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Patriarchy, Sexual Identity, and the Sexual Revolution Author(S): Ann Ferguson Source: Signs, Vol

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Patriarchy, Sexual Identity, and the Sexual Revolution Author(S): Ann Ferguson Source: Signs, Vol Patriarchy, Sexual Identity, and the Sexual Revolution Author(s): Ann Ferguson Source: Signs, Vol. 7, No. 1 (Autumn, 1981), pp. 158-172 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3173515 . Accessed: 22/10/2014 13:59 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. The University of Chicago Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Signs. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 167.206.19.4 on Wed, 22 Oct 2014 13:59:15 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions VIEWPOINT On "Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence": Defining the Issues Ann Ferguson, Jacquelyn N. Zita, and Kzthryn Pyne Addelson Ann Ferguson: Patriarchy,Sexual Identity,and the Sexual Revolution Adrienne Rich's paper "Compulsory Heterosexualityand Lesbian Exis- tence"' suggests two important theses for further development by feministthinkers. First, she maintainsthat compulsory heterosexuality is EDITORS' NOTE: Marianne Hirsch suggestsat theconclusion of her review essaythat the phrase "lesbian continuum" may serve to liberate usfrom masculine theoryand languageinto genuinelyfeminine speculation on thenature of women's sexualityand women'smothering. As ithappens, the question of whether the phrase can infactdo so is at thecenter of the debate between Ann Ferguson, Jaquelyn N. Zita,and KathrynPyne Addelson. Philosophy, linguistics, sociology, and historical theoryall becomeelements in theexchange. An earlier versionof thispaper was read at a philosophyand feminismcolloquium at the Universityof Cincinnati,November 15, 1980. I would like to acknowledge the forma- tive aid of Francine Rainone in the ideas and revisionof thispaper, as well as the helpful comments made by Kim Christensen,Annette Kuhn, Jacquelyn Zita, and Kathy Pyne Addelson on earlier draftsof this paper (Ferguson). 1. Adrienne Rich, "Compulsory Heterosexualityand Lesbian Existence,"Signs: Jour- nal of Womenin Cultureand Society5, no. 4 (Summer 1980): 631-60. Unless otherwise indicated, page numbers referredto in text and footnotesare fromthis article. [Signs:Journal of Womenin Cultureand Society1981, vol. 7, no. 1] ? 1981 by The Universityof Chicago. All rightsreserved. 0097-9740/82/0701-0013$01.00 158 This content downloaded from 167.206.19.4 on Wed, 22 Oct 2014 13:59:15 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Signs Autumn1981 159 the central social structureperpetuating male domination. Second, she suggests a reconstructionof the concept lesbian in terms of a cross- cultural,transhistorical lesbian continuum which can capture women's ongoing resistance to patriarchal domination. Rich's paper is an in- sightfuland significantcontribution to the development of a radical feministapproach to patriarchy,human nature,and sexual identity.Her syntheticand creativeapproach is a necessaryfirst step to furtherwork on the concept of compulsoryheterosexuality. Nonetheless, her position containsserious flawsfrom a socialist-feministperspective. In thispaper I shall argue against her main theses while presentinga different,his- toricallylinked concept of lesbian identity. Rich develops her insighton the concept lesbianfrom de Beauvoir's classic treatmentof lesbianismin TheSecond Sex where lesbianismis seen as a deliberate refusal to submit to the coercive force of heterosexual ideology,a refusalwhich acts as an underground feministresistance to patriarchy.From thisbase Rich constructsa lesbian-feministapproach to lesbian history.As she writeselsewhere: "I feel thatthe search forlesbian historyneeds to be understood politically,not simplyas the search for exceptional women who were lesbians,but as the search for power, for nascent undefined feminism,for the ways that women-lovingwomen have been nay-sayersto male possession and controlof women."2 To use such an approach as an aid to discover "nascent undefined feminism"in any historicalperiod, the feministhistorian has to know what she is looking for. We need, in other words,a clear understanding of what is involvedin the concept lesbianso as to be able to identifysuch women. Rich introducesthe conceptslesbian identity and lesbiancontinuum as substitutesfor the limitedand clinical sense of "lesbian" commonly used. Her new concepts imply that genital sexual relations or sexual attractionsbetween women are neither necessary nor sufficientcon- ditionsfor someone to be thoughta lesbian in the fullsense of the term. If we