Sexuality and American Culture – Spring 2010

“Can transvestites be cured?” asked Time in an article reporting on Christine Jorgensen (Peiss, 375). If the article were about Cal, perhaps the question asked would be: Can hermaphrodites be cured? Within these questions lies the assumption that these things – these genders – need to be cured.

“In some cases of transvestitism, as in severe cases of homosexuality, cures are exceptional at best.” (Peiss, 375). While this sentence also reveals the idea that transvestitism is something that needs to be cured (as well as homosexuality – still a disorder in the 1950s), it also reveals the fact that gender identity and sexual orientation were inextricably linked in the 1950s – and in my opinion, are still linked in most people’s minds in contemporary American society. This link, however, is only feasible because of the perception of both gender and sexual orientation as binary – one is either male or female, one is either attracted to men or to women – a perception that our readings have shown to be false, as there are a significant number of people who lie outside of this binary system (most clearly exemplified in the Kinsey report). This is why Christine went from celebrated to condemned – at first, she was moving from ambiguous gender identity to one within the binary system that was accepted at the time, and then, once the facts of her transformation were properly explained, it turned out she was moving from a gender identity within the binary system to something ambiguous. This is all, of course, biologically speaking, and so we yet again come back to scientia sexualis and the medicalization of sex (side note: Cal essentially chooses ars erotica over scientia sexualis when he chooses not to undergo the procedure prescribed by Dr. Luce). Contrary to the public perception of Christine’s transformation is her own point of view. To Christine, her gender identity before the transformation was the one that was ambiguous – she was biologically male, but mentally female. In this way, Christine actually was attempting to fit into the binary system of gender identity. As Serlin says, she had an “obvious compulsion to…chose a singular life from the enigmatic haze of her formerly ambiguous gender identity,” and is the opposite of Cal, who chose to retain his ambiguous gender identity (Peiss, 391). Perhaps the best example of this difference is their name changes; Calliope is simply shortened to Cal while George becomes Christine (Peiss, 391). However, just as sexual orientation and gender identity are not binary concepts, neither is the “third gender” binary, with Cal and Christine representing the two sides. These two also have similarities. For example, they both attempt to “pass” as a specific gender to the outside world, despite their inner gender identity or biological sex – Christine is attempting to pass as female despite her biological sex being male, and Cal is attempting to pass as male despite his gender identity as inter- or Middlesex. (Peiss, 390 and Eugenides, ___ [I’m still looking for the page number]). But Middlesex and Cal’s identity are more than an attack on the binary system of gender identity – they seem to attack almost all binary systems, for Cal is almost always pointing out that things are not merely one or the other. For example, he resurrects the Weeks vs. Norton essentialist vs. social constructionist argument on page 479, and like many of us did during our class discussion, takes the middle road.

The final question the TIME magazine article asked: “Can a male transvestite possibly lead a relatively happy life as a “woman”?” (Peiss, 376). The Danish doctors’ answer was telling: “If Jorgensen had been able to slide quietly into society and be accepted [emphasis added] as a woman, the prognosis would be much more favorable.” (Peiss, 376). The need for Cal to legitimize his existence that we discuss last class as well as Christine’s “obvious compulsion to explain herself” support this theory that acceptance as the key to happiness (Peiss, 391). What a novel idea.

“Five minutes old, and already the themes of my life – chance and sex – announced themselves” (216).  In our last seminar, we attempted to draw a clear line between fate and destiny, a divinely determined vs. mystical propulsion of the universe and its characters.   Well, Cal doesn’t quite dive for the line, and instead uses “chance.”  This could be fate or destiny, but is most closely related to a random arrangement of causes and events that have randomly culminated in Cal’s existence.

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The theme of the monster, that John pointed out in our last class, continues to resurface throughout Books 3 and 4 of Middlesex.  What is interesting to note is that the point when Cal finally accepts him/herself as a unique being, not a monster, is when his/her body is displayed in a freak show of sorts.  One would think that this zoo-like showcase of Cal’s genitals at the Sixty-Niners club would reinforce the feeling of being something “other” and monster-like.  The opposite happens, as Cal describes on page 494:
“I opened my eyes underwater.  I saw the faces looking back at me and I saw that they were not appalled.  I had fun in the tank that night.  It was all beneficial in some way.  It was therapeutic.  Inside Hermaphroditus old tensions were roiling, trying to work themselves out.  Traumas of the locker rooms were being released.  Shame over having a body unlike other bodies was passing away.  The monster feeling was fading.”  The very thing that Cal feared – looking into the eyes of customers – was the thing that helped Cal to accept his/her identity.  And, in a roundabout way, the job at the Sixty-Niners was what eventually set Cal on a path back home, back into the road to acceptance within his family.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/08/opinion/08collins.html?src=me&ref=opinion

An opinion by Gail Collins on the anniversary of the pill.  She considers what has changed since then, especially in regards to formal sex ed.  And, bonus for our discussions, she mentions Sanger and Comstock.

http://www.cracked.com/funny-4420-advice-about-relationships/

Not quite directly related to anything we’re discussing at the moment, but I’m an avid reader of Cracked.com articles and this one seemed relevant, at least in a general way, to our class.

Enjoy!

(PS – My favorite line: “Those ad f!!!ers think The Feminine Mystique is a how-to manual.”)

You can’t unring a bell!

In a novel of epic proportions such as Middlesex, images play a very important role.  The narrator spends much time dwelling on the significance of certain images, whether comparing the burning city of Smyrna to his own childhood memories of a fireside charring of scrapped wrapping paper, or speeding time in explaining the functioning of the assembly line, the gambling addiction of his grandfather, or the fertilization of an egg (I use the masculine pronoun as at the close of chapter two, the narrator’s adult identity is male, at least if forced into a binary).  An image from early in the story of Lefty and Desdemona’s reinvention of each other as lovers, not siblings, seems especially prescient to the chaos the narrator portends: the sex scenes in the ship’s lifeboat.  Read the rest of this entry »

Brother/Sister, Husband/Wife

The story that I’ve found most compelling about the first half of Middlesex is that of the narrator’s grandparents, Lefty and Desdemona.  The tale of how their incestuous relationship arose is easily sympathized, their actions rendered justifiable by the circumstances from which they arose.  After all, they were two siblings, orphaned while they were both young adults.  After growing up together and sleeping in the same thinly separated room, they were living as husband and wife traditionally would, with Lefty going to the market during the day and Desdemona taking care of the house.  All alone, with no family near and the uncertainty of their future due to the war, these two siblings were thrust together not only due to the aforementioned factors, but also out of love.

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Incest, Middlesex, and Intersex

Having only read the first two books of Middlesex, I feel this post must be about incest, a topic that Eugenides handles with incredible grace and tenderness.  Read the rest of this entry »