messages of sexualised women there is a ‘missing discourse of desire’ for
women whereby they have little awareness of what constitutes their own
desire or sexual pleasure. Socialised to be sexually attractive and available
women are encouraged to present an appearance of socially approved female
sexuality.10 This chapter considers gender and sexuality as empirically
related but analytically distinct categories in line with Gagnon and Simon.11
By viewing sexuality as socially constructed, it must be seen as produced
through the production of gender, so that “sexual pleasure is socially
mediated and embodied selves are reflexively constructed and reconstructed
through social interaction in specific social settings”.12 In this way all
interaction is embodied as well as gendered, and all sexual relations occur in
a nexus of social relations.
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2.
Embodiment
Embodiment theory highlights the centrality of the body in
experiencing and communicating with the social world, making it impossible
to dismiss the body when theorising the social world.13 However the question
of how to conceptualise the body is a complex one, McNay states the nature
of this problem within sociology:
As the point of overlap between the physical, the symbolic
and the sociological, the body is a dynamic frontier. The
body is the threshold through which the subject’s lived
experience of the world is incorporated and realised and, as
such, is neither pure object nor pure subject. It is neither
pure object since it is the place of one’s engagement with
the world. Nor is it pure subject in that there is always a
material residue that resists incorporation into dominant
symbolic schema.14
This fundamental difficulty in reconciling the binary of bodies being
both subject and object within the social world makes embodiment theory
illuminating in researching sexualities, and specifically sexual pleasure. As
stressed by Jackson and Scott, bodies in themselves are not meaningful
within sociology, rather they are embodied within a specific social context
which “profoundly affects both how we see our own and others’ bodies and
how we experience our actual embodiment”.15 Sexual pleasure can provide a
point of connection between competing aspects of embodiment wherein the
subject and body become blurred within practices such as being aware of
being viewed in a sexual way, perceiving situations as sexual and feeling
sexual. This article will go on to explore the relationship between the subject
and body through examining the three part model of embodiment proposed
by Lindemann.16
In constructing a three part model of the body, Lindemann describes
the objectified body; a visible and concrete gestalt, the experiencing body
which perceives through the senses including sight, touch etc. and; the
experienced body which feels a sense of self without conveying sensory
perceptions.17 While this model was primarily concerned with addressing
embodied issues surrounding the everyday reproduction of human gender,
specifically considering the body to be a spatial phenomenon, it can be useful
in highlighting areas of interest within the construction of the embodiment of
female sexual pleasure. As adapted by Jackson and Scott,18 Lindemann’s
model highlights how the objectified body and living body are reflexively
linked, stating that how the objectified body is perceived effects how the
living body is experienced and vice versa. This interpretation states that
sexual experience can change both how objectified bodies are defined as
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The Embodiment of Female Sexual Pleasure
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sexual, as well as how experiencing bodies experience sexual encounters.
This highlights the potential for discontinuity between perceptions of what
appears to be ‘sexy’ (in the objectified body) and what is experienced as
sexual (by the living body).
This three-part model has many strengths, including the ability to
acknowledge the potential distance between portraying an objectified
appearance of sexual behaviour and experiencing this as sexual, and the
potential for reconstructing interpretations of what is sexual. However,
following on from the findings of this research there is one important element
missing from the model discussed by Lindemann and Jackson and Scott
which is the role of agency.19 In this model the experienced body represents
the sense of one’s own body, experienced without conveying any signs of
sensory perception. While the experiencing body feels through the senses
including touch, taste, sight etc. The combination of these into the living
body leads to the body knowing where it is located, in an absolute location
without the need for spatial relations or relative distances from other objects,
in other words it has a discrete sense of self. However, this awareness of self
does not go on to then be aware of the objectified body in any meaningful
way, but is limited to only being oriented towards the construction of the
objectified body through cultural formation. So that conscious awareness of
the body is alienated from the objectified body and located solely in the
living body. The discussed research uses the experience of female sexual
pleasure to question this understanding of embodiment.
3.
Methods
In exploring the issue of embodied sexual pleasure, qualitative
methods were employed in order to discuss this topic with sensitivity in an
open and reflexive manner. Semi-structured interviews were used following a
loose life-time trajectory with all thirteen participants, aged between 21 and
53 years, discussing their memories of their sex lives beginning from when
they first became aware of themselves in a sexual way. This method allowed
participants to reflect on key stages in their live when their sexuality was
influential in their self-identity, or specific incidents which changed how they
experienced this.
The interview data collected was very detailed and personal with all,
bar one respondent, discussing their pleasant surprise at the level of insight
they had gained from taking part in the interview process. Interviewees were
recruited through word of mouth and therefore most lived in or around the
researchers home town of Edinburgh, with a small number being based the
north of England. The convenience sampling method led to a sample of seven
middle class and six working class participants, with women deciding their
own class based on their life trajectories to date, all of whom chose
pseudonyms with which to be identified in the research. While the interview
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structure was concerned with life-time trajectories of factors affecting
women’s sexual pleasure, the theme of embodiment, a theory which has been
widely recognised as very difficult to directly investigate, was focused on
through the specific question asked in the interview context: ‘have you ever
felt alone during sex?’. This question gave rise to a high level of response,
with all respondents citing specific occasions or relationships in which they
had felt alone during sexual activities, with detailed accounts of how this felt
and under what circumstances this occurred provided to the researcher.
However, in order to investigate the nature of the embodiment of female
sexual pleasure, several areas of convergence from among the thirteen life
trajectories must be taken into account.
4.
Research findings
Starting from the point at which women first became aware of their
own sexuality, a central issue of communication at home arose. This was
recognised as contributing greatly to how women valued their sexuality. This
research found that the more a daughter is encouraged to think of her
sexualised body in a positive way by her mother, the more likely she is to go
on to experience sexual pleasure. This correlation between attitude at home
towards female sexuality and, subsequent ability to experience sexual
pleasure was very strong. In contrast, women reflected on conflicting
messages they received from the media as regards their sexuality, stating
their need to appear sexually available, often expressed through messages
about body image, and being sexually attractive. Research into the sexual
content of primetime television has revealed “women, can, do and should
objectify themselves, exploiting their bodies and looks were portrayed as
important, if not necessary, to attract male suitors”.20 These messages
contained in television often directly contradict messages young women
received at home, both explicit and latent. The resulting discrepancy between
mass media and family values led to the women feeling confused about their
newly sexualised bodies and how they should behave in sexual contexts.
Talking about how they had experienced great conflict as regards how they
‘should be’; either as a physically attractive, sexually available, passive
object to allure men, as presented to them in the media. Or a ‘good girl’ who
is careful not to present herself as sexual at all, as encouraged by their family
background in most cases, was presented in most life trajectories. Sexual
desire or potential for pleasure from sexual activity were not messages
discussed by the women when describing their youth, supporting the concept
of a ‘missing discourse of desire’ for young women.
Women who received positive sexual messages at home in contrast,
exhibited a greater sense of control over their bodies when they went on to
experiment sexually. The central issue of control is shown primarily through
two women who felt able to refuse, avoid or get out of sexual situations they
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The Embodiment of Female Sexual Pleasure
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did not want or were not enjoying. However, as found by previous research,
the first sexual experiences of most women in this study were not
enjoyable.21 The conflicting messages received by young women from media
and family, highlighting the ‘sexually schizophrenic society’ led to them
feeling confused in what they wanted to achieve with their newly sexualised
bodies.
This research found that the impact of early sexual experiences on
future ability to enjoy sexual pleasure is great. Those women who had less
control over their first sexual encounters have gone on to have more
difficulties in experiencing sexual pleasure. Sexual harassment from leering
to rape was cited as a very common experience for the women interviewed,
especially when young. These experiences resulted in women sensing their
sexualised bodies as problematic, leading to several women creating a
deliberate distance between themselves and their sexuality. Every woman in
this research gave a description at some point of receiving unpleasant sexual
attention and or enduring negative encounters over their life course. Through
these incidences many women came to conceptualise their sexualised bodies
as a source of betrayal, pain and unwanted attention, as highlighted by
Tinkerbell when she says:
When it comes round to the whole dressing and being and
feeling, because quite a lot of feeling sexy makes me feel
quite uncomfortable. I guess because it triggers, it’s such a
double‐edged sword, in my head I’m very ambivalent, is
the word I would use, to my sexuality. I can love it or
loathe it, and if that’s not something in my head when I’m
doing things then I can be much more confident.
Research into sex workers found that they develop coping
mechanisms to manage the tensions of negative sexual situations. These
coping mechanisms largely involve ‘separating the body from ‘the self’’ so as
to manage difficult emotions which surface through their day-to-day working
lives. This finding was supported by the discussed research that found that
women who have had more of these negative experiences find it much harder
to expect sexual experiences to be pleasant. Instead these women experience
their bodies as remote objects out of their control, as described by Chloe
Taylor discussing a one night stand:
When I was drunk I thought oh, he’s really funny, and he’d
be a great laugh in the bedroom, and it’s not turned out like
that I’ve just felt like, well, I don’t know why I’m doing
this, but it’s not that bad, so I’ll just drift off.
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Or Claire discussing sex in a long term 5 year relationship:
Being in relationships, I was just kind of going through the
motions, as opposed to it being something that I was
terribly into. I very often found myself sort of absent, and
having sex very much aware of my responsibility as a
girlfriend, as opposed to it being something I actually
wanted. And I think I would even say I’ve had times when
I actually felt violated because I was doing it because it was
expected, but I really didn’t want to (pause) I think you just
kind of separate yourself, just go ahead just kind of zoned
out.
In considering this experience of ‘drifting off’ within the context of
Lindemann’s three part model of the body, this example highlights that there
is a connection between the objectified body and the living body. Rather than
the body being made up of two discrete entities sharing the same space and
time, by pointing directly at the point at which an awareness of self distances
itself from the body as an object. This process highlights that the living body
as described by Lindemann has an awareness of the connection it has to the
objectified body in a reflexive way.22 It is this awareness of the objectified
body by the living body that leads to the reformulation of Lindemann’s
model into two constituent parts: the body as object and the body as
instrument.23 This example of women choosing to ‘drift off’ during
unpleasant sexual encounters in order to escape negative sensations and
emotions, can demonstrate how the proposed two part model of embodiment
can more successfully conceptualise the experiences of these women. In
contrast to Lindemann’s model, the proposed two part model questions the
necessity of differentiating between the ability of a body to experience
physical sensations (the experiencing body) and the ability to have a sense of
one’s own body without conveying sensory perceptions (the experienced
body).
The findings of this research suggest that women experience their
bodies in a more cohesive way, unable to separate their awareness of physical
sensations from their sense of self, but with a discrete ability to discern
between whether they are fully engaging with their physical bodies or not,
essentially with a sense of presence. This leads to the breaking down of
Lindemann’s model, stripping components of each of her three bodies and
reconstituting these into two bodies: a body as object; aware of emotions,
sensations and pain but unable to actively define situations as sexual, and: a
body as instrument; able to perceive through the senses, including an ability
to experience desire, a sense of agency and control over its actions and able
to actively define situations as sexual. This reformulation is able to
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The Embodiment of Female Sexual Pleasure
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accommodate the experience of women drifting off during sexual encounters
as it facilitates the distinction made by these women of being at one point
present in a sexual encounter, in their body as instrument, fully engaged and
present mentally and physically, but then deliberately distancing themselves
from their body, leaving the body as object behind in order to avoid intense
negative emotions.
This model can be further illustrated by considering the experience
of female sexual pleasure, and the main factors which can affect this. The
issue of performance becomes key in this example, as these women were
effectively performing a version of their own sexuality, yet not experiencing
desire or pleasure, highlighting their ability to self-objectify their sexualised
bodies. This model of two bodies highlights the role of agency within
conceptualising female sexual pleasure. Agency in this sense is defined as:
The ability to define one’s goals and act upon them.
Agency is about more than observable action; it also
encompasses the meaning, motivation and purpose, which
individuals bring to their activity, their sense of agency, or
the ‘power within’. 24
Within a sexual context agency relates specifically to actions such as
to be aware of and act upon personal sexual desires, to take the initiative in
sexual situations, choosing to not engage in certain behaviours. Agency refers
to the motivation and thinking behind behaviours and actions as well as any
actions carried out. This highlighting of the non-physical, and potentially
unspoken, elements of agency are important in researching sexuality. The
ability to express sexual pleasure is seen as evidence of sexual agency as the
circumstances and conditions required for women to be able to experience
this were found to be contingent on a level of control over their sexual
encounters. The main areas identified in this research as predicting the ability
to experience sexual pleasure are communicating about sexual issues, trusting
your partner emotionally and feeling equal to your partner.
A major finding of this research is that women who regularly
communicate what they want in bed with their partner orgasm more easily
and value orgasm more highly than those women who did not communicate
with their sexual partners. While orgasm is not definitive of sexual pleasure,
it is a strong indication of this. This finding is congruent with the expected
influence of agency - women who are able to recognise and communicate
their sexuality find it easier to experience their own sexual desires and
pleasure. Additionally, trust was cited as the most consistent element
necessary to sexual pleasure, with all female participants mentioning the
importance of this to their relationships. The relevance of emotional trust
seems to be directly related to the body as instrument once again: women
Fiona McQueen
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who trust their partner to listen to them, take their time and be open
emotionally do not feel it necessary to perform an idealised version of their
sexuality or ‘act sexy’. Trust in a relationship negates the need to perform as
a sexual object, enabling women to stop self-objectifying and experience
their body as an instrument of their own pleasure.
In order to understand the impact sexual pleasure has on women we
must consider firstly the impact this has on their relationship with their
partner and the relationship they have with themselves. Many women
described how good sex can make them feel closer to their partner. In
focusing on the role of sexual pleasure in women’s sense of sexual self
identity, many women described sex making them feel relaxed, chilled or at
peace. This calm and peace was described as rare moment when women can
be devoid of an awareness of the body as object, when women can simply be
in their body, at one with their potentially conflicting sexual identity as
described by Biker Chick when she describes her sexual pleasure:
It’s that feeling of being totally and completely in your own
body, in your senses, in this moment now. And there is no
thinking, or buzzing on whatever. But the ideal moment is
afterwards when you just, it spreads through your body,
every sense, every pore, every cell in your skin feels like
you fit your skin completely.
The process of reconciling the binary of the body as object and the
body as instrument is centrally the reason why sexual pleasure is powerful
and important to women. It provides a site at which women can reclaim and
redefine their sexuality, sexual desires and sexualised bodies in a continually
reflexive way so that positive sexual encounters can enable women to reconceptualise their bodies in less objectified ways. By no longer feeling a
need to perform an idealised version of female sexuality as attractive and
passive, women can assert their agency and interpret their own desire and
pleasure in their own terms.
5.
Conclusions
The embodiment of female sexual pleasure is a highly complex,
socially mediated process. Women construct and reconstruct their sexuality
from many sources of interaction within a ‘sexually schizophrenic society’
wherein they experience their bodies as both instrument through which to act
in the social world with agency, and as object, through which they enact a
passive performance of female sexuality, able to flick between these at any
time. However this research concludes that the experience of sexual pleasure
is only possible through the body as instrument, as the body as object is
overly self-reflexive rendering it distant to the senses. Objectification and
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The Embodiment of Female Sexual Pleasure
______________________________________________________________
self-objectification ensure that women are alienated from their inner self,
constrained within social norms that expect them to perform rather than
experience desire and pleasure. These conclusions highlight the importance
of challenging social norms which encourage the objectification of women or
perpetuate the missing discourse of desire experienced by some of the women
in this research. Through encouraging women to reclaim and redefine their
sexuality, out with the confines of the popular media messages of appropriate
female sexuality, female sexual pleasure can be recognised as liberating. This
chapter raises questions about the complicated nature of sexuality and
specifically sexual pleasure. It highlights the need for greater attention to be
paid to the ways in which we all experience our bodies and how this is
socially constructed, and can thus be reflexively reconstructed through life
experiences.
Notes
1
R Maines, Technology of Orgasm: “Hysteria”, the Vibrator, and Women’s
Sexual Satisfaction, London, John Hopkins University Press, 1999.
2
H Crowley and S Himmelweit (eds), Knowing Women: Feminism and
Knowledge, Polity Press in association with The Open University,
Cambridge, 1992.
3
I M Young, ‘Throwing Like a Girl’ in Throwing like a Girl and Other
Essays, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN, 1990.
4
B L Fredrickson and T Roberts, ‘Objectification theory: Toward
understanding women’s lived experiences and mental health risks’.
Psychology of Women Quarterly, vol. 21, pp. 173-206, 1997.
