Feminism: Sexuality

In this paper, I respond to the critiques of my book, The Politics of Our Selves: Power, Autonomy, and Gender in Contemporary Critical Theory, made by Nikolas Kompridis, Paul Patton, Allison Weir and Moira Gatens. My response is organized around three overlapping themes that are raised in these four astute papers: a defence of my account of normativity, of my reading of Foucault’s conception of power, and of my analysis of gender subordination/identity.

يتمحور البحث حول نقد صادق جلال العظم للتابوهات، عمومًا، وللتابو الجنسي، خصوصًا، وينطلق البحث من التشديد على أهمية النقد في فكر العظم، على مستويي؛ التنظير له، وممارسته في معظم أو جل أعماله، ليحاول، بعد ذلك، إبراز تلك الممارسة النقدية في ميدان التابوهات عمومًا، وتابو الجنس خصوصًا، وانطلاقًا من ذلك؛ تتمثل الأسئلة الأساسية التي يحاول البحث الإجابة عنها، في الآتي: ما أهمية النقد عمومًا، ونقد التابوهات خصوصًا، في فكر العظم؟ ما العلاقة بين النقد والتحريم، من منظور العظم؟ وإلى أي حدٍّ، وبأي (...) معنىً سعى العظم إلى تجاوز (الخطوط الحمر) في نقده لثالوث التابوهات (الجنس والدين والسياسة)؟ ما الذي ينقده العظم، تحديدًا، في ميدان التابو الجنسي؟ وما هي الإشكاليات الأساسية التي يتضمنها ويثيرها هذا النقد؟ للإجابة عن هذه الأسئلة؛ ستتجسد مقاربتنا المنهجية لنصوص العظم، في ما يمكن تسميته ﺒـ "الهيرمينوطيقا النقدية"؛ فهي هيرمينوطيقا، أو تتّصف بالسمة الهيرمينوطيقية، ليس بسبب بعدها التأويلي الصريح، أو اعتمادها على التأويل فحسب، (فبهذا المعنى، كل مقاربةٍ أو دراسةٍ هي هيرمينوطيقيةٌ، لأنها تأويليةٌ بالضرورة)؛ وإنما بسبب افتراضها، أيضًا، أن هذه النصوص تتضمن دلالاتٍ متكاملةً، تجسِّد كليةً متسقةً أو متناسقة العناصر، يمكن الإمساك بها، انطلاقًا من "المقاصد المعلنة" للكاتب، وعلى هذا الأساس، سنحاول، في عرضنا ومناقشتنا لنقد التابو (الجنسي) عند العظم، أن نستند، بالدرجة الأولى، إلى تنظير العظم نفسه حول هذه المسألة؛ أي إلى أقواله المحدَّدة وآرائه الصريحة في هذا الخصوص، قبل أن نضع هذه الرؤية النظرية في مواجهةٍ ثنائيةٍ: مع ذاتها من جهةٍ، (ضمن إطار ما يمكن تسميته بالنقد المحايث)، ومع انتقادات بعض المفكرين الذين دخلوا في حوارٍ أو سجالٍ معه، ومع رؤيتنا للواقع أو الفكر الذي يحاول العظم دراسته، (في إطار ما يمكن تسميته بالنقد الخارجي)، من جهةٍ أخرى. وهذه المواجهة النقدية المزدوجة مع ما هو محايث لفكر العظم، ومفارقٌ له، هي التي تمثِّل أساس البعد النقديِّ في دراستنا لهذا الفكر. (shrink)

