Sexuality and Its Discontents

SEXUALITY AND ITS DISCONTENTS SEXUALITY AND ITS DISCONTENTS MEANINGS, MYTHS & MODERN SEXUALITIES JEFFREY WEEKS London and New York First published in 1985 by Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2002. Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 © Jeffrey Weeks 1985 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue reference for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress ISBN 0-203-40746-6 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-71570-5 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0-415-04503-7 (Print Edition) For Chetan, Micky and Angus, and in memory of Geoff CONTENTS Preface ix Acknowledgments xi PART ONE: SEXUALITY AND ITS DISCONTENTS Chapter 1: Introductory: the subject of sex Sexuality as a ‘special case’ 3 Sexuality as history and politics 5 Sexuality and the politics of choice 11 Chapter 2: The ‘sexual revolution’ revisited The current crisis 15 The myth of ‘permissiveness’ 17 The commercialisation and commodification of sex 21 Shifts in sexual relations 25 The regulation of sexuality 28 Social antagonisms and political movements 31 Chapter 3: The new moralism The new moralism and the New Right 33 Sex as fear and loathing: the example of AIDS 44 Strategies 53 PART TWO: THE SEXUAL TRADITION Chapter 4: ‘Nature had nothing to do with it’: the role of sexology Science of desire or technology of control? 61 Pioneers 64 The social relations of sexology 73 The biological imperative 79 The limits of sexology 91 vii viii Contents Chapter 5: ‘A never-ceasing duel’? ‘Sex’ in relation to ‘society’ ‘Sex’ versus ‘society’ 96 The cultural matrix 99 The selfish gene 108 The web of sexuality 120 PART THREE: THE CHALLENGE OF THE UNCONSCIOUS Chapter 6: Sexuality and the unconscious Why psychoanalysis? 127 The nature of sexuality 133 Oedipus and sexual identity 138 Homosexuality and perversity 149 Chapter 7: Dangerous desires Civilisation and repression 157 The uneasy marriage of Marx and Freud 160 Politics and desire 170 The meanings of desire 177 PART FOUR: THE BOUNDARIES OF SEXUALITY Chapter 8: ‘Movements of affirmation’: identity politics Identity and community 185 The idea of a ‘sexual minority’ 195 The challenge of lesbianism 201 Making relationships 209 Chapter 9: The meaning of diversity Erotic diversity 211 ‘Public sex’ and the right to privacy 219 Intergenerational sex and consent 223 Pornography and power 231 The sexual fringe and sexual choice 236 Refusing to refuse the body 241 Chapter 10: Conclusion: beyond the boundaries of sexuality 246 Notes 261 Index 317 PREFACE Few topics evoke so much anxiety and pleasure, pain and hope, discussion and silence as the erotic possibilities of our bodies. Throughout the Christian era, as Susan Sontag has observed, sex has been treated as a ‘special case’. Since at least the eighteenth century it has also been the focus simultaneously of ‘scientific’ exploration and political activity. This book asks whether, as a result of all this concern, we are any more sure today than we were in the reputed Dark Ages of the last century about the ‘real’ meaning of sexuality. Over a hundred years of theoretical debate and sex research, social morality crusades and radical oppositions, definitions and self- definition, have produced a crisis of sexual values in which many fixed points have been radically questioned and where contending forces battle for the future of sexuality. The aim of the book is to show the historical, theoretical and political forces that have created the framework of this crisis of sexual meanings. The book begins with an examination of our current ‘discontents’, of which the rise of a new ‘Moral Right’ is a potent sign, to show how the crisis is rooted in a sexual and sexological tradition which has ascribed an inflated importance to sexuality. This ‘sexual tradition’ is the subject of the second section, which explores the valiant endeavours of those scientists of desire and philosophers of sex, the sexologists of the past century, to locate the truth of sexuality in ‘Nature’. ‘Nature’, I suggest, in fact had little to do with it. This is followed by a critical examination of the tradition of psychoanalysis, which has a latent power to disrupt the naturalism and essentialism of the sexological tradition and to challenge our conceptions about the relationship between identity and desire. The book closes with an examination of the theories and practice of the new social movements of recent ix x Preface years, especially the feminist, lesbian and gay movements who have organised around questions of identity, desire and choice to challenge the certainties of the past, and take us beyond the boundaries of sexuality. What