5
Young, op. cit., p. 153.
6
W Masters and V Johnson, Human Sexual Inadequacy, Little, Brown,
Boston, MA, 1970.
7
S Jackson and S Scott, ‘Embodying Orgasm: Gendered Power Relations
and Sexual Pleasure’. Co-published simultaneously in Women and Therapy,
vol. 24, no. 1 /2, pp. 99-110 and A New View of Women’s Sexual Problems, E
Kaschak and L Tiefer (eds), Biningham, NY, The Haworth Press, 2001.
8
C Queen, ‘Sex Radical Politics, Sex-Positive Feminist Thought, and Whore
Stigma’, in Whores and Other Feminists, J Nagle (ed), Routledge, New York,
London, 1997, p. 130.
9
F Attwood, ‘Sluts and Riot Grrrls: Female Identity and Sexual Agency’.
Journal of Genders Studies, vol. 16, no. 3, 2007, pp. 233-247.
10
L Irigaray, ‘The Sex Which is Not One’, in Feminism and Sexuality: A
Reader, S Jackson and S Scott (eds), Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh,
1996.
11
J Gagnon and W Simon, Sexual Conduct, Hutchison, London, 1974.
Fiona McQueen
105
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12
Jackson and Scott, op. cit., p. 100.
S J Williams, The Lived Body: Sociological Themes, Embodied Issues,
Routledge, London, 1998.
14
L McNay, ‘Gender, Habitus and the Field’. Theory, Culture & Society vol.
16, no. 1, pp. 95-117, 1999, p. 98.
15
Jackson and Scott, op.cit., p. 102.
16
G Lindemann, ‘The Body of Sexual Difference’, in Embodied Practice:
Feminist Perspectives on the Body, K. Davis (ed.), Sage, London, 1997, pp.
73-92.
17
Ibid.
18
Jackson and Scott, op. cit.
19
Lindemann, op. cit.
20
J Kim, L Sorsoli, K Collins, B Zylbergold, D Schooler, D Tolman, ‘From
Sex to Sexuality: Exposing the Heterosexual Script on Primetime Network
Television’. The Journal of Sex Research, vol. 44, no. 2, pp. 145-157, 2007.
21
C E Welles, ‘Breaking the Silence Surrounding Female Adolescent Sexual
Desire’. Women & Therapy, vol. 28, no. 2, pp. 31-45, 2005.
22
Lindemann, op.cit.
23
Lindemann, op.cit.
24
N Kabeer, ‘Resources, Agency, Achievements: Reflections on the
Measurement of Women’s Empowerment’. Development and Change, vol.
30, no. 4, pp. 35-464, 1999, pp. 438.
13
Bibliography
Attwood, F., ‘Sluts and Riot Grrrls: Female Identity and Sexual Agency’.
Journal of Genders Studies, vol. 16, no. 3, 2007, pp. 233-247.
Crowley, H. and Himmelweit, S. (eds), Knowing Women: Feminism and
Knowledge. Polity Press in association with The Open University,
Cambridge, 1992.
Fredrickson, B. L., and Roberts, T, ‘Objectification theory: Toward
understanding women’s lived experiences and mental health risks’.
Psychology of Women Quarterly, vol. 21, 1997, pp. 173-206.
Gagnon, J. and Simon, W., Sexual Conduct. Hutchison, London, 1974
Irigaray, L. ‘The Sex Which is Not One’ in Feminism and Sexuality: A
Reader. S. Jackson, and S. Scott (eds), Edinburgh University Press,
Edinburgh, 1996.
106
The Embodiment of Female Sexual Pleasure
______________________________________________________________
Jackson, S. and Scott, S., ‘Embodying Orgasm: Gendered Power Relations
and Sexual Pleasure’. Co-published simultaneously in Women and Therapy,
vol. 24, no. 1 /2, 2001, pp. 99-110 and A New View of Women’s Sexual
Problems. E. Kaschak and L. Tiefer (eds), The Haworth Press, Biningham:
NY, 2001.
Kabeer, N., ‘Resources, Agency, Achievements: Reflections on the
Measurement of Women’s Empowerment’. Development and Change, vol.
30, 1999, pp. 435-464.
Kelly, L., ‘It’s everywhere’: Sexual Violence as a Continuum’ in Knowing
Women: Feminism and Knowledge. H. Crowley and S. Himmelweit (eds),
Polity Press in association with The Open University, Cambridge, 1992.
Kim, J., Sorsoli, L., Collins, K., Zylbergold, B., Schooler, D., Tolman, D.,
‘From Sex to Sexuality: Exposing the Heterosexual Script on Primetime
Network Television’. The Journal of Sex Research, vol. 44, no. 2, 2007, pp.
145-157.
Levy, A. Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture.
Pocket, London, 2005.
Lindemann, G. ‘The Body of Sexual Difference’, in Embodied Practice:
Feminist Perspectives on the Body. K Davis (ed), Sage, London, 1997, pp.
73-92.
Maines, R., Technology of Orgasm: “Hysteria”, the Vibrator, and Women’s
Sexual Satisfaction. John Hopkins University Press, London, 1999.
Masters, W. and Johnson, V., Human Sexual Inadequacy. Boston, MA, Little,
Brown, 1970.
McHugh, M. ‘What Do Women Want? A New View of Women’s Sexual
Problems’. Sex Roles, vol. 54, 2006, pp. 361-369.
McNay, L. ‘Gender, Habitus and the Field’. Theory, Culture & Society, vol.
16, no. 1, 1999, pp. 95-117.
Queen, C., ‘Sex Radical Politics, Sex-Positive Feminist Thought, and Whore
Stigma’, Whores and Other Feminists. J. Nagle (ed), Routledge, New York,
London, 1997, pp. 125-135.
Fiona McQueen
107
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Sanchez, D., Kiefer, A., Ybarra, O., ‘Sexual Submissiveness in Women:
Costs for Sexual Autonomy and Arousal’.
Personality and Social
Psychology Bulletin, vol. 32, 2006, pp. 512-523.
Tolman. D., ‘Female Adolescent Sexuality: An Argument for a
Developmental Perspective on the New View of Women’s Sexual Problems’.
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Desire’. Women & Therapy, vol. 28, 2, 2005, pp. 31-45.
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Fiona McQueen is a PhD student at the University of Edinburgh. Her main
interests include sexuality, sexual pleasure, heterosexuality, embodiment and
gender identities; she is currently working on a doctoral thesis in sexual
communication
PART III
Narrative Discourses
Spatial Sexualities: The Private, the Social and the
Distinctively Deadly in Othello on Screen
Eleni Pilla
Abstract
With the technological resources at their disposal, modern film directors can
present sexuality spatially in innovative ways when adapting Shakespeare's
Othello for the screen. In Shakespeare's early modern domestic tragedy of
Othello the bedroom articulates a complex form of spatial sexuality. Othello
kills his wife on their marital bed ‘else she’ll betray more men’ (5.2.6) and
then commits suicide when he discovers that he has wrongfully murdered
her. Concentrating on the configuration of the bedroom in Oliver Parker’s
1995 cinematic version of Shakespeare’s early modern tragedy, this chapter
explores the complex interweaving of sexuality and space. The discussion
demonstrates how spatial sexualities are constructed through the
interpenetration of a myriad of discourses relating to identity, authority,
hegemony, gender, race and sexuality. The analysis highlights how Parker’s
erotic thriller constructs a distinctive spatial sexuality relevant to the genre of
the film. The chapter puts forward how the debates established through the
dialogue between sexuality and space are not resolved at the end of this
cinematic adaptation of Othello.
Key Words: the bedroom, gender, Othello, passion, sexuality, space.
*****
In Shakespeare’s early modern domestic tragedy of Othello the
bedroom marks a deadly intimacy. In an act of eroticised violence, Othello
kills his wife on their marital bed ‘else she’ll betray more men’1 and commits
suicide upon discovering that he has murdered her erroneously. With the
technological resources at their disposal, modern film directors can present
sexuality in innovative ways when adapting Shakespeare’s play for the
screen. Concentrating on the configuration of the bedroom in Oliver Parker’s
1995 cinematic adaptation of Othello, this chapter explores the complex
interweaving of sexuality and space and demonstrates how spatial sexualities
are constructed through the interpenetration of a myriad of discourses relating
to identity, authority, gender, race and sexuality. Embedded in this
intersection are distinctive spatial sexualities relevant to the genre of the film.
The scenario of the 1995 Othello is fuelled by desire and passion.
The director, Oliver Parker, re-conceived Shakespeare’s tragedy as follows:
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Spatial Sexualities
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I saw the play as an erotic thriller, and that is what I wanted
to translate onto the big screen. Passion is the driving force
of the story. Each character is motored by desire. There’s
an extraordinary fusion of people boiling with different
passions.2
Iago’s overriding passion and desire - Cassio has been chosen in his stead as
Othello’s lieutenant - takes over and violates and despoils the space most
explicitly associated with the love and desire of Othello and Desdemona:
their bedroom. Whereas the bedroom appears only in the final scene in the
play, almost a third of the action takes place in the bedroom in the film as
indicated by the production notes of the film, thus emphasising the erotic
element of the play. The representation of the events in the bedroom allows
the director to articulate issues related to sexuality.
The bedroom both as a real space and as metaphorical space (in
Othello’s visions) is a space of negativity. As a real space it explores the
transformation of Othello and Desdemona’s relationship due to Othello’s
sexual jealousy. It becomes a locus of possession and violence. As a
metaphorical space it demonstrates Othello’s perturbations and his feelings
that he has been shamed by Desdemona’s infidelity. The characters try to
establish what Henri Lefebvre calls ‘a true space of pleasure’3 but they are
hindered from doing so. Overall, the film emphasizes the destructiveness and
violence attached to desire. Lefebvre suggests that society is a space ‘whose
abstract truth is imposed on the reality of the senses, of bodies, of wishes and
desires’.4 The film can be considered as an illustration of the destruction
which occurs when desire attempts to impose itself on space.
The bedroom is the closest thing to an ideal space, the first time it
is presented, because it is briefly a space fulfilled by bliss. The presentation
of the couple’s wedding night is the most sexually passionate scene between
Othello and Desdemona. Othello’s desire to possess Desdemona shatters the
possibility of the existence of a ‘true space of pleasure’5 because he speaks of
‘the purchase made’, which tinges the scene with male acquisitiveness. The
word ‘profit’ may suggest buying, investment, profiteering. Othello’s words
mentioned above - the only words in this scene - express not only his sexual
desire for his wife, but also his wish to own her. As Desdemona has no
corresponding speech, Othello’s sexual power and authority over Desdemona
is emphasised. Pierre Bourdieu’s suggestion: ‘Language is not only an
instrument of communication or even of knowledge, but also an instrument
of power. A person speaks not only to be understood but also to be believed,
obeyed, respected, distinguished’,6 applies to Othello’s behaviour. Othello’s
desire to dominate and overpower the other is not only registered verbally. It
is also communicated visually through an emphasis on his physicality. The
montage offers an arresting spectacle of a ‘militant sexuality’ by beginning
Eleni Pilla
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with a concentration on the powerful upper part of Othello’s black body,
panning up his bare feet towards his trouser legs, and then offering a medium
close-up of his hands removing his belt. Robert F. Willson, Jr. remarks,
Othello ‘marches towards [Desdemona] like the conquering soldier’.7
Othello is no longer the strong warrior and the powerful man who
made love to Desdemona the next time we view him in the bedroom. His
vision of Desdemona and Cassio very close to each other smiling, which is
immediately followed by a shot of an Othello sitting on the bed coughing and
then falling on the bed, illustrates his physical illness which is due to his
inner turmoil. Iago’s eye invades the bedroom as he spies on Othello, who is
unwell, from the door of the bedroom. He is witnessing the crippling result of
his insinuations to Othello about Cassio and Desdemona. Othello’s discourse
is no longer overpowering but is pervaded by a fundamental distrust of
women and feminine sexuality: ‘we can call these delicate creatures ours and
not their appetites’.8 Lawrence Danson explains Othello’s thoughts:
‘we’ men cannot call these delicate creatures’ appetites
‘ours’ not only because ‘we’ can never be sure ‘we’ fully
own or control a property that can’t be seen, but because
‘we’ define a woman’s appetite as something always alien,
the defining attribute or property of the other, the always
not ours.9
As a result of his doubts about Desdemona’s sexual fidelity, Othello’s
identity has disintegrated.
The discontinuous use of space in film can elicit visions which
create a ‘radically altered world’10 as Susan Sontag points out, and is
illustrated when Othello who is asleep in bed with Desdemona has a
nightmare of her having sex with Cassio. The film transports the viewer into
Othello’s id and specifies the nature of his fears. Othello approaches the bed,
the diaphanous curtains which enclose it move, while naked bodies can be
seen vaguely behind them. Opening the curtains with a knife, Othello sees
Desdemona naked holding Cassio in her arms. Her laughter in this explicit
sexual scene endorses the idea that Othello feels derided and mocked because
of his wife’s sexual promiscuity and sexual fidelity. The bedroom rather than
being the site of intimate happy values becomes a site of shame. Ewan Fernie
writes on the primacy of the passion of shame in the play, but he does not to
relate it to the bedroom in the way the film does:
[Othello] is remarkably indifferent to the supposed seducer,
Cassio, and though he thinks about Desdemona and her
imagined adultery, his most recurrent and vehement feeling
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is that he has himself been degraded and defiled. [...] The
soul of Othello’s jealousy is shame.11
By giving no indication that Othello is imagining the sexual
encounter between Cassio and Desdemona, the film implies that Othello’s
visions are more than real for him; they supplant reality. Othello’s dreams
are ‘ocular proof’ for him of Desdemona’s adultery.
The bedroom is more than the site of Othello’s sexual jealousy as
evoked when the sexually jealous Roderigo, who has not ‘enjoyed’
Desdemona, bursts violently into the bedroom and expresses his sexual
dissatisfaction at the scene where it is frustrated. The idea that other men
entertain sexual desires for Othello’s wife in his own bedroom -Iago promises
that Roderigo will ‘enjoy’ Desdemona - erodes the couple’s marital privacy
and sexual life and gives a strange reality to Othello’s suspicion that other
men have been where he has ‘garnered up [his] heart’.12
Imaginary space becomes more fragmented and chaotic as Othello’s
jealousy increases as evoked by the use of fragmented editing (excessively
rapid shots of parts of the body) when Othello visualises Cassio and
Desdemona having sex during his epileptic seizure in the dungeon. The
exclusive and suffocating emphasis on body parts makes us experience
Othello’s self-tormenting visions but at the same time it also alienates us
from him. The fragmented montage conveys that Othello can no longer fully
articulate a ‘whole’ idea of his wife as a single coherent being. For him, both
his sexuality and hers have fragmented. His visual syntax, as it were, has
disintegrated in the same way that his verbal language has become confused
and disjointed in Shakespeare’s text:
Lie with her? Lie on her? We say ‘lie on her’ when they
belie her. Lie with her. Swounds, that’s foulsome!
Handkerchief-confessions-handkerchief. To confess and be
hanged and then to confess! I tremble at it. Nature would
invest herself in such shadowing passion without some
instruction. It is not words that shakes me thus. Pish!
Noses, ears, and lips! Is’t possible? Confess?
Handkerchief? O devil!13
It is not words, but images of Cassio and Desdemona having sex which shake
Othello in the film. His visions of Desdemona’s adultery may indicate his
anxiety about Desdemona’s choice of him as marital partner and his fear that
Desdemona and Cassio might be a more ‘natural’ couple. Arthur L. Little, Jr.,
commenting on the play, suggests that the coupling of Cassio and
Desdemona would be acceptable by Venetian standards so this ‘social
legitimacy’ would give them ‘cultural invisibility’.14 Little implies that the
Eleni Pilla
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interracial union which is unacceptable to Brabantio is socially illegitimate
and culturally visible. The supposed adulterous union of Desdemona and
Cassio, evoked by Iago, offers ‘only a monstrous and grotesque parody of
Othello’s union with Desdemona because, given Desdemona’s (obscene)
marriage, the proper coupling of Desdemona and Cassio is now recoverable
only as a scene of sexual adulteration or deviance’.15 In his anxious
unconscious, Fishburne’s Othello may be recovering the ‘socially proper’
coupling of Desdemona and Cassio.
By realising the innocent Desdemona’s supposed adultery so
vividly, the film dictates our response a little too forcefully, aligning us with
Othello’s visions. An imputation of sexual guilt is forced onto Desdemona.
