Journal the Third (02.01.09)

I love when articles can materialize a theory for me.  The Trials of Alice Mitchell ended up being an excellent example of some of what I discussed last week.  Lesbian women were able to mold the definition of their burgeoning identity because they were marked by it.  In being so marked, actions would reflect ‘realities’ of all sharing that ‘identity’.  This did not have to be a negative thing, as it could draw in others with similar stories.  While most lesbians do not kill their estranged lovers, it could be the knowledge that girl-girl love could run that deep that was the more identifying characteristic.  Duggan encourages us to read the story of Alice Mitchell ‘against the grain” to see the characteristics of the modern ‘lesbian’ experience (desire for permanency, mixing gender roles, isolation from other women etc.) that was not included in its scientific definition.  They were not included because science did not need to know that.  Self-representation had to fill those gaps, and allegories of actual women’s actions and experiences were able to do so.

Journal the Second (01.27.09)

An intro to social constructionism regarding sexuality practically requires a reference to Foucault’s famous example of the ‘creation of the homosexual’.  There is a realization in this branch of theory that sexual practices are now shaping subjects and defining individuals.  There are sexual identities now.  Jeffrey Weeks’ describes the creation of such identities as a cycle between the self and society.  To me, this branches off into two other interesting themes: identity politics and resistance.

Regarding the former, I felt the contradiction almost immediately.  Identity politics, how I’ve been taught to understand it, seems to be at least strategically essentialist, citing specific differences as the bases of identification, belonging and organization.  These ‘inherent’ differences seem the antithesis of supposedly socially constructed identities and groups such as ‘homosexual’, ‘lesbian’, ‘fetishist’ etc.  Yet Weeks’ account reconciles the two.

I feel that the room left by Foucault for resistance is important for that very reason.  Identities cannot be created by abstract concepts or general social trends.  It is actual occurrences, be they repressive legislation or social organizing, moral condemnation or ‘sexual’ migration, which hold that productive power.  Those who may have been defined top-down still embody that identity and are thus able to alternatively shape its definition by their actions.  Therefore, while science and society can create the ‘homosexual’ the ‘invert’ or the ‘gay man or woman’ for their own usages, homosexuals can also create these categories defined it their own terms for resistance: the identity politics of the gay rights movements.  These simultaneous definitions have undoubtedly changed what ‘homosexual’ connotes today.  Through resistance it is identity politics that can do the subject-making, and not simply fall out of definitions from others.  It can socially construct on its own.

Journal the First (01.19.09)

On Gayle Rubin’s Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality…

The article presented a comprehensive description of the forces and forms of sexual stratification that challenges those part of erotic minorities.  Her brave discussion of such taboo sexualities as S/M and inter-generational sex is a rational and reasonable analysis of the practices while ignoring the strong ‘ick’ reactions that society has imparted upon them. The larger argument therein (a secondary one in her thesis) is the issue of consent.  It is a concept often taken for granted in our society, yet it is both elevated and denied by the law and other informal forces.  While we are always taught that consent is absolutely necessary in sexuality, there exist those who are ‘incapable,’ ‘not allowed’ or ‘impossible’ to consent.   In fact this censure of active consent seems to redundantly erase the possibility of coerced sex in these circumstances (since apparently all of that sex is coerced, or, ‘they were asking for it anyways’.)  While such a claim might be a bit extreme, I feel it is safe to say that sex laws nullifying consent within subjugated sexualities by at least blurring a very necessary line for those who partake in the practices.  They do this on top of vilifying those practices by enforcing sex laws and other informal sanctions against them.

With consent in mind, I present some current events.  I stumbled upon this article about a 20-year-old anti-abortion activist who posed as a 13-year-old who had been impregnated by her 31-year-old boyfriend.  She then entered, with an accomplice and a hidden video camera, a Planned Parenthood “in search” of abortion options.   In Indiana, the state she has done this twice in already, statutory reporting laws exist wherein anyone who comes to the knowledge that someone under 14 is having sex with an adult must report it to the police.  This law negates doctor-patient and other confidentiality clauses. The Mona Lisa Project which the films have been called, are available to watch on their website.

The films clearly wish to smear Planned Parenthood with a different type of “crime” which has little or nothing to do with the abortion debate, yet can be and is effective.  The PP counselors are clearly aware of the rock and the hard place that the law has put them between, as they plead not to know the age of the “boyfriend” once realizing the age of the “13-year-old”.  For those not impressed by the films’ messages, it demonstrates the realities of everyday people negotiating the law.  This, for me, makes clear the law’s oppressive qualities. Watching these counselors toe the line of what the law says was not the child’s choice (an older boyfriend) and what they believe is the child’s choice (terminating an undesired pregnancy) only serves to strengthen this fact for me.

The counselors who were filmed ignoring (i.e. not reporting) the filmmaker’s situation were both fired.  To me, the whole process mocks girls who are actually in the circumstances that the filmmakers are simulating.  How they are manipulating such an already invasive consent law make these girls’ difficult situations one level more difficult.  They might never receive the help and healthcare they need from counselors and clinicians who do their job first.

Hello world.

The journal entries for my Feminist Studies in Sexuality class are supposed to be a “fun challenge”.  I think its fun to talk about sex. I think it’s challenging to talk about it, its politics and its implications for feminism without getting bogged down in heavy theory and  language that often confuses even myself when I go back and read it.  I think a more popular medium such as the blog (instead of ‘the report’) might entice me to ask the  theoretical questions I want to, in a way that is interesting and thought provoking for people other than women’s studies nerds.  I think it is also an easier method by which to link to pop culture references that can add to the discussion.

Hopefully, this blog will not go forgotten.  I hope to continue it after the class is over, and for it to become a hub of discussion for others who have found me on the net. I hope to post more than just one “Journal” a week: outside links, hilarity and even knitting patterns may surface.  I will try my best to keep at least each week’s posts related to a reading, or a class theme, but I make no promises.

Here’s to you, the internet.  We make one helluva couple.
-m.