There have been two major themes found in almost all of the readings this semester that are difficult to ignore. I think that they are intimately linked, and also say a lot about the politics of sexuality today.
I have learnt first and foremost that sex (the act itself) sculpts identity. This might seem obvious in the context of the identity politics movements in the sixties and seventies, which hewed out new subject positions such as gay, lesbian, bisexual, and s/m. But it has become more and more evident to me that sex produces and reproduces identities and self-images supposed unrelated to sexuality. Some immediate examples would be helpful. The Halperin article describes how in antiquity, sex did not decipher sexual-orientations, but rather the positions of active or passive subjects, which then effected and maintained rights of that subject. In effect, the sexual act was producing identities of citizenship and society. Lisa Duggan discusses how the rape of trans- man Brandon Teena essentially reified the identities of his attackers as white males with privilege, despite their disadvantaged class positions. For Catherine MacKinnon, the identities of male and female, supposedly established by biology, are laid out in sex. For sex-positive writers like Califia and Duncan, the identity of ‘feminist’ or ‘activist’ can be constructed in the bedroom as well. All of these examples produce identities through sexual acts.
It should also be noted that this happens through negative definition vis-à-vis the other party (parties?) to that act. Self-definition through Othering is not uncommon, nor is it exclusive to within the domain of sex, but I believe that the physical actions that sex includes are perhaps the most direct and conducive to Selfing and Othering, to identity formation. It involves blurring boundaries, mixing fluids. Points wherein one is completely aware of their alterity to their partner, and points when this divide is not so obvious any longer. Sex creates crisis and demands self-identification*. Forgive my generous references to de Beauvoir, but this is the exact reason she encourages active sexuality and sexual knowledge in women: because of its possibilities for transcendence! Indeed, these characteristics of sexual encounters might open up an empowering space of self-knowledge for women, but it does not always lead to freedom…
After identities have been hewn, they seem to congeal, often in communities and movements. Despite the individual nature of some self-definition through sex, society and identity politics are not ready or nuanced enough to allow for overlaps. My second major theme is the notion of ‘betraying your minority’, which I have already discussed extensively. Especially when sexual identities (LGBTQ, BDSM etc.) are concerned, they are thought of as ‘recessive’ identities and because of their invisibility should come after loyalties to race, nation, class and gender. This silencing of liminal identification leads to real and palpable oppression, often for women whose bodies are marked with burdens of maintaining certain identities already.
It seems immanent to acknowledge sex’s possibilities for sculpting identification, while simultaneously recognizing the limits to some of these identifications. To me, this link is just why sex seems to be about everything but sex, why sexuality is such a politically laden notion, and why we instill it with so much value, crisis and anxiety.
*Here I am borrowing heavily on the ideas of philosophers Kristeva, Levinas & de Beauvoir.