As Carol Chillington Rutter writes:
Parker’s sensationalizing literalism requires spectators […]
to see what Othello sees, the fantasy become reality, so it
makes Fishburne an Othello who has ingested, incorporated
Iago’s suggestions which his imagination then literally
writes on to Desdemona’s body in a series of images that
work, perversely and reductively, to instantiate and validate
the misogynistic stereotypes (‘she must have change, she
must’) that Shakespeare’s play circulates. This Othello sees
Desdemona in bed with Michael Cassio - and so do we.16
But what Othello sees is not simply unreal. The film embodies the
complexity of Othello’s love and passion. Othello has an instinctual need to
be perversely gratified with evidence of Desdemona’s infidelity but the film
also addresses the sensational and perverse appetite of its audience. Are we
forced to draw back and recognise our own complicity in Parker’s erotic
thriller?
All the heated sexual activity we have seen on the bed in the course
of the film, makes way for a cold scene of death in the last scene. The bed
contains the bodies of four characters: Othello, Desdemona, Emilia and Iago,
revealing a negative and deadly experience of domestic space. Though we
might see the bedroom as the sacred centre of the male and female union, it is
criss-crossed by other relationships and desires. The desires and passions of
the individuals have energised and activated the space of the bedroom and
have now destroyed it. In the bedroom there is, metaphorically, insufficient
room for all these passions.
Only Iago’s desire has been fulfilled.
The bed appears
contaminated, not as a result of Othello and Desdemona’s interracial union,
but as a result of Iago’s malevolently contaminating presence. Iago receives a
strange and disturbing elevation through his living presence on the bed. This
kind of bestial animation in a general context of death epitomises Iago’s
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serpentine erotically tinged hatred of Othello on a bed that is not just a
marital bed but also the bed where Othello and Desdemona have died. Iago
appears to have triumphed over the others and is now ‘evened with [Othello],
wife for wife’.17 Iago, who has given his meaning to the bed by linking it
with death, has the cultural power and control that Andrew Hiscock attributes
to those who assign meaning to a particular space.18 It is Iago, above all, who
makes Othello an ‘erotic thriller’ in that it is his passion which takes over in
the film.
The throwing of the bodies of the lovers in the sea may indicate that
Venice is burying, leagues under the sea, its complicity in the couple’s death.
A more sinister question arises: are we complicit in this outcome? Parker’s
film has implicated us voyeuristically in the sexual life of Othello and
Desdemona and in its destruction. This final image of the bodies submerging
in the sea may be meant to challenge us not to repress what we have
experienced in the film. Perhaps the film unconsciously articulates its own
nostalgic desire for passion and sexuality to have enough space to flourish.
Notes
1
W Shakespeare, Othello, The Arden Shakespeare, E A J Honigmann (ed),
Thomas Nelson, 1997, 5.2.6.
2
Othello Production Notes by Castle Rock International (as found in the BFI
micro jacket), dir. Oliver Parker, prod. Luc Roeg and David Barron, p.9.
3
H Lefebvre, The Production of Space, D Nicholson-Smith (trans),
Blackwell, Oxford, 1991, p. 167.
4
ibid., p. 139.
5
ibid., p. 167.
6
P Bourdieu, ‘The Economics of Linguist Exchanges’. Social Science
Information, vol. 16.6, 1977, p.648.
7
R. F. Willson Jr, ‘Strange New Worlds: Constructions of Venice and
Cyprus in the Orson Welles and Oliver Parker Films of Othello’.
Shakespeare Bulletin, vol. 20.3, 2002, p.38.
8
W Shakespeare, op.cit., 3.3.273-274.
9
L Danson, ‘ ‘The Catastrophe is a Nuptial’: the Space of Masculine Desire
in Othello, Cymbeline and The Winter’s Tale’. Shakespeare Survey, vol. 46,
1993, p.70.
10
S Sontag, ‘Film and Theatre’, in Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory
Readings, G Mast, M Cohen and L Braudy (eds), 4rth edn., Oxford
University Press, New York, 1992, p.367.
11
E Fernie, Shame in Shakespeare, Routledge, London and New York, 2002,
p.136.
12
W Shakespeare, op. cit., 4.2.58.
Eleni Pilla
117
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13
W Shakespeare, op. cit., 4.1.35-43.
A L. Little Jr., ‘‘An essence that’s not seen:’ The Primal Scene of Racism
in Othello’, Shakespeare Quarterly, vol. 44, 1993, p.314.
15
ibid., 316.
16
C C Rutter, ‘Looking at Shakespeare’s Women on Film’, in The
Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare on Film, R. Jackson (ed), Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge, 2000, pp.255-256.
17
W Shakespeare, op. cit., 2.1.297.
18
A Hiscock, The Uses of this World: Thinking Space in Shakespeare,
Marlowe, Cary and Jonson, University of Wales Press, Cardiff, 2004, p. 179.
14
Bibliography
Danson, L., ‘ ‘The Catastrophe is a Nuptial’:The Space of Masculine
Desire’in Othello, Cymbeline and The Winter’s Tale. Shakespeare Survey,
vol. 46, 1993, pp. 69-79.
Fernie, E., Shame in Shakespeare. Routledge, London and New York, 2002.
Hiscock, A., The Uses of this World: Thinking Space in Shakespeare,
Marlowe, Cary and Jonson. University of Wales Press, Cardiff, 2004.
Lefebvre, H., The Production of Space. D. Nicholson-Smith (trans),
Blackwell, Oxford, 1991.
Little Jr., A. L, ‘ ‘An essence that’s not seen’: The Primal Scene of Racism in
Othello’. Shakespeare Quarterly, vol. 44, 1993, pp. 304-324.
Othello Production Notes. Castle Rock International. BFI microjacket. Dir.
Oliver Parker. Prod. Luc Roeg and David Barron, pp. 1-31.
Rutter, C C., ‘Looking at Shakespeare’s Women on Film’, in The Cambridge
Companion to Shakespeare on Film. R. Jackson (ed.), Cambridge UP,
Cambridge, 2000, pp. 241-260.
Shakespeare, W., Othello. The Arden Shakespeare, E.A.J. Honigmann (ed.),
Thomas Nelson, Walton-on-Thames, 1997.
Sontag, S., ‘Film and Theatre’, in Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory
Readings. G. Mast, M. Cohen and L. Braudy (eds), 4rth edn. Oxford UP,
New York, 1992, pp. 362-374.
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Willson Jr., R F., ‘Strange New Worlds: Constructions of Venice and Cyprus
in the Orson Welles and Oliver Parker Films of Othello’. Shakespeare
Bulletin, vol. 20.3, Summer 2002, pp. 37-39.
Eleni Pilla is Adjunct Professor in English at Northern Arizona University.
She employs interdisciplinary frameworks to English Studies by focusing on
theories of space and developing spatial methodologies for screen adaptations
of literary texts. Her monograph Shakespeare: Space and Screen is currently
in preparation. Eleni has also published on the history of the translation of
Shakespeare’s Sonnets into Greek.
Feminine but Macho: Erotic Reshaping of the Self in
Hanif Kureishi’s The Black Album
Ilaria Ricci
Abstract
Hanif Kureishi’s second novel, The Black Album, freely portrays sexual
behaviours such as pornographic affairs, casual sex under the effect of drugs,
abstinence and masturbation highlighting the social as well as the private
dimension of sexuality. This essay, focusing on the sexual relationship
between Shahid Hasan and Deedee Osgood, attempts to demonstrate how
Shahid comes to accept the fluid, mongrelised condition of both the self and
the contemporary society he lives in through his own erotic reshaping. The
Black Album, set in 1989 and named after a Prince album, draws parallels
between Shahid and Prince, Deedee and Madonna. By scrutinising the furore
around The Satanic Verses in the cultural context relating to these two icons
of pop, Kureishi explores power, censorship and pornography and shows how
attitudes to violence and to sex are not unrelated. While sexual deprivation,
represented through the characters of the Muslim Brothers, can lead most
repressed individuals to violence, pornography can be seen as a mode of
playing with and thus subverting phallic power. Sexual role reversal is central
to Shahid and Deedee’s relationship. Untied to any sexual stereotypical role,
they accept the eroticism involved in the wrestling for male and female
power and lose the didacticism of gender politics. Deedee and Shahid
become much more dynamic lovers. Sexual fantasy and political role reversal
coexist. The sexual fantasy involves the same sort of gender-bending that
Shahid admires in the persona of Prince. Putting women's makeup on and
cross dressing as a woman are ludic experiments of reinvention of one’s
body, while sex on stage is transposed to the stage of life. London becomes a
liminal space for transformative theatrical display where Shahid and Deedee
can re-invent their bodies, their desires and their lust. It is through the power
of a free, uninhibited, creative and fluid sexuality that Shahid finds his own
identity and develops his talent as a writer.
Key Words: censorship, gender-bending, Hanif Kureishi, identity, pop
culture, pornography.
*****
Hanif Kureishi has been one of the first writers to take sub-cultures
seriously, recognising pop as comparable in value to more established ‘high’
cultural forms. On the one hand, in Kureishi’s works, pop is always
associated with pleasure, particularly sexual and drug experimentations. On
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Feminine but Macho
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the other hand, pop is also prised for its intermingling in political protest and
for its democratising drive. Despite the fact that the author never
underestimates the fact that pop music is a global commodity, he strongly
supports Dick Hebdige’s1 argument that pop music has pointed the way
towards more tolerant and flexible conceptions of sexuality, gender roles and
class identities.
The inclusive value which Kureishi attributes to pop in The Black
Album is personified by the icons of Prince and Madonna. Prince, with his
music, physical appearance, makeovers and aliases, represents for Kureishi
the intersection of different cultural influences and the meeting point of
plurality of identities - be it at the level of ethnicity, class, gender or
sexuality. During the 1980s Prince, like Marc Bolan, Boy George and David
Bowie, re-invented the concept of masculinity through the phenomenon of
gender-bending. Prince deconstructed the complex issue of gender, no more
considered as a biologic matter but as an essentially cultural one. He wore
heavy make-up and eccentric clothes, including feminine lingerie,
representing himself as a new sexual category, totally hybrid and sharply
contrasting with the rockers’ male chauvinism. He gave rise to various
personas of sexuality, broke sexual taboos in his songs, and simulated
pornography on stage.
Madonna did the same. Both hers and Prince’s public simulation of
sex were inscribed in their spectacle of masking. Bringing the obscene onscene, they provided a public context where the performance of sexuality was
mantled in an image of glamour.
According to Sonya Andermahr, Madonna represents ‘the
quintessential female icon of the 1980s’.2 The critic observes that:
She has transcended her particular roles as popstar, dancer,
actress and [...], with the publication of Sex, porn queen,
and captured the popular imagination in a way no woman
has achieved since Marilyn Monroe.3
Madonna has a strong sex-appeal in the male imagination, but she also has
independence and self-determination. Qualities that many sexual icons lack.
She has re-written female sexuality, within mainstream popular culture, as
both power and pleasure for women. She has boldly acted out the feminist
concept of sexual liberation, showing women how to enjoy pleasure and
make it woman-centred.
Madonna has the ability to both exasperate her femininity and
transcend gender classification. She represents sexuality as a sort of
transvestism, a performance, a game of indeterminacy where multiple roles
can be played. She constantly blurs the boundaries between aggression and
tenderness, decent and indecent, male and female, straight and gay, sacred
Ilaria Ricci
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and profane. Through her postmodern eclecticism she wittily deconstructs
sexual difference.
The Black Album is a portrait of Shahid Hasan, a second-generation
Asian immigrant who, in 1989, moves from Kent to London in order to go to
University. Torn between a love affair with his white postmodern lecturer
DeeDee Osgood, and his political work with a group of Muslims involved in
fighting racism, all through the novel Shahid looks for a sense of identity and
cultural belonging. In the narrator’s words:
Shahid was afraid his ignorance would place him in no
man’s land. These days everyone was insisting on their
identity, coming out as man, woman, gay, black, Jew brandishing whichever features they could claim, as if
without a tag they wouldn’t be human. Shahid, too, wanted
to belong to his people.4
The Muslim Brothers, lead by Riaz, are initially described as antiracist people who provide the confused Shahid with friendship and solidarity.
Yet, as the narrative develops, they turn out to be a group of fanatics aiming
at building up a new pure world through absolute control over the private life
of other people. The Islamic Brothers in The Black Album seek to repress
sexuality by repressing music, literature and art, intending to control politics
by censoring what is read and discussed. They see the West as bawdy,
consumerist and celebrity-obsessed. Their idea of love is strictly connected
with respectability and submission. The power of sexuality is seen as
subversive; it breaches boundaries, disrupts order and calls into question the
fixity of inherited identities. Their choice to abstain from sex, pleasure and
entertainment reflects a strong element of self-hatred, a desire for the
masochism of obedience and self-punishment. Riaz’s group is unable to
tolerate difference and denounces all pop culture as equivalent to
pornography.
Deedee Osgood, in her devotion to sex, drugs and music embodies
the seductions of liberalism. Her relationship with Shahid includes intimate
physical and emotional involvement, intellectual examination of high and
low culture, as well as drug taking and going to raves. Shahid sees his
lecturer as an exciting experienced woman who turns both academic and
bedroom skills into popular culture. He’s terribly attracted by her but fears to
be perceived as inexpert and awkward, as the narrator notes in the following
passage:
He felt inept, only wanting to stick his dick in her; he
couldn’t feel or touch like her. She’d said he hadn’t quite
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Feminine but Macho
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located his sensuality. He was keen to know if, by
practicing, it might be winkled out.5
While Shahid admires Deedee and is impressed by her familiarity
with ‘what his mother called ‘wrong things’, pop music and drugs’,6 the
Islamicists feel threatened by her overt liberation politics. Describing
something as pornographic is, for them, profoundly insulting and, for this
reason, they call Deedee ‘pornographic priestess’.7
Deedee’s open condemnation of the fatwa and of the campaign
against The Satanic Verses led by Riaz’s group at the University transforms
the mutual enmity between herself and the Muslim Brothers into an open
collision. Riaz moves his followers to acts of violence against the book and
anyone who might defend it. The repressed eros and the severe self-control of
the free and easy pleasures of the body are turned here into a deadly violence.
For the author of the Satanic Verses punishment means death. At this point of
the story Shahid cannot continue keeping his foot on both fields. He is
compelled to choose where his commitment lies: Sacred or profane?
Certainty or doubt? Protection or risk?
Embracing uncertainty and renouncing a secure sense of belonging
and identity can be hard choices, yet Shahid knows that violence, censorship
and severe self-repression cannot be the way to fight Western imperialism.
Shahid chooses to be an artist, not an activist. He realises he has to depart
from Riaz’s group and he begins to discover his sexuality and creativity.
Shahid wants to become a writer and his memories of his sexual encounters
with Deedee bring his creative energy to the top. He can sense Deedee’s body
beneath his fingers while he types. Thinking of her lover is, to him, an
ecstatic experience comparable only to his favourite music, art and literature.
Shahid definitely belongs to pop culture.
Sharing several characteristics of Prince and Madonna, Shahid and
Deedee in The Black Album, perform and politicise their sexuality. Shahid
likes Prince because, as Deedee suggests, he’s:
half black and half white, half man, half woman, half size,
feminine but macho too. His work contains and extends the
history of black American music, Little Richard, James
Brown, Sly Stone, Hendrix.8
At the beginning sexual role reversal is central for the relationship of
Shahid and Deedee. She, not he, is the dominant partner, and likes to play the
role of the masculine aggressor. The remembrance of the first time they had
sex is described like this:
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she had really screwed him, getting on top, not sitting up,
but lying on him, legs straddling his, shoving down on his
cock. He had thrown his arms out, saying, ‘I want you to
fuck me.’ ‘Don’t worry’, she had panted. ‘Leave it to me’.9
As Bart Moore-Gilbert notices:
The sexuality of the ‘Oriental male’ in Kureishi’s novels
[...] plays ironically [..] off the figure of the colonized male
subject as over-sexed, even a potential rapist of white
women, which is an enduring trope in metropolitan
literature of empire [...].10
Kureishi, in fact, subverts this trope by enhancing the vigorous
sexual desire of white women for oriental ‘others.’ In The Black Album
Deedee is depicted as an exploitative lover longing for enjoying Shahid’s
exotic body:
She had said she liked him naked while she was dressed
[...] she sat up and licked her lips. He shrank back. ‘You’re
looking at me as if I were a piece of cake. What are you
thinking?’ ‘I deserve you. I’m going to like eating you.
