Sexuality and American Culture

This was a particularly rich set of responses, with a number of interlacing themes, so I thought I would try to make the links even more explicit with a group response rather than individual ones (although I will also respond to specific points on the individual posts). 

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One general theme that came into play was the multiplicity of power relations emerging in the Victorian era that functioned complexly within the deployment of sexuality’s incitement to discourse.  As Fae points out, both opposing sides--Free Lovers versus Moral Reformers--“had the same idea for regulating sexual desires: through the use of language.”  Patrick adds to this astute observation by bringing the private/public divide back into the picture, perceptively pointing out that the assumed social separations were filled with contradictions and that the conflict between the two actually led to bolster the deployment of power relations bent on disciplining people toward normalization.  It did so unevenly, however, according to class distinctions, as Fae indicates. 

The effects of these shifting power relations are diverse, as Jaimie points out, in terms of race as well as class.  I want to underscore her incisive discussion of how this makes visible to us the transformations from the system of alliance/kinship to the deployment of sexuality.  It is, necessarily, an uneven transformation, and because of that, power relations and points of resistance also shift.  So what operated as resistance to a dominant mode of regulation in the 19^th century may or may not function in that way in our era.

Keshia and Marcella enter a tacit dialogue on the question of female bonds, eroticism, and what is sometimes called heteronormativity.  Adrienne Rich wrote a highly influential essay called “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence” (1980).  I want to recommend it to you, since we owe it to her to have complicated further this crucial discussion about passionlessness, sensuality, and the presumed naturalness of heterosexuality.  You can find it here: http://www.terry.uga.edu/~dawndba/4500compulsoryhet.htm

Her arguments touch on issues that Keshia raises (and resists) about the term lesbian itself (which Rich acknowledges as overly clinical—or what we see as scientia sexualis at work, although she strives to shift its point of gravity with the concept of a continuum).  And Marcella makes a case that might be seen in this light.  Jaimie’s response to her about the logic of this argument might be extended by way of Rich who sees patriarchal male dominance as a trigger for the kind of competitiveness that Marcella describes in mixed sex groups.  One question here is how much that view echoes gender essentialism.

As I said at the end of class—maybe several times—I find these responses to be exceptionally on target in terms of Foucault’s arguments and the readings. It is not easy to shape a response that brings these complexities into sharper focus and I want to commend you for doing it so effectively.  

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