were to presentRich's definitionof lesbian identityit would there- fore be somewhatas follows: 1. Lesbian identity(Rich) is the sense of self of a woman bonded primarilyto women who is sexuallyand emotionallyindependent of men. Her concept of lesbian continuum describes a wide range of "woman- identifiedexperience; not simplythe factthat a woman has had or con- sciouslydesired genitalsexual experience withanother woman." Instead we should "expand it to embrace manymore formsof primaryintensity between and among women, including the sharing of a rich inner life, the bonding against male tyranny,the givingand receivingof practical 2. Quoted byJudith Schwarz, "Questionnaire on Issues in Lesbian History,"Frontiers 4, no. 3 (Fall 1979): 1-12, esp. p. 6. This content downloaded from 167.206.19.4 on Wed, 22 Oct 2014 13:59:15 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 160 Fergusonet al. On "CompulsoryHeterosexuality" and political support; if we can also hear in it such associationsas mar- riage resistance. we begin to grasp breadths of female historyand psychologywhich have lain out of reach as a consequence of limited, mostlyclinical definitionsof 'lesbianism'" (pp. 648-49). Rich, in short, conceives of lesbian identityas a transhistorical phenomenon, while I maintain,to the contrary,that the developmentof a distinctivehomosexual (and specificallylesbian) identityis a historical phenomenon, not applicable to all societies and all periods of history. Her idea that the degree to which a woman is sexuallyand emotionally independent of men while bonding withwomen measures resistanceto patriarchyoversimplifies and romanticizesthe notion of such resistance withoutreally defining the conditionsthat make forsuccessful resistance rather than mere victimization.Her model does not allow us to under- stand the collectiveand social nature of a lesbian identityas opposed to lesbian practicesor behaviors. Although I agree withRich's insightthat some of the clinical definitionsof lesbian tend to create ways of viewing women's lives in which "female friendshipsand comradeship have been set apart fromthe erotic: thus limitingthe eroticitself," I thinkher view undervalues the importanthistorical development of an explicitlesbian identityconnected to genitalsexuality. My own view is thatthe develop- ment of such an identity,and with it the development of a sexuality valued and accepted in a communityof peers, extended women's life options and degree of independence frommen. I argue thatthe concept of lesbian identityas distinctfrom lesbian practices arose in advanced capitalistcountries in WesternEurope and the United States in the late nineteenthand early twentiethcenturies from the conjunction of two forces. In part it was an ideological concept created by the sexologists who frameda changing patriarchalideology of sexualityand the family; in part it was chosen by independent women and feminists who formedtheir own urban subculturesas an escape fromthe new,mystified formof patriarchaldominance thatdeveloped in the late 1920s: the com- panionate nuclear family.3 Defining"Lesbian" Radicalesbians were the firstlesbian-feminist theorists to suggest a reconstructionof the concept lesbian.4Their goal was not merely to 3. Cf. Michel Foucault, The Historyof Sexuality,vol. 1, An Introduction,trans. Robert Hurley (New York: Pantheon Books, 1978); JeffreyWeeks, Coming Out: HomosexualPolitics in Britainfrom the Nineteenth Centu7y to thePresent (London: Quartet Books, 1977); Mary McIntosh, "The Homosexual Role," Social Problems16, no. 2 (Fall 1968): 182-92; and Christina Simons, "Companionate Marriage and the Lesbian Threat," Frontiers4, no. 3 (Fall 1979): 54-59. 4. Radicalesbians,"Woman-identified Women," in Radical Feminism,ed. A. Koedt, D. Levine, and A. Rapone (New York: Quadrangle Books, 1973). This content downloaded from 167.206.19.4 on Wed, 22 Oct 2014 13:59:15 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Signs Autumn1981 161 locate some centralcharacteristic of lesbianismbut also to find a way to eliminate the standard, pejorative connotation of the term. They wanted, that is, to rid the term of the heterosexistimplications that lesbiansare deviant,sick, unhealthy beings-a taskimportant not merely as a defense of the lesbian communitybut of the feministcommunity and, indeed, of all women. The problem is thatRadicalesbians as well as Rich do not clearly distinguishbetween three differentgoals of def- initional strategy:first, valorizing the concept lesbian;second, giving a sociopoliticaldefinition of the contemporarylesbian community;and finally,reconceptualizing history from a lesbian and feministperspec- tive.These
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