Here. Here, I said.’ On his knees he went to her.11
Shahid’s posture is representative of his submissive role in the
liaison and, in Bart Moore-Gilbert’s words ‘while the affair conforms in
some respects to the conventions of an éducation sentimentale [..] Deedee’s
attitude to her lover nonetheless reinscribes certain elements of Orientalist
discourse’.12
Right after this section of the book, Deedee convinces Shahid to let
her make up his face. She wants to make him look like a woman. She
confesses to her lover she has wanted to do it from the first time she saw him.
At first this troubles Shahid but soon he begins to enjoy the experience of
having a new female face: ‘He could be demure, flirtatious, teasing, a star;
[...] a certain responsibility had been removed’.13
Deedee does this while Madonna’s song What are you looking at?
from her CD Vogue is playing in the background, and she continues directing
the show making him pose and walk like a model. Shahid enters into the
spirit of the masquerade: ‘[...] he swung his hips and arms, throwing his head
back, pouting, kicking his legs out, showing her his arse and cock. As he
went she nodded, smiled and sighed’.14
Most of the times these practices of transformation can be
considered as different modes of identification with otherness, a process of
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______________________________________________________________
aestheticisation in which the boundaries between reality and play are fuzzy
and unclear. Of course Deedee temporarily turns Shahid into a commodity, a
sexual object at her display but so does Shahid with her. Their desire for
objectification is mutual. In fact, Deedee, who like Madonna, represents
herself as male desire, in the eyes of Shahid turns herself into a pornographic
item even if she does so ‘without losing her soul’.15 She satisfies all his
voyeuristic desires and turns him on by confessing him her sexual fantasies:
She would be walking around the city in high heels, lipstick
and a long transparent dress, her nipples and cunt visible,
not being touched, but looked at. And as she walked she
would watch men watching her; and as they masturbated
she would stroke herself.16
Deedee also tells Shahid that she likes to masturbate while reading
James Ballard’s Crash and Pauline Réage’s Histoire d’O. Both novels
portray master/slave fantasies, artificial poses, rituals and some sort of weird
aestheticisation of the body; these are all elements that recur in Shahid and
Deedee’s sexual liaison.
Deedee’s ‘naughty girl’ attitude alludes to a mode of selfconstruction by emphasising the performative and changeable nature of
identity. In this context, self-sex is not to be seen as detached sex. It is part of
the show just like the performances of self-sex simulation given by both
Prince and Madonna during their concerts.
Shahid and Deedee prove that sexual fantasy and political role
reversal can coexist. The two lovers accept the eroticism involved in the
wrestling for male and female power and lose the didacticism of gender
politics.
As Shahid exits from the private dimension of his and Deedee’s
alcove, he realises that London itself represents a liminal space for
transformative theatrical display, a place where people can re-invent their
bodies, desires and lust. As the narrator describes:
He could see that today, although the secrets of desire were
veiled, sexual tension was everywhere. [...] People dressed,
gestured, moved, to display themselves and attract. They
were sizing each other up, fantasizing, wanting to desire
and be adored.
Skirts, shoes, haircuts, looks, gestures: enticement and
fascination were everywhere, while the world went to
work. And such allure wasn’t a preliminary to real sex, it
was sex itself. Out there it was not innocent. People
yearned for romance, desire, feeling. They wanted to be
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kissed, stroked, sucked, held and penetrated more than they
could say. The platform of Baker Street Station was
Arcadia itself. He had had no idea that the extraordinary
would be alive and well on the Jubilee Line. Today he
could see and feel the lure. She had turned the key on his
feelings.17
At the end of the book we realise that the story has just begun.
Shahid is now ready to try to fulfil his personal and professional ambitions.
Like in many other books by Kureishi, the protagonist of The Black
Album comes to maturity when he accepts the unstable, shifting,
developmental nature of both selfhood and contemporary society at large.
Notes
1
See D Hebdige, Subculture: The Meaning of Style, Routledge, London and
New York, 1987.
2
S Andermahr, ‘A Queer Love Affair? Madonna and lesbian and gay culture’
in D Hamer and B Budge (eds), The Good, the Bad And the Gorgeous,
Pandora, London, 1994, p. 28.
3
Andermahr, op. cit., p. 28.
4
H Kureishi, The Black Album, Faber and Faber, London, 1995, p. 92.
5
Kureishi, op.cit., p. 140.
6
Kureishi, p. 56.
7
Kureishi, p. 228.
8
Kureishi, p. 25.
9
Kureishi, p. 112.
10
B Moore-Gilbert, Hanif Kureishi, Manchester University Press, Manchester
and New York, 2001, p. 123-4.
11
Kureishi, p. 117.
12
B Moore-Gilbert, op. cit., p. 142.
13
Kureishi, p. 117.
14
Kureishi, p. 118.
15
Kureishi, p. 119.
16
Kureishi, p. 124.
17
Kureishi, p. 124-5.
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Feminine but Macho
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Bibliography
Bhabha, H., The Location of Culture. Routledge, London and New York,
1994.
Bracewell, M., England is Mine. Pop Life in Albion from Wilde to Goldie.
Flamingo, London, 1998.
Chambers, I., Urban Rhythms. Pop Music and Popular Culture. MacMillan,
London, 1985.
Gans, H., Popular Culture and High Culture. An Analysis and Evaluation of
Taste. Basic Books, New York, 1999.
Hamer, D. and Budge, B. (eds), The Good, the Bad And the Gorgeous.
Pandora, London, 1994.
Hebdige, D., Subculture: The Meaning of Style. Routledge, London and New
York, 1987.
Kaleta, K., Hanif Kureishi: Postcolonial Storyteller. University of Texas
Press, Austin, 1998.
Kureishi, H., The Black Album. Faber and Faber, London, 1995.
Martino, P., Down in Albion. Studi sulla cultura pop inglese. Aracne, Roma,
2007.
McRobbie, A., Postmodernism and Popular Culture. Routledge, New York,
1994.
Middleton, R., Reading Pop. Approaches to Textual Analysis in Popular
Music. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2000.
Middleton, R., Studying Popular Music. Open University Press, Buckingham,
1990.
Moore-Gilbert, B., Hanif
Manchester/New York, 2001.
Kureishi.
Manchester
Pollo, P., Prince. Gammalibri, Milano, 1987.
University
Press,
Ilaria Ricci
127
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Prato, P. (ed), Prince. Tutti i testi con traduzione a fronte. Arcana Editrice,
Milano, 1988.
Ranasinha, R., Hanif Kureishi. Northcote House Publishers, Tavistock
Devon, 2002.
Rushdie, S., The Satanic Verses. Penguin, London, 1988
Said, E., Orientalism. Vintage, New York, 1979.
Sandhu, S., London Calling: How Black and Asian Writers Imagined a City.
Harper Perennial, London, 2004.
Sibilla, G., I linguaggi della musica pop. Strumenti Bompiani, Milano, 2003.
Strinati, D., An Introduction to Theories of Popular Culture. Routledge,
London and New York, 2004.
Young, R. J. C., Colonial Desire: Hybridity in Theory, Culture and Race.
Routledge, London, 1995.
Ilaria Ricci is a PhD Student in the Department of Germanic and Romance
Languages and Literatures at the University of Udine. Her main interests
include Postcolonial Studies and Cultural Studies.
I Simply am Not There: Sadism and (the Lack Of)
Subjectivity in Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho
Sabrina Sahli
Abstract
Sadism is commonly assumed to be differing from what is considered
normal.1 Ironically, Ellie Ragland-Sullivan’s, Lacanian, definition of a
sadistic subject is that, failing to complete the Oedipus complex and thus
stuck in a state of disavowal of castration, he/she ‘believes he/she is the
phallus, the object of desire that can fill the Other’s lack and thus speaks the
word of law’.2 Thus, the perverse subject probably tries harder to become
part of society than the ‘normal’ subjects. However, this chapter argues that
the relationship between the perverse subject and society is more
complicated: for him/her, perversion is a way to act out his/her hatred for the
Other, in this case the Symbolic order, as will be shown by means of the
example of Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho. Due to sadism’s relation to
the invocation drive, the perverse subject conceives of him-/herself as being
the instrument by which the Other can hear and make itself heard. This
accounts for the protagonist’s (Patrick Bateman’s) desperate need to be part
of the society in which he lives, which in this case may be considered equal
to the Symbolic order. At the same time, precisely because of his perversion
and the ensuing incomplete Oedipus complex, he fails to undergo a complete
subjectivation, a fact that causes his hatred for the obviously lacking Other,
as it fails to incorporate subjects like him. By means of torturing and/or
killing representatives of this society, he can act out this hatred. Proposing a
reading of American Psycho grounded in Lacanian psychoanalysis, this
chapter shows how this conception of perversion can serve as a useful
analytical tool to understand how the social and the private - sexual - space
interlink.
Key Words: Lacanian psychoanalysis, perversion, sadism, subjectivity, the
Other
*****
The chapter I am going to present evolved as part of my doctoral
thesis, which is situated within the field of perversion and US literature and
film. What I intend is a chapter that developed out of my chapter on sexual
perversion, as Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho figures as the core text of
that chapter. I will argue that the perversion of Patrick Bateman, the
protagonist of the novel, a sadist in the Lacanian sense of the word, entails an
incomplete subjectivation of this protagonist. Moreover, I plan to
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I Simply am Not There
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demonstrate that - at least in this novel - perversion actually functions as an
erotised form of hatred, but that this hatred is two-fold: it is at the same time
directed against an Other that fails to incorporate the subject, and against
those subjects that are, so to speak, ‘living proof’ of this failure of the Other.
Permit me to begin with a brief excursion into the theoretical
background that is essential to this argument. What is sexually deviant
behaviour? According to Freud’s ‘Three Essays on Sexuality’, all behaviour
is perverse which differs from the heterosexual norm.3 This statement,
however, contradicts his own thesis of the polymorph-perverse character of
any sexual behaviour.4 Hence, it seems to make more sense to adhere to
Jacques Lacan who solved this incongruity by considering sexual perversion
as a ‘clinical structure’ and not simply a form of behaviour. Yet, according to
Evans, Lacan also insists on the fact that the clinical structure of perversion
does not necessarily make itself visible through a perverse act.5 The term
‘structure’ comes from Lévi-Strauss and can be described as follows: a
structure consists of relations between positions, which stay the same no
matter what elements these positions are filled with.6 Lacan identifies three
different clinical structures, which are mutually exclusive and therefore
situate every subject definitely in its relation to the Other. The dividing
feature is the mechanism they use: neurosis functions by means of
Verdrängung, i.e. repression, psychosis by means of Verwerfung, i.e.
foreclosure, and perversion by means of Verleugnung, i.e. disavowal.7
What the perverse subject disavows, is castration: stuck in the third
stage of the Oedipus complex, it is confronted with the fact that mother does
not have a phallus, but refuses to accept this. The subject thus seems to
regress to the preoedipal stage, identifying either with the imaginary phallus
or with mother.8 Yet, in identifying with mother, the subject desires the
imaginary phallus, and if it identifies with the imaginary phallus it is
confronted with mother’s desire for this phallus. Moreover, this means that
this disavowal of castration coexists with the realisation of this castration.
But beside its position with regard to the phallus, perversion is also
connected to the subject’s relation to the drive: the subject considers itself as
the object of the drive. It makes itself the instrument of the volonté de
jouissance of the big Other; it thus does not act for the sake of its own
jouissance, but for that of the big Other, which in the present analysis is the
Symbolic order.9 In the case of sadism, the perversion that is present in
American Psycho, the drive to be considered is the so-called ‘invocation
drive’, i.e. the drive of hearing, hearing oneself and making oneself heard.10 It
is this strong dependence on drives in which the present thesis that perversion
is, after all, an eroticization of the death drive is grounded: due to the
incomplete Oedipus complex, the perverse subject does not accept the
pleasure principle, which is located in the Symbolic order, but is intent on
going beyond the pleasure principle, striving to achieve a maximum of
Sabrina Sahli
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jouissance. However, this is also where the death drive is located, and
according to Lacan, every drive is actually a death drive, because every drive
is excessive, repetitive and in the end destructive.11 Put simply, this means
that the sadistic subject identifies with the voice of the Other, i.e. it perceives
itself as the instrument, by means of which the Other can hear, hear itself and
make itself heard.
When talking about an incomplete Oedipus complex, one question
seems to come up inevitably and will prove vital to my argument, namely
that of the development of the superego, as it depends on the completion of
the Oedipus complex. Ideal ego and superego evolve at the same time,
namely in the mirror stage. But while the mirror image on the one hand
suggests a future unity to the child, its result being the ideal ego12, the child
realises at the same time its fragmentation, leading to the development of the
superego through identification with the father.13 However, even though
perversion arises due to a faulty third stage of the Oedipus complex, it
nevertheless seems viable to assume that the superego develops all the same,
as - according to Eve Ragland-Sullivan - both masochism and sadism are
related to the invocation drive and the gaze, which also create the ideal ego
and the superego, and disavowal means that the perverse subject realises
castration while at the same time disavowing this same fact.14
When talking about the superego, it is crucial to stress that
notwithstanding its location in the Symbolic order and the ensuing symbolic
and regulating function of the superego, it is still not equal to Law because of
its unreasonable and blind character, as Jaques Lacan says: ‘[es] ist reine
Verordnung und Tyrannei’15, i.e. it is pure tyranny. The reason for this is that
the superego fills the ever-incomplete signifying chain’s gaps with imaginary
substitutes, thus distorting the Law by misunderstanding it. Slavoj Žižek
explains these confusions by saying that the superego emerges where
Symbolic Law ‘fails’.16 Thus, the ‘[s]uperego is the obscene ‘nightly’ law
that necessarily redoubles and accompanies, as its shadow, the ‘public’
Law’.17 He gives the example of the members of Ku-Klux-Clan, who, though
behaving illegally, nevertheless acted not only according to a special
ideology, but even in tune with the ideology of the ruling white people.18
What is particularly interesting for my argument, is that this author defines
sadism as dependent on ‘the splitting of the field of the Law into Law qua
‘Ego-Ideal’ - that is, a symbolic order which regulates social life and
maintains its social peace - and its obscene, super egotistical inverse’.19
The consequence of this splitting of Law can be seen in American
Psycho in that Bateman, the protagonist, identifies with his social
environment and its rules and regulations, but that he is, at the same time,
dominated by what we might call the ‘superego of the Other’, i.e. its hidden
agenda. These two are inseparable, as Slavoj Žižek points out; in fact, the
superego is the public Law’s ‘illegal enjoyment’20 that comes into being
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where public Law fails. This is the reason why the perverse subject is an
instrument of the Other’s, Law’s, jouissance and the object of its invocation
drive, i.e. its voice. And in order to fully grasp what Law actually is, I would
like to introduce Žižek’s concept of ideology: according to him, every
community is based on an ideology, which is in turn based on a shared guilt,
or rather on the ‘fetishistic disavowal of this guilt’.21 This ideology lies at the
heart of society because it covers the lack in the Other and consequently also
governs what we consider Law, i.e. the codes, rules, regulations and laws that
organise social life. It will be shown later on why this concept is so important
for the present discussion of Ellis’ novel.
In American Psycho, henceforth AP, the ‘instrumental nature’ of the
sadistic subject, both to the demands of the Ego-Ideal and the superego of the
Other, becomes very clear, as will be shown as I go on. For those who do not
know Ellis’ novel, one could describe its content in a nutshell as the story of
a serial killer, who is a highly renowned member of yuppie Manhattan in the
eighties. Now, obviously, there is not much sense in investigating all his
crimes in detail but, nevertheless, a certain pattern in Bateman’s behaviour is
more than apparent. Roughly, one could say that these crimes separate into
two main groups: those crimes committed against the Other, expressing his
erotised hatred for a system that is obviously lacking, and those executed for
the sake of the Other, i.e. preserving its ruling ideology.
Let me begin this part with Bateman’s identification with both the
Ego-Ideal and the superego of the Other; here, in turn, starting with his desire
to conform to the Ego-Ideal of the Other. One striking feature about Patrick
Bateman is that already from a physical point of view, he is everything a 26year-old yuppie in Manhattan of the eighties should be: he goes to the right
tanning studios, he uses the currently most fashionable beauty products and
he has the perfect ‘hard body’, spending quite a lot of his supposed working
hours in the gym. However, there are of course other things that are equally
important, as a conversation between him and a few friends of his shows. To
McDermott’s question ‘[a]nd what are these girls after, O knowledgeable
one?’, Price replies simply: ‘They want a hardbody who can take them into
Le Cirque twice a week, get them into Nell’s on a regular basis. Or maybe a
close personal acquaintance of Donald Trump’.22 And Pat Bateman, just like
all the others in fact, fits these criteria perfectly: he can get into the right
restaurants or clubs as often as he likes, he has the perfect body and he is
‘total GQ’23, i.e. he knows exactly what to wear when and with what to
combine it. And the fact that not getting into the restaurant of his time,
Dorsia’s, makes him feel physically sick and like a complete loser, shows
that he has integrated the codes and regulations that form the ideology
governing his society to perfection.