does this mean for the future of the science of sex—and of sexual politics? This book is itself the product of the recent revolution in theoretical and political perspectives which it describes and analyses, the major result of which has been to further our understanding of the historical invention of ‘sexuality’ over recent centuries. From this starting point, the book seeks to analyse the complex historical interactions between sexual theory and sexual politics over the past century, in order to question the neutrality of sexual science and to challenge its hegemonic claims. In particular, what are the meanings of such concepts as ‘identity’, consent and choice if we reject the idea of a ‘true sex’? These themes contribute to another task, an understanding of the sexual present, a peculiar combination of old oppressions and new opportunities, and of contending moral and political positions. By linking our present discontents to a clear understanding of the past and a realistic hope for the future, I hope to contribute to a more rational and optimistic vision of the subject of sex than is currently on offer from either right or left. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This book covers a good deal of ground and many people have helped me negotiate its sometimes treacherous contours. None of them, of course, are responsible for any pitfalls I may have landed in. For support of various kinds, material, moral, intellectual, emotional and practical I warmly thank: Henry Abelove, Alan Bray, Sue Bruley, Wendy Burns, Jane Caplan, George Chauncey, Emmanuel Cooper, Barry Davis, Mattias Düyves, Simon Emmerson, Mary Evans, Elizabeth Fidlon, John Gagnon, Bob Gallagher, Sue Golding, Gert Hekma, Michael Ignatieff, Joe Interrante, Jonathan Katz, Caradoc King, Jane Lewis, John Marshall, Mary McIntosh, David Morgan, Barbara Philp, Ken Plummer, Colin Pritchard, Ellen Ross, Gayle Rubin, Raphael Samuel, Barbara Taylor, Rosemary Ulas, Judith Walkowitz, Simon Watney, Elizabeth Wilson. Rosalind Coward, Janet Sayers and ‘anonymous others’ read parts or all of the book in draft and gave me helpful (and improving) comments. I am very grateful for their supportive interest (and I exculpate them from any blame). Janet Parkin showed her usual impeccable judgment in interpreting my handwriting, and in transforming it into legible typescript. She has my warmest thanks. I owe an enormous debt to my students at the University of Kent at Canterbury. They sat through my lectures and seminars, endured my speculations, were polite in their interjections and objections, and provided enormous stimulation. Without them… As I was completing this book Geoff Horton was fighting an overwhelming illness from which he died. His courage gave me new insights into human endurance, and I honour his memory. Micky Burbidge, Angus Suttie and Chetan Bhatt gave me domestic warmth and support, and I am more than grateful. I dedicate the book to them, and to the memory of Geoff. xi xii Acknowledgments Finally: when I published my last book my young nieces, Karen and Sîan, asked me to mention them in the next. I do so now, with pleasure and affection—and with the hope that one day they will find this book enlightening and useful (a hope I extend to all my readers). PART ONE Sexuality and its discontents …in modern civilised life sex enters probably even more into consciousness than hunger. EDWARD CARPENTER, Love’s Coming of Age CHAPTER 1 Introductory: the subject of sex Since Christianity upped the ante and concentrated on sexual behaviour as the root of virtue, everything pertaining to sex has been a ‘special case’ in our culture, evoking peculiarly inconsistent attitudes. SUSAN SONTAG, Styles of Radical Will …we reaffirmed that the most important organ in humans is located between the ears. CAROLE S.VANCE, Diary of a Conference on Sexuality 1982 Sexuality as a ‘special case’ Sexuality is as much about words, images, ritual and fantasy as it is about the body: the way we think about sex fashions the way we live it. We give a supreme importance to sex in our individual and social lives today because of a history that has assigned a central significance to the sexual. It has not always been so; and need not always be so. We live, as the British feminist Sue Cartledge once suggested, between worlds, between a world of habits, expectations and beliefs that are no longer viable, and a future that has yet to be constructed.1 This gives to sexuality a curiously unsettled and troubling status: source of pain as much as pleasure, anxiety as much as affirmation, identity crisis as much as stability of self. Sex exists today in a moral vacuum.

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