In this brief paper, I want to begin to explore the possibility that bi-trans dialogue can challenge those forms of oppression that are grounded in sex, gender, and sexuality. I am particularly interested in pursuing the possibility that bi-trans dialogue might result in additional critiques of the sex-gender-sexuality triad. Despite multiple challenges, and myriad historical transmogri-fications (including, it must be noted, the very late addition of gender), that triad maintains its foundationality and posits deep causal links among its three parts. (...) The effect of this causal chain is to render untenable or incomprehensi-ble the lives of all sorts of actual, living persons—lives that are anything but incomprehensible to those living them, but that are made to be so on a system in which there is still a strong tendency to hold that sex causes gender and sexuality. The resilience of this presumed causal connection contributes to ensuring the continued dominance of a two-sex, two-gender, two-sexuality system. (shrink)

First published in 1994. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

First published in 1991. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Sexology, or the formal study of sexuality, positions itself as an authoritative voice wearing a cloak of neutrality. Sexology offers the seal of “scientific truth” to pronoucements that have been arrived at through processes that are ostensibly objective, but covertly value-laden; thus sex research has been effective in perpetuating innocent claims about the human condition and human sexual behavior. Closer examination reveals these claims to be controversial. In the texts and literature of sexology, we find that there is a coherent (...) and significant cluster of assumptions about what is so-called natural sexuality. These assumptions express major paradigms that not only inform the theoretical basis of contemporary sexological thought, but which also happen to be constituent elements in contemporary patriarchal ideology. In this paper I will look at these major paradigms. (shrink)

Published in in S. LaFont (Ed.) Constructing Sexualities: Readings in Sexuality, Gender, and Culture, New York, Prentice Hall, pp.362-370.

Mary Ziegler is the Stearns, Weaver, Miller Professor at Florida State University College of Law. In addition to more than twenty articles on the legal history of reproduction and sexuality, she is the author of After Roe: The Lost History of the Abortion Debate, published by Harvard University Press in 2015. For After Roe, she is the recipient of the biannual Thomas J. Wilson Prize for the best book published by the press in any discipline.

Nancy Chodorow, in her groundbreaking book _The Reproduction of Mothering_, quite simply changed the conversation in at least three areas of study: psychoanalysis, women's studies, and sociology. In her latest book, _Individualizing Gender and Sexuality_, she examines the complexity and uniqueness of each person's personal creation of sexuality and gender and the ways that these interrelate with other aspects of psychic and cultural life. She brings her well-known theoretical agility, wide-ranging interdisciplinarity, and clinical experience to every chapter, advocating for the (...) clinician's openness, curiosity, and theoretical pluralism. The book begins with reflections on Freud's _Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality_, followed by considerations of Melanie Klein and Stephen Mitchell, as well as on her own work and on the postmodern turn in psychoanalytic gender theory. Subsequent chapters address contemporary clinical-cultural issues such as women and work, women and motherhood, and men and violence. Concluding chapters elaborate on the multiple ingredients and the personal affective, conflictual, and defensive constellations and processes that create sexuality and gender in each individual. Ending with a chapter on homosexualities as compromise formations, Chodorow deepens her account of clinical individuality and sex-gender transference-countertransference while bringing her readers back to Freud and to the many strands that followed, as she consolidates a consistent line of interest in sexuality and gender, theory and practice, sustained over a lifetime. (shrink)

Hundreds of thousands of students in introductory human sexuality classes read text-books whose covert ideology reinforces dominant heteronormative narratives of sexual dimorphism, male hegemony, and heteronormativity. As such, the process of scientific discovery that proposes to provide description of existing sexual practices, identities, and physiologies instead succeeds in cultural prescription. This essay provides a feminist, queer content analysis of such textbooks to illuminate their implicit narratives and provide suggestions for writing more feminist, queer-friendly texts.

Hundreds of thousands of students in introductory human sexuality classes read text-books whose covert ideology reinforces dominant heteronormative narratives of sexual dimorphism, male hegemony, and heteronormativity. As such, the process of scientific discovery that proposes to provide description of existing sexual practices, identities, and physiologies instead succeeds in cultural prescription. This essay provides a feminist, queer content analysis of such textbooks to illuminate their implicit narratives and provide suggestions for writing more feminist, queer-friendly texts.