However, beside this surface personality of perfect yuppie, there is
also the dark underside to Bateman’s personality, which I consider his acting
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out the demands of the Other’s superego. As already stated above, some of
his crimes belong to the group of crimes committed for the sake of the Other,
and these can actually be further divided into crimes against homosexuals,
homeless people and members of ethnic minorities such as African
Americans, or Asians. These groups are a constant and clearly visible
reminder for Bateman and his peers that the ideology of their Caucasian
American yuppie society is defective. It is here, that Žižek’s concept of
ideology becomes relevant, especially the fact that it is always based on a
disavowal of guilt. Now, even though it is tempting to read the guilt that is
being disavowed by Bateman and his friends as a sign of bad conscience, I
would argue that these young men and women are not really capable of
feeling guilty because of this, as they tell themselves that everybody could
live like they do if he/she only tried to get a real job.24 Rather, I would
suggest looking for the guilt they share in the fact that they derive a lot of
pleasure from separating themselves from these social ‘outcasts’; in fact, they
need them in order to feel superior. And the fetishistic denial of this can be
found precisely in their continual lamenting about all these disgusting and
socially unacceptable people and in their incessant assertion that everybody
could achieve what they have, that it is the others’ fault if they do not, in
order to hide that these young urban professionals after all do feel superior.
What differentiates Bateman from his peers is that he acts on what they all
think.
However, despite his desperate need to fit in, or as he puts it in his
own mantra, ‘‘I…want…to…fit…in’’25, which manifests itself in a number
of ways, Bateman continuously fails to adapt fully. As he says himself:
…there is an idea of Patrick Bateman, some kind of
abstraction, but there is no real me, only an entity,
something illusory, and though I can hide my cold gaze and
you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours and
maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably
comparable: I simply am not there. It is hard for me to
make sense on any given level. Myself is fabricated, an
aberration. I am a noncontingent human being. My
personality is sketchy and unformed, my heartlessness goes
deep and is persistent. My conscience, my pity, my hopes
disappeared a long time ago (probably at Harvard) if they
ever did exist.26
Bateman’s desire to fit in completely and his continuous failure to do so, also
become apparent through seemingly negligible facts, such as his descriptions
of his most recent electronic equipment or his descriptions of the music he
likes. In both cases, his narration differs notably from what the reader is used
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to. In fact, he sounds more like an advert for these products than like a person
listing the benefits of this or that product. Another, much more ironical,
aspect of this can be found occasionally in his daily speech in public. For
example, Bateman gets annoyed at a joke of one of his friends because it is
racist.27 In another scene he claims as a short aside: ‘‘I just want everyone to
know that I’m pro-family and anti-drug’’.28 Obviously, what makes these
statements so utterly ironical is that Bateman very clearly does not think so in
the least. He tends to kill people of other races, just as he does not care
anything about family; and he is doubtlessly a drug addict. Consequently, I
would suggest reading these moments as ‘slips’ in which the voice of the
Other comes through. Thus, it is reasonable to interpret this as another sign of
Bateman’s need to be a part of the masses even though he obviously lacks the
required mental, or rather emotional, faculties.
In fact, it seems viable to suggest that Bateman’s faulty
subjectivation lies precisely in his excessive identification with the Other. As
Mladen Dolar points out, in the process of subjectivation there always
remains some rest, a kind of ‘‘pre-ideological’ and ‘pre-subjective’ materia
prima…. A part of external materiality remains that cannot be successfully
integrated in the interior’.29 It seems that Bateman lacks the capacity to
believe in the ideology that covers the lack in the Other. Furthermore,
Bateman is also aware that he lacks this external part that cannot be
integrated into the subject because he is nothing but a frame that consists of
codes and conventions, but with nothing underneath; he is just ‘surface,
surface, surface’.30 In the case of a ‘normal’ subject, this external part seems
to form the little rest of individuality that remains besides the structure of
norms and rules. Without this rest, the individual cannot function as a
complete subject. Thus, one could contend that Bateman is what I would like
to call an ‘emtpy’ subject that consists only of the codes and rules that
regulate his society. Consequently, I would argue that this is also what,
mainly, causes Bateman’s hatred for the Other because it is a system into
which he fits, on the surface, too perfectly to be able to fit in at all.
The perverse subject’s hatred, as I mentioned at the beginning, goes
in two directions: one the one hand, it is directed against those that do not fit
into the ruling ideology and which thus lay bare the flaw in the Other, and on
the other hand, against the Other itself - this precisely due to the fact that it is
lacking because it fails to incorporate the perverse subject. In the case of AP,
Bateman gives voice to this hatred in numerous acts of torture. Generally,
these acts of violence can again be subdivided into two groups, though all are
directed against the members of his own social circle. On the one hand, these
killings and acts of torture are relatively logical. For example, Paul Owen, a
broker like Bateman, has to die because he managed to score the ‘Fisher
Account’, which Bateman would like to tend to himself. Moreover, he has
got a gorgeous girlfriend and so on - in short, he is everything Bateman wants
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to be. Thus, one of the key scenes with regard to identification processes is
when he wins the business-card-competition among Bateman and his peers, a
fact that only adds to his ‘crimes’. On the other hand, in most cases in fact,
Bateman’s hatred is aimed at members of his own circle without any obvious
reason, for the simple fact that they stand for an Other that Bateman can
never fully fit into. A nice example, is his torturing, and in the end killing, of
two prostitutes. However, it is important to stress that he asks them to wear
specific fetishistic items such as an ‘Angela Cummings silk and latex scarf’
or ‘suede gloves by Gloria Jose from Bergdorf Goodman’31, so that they
actually represent members of his own circle to him. He then gradually
increases his ‘creativity’ as to how to torture and also the proximity of his
victims to his own close circle of peers and even ends up killing his first
girlfriend at the peak of the novel. Thus, I would like to conclude from this
that his violent deeds offer Bateman a vent for the hatred he feels against an
Other he does not conform to, but of which he would desperately wish to be a
fully-fledged member.
The proposition here is that what the protagonist actually tries to
achieve, is to be recognised as a subject, i.e. to be subjected under its norms
and laws. Yet, despite his best efforts, this simply will not happen. It is due to
his appearing to be just like, or actually rather even more perfect, than anyone
else, that Bateman will never be detected. Actually, he keeps trying to tell his
friends various times what he is; they just will not listen because they do not
expect it from him. As his fiancée says, Bateman ‘‘is not a cynic,…. He’s the
boy next door’’.32 In fact, there is a general problem of recognition present in
this novel: nobody really knows who anyone is, people keep confusing their
interlocutors with other persons since they all appear rather similar. They
wear more or less the same clothes, similar glasses, all have gorgeous
girlfriends etc. Near the end of the novel, Bateman’s lawyer makes this even
clearer when he will not believe the confession that Bateman left on his
answering machine (he also mistakes Bateman for somebody else):
…, your joke was amusing. But come on, man, you
[Bateman whom he mistakes for Davis] had one fatal flaw:
Bateman’s such a bloody ass-kisser, such a brown-nosing
goody-goody, that I couldn’t fully appreciate it. … He
could barely pick up an escort girl, let alone … chop her
up.33
These quotations show very well that Bateman’s appearance is all that
counts. This is what keeps him safe. But, it is also what keeps him from
becoming a fully accepted - and subjected - member of the society he
cherishes so much.
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But it is not only Bateman’s peers who fail to recognise him for
what he is. There are situations in which institutions of authority also fail to
acknowledge his deeds and thus his subjectivity. What he needs is an
interpellation of the Other to which he can respond, thus turning himself into
a complete subject. But what he gets are representatives of Law that are not
capable of recognising him either. First, there is a detective supposed to
investigate the disappearance of Paul Owen (Bateman murdered him, but
spoke a message on his answering machine saying that he had gone to
London so that nobody knows what happened to him). Despite being very
nervous, Bateman performs the role of concerned loose friend so
convincingly that the detective does not suspect him of anything. In fact, one
of the core proofs that prevent his becoming a suspect is that he allegedly had
dinner with other people on the night of Owen’s disappearance. Moreover,
Bateman’s own lawyer claims to have had dinner with Owen in London. An
even more striking instance in which the authorities fail to recognise Bateman
is after another intentional killing because of which he accidentally kills a
police officer. They chase him through the city, but as soon as he is in his
office building, he is safe. The public persona of Patrick Bateman cannot be
suspected of any crime.
Thus, as a conclusion, one could say that in AP, there is actually
only the superego; Bateman has never been ideologically recognised. Yet, it
seems that he deeply yearns for this recognition, as his surface personality
that corresponds too well to the Ego-Ideal shows. Yet, he just will never
attain the recognition because he is only an empty subject and lacks the
necessary remainder that would make him human. He suffers from his
incapability to believe in the ideology of the Other, being perfectly conscious
that it only consists of surfaces, and thus wants to inflict this pain on others.
This demonstrates the fragility of the empty subject that only consists of the
codes that regulate the Other. All figures of authority, such as his lawyer, the
detective or even the police fail to make him answer to the ‘Hey you!’ he
yearns for. There is no interpellation for him. His staging of the sadistic acts
is his way of gaining access to a reality that he only perceives as a movie.
Yet, even then, he cannot fully attain it. In the sadistic scenarios he
orchestrates, he reverses the usual functioning of sadomasochistic scenarios:
instead of turning instruments of torture into instruments of pleasure, he turns
instruments of pleasure into instruments of torture for the victim. He is thus a
true sadist who achieves what according to Lacan is the Sadean ‘höchstesSein-in-der-Böshaftigkeit’34, i.e. a maximum of being in evil. In AP, then, the
protagonist is a pre-ideological subject who yearns to be acknowledged by
the Other and to be subjected to its power in order to become a ‘true’ subject.
However, it is vital to stress that even during the acts in which he
expresses his hatred for the Other most aggressively, the ‘law’ of perversion
still holds true: the perverse subject is always, no matter what, an instrument
Sabrina Sahli
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of the Other’s jouissance. Put in Slavoj Žižek’s words, this is where the ‘two
aspects of perversion’ come into play: ‘…on the one hand, [there are]
arbitrary rules that can be suspended; on the other hand, [there is] the
concealed truth of this freedom, the reduction of the subject to an utter
instrumentalized passivity’35, i.e. to the function of an instrument of the
Symbolic Other. Nevertheless, it is crucial to note that even when the
perverse subject believes itself to be superior to the Law, to be able to create
its own ‘universe’, it is still an instrument of the Other, despite the hatred for
the Other. Thus, Žižek’s two sides of perversion are not only valid in the
cases when the subject tries to conform to the Other, but also when he/she
tries to rebel against it. But where is the Other’s jouissance in these acts
intended to ‘flout’ the arbitrary rules of the Other? Here, it seems reasonable
to go back to Foucault’s History of Sexuality Volume 1, in which his
argument is that both the authorities and the individuals examined by them
gained pleasure from this interplay: the authorities from exercising power and
the others from transgressing the conventions when indulging in ‘deviant
practices’.36 This is also how I read the Other’s position with regard to the
perverse subject’s trying to create its own universe where rules can be
suspended. Thus, no matter what the perverse, or here the sadistic, subject
does, there is no possibility to escape from its position on the borders of Law,
neither into it as a fully recognised subject, nor out of it when suspending its
rules. Consequently, I would like to conclude this presentation with the last,
and very appropriate, words of AP: ‘THIS IS NOT AN EXIT’.37
Notes
1
B E Ellis, American Psycho, Picador, London, 1991, p. 377.
E Ragland-Sullivan, ‘Masochism’ in Feminism and Psychoanalysis, A
Critical Dictionary, E Wright (ed), Basil Blackwell Ltd., Oxford, 1992, p.
241.
3
S Freud, ‘Three Essays on Sexuality’ in A Case of Hysteria, Three Essays
on Sexuality and Other Works, J Strachey and A Freud (eds), The Hogarth
Press, London, 1953.
4
D Evans, translated by G Burkhart, Wörterbuch der Lacanschen
Psychoanalyse, Turia und Kant, Wien, 2002, p. 220.
5
ibid., p. 220.
6
ibid., p. 289
7
ibid., p. 290
8
ibid., p. 221
9
ibid., p. 222
10
ibid., p. 312
11
ibid., p. 314
2
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12
ibid., p. 239
ibid., p. 315
14
ibid., p. 241
15
quoted in Evans, 2002, p. 315
16
S Žižek, ‘Superego by Default’, Metastases of Enjoyment. Six essays on
women and causality, Verso, London, New York, 1994, 2005, p. 54.
17
ibid., p. 54
18
ibid., p. 55
19
ibid., p. 55
20
ibid., p. 54
21
ibid., p. 57
22
Ellis, 1991, pp. 53-54
23
ibid., p. 90
24
ibid., p. 129
25
ibid., p. 237
26
ibid., p. 377.
27
ibid., p. 38
28
ibid., p. 157
29
M Dolar, ‘Beyond Interpellation’ in Qui Parle. Literature, philosophy,
visual arts, history, E Maddock and S Pelmas (eds), University of
California, Berkeley, Vol. 6, 2, Spring/Summer, 1993, p. 77.
30
Ellis, 1991, p. 375
31
ibid., p. 173
32
ibid., p. 20
33
ibid., pp. 387-388.
34
quoted in Evans, 2002, p. 316
35
S Žižek. ‘The Matrix, or the two sides of Perversion’,
anticopyright@britannica.com, nettime, posted 3 December 1999, viewed
23 November 2006. <http://www.nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-I9912/msg00019.html>, p. 17.
36
M Foucault, The History of Sexuality. Volume 1: An Introduction, Vintage
Books, New York, 1990.
37
Ellis, 1991, p. 399
13
Bibliography
Brockman, B. and R. Bluglass, ‘A general psychiatric approach to sexual
deviation’, in Sexual Deviation: Third Edition. I. Rosen (ed), Oxford
University Press, Oxford, New York, Tokyo, 1996, pp. 1-42.
Sabrina Sahli
139
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Dolar, M., ‘Beyond Interpellation’, in Qui Parle. Literature, philosophy,
visual arts, history. E. Maddock Dillon and S. Pelmas (eds), University of
California, Berkeley, Vol. 6, 2, Spring/Summer, 1993, pp. 75-96.
Dollimore, J., Sexual Dissidence: Augustine to Wilde, Freud to Foucault.
Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1991.
Ellis, B. E., American Psycho. Picador, London, 1991.
Evans, D., Wörterbuch der Lacanschen Psychoanalyse. G. Burkhart (transl),
Turia und Kant, Wien, 2002.
Fink, B., ‘Perversion’, in Perversion and the Social Relation. M. A.
Rothenberg, D. Foster and S. Žižek (eds), Duke University Press, Durham,
London, 2003, pp. 38-67.
Freccero, C., ‘Historical Violence, Censorship, and the Serial Killer: The
Case of American Psycho’. Diacritics, 27.2, 1997, pp. 44-58.
Freud, S., ‘Three Essays on Sexuality’, in A Case of Hysteria, Three Essays
on Sexuality and Other Works, (1905). J. Strachey and A. Freud (eds and
translators), The Hogarth Press, London, 1953.
Foucault, M., ‘Of Other Spaces’. Diacritics, 16.1, 1989, pp. 22-27.
_____
. ‘PART TWO: The Repressive Hypothesis’, in The History of Sexuality.
Volume 1: An Introduction. Vintage Books, New York, 1990, pp. 15-49.
_____
. ‘PART THREE: Scientia Sexualis’, in The History of Sexuality. Volume
1: An Introduction. Vintage Books, New York, 1990, pp. 51-73.
James, N., ‘Sick city boy’. in Sight and Sound, May 2000, viewed on 23
November 2006, <http://www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/feature/89>.
MacKendrick, K., Counterpleasures. State University of New York, Albany,
1999.
Moser, Ch., ‘Die reinigende Wirkung des Konsums: Kannibalistische HorrorSzenarien im späten 20. Jahrhundert’, in Kannibalische Katharsis:
Literarische und filmische Inszenierungen der Anthropophagie von James
Cook bis Bret Easton Ellis. Alisthesis Verlag, Bielefeld, 2005, pp. 83-124.
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I Simply am Not There
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Ragland-Sullivan, E., ‘Masochism’, in Feminism and Psychoanalysis. A
Critical Dictionary. E. Wright (ed), Basil Blackwell Ltd, Oxford, 1992, pp.
239-242.
Rosen, I., ‘The general psychoanalytical theory of perversion’, in Sexual
Deviation: Third Edition. I. Rosen (ed), Oxford University Press, Oxford,
New York, Tokyo, 1996, pp. 43-75.
Rothenberg, M. A. and D. Foster, ‘Introduction. Beneath the Skin: Perversion
and Social Analysis’, in Perversion and the Social Relation. M. A.
Rothenberg, D. Foster and S. Žižek (eds), Duke University Press, Durham,
London, 2003, pp. 1-14.
Stallybrass, P. and A. White, ‘Introduction’ & ‘Conclusion’, in The Politics
and Poetics of Transgression. Cornell UP, Ithaca, New York, 1986, pp. 1-26
& pp. 191-202.
Vadolas, A., ‘The perverse domination of the fascist and the Sadean master’,
in Perversion. D. Nobus and L. Downing (eds), H. Karnac Booky, London,
2006, pp. 187-215.
Wright, E. (ed), Feminism and Psychoanalysis. A Critical Dictionary. Basil
Blackwell Ltd, Oxford, 1992.
Žižek, S., ‘Superego by Default’, in Metastases of Enjoyment. Six essays on
women and causality. Verso, London, New York, 1994, 2005.
_____
.
‘The
Matrix,
or
the
two
sides
of
Perversion’,
anticopyright@britannica.com, nettime, posted 3 December 1999, viewed 23
November
2006.
<http://www.nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-I9912/msg00019.html>.
Sabrina Sahli is a doctoral student at the English Department of the
University of Zurich, financed by the Forschungskredit of the University of
Zurich, and focusing on the Lacanian conception of perversion together with
American literature and cultural history. She is also a member of the graduate
college ‘Körper, Selbsttechnologien, Geschlecht: Entgrenzungen Begrenzungen’ at the University of Zurich.
Sade’s Doctrine of Creative Destruction
Caleb Heldt
Abstract
Within human activity there exists an indelible drive to create, and this is of
course not limited to man’s material existence, in his engagements with
worked matter, but extends to interpersonal relations as well. Perhaps the
most fundamental of these relations is that which subsists between persons in
the sexual act, namely procreation. But the sexual act’s creative potential is
not bound by reproduction alone, and this is testified to by the provocative
interpretation of sexual activity as put forward by the Marquis de Sade who
avidly rejects that the sexual act’s productive possibilities are ultimately
procreative. He likewise rejects that sex should in any way be associated with
love, which posits the Other as pure subjectivity and as such places that Other
in a preferential position in relation to oneself. Indeed, for Sade the Other’s
subjectivity must be denied; that is, she must be reduced to pure objecthood.
So what underlies this callous refusal of the Other’s subjectivity in Sade’s
eroticism? What is at stake? What does he fear losing by affirming the
Other’s subjectivity rather than denying it? It is not freedom, as is commonly
believed, at least not in the sense in which it has been so vaguely conceived
by Sade’s interpreters in the past. Rather, it is the ability to create in its most
purified form. It is not man impressing his desires on canvas or stone or
wood, but on the human form itself. For Sade, the sexual act is the medium
par excellence in which man can express his profound and insatiable desire to
create.
Key Words: Henri Bergson, creativity, destruction, ethics, evolution, love,
reproduction, Marquis de Sade, Max Scheler, sexuality
*****
1.
Introduction
It is often thought that love is a kind of altruistic form of creativity
since it endeavours to foster the elevation of value first and foremost in the
beloved and the offspring of sexual love and only subsequently does it focus
on the self and one’s personal creative desires. And this is why Sade rejects
the very idea of love, for in libertinage the primary beneficiary of the creative
act is the self. Indeed, for Sade, sexuality itself is creative in this way. This is
why, for Sade, sexuality is not creative in any sort of traditional sense in
which sexual relationships aim at reproduction or the expression of love. For
Sade, libertine sexuality is creative because it strives only for its own
pleasure, however perverse.1 And this means that libertine sexuality is
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Sade’s Doctrine of Creative Destruction
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creative only insofar as it is free of the aim of reproduction and the
expression of love. Thus, libertine sexuality not only stands in direct
opposition to the sexual act as a means of reproduction or as an expression of
love, but essentially thrives on their negation. It allows them to exist only to
destroy them. This is why the marital relation is so denigrated and women are
allowed to ripen only to have their fruit decimated. ‘Domestic violence’ does
not begin to characterise the conjugal relation, and abortive acts abound. A
case in point can be made of Constance in The 120 Days of Sodom who is
abused by her husband and father through the discovery of her pregnancy,
culminating with the violent act which brings about the demise of mother and
child alike. For Sade, the destruction of these two conceptions of sexuality is
integral to elevating the value and creative potential intrinsic to libertinage.
The sexual act is, for Sade, creative in being destructive. Sade seeks
justification for this view by appealing to Nature, as he so often does,
maintaining that She has need of both virtue and vice, of creation and
destruction.2 Of course, for Sadean Nature, and thus for the libertine, creation
requires destruction, even if this destruction is only symbolic. On such a
conception of sexuality, creativity is conceived in terms of difference and
multiplicity, and this is precisely what Sade endeavours to demonstrate in
The 120 Days in his catalogue of over six-hundred sexual eccentricities.
In destroying the Other, either symbolically through acts of
degradation or physically through violence - and, at its extreme, murder Sadean sexuality defines its creative power. Indeed, it can be creative to the
extent that it is precisely because for the libertine the Other is merely an
object for use.3 As such, the libertine defines his freedom negatively as
freedom from the Other which he attains by relegating the Other to pure
objecthood. By denying the Other’s subjectivity the libertine affirms his own.
In rejecting the notions of the sexual act as creative in either a reproductive
capacity or as expressive of love Sade is not simply endeavouring to be
provocative (though of course this is an important aspect of Sade’s project as
a whole), but rather he makes manifest this relation to the Other which is
essential for the type of egoistic creativity characteristic of the kind of
libertinage he endorses. Only in destroying love and refusing reproduction
can the libertine free the sexual act from a fully positive and, in Sade’s eyes,
homogenising notion of ‘virtuous’ creativity. Vice thus becomes the
destructive force which drives libertine creativity since its acts of destruction
only serve to counteract the acts of the virtuous.
So, let’s first look at the way in which Sade seeks to systematically
undermine love and its relation to sexuality. To provide a context for this
discussion we will draw briefly on the work of Max Scheler as a kind of foil
for the libertine’s derision of love. We will then consider Sade’s views on the
reproductive capacity intrinsic to the carnal heterosexual act and show that
what underlies these diatribes is a philosophy of Nature akin to Henri
Caleb Heldt
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Bergson’s conception of creative evolution albeit coupled with a much more
cynical ethical element than that posited by Bergson.
2.
The Destruction of Love
For Sade, romantic love is but a fanciful expression of so-called
virtuous sexuality. It is a fantasy which serves only to perpetuate a notion of
creation which denies any creative force to its negation. In this sense, love is
closely tied to faith, since its power to influence creative action is only as
powerful as the belief one has in it. Essentially, then, for Sade love is merely
a fiction, an abstraction, an illusion, just as God is. As such, it is deserving of
the same derision as that reserved for God and the same kind of violent reeducation of the lover is deemed necessary as that reserved for the pious
individual.4 Hence the similar brutalities suffered by Sophie and her pious
companion Adelaide and later with her lover Céladon at the château in The
120 Days.5 Indeed, what is said of the pious individual can, for Sade, equally
be said of the lover:
Piety is indeed a true disease of the soul. Apply whatever
remedies you please, the fever will not subside, the patient
never heals; finding readier entry into the souls of the
woebegone and the downtrodden, because to be devout
consoles them for their other ills, it is far more difficult to
cure in such persons than in others. 6
For the libertine, both piety and love are but quixotic notions which compel
individuals to place their own truth, their own freedom beyond themselves,
and in this sense love and piety are forms of alienation.
For Sade this alienation is rooted in the fact that for the lover, the
Other - the beloved - is not perceived as an object for use or an obstacle to
one’s sovereignty, but idyllically as pure subjectivity. In this way, the sexual
act as the expression of love makes manifest the Other’s intrinsic subjectivity
which is denied by libertine egoism. Pleasure - as a fundamental self-relation
- is therefore secondary, and though reproduction is closely linked to love, it
is not necessarily to be its end result. Indeed, this is precisely Max Scheler’s
notion of sexual love as expounded in The Nature of Sympathy. For Scheler,
sexual love not only perceives the Other not as an object for use, something
which denies its subjectivity, but as an ideal which it is forever not yet, as
pure potential for perpetual elevation of that very subjectivity denied by
Sadean libertinage. In Scheler’s eyes, love is a creative movement in which
the lover sees in the object loved its latent possibilities for attaining everhigher values, seeing in the beloved its ideal value and attempting to foster
the continual development of the beloved’s intrinsic value toward its ideal
essence. Hate, according to Scheler, is that which characterises a movement
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Sade’s Doctrine of Creative Destruction
______________________________________________________________
in the opposite direction, that is, toward lower values.7 Thus, the one who
hates sees in the hated object its nadiral value and his interactions with this
object will tend toward the degeneration of the hated object to the point of its
destruction. Thus, for Scheler, the Sadean libertine’s self-proclaimed
creativity would be little more than glorified hatred.
As Scheler writes,
hatred looks to the possible existence of a lower value …
and to the removal of the very possibility of a higher
value…. Love, on the other hand, looks to the
establishment of higher possibilities of value … and to the
maintenance of these, besides seeking to remove the
possibility of lower value …. Hate, therefore, is by no
means an utter repudiation of the whole realm of values
generally; it involves, rather, a positive preoccupation with
lower possibilities of value.8
What Scheler acutely draws our attention to here is the fact that a
preoccupation with devaluation is itself a positive, which is to say a creative,
act. The positivity of the libertine’s hatred of the Other lies in the destruction
of the Other’s values, in creating anti-values which contradict the elevation of
value in the act of love. And the relation to piety will once again emerge, as
Scheler shows that the elevation of value to its highest point culminates in
sacred values, that is, those values which testify to a transcendent value
above all other values, namely God. The hierarchical relations within a value
system governed by the ideal of love is described by Peter Heath in the
introduction to Scheler’s The Formalistic Principle in Ethics and the NonFormal Ethic of Value in the following way:
The lesson of these distinctions is that the realm of values
is not a uniform whole, but divided into closed circles,
which rise hierarchically above each other and must, in the
case of conflict, give way to each other. We ought to
sacrifice our physical enjoyments to our duties as citizens
of the state; we ought to sacrifice our social well-being to
the claims of culture - beauty, justice, and truth; and even
these august values should be sacrificed, if the need arises,
on the altar of sanctity, on the altar of God.9
But whereas Scheler sees in this hierarchisation of values a movement toward
ever higher, ever more transcendent values, Sade sees only a progressively
alienating movement, a movement away from the immanent self-relation -
Caleb Heldt
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the self’s relation to its embodiment - toward an ultimate transcendent value
which he grants only an illusory status.
In a sense, Sade’s hierarchy of valuation is simply Scheler’s
hierarchy inverted, depreciating what is of the greatest value in Scheler’s
theory and extolling the value of individual pleasure which in Scheler’s eyes
should be the first to be sacrificed to the other types of values. In the end, this
means that God, and the motivating force of love which justifies this method
of organising one’s values, must no longer be that to which the lower values
ought to be sacrificed, but must on the contrary be the first to be sacrificed to
the libertine’s most immanent value: pleasure.
3.
The Destruction of Reproduction
Let’s return now to the other aspect of traditional sexual creation to
which Sade opposes his own, which is to say, the sexual act as aiming at
reproduction. For Sade any sexual act which aims at reproduction infringes
upon the liberality of the sexual act as a means of personal pleasure and
hence as creativity in his sense, for the pregnant woman is no longer able to
be used as a mere object from which pleasure is derived - at least to the
extent that the avid libertine desires - if one wishes that the unborn child
remain unharmed. Indeed, as is testified to by the numerous engagements
with pregnant women in The 120 Days, the contrary is the case for the
libertine mind; that is, he derives pleasure from the torture of the would-be
mother and the destruction of her unborn child.10 For the libertine, the sexual
act itself is a creation. His pleasure is derived from turning an imagined
possibility into a reality. In this way, the libertine is an artist and sex is his
art. He makes of the Other a canvas upon which he paints his desired
potentialities and his discharge marks the work’s final brushstroke. The
libertine qua artist is gripped by the desire to endlessly create in this way. As
Curval says in the The 120 Days, ‘Well, you know, everything’s imaginable
and even possible …. I am convinced one can go still further than that …. It
seems to me one never sufficiently exploits the possible’.11
And this transgressive exploitation of possibilities is precisely what
underlies the most prominent undermining of sexual reproduction in nearly
all of Sade’s libertine writings, namely sodomy. Pierre Klossowski, in his
seminal study of Sade, perhaps put it best when he said that,
sodomy is formulated by a specific gesture of
countergenerality … which strikes precisely at the law of
the propagation of the species and thus bears witness to the
death of the species in the individual. It evinces an attitude
not only of refusal but of aggression; in being the
simulacrum of the act of generation, it is a mockery of it.12
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Sade’s Doctrine of Creative Destruction
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Sodomy in Sade’s texts represents a violent cancellation of the re-production
of the sexual act, that is, the repetition of the species in the individual. The
sodomite denies the creative potential of the sexual act by pursuing pleasure
for its own sake, transforming sexual choice into a form of antireproductionism. In libertine psychology, sodomy becomes the ultimate
source of pleasure because it destroys the very possibility of sexual
reproduction. Indeed, that Sade’s sodomite heroes abhor the thought of
reproduction so much can readily be seen in a scene from The 120 Days in
which Curval passionately describes the immense pleasure he derives from
the idea of watching semen evaporate on a hot shovel: ‘I love the idea of
watching fuck burn’.13
But we need to understand what is precisely at issue for Sade in the
multiplicity of diatribes he directs toward the reproduction of the human
species and why he advocates a ‘refusal to propagate and destruction’14 in
his own peculiar manner. Klossowski rightly points to Sade’s unique sense of
‘creative evolution’,15 which posits the sinister underbelly of Henri Bergson’s
conception of the pure positivity of life as an evolution of creative acts. There
is an ethical element to Bergsonism which posits a kind of imperative of
understanding the dynamic potential of other members of the same and
different species, flora and fauna alike, with the consequence that life comes
to be seen as diverse because of its tendency toward radical selfdifferentiation. And while Sade’s intuition of the dynamicity of Nature is not
at all dissimilar, he places much less faith in the ethical potentiality of the
human species. He sees the human species not as Nature’s keeper but as a
parasite whose own reproductive acts come to dominate over those of Nature,
hindering Her from producing anything new.16 Indeed, for Sade, it is only
vice and the destructive acts of the criminal and the libertine which lend any
aid to Nature in the diversification of life. In short, life under the domination
of humans is homogenising for Sade, a mere reproduction of the same at the
cost of Nature’s own creative potential. This is why Sade’s heroes reiterate
time and again that Nature has need of destruction as much as of creation.
Indeed, while there is no doubt that at times Sade’s libertines
express a desire for a destruction which would be all consuming, in which the
universe would destroy itself, such assertions are dwarfed by the staggering
amount of destructive acts directed against human life by libertine creativity.
Sade’s libertines refuse human reproduction at every turn and advocate the
destruction of the species in each concrete act, desiring only the preservation
of their own licentious pleasures. Sodomy, infanticide and murder are the
violent and violating acts which perhaps best characterise libertine
destructive creativity, a creativity which seeks only to disrupt the hegemony
of the parasitic and homogenising creativity of a species which considers its
creative acts virtuous because they refuse to destroy.
Caleb Heldt
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When the libertine allows one of his victims to live it is only
because he believes he has succeeded in leaving the mark of human
degeneration in her heart, undermining the smug self-satisfaction of Virtue.
Is there any other moral to be found in Justine than this? And what of her
sister, Juliette, that impious orphan turned libertine? Juliette is a text which
details the education of a libertine, the learning to love destructive creativity.
And would there be any other reason than this for the friends to let a single
one of their victims leave the château in The 120 Days if it was not that their
marathon of violation created new destructive forces, new libertines, to
perpetuate the cause of destructive creativity?
4.
Sade, Our Conscience
Of course, one might raise an objection often proffered by Sade’s
critics, namely that there is an indelible repetitiveness to Sade’s writings
which undermines the creativity posited in the acts he describes. And perhaps
this accusation is well-earned. However, Duclos’ appeal after her final
recitation at the château suffices to respond to such criticism, for this address
to the friends is directed as much toward the reader of any of Sade’s works,
and The 120 Days of Sodom in particular, as it is to the novel’s heroes. She
states,
I would beseech Messieurs to have the kindness to forgive
me if I have perchance bored any of them in any wise, for
there is an almost unavoidable monotony in the recital of
such anecdotes; all compounded, fitted into the same
framework, they lose the luster that is theirs as independent
happenings.17
The idea here is that if but a single act of such libertinage as is chronicled in
The 120 Days - or any of Sade’s other libertine writings for that matter - were
to be placed in the midst of a novel with a more conventional storyline, or
indeed within an otherwise quotidian day within life itself, the effect that but
one of these undoubtedly imaginative horrors would have upon the reader or
the witness of such an act - let alone the victim - would be quite different.
But this is not Sade’s endeavour. He opens the floodgates upon the reader,
inundating her mind with an endless deluge of atrocities, each a masterpiece
of perversion in its own right, but piled one on top of the other they
ultimately elicit only a sense of redundance and a feeling of callous
indifference to the victims’ plight in the heart of the reader. And this is
Sade’s art. He makes each of us a little more hard-hearted, a little more cruel
and insensitive to the predicaments of Others with each turn of the page. In
short, his writings provide us with an education in the creativity which
underlies destructive acts; each text is a lesson in libertinage. Every leaf that
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Sade’s Doctrine of Creative Destruction
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is turned is a victory for Sade, and far from being forgotten as he supposed he
would be in his ‘Last Will and Testament’, he lives on as the conscience of
an age which prefers not to acknowledge its own capacity for cruelty, its own
penchant for destruction. And it is in this sense that Simone de Beauvoir was
right to proclaim that Sade ‘deserves to be hailed as a great moralist’. 18
But there lies in Sade’s writings a perhaps more subtle ethical
intuition, such that we can say that there exists a kind of sexual ethics
intrinsic to libertinage from which much can be learned. I am speaking of the
radical emphasis Sade places on our power to control the functions of our
sexual behaviour, whether placing it at the behest of love or reproduction, or
for our own pleasure. But there is more to it than this; for as Sade never tires
of showing, this power to control the reproductive capacity inherent to the
sexual act can be exercised not only to maximise our own potentiality for
pleasure but perhaps more importantly to curb the homogenising effects
which the reproductive dominance of our species imposes upon the creative
potential of the rest of the natural world. Our reproductive hegemony has
single-handedly hindered the dynamic self-differentiation of other species
along diverse lines of evolution. There is thus a kind of sexual ecology at the
heart of Sade’s libertine ethics which provides the motivation of sexual
pleasure to promote reproductive responsibility. So perhaps there is yet
another reason not to burn Sade given the relevance of such ideas to 21st
century concerns.
Notes
1
It is important to note that in the discussion that follows, the ‘libertine’ that
is posited is that of the ideal type as it appears in Sade’s works, which could
perhaps take as its prototype Dolmancé: an utter atheist, an enjoyer of active
and passive sodomy alike, a tutor in the ways of libertinage, etc. Many,
indeed most, of Sade’s libertine heroes are not of this ideal type but are
themselves imperfect models thereof. An example can be made of SaintFond who despite all of his other impeccably libertine traits remains a theist,
though believing in a Being Supreme in Wickedness.
2
M Sade, Justine, Philosophy in the Bedroom, & Other Writings, R Seaver
and A. Wainhouse (trans), Grove Press, New York, 1965, pp. 274-275.
3
The Duc to Adelaide: ‘bear well in mind that, alive though you may be, you
are only so in order to obey and let be done to you what we please’.
M Sade, The 120 Days of Sodom & Other Writings, R Seaver and A
Wainhouse (trans), Grove Press, New York, 1966, p. 530.
4
According to Scheler, ‘love is an emotional gesture and a spiritual act’.
M Scheler, The Nature of Sympathy, P Heath (trans), W Stark (ed), Routledge
& Kegan Paul Ltd., London, 1954, p. 142.
Caleb Heldt
149
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If love is indeed a spiritual act as Scheler asserts, this does much to explain
the similarity which manifests itself in the Sadean libertine’s avid hatred of
piety and love.
5
Sade, The 120 Days of Sodom, pp. 403-404, 669.
6
Sade, The 120 Days of Sodom, p. 498.
7
‘Hatred, on the other hand, is in the strictest sense destructive, since it does
in fact destroy the higher values…and has the additional effect of blunting
and blinding our feeling for such values and power of discriminating them. It
is only because of their destruction…by hatred, that they become
indiscernible’. Scheler, Sympathy, p. 154.
8
ibid., pp. 152-153.
9
ibid., p. xvi.
10
Sade, The 120 Days of Sodom, pp. 607, 614, 619, 620, 635, 639, 652, 656657, 660, 661, 663-665, 670.
11
Sade, The 120 Days of Sodom, p. 470.
12
P Klossowski, Sade My Neighbor, A Lingis (trans), Northwestern
University Press, Evanston, 1991, p. 24.
13
Sade, The 120 Days of Sodom, p. 522.
14
M Sade, Juliette, A Wainhouse (trans), Grove Press, New York, 1968, pp.
771-772.
Cf. Klossowski, Sade My Neighbor, p. 88.
15
ibid., p. 86.
16
Sade, Juliette, pp. 768-769. Cf. Klossowski, p.86.
17
Sade, The 120 Days of Sodom, 568.
18
S Beauvoir, ‘Must We Burn Sade?’ in Sade, The 120 Days of Sodom &
Other Writings, R Seaver and A Wainhouse (trans), Grove Press, New York,
1966, p. 40.
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Philosophy in the Bedroom, & Other Writings. R. Seaver and A. Wainhouse
(trans), Grove Press, New York, 1965, pp. 3-36.
Sade, M., The 120 Days of Sodom & Other Writings. R. Seaver and A.
Wainhouse (trans), Grove Press, New York, 1966.
–––, Juliette. A. Wainhouse (trans), Grove Press, New York, 1968.
–––, Justine, Philosophy in the Bedroom, & Other Writings. R. Seaver and A.
Wainhouse (trans), Grove Press, New York, 1965.
Scheler, M., Formalism in Ethics and Non-Formal Ethics of Values : A New
Attempt toward the Foundation of an Ethical Personalism. M.S. Frings and
R.L. Funk (trans), Northwestern University Press, Evanston, 1973.
–––, The Nature of Sympathy. P. Heath (trans), Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd.,
London, 1954.
Caleb Heldt
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Caleb Heldt is currently a PhD student in the Department of Philosophy at
the University of Warwick. His research concerns the ontology of Jean-Paul
Sartre and his theoretical influences.
Memory, Excess & the Fictional Self
Andrew Markham
Abstract
When recalling a sense of a past Self I suggest that characteristics can be
identified - ones that have been discarded as well as some that are celebrated
in the present moment. Acts of remembrance form the basis of this research
document, where I look to explore the construction, through experience, of a
person’s sense of their queer sexual Self. In exploring common links
between two memories, I will look to question the possibility of being able to
consciously and continuously inhabit a space where there is the possibility of
recognition of something that is not entirely visible to one’s Self. Sarah
Ahmed suggests in ‘Queer Phenomenology’ that ‘things become queer
precisely given how bodies are touched by objects’ and frames these ‘things’
or ‘experiences’ and ‘interactions’ in the context of ‘here’, ‘there’ and
‘within’. It is this sense of ‘queering’ experience that will look to challenge
commonly understood notions that discuss memory as integral to the
construct of Self. I suggest that through acts of remembrance, a space is
continually sought to create a space for an invisible Self – a sexual Self, a
gendered Self and a Self that is not continually visible, rather, only visible in
relation to Richard Dyers ‘orientation towards others’. In considering this,
the emphasis will be placed upon the fluid nature of sexuality and desire and
their ability to move between non-fictional, ‘real’ states of being to the
socially constructed. Furthermore, parallels will be drawn between ‘excess’,
Deleuzian notions of ‘vibration’. Derrida’s ‘under erasure’ will also be
integral to this research chapter insofar as suggesting that our ‘secret’ Self
gains meaning from its absence.
Key Words: Excess, fiction, identity, memory, multiplicity, orientation,
other, phenomenology, queer, Self.
*****
1.
Scene One
As I sit here, in my favourite red chair in the corner of my warm
lounge on the west side of the East End, I peer at a repeated searching for
something other1 to my Self. Over and over it tumbles I miss what I’m
looking at. My apartment sits on the edge of a busy grey asphalt road with
barely a tree in sight. Here, I’m unable to free myself from the feeling that he
was looking for me and I knew that he’d eventually find me. The door is here
in front of me. As I daydream, emotional waves caress me, lightly tickling,
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hairs standing on end, bringing focus to two memories2. I am twenty-one and
fourteen again.
Between what was and what is, the story of my memories is doublesided – double ended – and somewhat strange. The narrative sits rich and
languid whilst bouncing back-and-forth between symbols and soliloquies that
sting. Surely it’s this, the stinging on my inside that has the ‘capacity to
address the spectator’s own bodily memory3’, my bodily memory, and to
‘incite an affective response in the viewer4’.
The patchwork rug before me is the framework of my life with its
soft weaving of the threads of time and place, but it’s only a matter of time
before word will have spread; systematically beat by the drums of poetic
reverence. Like the crisscross of rivers, the fibres reflect my fluidity, showing
me that you can see the written upon their faces in telling me that I’m a
wanted boy.
I sit with my feet snug but firmly on the ground, hands cradled in
my lap and knees slightly ajar. The room surrounding me echoes ‘ the
internal’ through my memory’s use of a rich and sometimes opulent
language. The iridescent purple vase sitting on the top of a polished oak
surface to my left drips with a lifetime’s experience. Their differing styles,
purposefully fuelling the embodied spectator5 - the vase to my memories – is
important to note. All I have to do is push it. Put my hands on it, palm down.
It will be heavy. I’ve encountered this door before. Perhaps then, it’s this
bouncing back and forth, of semantic-linguistic style, of wooden grain to
superfluous purple that goes some way in moulding the fictional and real
both at the same time. I am at once and never to grasp at their story.
There is it seems, a battle between what I perceive in the here-andnow and in this state of remembrance. My body cringes, developing a
constant craving, a need for action; evasive action. Action was needed but not
of the violent kind. I move my foot, then my arm. My eyebrows furrow as I
struggle to see my Self and the walls within which I inhabit. The external
construct of femininity6 slides between – push and pull – as the internal
manifestation of my excess sits itself in the fiction of the unreal.
But what is this excess I call skin? A barrier between you and me? I
don’t mean trash or rubbish or something that is discardable for my skin is
what keeps me within – the white picket fence – I mean an amount that is
more than acceptable, expected or reasonable7. This is a world, my world of
asphalt and few trees where that which is not deemed as appropriate is seen
as not maintaining or containing value.
There must be, I say out loud to myself ‘great value in an experience
of excessive acceptance’, particularly when the body’s orientation is brought
about by a battle between real and unreal, fact and fiction. In unison with
declaration my fingers begin drum. I come to realise – drum, drum, drum –
between here and there, that violence never solves but my primal urges have
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taken control. A surge of energy takes me deeper, where the darkness tells
me that there is meaning in my relentless indignation. Such grandness and all
for a girl! And the past is asking questions now, making me purr: ‘what does
‘a girl’ mean to me?’
It is beyond my reach. It is that which is at the periphery, outside of
my gaze8. My sheepish cell, the rich soliloquies, the idea of my skin that
stings is at the periphery. It is clearly what keeps this ‘edge’. First you are
frisked. Every ounce of your dignity taken, raped from you. Wild feral hands
prod.
Over there, in front, the edge of the table next to me speaks. He
starts…arms, shoulders, hands, back, buttocks and thighs…and finally,
crotch! Its shining surface murmurs. Words fall away from meaning and not
quite visible, the table’s edges appear created by their nearness. I feel his
warm hand. I cannot hear the table’s love for me!
Jumbled and at the same time calm, my mind’s eye is the ‘excess’
too – the apparatus9 of the cinema screen. The projector. The light. The
image. And it’s only through this projection that there is an attempt to fulfil
their every whim…I jump through hoops. As the light of memory bounces
back and forth, from edges to corners to the here and now, my attention rests
upon what is absent; what is not clear. I sense that my other Self begins to
‘…centre on the embodied spectator, who is always displaced from this site
of production, (a Self that is) always drawn by the anamorphic structure of
the instillation into a desire to see beyond the edge of the screen10.’
This becomes an erotic experience pierced by pangs of adulterous
tendencies.
Yet, what is this screen that I’m trying to see beyond11? I am drawn
to its billowing flatness, its never-ending whiteness, by the structure this
screen inhabits. Yet at the same time, I am unable to see beyond what is
presented to me12. She is my best friend, the closest thing I have to my own
reflection. Sadness grows now – she is my shadow. Discarded. Irrelevant.
As I close my eyes, drifting, my lips feel again our first tender and
somewhat crudely passionate kiss eights years ago. We have shared
everything and this ‘everything’, this remembering continually disorientates.
The table, the chair, the vase show me nothing of the inside of my memories,
where ‘…things become queer precisely given how bodies are touched by
objects, or by ‘something’ that happens, where what is ‘over there’ is also ‘in
here’, or even what I am ‘in’.’13
Neither am I here nor there, inside or out of, but the need to
physically remove myself overwhelms. I take my body and its parts across
the room. I grasp tentatively at the handle. Its shining surface caresses my
curled fingers as I gently push at this gold gilt gate, but this act of pushing,
the process of moving from affect to effect results in a greater sense of
‘flux’14. Not quite within my Self or outside of myself, bewildered I am able
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to recall the room – youthful, dew like in its potency and distilled of all anger
…asking for nothing in return. Its gleaming appearance is submissive. This is
the warmer of my first memories. Perhaps this then, is my ‘…continuity of
transition… (the) change itself that is real’15.
It opens – twist, clunk, shove – and I move slowly into open air. A
blast of warm air hits my face. It astounds me. Helpless bodily twitches are
replaced by fluidity because of my Self’s ability to create the possibility of
being able to ‘…proceed from point to point, instance to instance’16. Slam!
Yet, at the same time, whilst in the surrounding coldness, my Self
‘ceaselessly ‘bifurcates’…diverges from that path determined by the path
determined by the rule of points17.
2.
Scene Two
Across town, she stares outwardly from an empty, deserted space.
Closed before it is open, she sits high up on a black leather barstool. You
know the ones, with chrome legs and white stitching. The lighting is dim, yet
full of clarity and the air crisp on this November morning. Her ginger locks
are now tamed and controlled. Her rosy infantile speckled cheeks. Her
cheeky red rimmed smile, wicked and brutal.
Curious though, as she sits softly stroking the fabric of her knee
length skirt is her ability to inhabit this space of ‘is’, ‘was’ and ‘will be’. The
bar is of course closed, cleaned once more and ready to welcome the next.
She considers, along with the disinfectant and polish, if these three states of
being – is, was and will be – are what constitute the fictional and nonfictional whole.
Silent deliberation spills over. She reaches out, arm brushing against
her own reflection. She grabs an ice-cold beer. It is slender and suggestive.
Its crisp condensation however, she concludes, is the fictional – this central
London bar that was and is now, provides the possibility for the existence of
effect, in turn bringing what will be. As she turns to face away she is
reminded of her past self…a stale breeze full of hormones.
She is my
temptress within.
She clearly remembers her other half sitting at the bar drinking the
usual G&T. As the sharp end of realisation hits - its yellow slice gently
swimming in the think-rimmed glass – she thinks to herself loudly that
jealousy comes easy to him, consistently appearing green and shrouded in
foolish anger. A terrible judgement it may be, but you too would understand
that his condition is ingrained. Some would say intrinsically inbred into his
feral nature. The sound heavy and hung with the realisation of our
expectation; it is too much for me to comprehend.
All of this; the thick-rimmed glass, the ice, the stale breeze belongs
because of having wanted the same person, the same girl at the same time.
He had not known and neither she, both at the same time not knowing and
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only now can she confess to a mutual lack, a void of untruth. Within this void
she consciously and continuously inhabits a space, where there is a
recognition of something that is not entirely visible to oneself18. She has
created a safe space for her invisible Self19.
I am becoming spiritually alive.
‘How safe though was this invisible Self’, she asked out loud to
nobody listening. Where did she stop and this untruth-other begin?20
Already with her back to it, she slides away from her barstool and
glides towards the gleaming red and silver coffee machine. A split second
passes. Caffeine. My eyes are startled and slowly focus. I see white, blue and
red flashes. I am paralysed. She stands silently watching the noisy water –
swirling, hissing, bubbling, popping, splashing – steam surrounds her. I can
feel my pupils dilate in tandem with the pulse of my surrounding cover of
darkness. Out of the mist and before her eyes the worktop vibrates21. A loud
PING! This is my cloak and my maternal protector. She is present once
again.
3.
Scene One, Continued
I walk now, moving briskly between city stained pools of rainwater
and piles of autumnal leaves. Step by step. The London skyline. Step by step.
Step by step and brick by brick a reoccurring question burns; did I want her?
At what point did I say I wanted her or was it that I wanted to be her?
As rain tumbles again, filling once more those city-stained puddles,
I watch droplets bounce from nearby windows, one hitting another. I hear
their vibrations, affecting my bodily whole. I can hear now! I can see now! I
am free now to move! This vibration is never pure movement, rather the
excess of movement itself22. The questions never cease. The voice of my
fictional self continues to make itself heard, amplified even: so if I wish to be
her, why does she want him?
There is silence!
Boisterous gulls overhead slumber into non-existence and as I pass a
stranger, a gentle-looking man, I am reminded of intimacy. I am never able to
recall this feeling, a feeling of togetherness, when sleeping alone. The
memory of our togetherness causes friction23 as I visualise his butch manly
way of walking, perhaps that is it! In here, I am object and subject: a human
who is a part of it yet outside it. In this place, our place of social worship, this
paradox draws breath. My breathe of what has past billows out turning to
wet, warm air. It presses itself against the rims of my glasses. Momentarily I
am blinded. I rub away the ‘condensation’24 to reveal my own reflection
looking back at me.
Puncture the surface.
What I see in return are brown eyes, long lashes and laughter lines.
Are they real? How did they become? Lifetimes have taken their toll, yet as
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these pass, the very nature of my eyes, lashes and lines, turn anti-time,
traversing between point to point onto the place of the unreal25 and as I fix
my glasses back in place once more the clarity of my vision suggests
syllogism26. The text of my life embodies the ability to affect me, ‘me’ in
real-time world, affecting the future ‘me’27 having travelled from ‘me’ in the
past28.
Daylight plashes across my face now and my body turns away, runs
from red brick shadows, for in those shadows my feminine Self sits; external,
fictional. But this is not it. The edges of my being are blurred. Soft.
Malleable. I consider each step, participating now in the realisation of
debauched dreams, in the nightmares of other’s that are brought back into
being. One foot in front of the other I embrace the feeling that in these there
is an ability to affect my Self in the light of the real world that surrounds me.
It feels like home.
A red and silver sign shines ahead, acting as my beacon. Home! It is
beyond the living, this place that stirs. In slowly meandering I inwardly
wonder if I have been awake as the doorbell of the corner store rings out. The
world that continues on the outside of this darkened space is the biggest
living lie. Like the birds that have passed, the rain that has fallen and the
reflections looking back, their need to exist through difference, wholly,
touches upon the scars that are not visible to the naked eye, but somehow
seem less29.
The shop door opens as I ring out now – ding dong – sounding in
respect of my body’s presence. Deep within I now understand that these past
few minutes have had a need to ‘exist’ and to ‘remain legible’30.
The movement between one and another / the candy and headlines /
the fictional and non-fictional causes yet more friction31. Yet behind these
closed doors the world is other. Unreal. Our eyes meet – we don’t look
away. He knows that I’ll repeat this journey tomorrow and the next day and
the day after that. I will stand here; present myself to him, at the same time –
5:25pm. He will smile, ring the till and hold out his hand.
What I offer him on my cyclical journey32 will not be money, rather
the effects of what is before me; past, present and future. My body will
continue to act as a constant, nailed to the spot and only through the realness
of its becomings will it be able to continue to position itself (here at
Norman’s counter) in the fiction of the non-fictional moment33. There is no
safety found in difference. It is my barricade.
Notes
1
There is a deliberate use a lower case ‘o’ as this chapter is not wishing to fix
its context in commonly understood notions of Other or Otherness. As an
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alternative, a wider reading of what this ‘other’ to one’s Self is suggested.
The reader is urged to consider how the positioning of the body could relate
to and/or affect this ‘lower case’ ‘other’. Reference to Nicolas Bourriaud is
made when he speaks about a ‘set of artistic practices which take as their
theoretical and practical point of departure the whole of human relations and
their social context, rather than an independent and private space.’ See: N
Bourriaud, Relational Aesthetics, trans. Simon Pleasance and Fronza Woods
with the participation of Mathieu Copeland, Les Presse du Reel, France,
2002, p 112.
2
Throughout this chapter there is references made to fictional and nonfictional spaces in relation to memories. What is not being suggested is that
the memories used within the chapter are fiction or based upon fictional
moments. The approach to these memories is from an artistic, practice-led
position. It is interesting therefore, to note an expressed influence of
Susannah Radstone’s thoughts surrounding memory’s relationship to poetry
and dreams when saying ‘…memory’s tropes…may be similar to those of
poetry…memory’s condensations and displacements are similar to those
found in dreams, memory work does not reduce memory to fiction, to dream,
or to poetry.’ See: S Radstone, Memory and Methodology, Berg, Oxford.
2000, p 11.
3
J Bennet, ‘The Aesthetics of sense-memory’, in Regimes of Memory,
Susannah Radstone and Katherine Hodgkin (eds), Routledge, London, 2003,
p 31.
4
Bennett, op. cit., p 33.
5
J Lowry, ‘Performing Vision in the Theatre of the Gaze : The work of
Douglas Gordon’, in ‘Performing the Body Performing the Text’, Amelia
Jone and Andrew Stephenson (eds), Routledge, London. 1999, p 279.
6
‘…my own femininity’ is a recognition of a Self that likes to buy women’s
clothing, rather than men’s because the fit is much better or a Self that prefers
gin and tonic instead of beer. There is a suggestion that this ‘femininity’ is
being continually pulled between what feels natural and is real i.e. physically
putting on women’s clothes and what is perceived as fictional – not tangible,
i.e. commonly understood socio-cultural ideologies associated with gender
identity.
7
‘…acceptable’ or ‘reasonable’ speaks in the context of a ‘heteronormative
world’. M Warner, Fear of a Queer Planet: Queer Politics and Social
Theory, University of Minnesota Press, Chicago, 1993, p 3-17.
8
There is a suggestion here that ‘excess’ is within and a part of the ‘blind
field’. R Barthes, Camera Lucida, Edition 2000, Vintage, London, 1980, p
57. If understood in the context of ‘Camera Lucida’, this is created or
‘divined’ from an image’s ‘punctum’. Furthermore, there is an expressed link
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made between the image and the minds image making ability when recalling
memories. Barthes describes the ‘punctum’ as a result of the ‘blind field’ and
as a ‘…sting, peck, cut, little hole – also a cast of a dice. A photograph’s
punctum. is that accident which pricks me.’ Barthes, op. cit., p 27. In
addition, (and in a differing context to this), Peggy Phelan explored blind
spot in an attempt to ‘revalue a belief in subjectivity and identity which is not
visibly present’. P Phelan, Unmarked the politics of performance, London,
Routledge, 1993, p 1.
9
Here, a specific focus is given to the artist Douglas Gordon and his video
projections. For example, his submission for the Turner Prize 2006
‘Confessions of a Justified Sinner’, 1995, video installation, two parts, each
300 x 400 cm. Suggested other works for reference include ‘24 Hour
Psycho’, 2003 and ‘Between Darkness and Light’, 1997.
10
Lowry’s original use of ‘Other’ at the beginning of the quote has been
changed to ‘other self’ as a means of rejecting commonly understood
discourses and to further disorientate notions of the viewer, being viewed and
of the ‘edge’. Lowry, loc. cit., p 279.
11
Reference is made here to a likeness between the cinema screen and body.
In this sense, the body is a queer male body and that looking past the body’s
edges, recognition of a feminine Self is inferred.
12
Notions of Otherness could be discussed in relation to this by exploring
Sartre’s ideas in and around the subject. For example, Other as either
alienating or objectifying the subject as part of the collective ‘we’. See: J
Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology,
trans. H. Barnes, London, Routledge, 2003. Alternatively, the Lacanian
notion of Other could be considered in the context of being grounded within
the symbolic order of language. See: J Lacan, Ecrits: a selection, trans. Alan
Sheridan, Tavistock, London, 1977. However, it is felt that it is be
unproductive to explore these as it would result in the coupling of this
chapter’s methodological approach to a given and an already well established
framework.
13
S Ahmed, Queer Phenomenology – Orientation, Object, Others, edition
2007, Duke University Press, London, 2006, p 157.
14
H Bergson, The Creative Mind, trans. Mabelle L. Anderson, Citadel
Press/The Wisdom Library, New York, 1964, p 16.
15
ibid.
16
Y Lomax, An adventure with art and theory: Writing the Image, I.B Taurus
Publishers, London, 2000, p 138.
17
ibid. Yves Lomax (see: ‘The Photograph and Le Temps and Multiplicity, a
sagittaran arrow’, ibid., p 121- 151) on the subject of temporality and
multiplicity is interesting in relation to how the narrative of this chapter
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addresses the notion Self in relation to the real and non-real, particularly
when she says ‘Taking up the idea of a continuous multiplicity I may say my
body becomes…in relation to a field of perpetual interaction and transition
between ‘all times and all hours’…it is an original complex, woven out of all
the different times that our intellect…or habits distinguish or that our spatial
environment tolerates’. Claire Colebrook notes these points as ‘translation’
when she says ‘Movement does not just shift a body from one point to
another (translation) in each block of movement bodies transform and
become (variation)’. See: C Colebrook, Gilles Deleuze, edition 2006,
Routledge, London, 2002, p 44.
18
‘…not entirely visible’ is asserted as being the ‘blind spot’. See footnote 8
and Barthes, loc. cit.
19
What is meant by having ‘…created a safe space for her invisible Self’ in
relation to ‘…having wanted the same person, the same girl at the same time’
is the creation of a Self that is not continually visible individually as well as
to both characters at the same time. There are explicit relationships drawn
between disorientation, queer identity and race based identity politics,
particularly when Ahmed quotes the work of Richard Dyer in saying ‘We can
consider how whiteness takes shape through orientations towards others.
Whiteness may even be orientated ‘around’ itself, whereby the ‘itself’ only
emerges as an effect of the ‘around’…whiteness is invisible and unmarked,
as the absent centre against which others appear only as deviants or as lines
of deviations. See: Ahmed, op. cit., p 121 with Ahmed making references to
R Dyer, Whiteness, Routledge, London, 1997.
20
Deluezian notions of temporality and becoming are made referenced to,
including works that discuss the cinema. See: G Deleuze, Cinema 1: The
Movement-Image, trans. Hugh Tomlinson and Barbara Habberjam, Univesity
of Minnesota, Minneapolis, 1986 and G Deleuze, Cinema 2: The Timeimage, trans. Hugh Tomlinson and R. Galeta, University of Minnesota,
Minneapolis, 1989. I am particularly interested in what Claire Colebrook
states when she says ‘Think of time as the power of difference or becoming
whereby we move from the virtual to the actual…For Deleuze this means that
the time we experience is split in two. The world or life we live is an actual
realisation of…impersonal memory, but memory or time…can also interrupt
our world.’ Colebrook, op. cit., p 126 referencing Deleuze, 1986, op. cit., and
Deleuze, 1989, op. cit.,. Also, there is an emphasis with the text here on
Deleuzian notion of ‘becoming’ as it erases the notion of ‘being’ and is
described as ‘all there is without ground or foundation’ where ‘the supposed
real world that would lie behind the flux of becoming is now…a stable world
be being; there ‘is’ nothing other than the flow of becoming. All ‘beings’ are
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just relatively stable moments in a flow of becoming’. Colebrook, op. cit., p
125
21
Deleuze discusses the relationship between change and movement. He
suggests that like atoms, bodies cause a similar affect and says: ‘their
movement which testify a reciprocal action of all parts of the substance,
necessarily express…disturbances, changes of energy in the whole…But the
qualities themselves are pure vibrations which change at the same time as the
alleged elements themselves.’ Deleuze,1986, op. cit., p 8-9
22
There is an alternative way of exploring the effects caused by ‘beings’
affecting other ‘beings’, where ‘…all ‘beings’ are just relatively stable
moments in a flow of becoming-life’. See: Colebrook, loc. cit., p 125
23
By way of illustrating this idea of ‘friction’ and eventual ‘displacement’ a
suggestion is made towards the movement of tectonic plates. The result of
tectonic movement is subduction, ultimately resulting in an earthquake. This
movement is as a result of displacement – when one plate moves the other(s)
surrounding. Aftershocks or tremors are usually felt close to the epicentre of
the earthquake due to displacement and these can sometimes be as forceful as
the earthquake itself. I place the continuing creation of the Himalaya
mountain range in opposition to the negative repercussions of an earthquake.
24
See: Radstone, loc. cit.
25
There is an apparent ability possessed by the memories in this document to
traverse the hegemonic construct of time – becoming ‘anti-time’ – as a means
to become non-fictional. Lomax’s ideas on the subject of realness are
noteworthy, where she states ‘More often than not a life time is conceived of
as a journey to and from fixed points or states of being. In this sort of life
becoming is subordinate to being. Becoming is merely the journey toward
being. Becoming is secondary, ‘never fully real’. See: Lomax, op. cit., p136
26
‘Syllogism’ is noted because the memories that are returned are given
meaning through reasoning between two propositions: fictional and nonfictional space, between real-time and anti-time.
27
A reference is made to Ahmed when she writes that ‘You can move a table
here, there…the purpose of the table relies on your capacity to move it
around…I suggest in…this book that I have followed the table around; yet I
think this is a misrecognition. Instead, the table follows you around. The table
is an effect of what it is that you do. In a way then, while you furnish a
house…it is the house that furnishes you.’ See: Ahmed, op. cit., p 167
28
As a way of giving meaning to ‘…having travelled from ‘me’ in the past’,
the reader is urged to consider a story detailed by Richard Dyer. Dyer writes:
‘As a child Lange was taken…to hear an oratorio. She was too small to see
the conductor, ‘she could just see his hands’. These made such an indelible
impression on her that, years later, she read about the conductor Leopold
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Stokowski and knew immediately that it could only have been his hands that
she had glimpsed’. See: R Dyer, The Ongoing Moment, edition 2000,
Abacus, London, 2005, p 54.
29
To explore the relationships between ‘…there need to exist through
difference’ and ‘…the scars that are not visible to the naked eye, but
somehow seem less’ the reader is urged to consider Heidegger’s notions (used
extensively by Jacques Derrida) of sous rature. The notion ‘…seeks to
identify sites…where key terms and concepts may be paradoxical or selfundermining, rendering their meaning undecidable. To extend this notion,
deconstruction and the practice of sous rature also seek to demonstrate that
meaning is derived from difference, not by reference to a pre-existing notion
or freestanding idea.’ C Belsey, Critical Practice, 2nd edition, Routledge,
London, 2001, p116.
30
J Derrida, ‘Translators Notes’, in Of Grammatology, Corrected Edition,
trans. G C Spivak, John Hopkins University Press, London, 1998, p. xiv.
31
It is suggested that displacement occurs as a result of a ‘chain of events’.
Again, references are being made to the displacement of tectonic plates, the
occurrences of earthquakes and creation of mountain ranges.
32
A further reference is made to ‘syllogism’ – see footnote 25. The memories
and experience of the character contained within this chapter is given
meaning through two propositions. To further this notion, the movement
between the propositions – fiction and non-fiction – is suggested as being
mutually supportive. For example, syllogism can be explained by saying that
‘all dogs are animals; all animals have four legs; therefore all dogs have four
legs’. Found in: Compact Oxford English Dictionary, 3rd edition, Catherine
Soanes and Sara Hawker (eds), Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2005, p.
1094.
33
A direct reference to Lomax when she says ‘A body may appear to be
nailed to the spot, fixed beyond belief, yet even in such circumstances there
are still becomings’. See: Lomax, op. cit., p. 139.
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Memory, Excess & the Fictional Self
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Andrew Markham
165
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Andrew Markham is Scholar in Residence at Southampton Solent
University. A Senior Lecturer in Media & Fashion Styling, Markham’s
interests range from filmmaking to Queer activism to performative writing.
His current research and writing is devoted to exploring notions of memory
in relation to identity.