Anne Fausto-Sterling

Frameworks of desire

Genes versus choice. A quick and dirty tain unalienable Rights . . . . ” Moreover, search of newspaper stories covering sci- rather than framing research projects in enti½c research on shows terms of the whole of human desire, we that the popular press has settled on this neglect to examine one form, heterosex- analytic framework to explain homosex- uality, in favor of uncovering the causes uality: either genes cause homosexuality, of the ‘deviant’ other, homosexuality. or homosexuals choose their lifestyle.1 Intellectually, this is just the tip of the The mischief that follows such a for- iceberg. When we invoke formulae such mulation is broad-based and more than as oppositional rather than developmen- a little pernicious. Religious fundamen- tal, innate versus learned, genetic versus talists and gay activists alike use the chosen, early-onset versus adolescent genes-choice opposition to argue their experience, a gay gene versus a straight case either for or against full citizenship gene, hardwired versus flexible, nature for homosexuals. Biological research versus nurture, normal versus deviant, now arbitrates civil legal proceedings, the subtleties of human behavior disap- and the idea that moral status depends pear. on the state of our genes overrides the Linear though it is, even Kinsey’s scale historical and well-argued view that we has six gradations of sexual expression; are “endowed by [our] Creator with cer- and Kinsey understood the importance of the life cycle as a proper framework for analyzing human desire. Academics Anne Fausto-Sterling is professor of biology and –be they biologists, social scientists,2 or gender studies in the Department of Molecular cultural theorists–have become locked and Cell Biology and Biochemistry at Brown Uni- into an oppositional framework. As a re- versity. She has written “Myths of Gender: Bio- sult, they are asking the wrong questions logical Theories about Men and Women” (1985) and “Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the 1 I used the keywords ‘genes’ and ‘homosexual- Construction of Sexuality” (2000). Her current ity’ in the Lexis-Nexis academic database and work focuses on applying dynamic systems theory searched general newspaper articles for the past to the study of human development. two years. In well over one hundred articles, this is the framework for analysis.

© 2007 by the American Academy of Arts 2 I except some anthropologists from the & Sciences broad-brush claim.

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/daed.2007.136.2.47 by guest on 24 September 2021 Anne and offering intellectually impoverished maining variability being explained by Fausto- accounts of the emergence and develop- nonshared environmental influences”5), Sterling on ment of human desire. they ultimately argue that the linkages sex suggested by such studies are important. A steady patter of research papers link- Since they believe that many genes are ing genes to homosexuality rains down likely to be involved, they decided to on us, hitting ½rst the scienti½c jour- scan the entire genome (X, Y, and all of nals; then soaking through to the news- the autosomes) in an attempt to ½sh out papers, blogs, and television news; and a set of genes related in some way to ½nally growing like mold, often wildly male . reshaped from the initial tiny spore into The authors hoped to avoid false posi- the mycelia of popular discourse. As in- tives caused by “ who identify tellectual efforts, each of these articles as heterosexual”6 by only studying self- has technical strengths and weaknesses identi½ed gay men. But the idea that –one can always criticize the sample there are gay men who identify as het- size, or the method of recruiting study erosexual suggests that there is some subjects, or the statistical test employed. biological essence of gayness that can But most of them share a similar–and exist genetically and therefore be meas- problematic–analytical framework. ured independently of identity and be- We can expose this general framework havior. This begs the de½nitional ques- by considering one recent and widely tion. The state of being gay (in adult- reported article, “A Genomewide Scan hood) might, in fact, reasonably include of Male Sexual Orientation,” authored identity, behavior, and/or desire. by six scientists from ½ve prestigious Indeed, in their groundbreaking work, research institutions dotting the United The Social Organization of Sexuality, E. O. States from California to Washington, Laumann and his colleagues studied the D.C.3 The article introduces the problem interrelation of these components of by citing scholarly research linking bio- homosexuality in 143 men who reported logical events or genetic structures to any inkling of same-sex desire. Of the male-male sexual orientation. While the men surveyed, 44 percent expressed ho- authors, Brian Mustanski and his col- mosexual desire but not identity or be- leagues, concede that the evidence is in- havior, while 24 percent reported having complete (they note the limited number all three of these components. Another of studies that attempt to locate speci½c 6 percent expressed desire and behavior genes related to homosexuality) and that but not identity, 22 percent expressed be- nonbiological factors must also be in- havior but not desire or identity, 2 per- volved (they mention, for example, two cent had only the identity, and 1 percent recent twin studies that “report moder- had the identity and desire but not the ate heritability estimates4 with the re- behavior.

3 B. S. Mustanski et al., “A Genomewide Scan Routledge, 2000). S. E. Lerman et al., “Sex of Male Sexual Orientation,” Human Genetics Assignment in Cases of Ambiguous Genitalia 116 (4) (2005): 272–278. and its Outcome,” Urology 55 (2000): 8–12.

4 See Kaplan’s discussion of the use and mis- 5 Mustanski et al., “A Genomewide Scan,” use of the concept of heritability in Jonathan 273. Kaplan, The Limits and Lies of Human Genetic Research: Dangers for Social Policy (New York: 6 Ibid.

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/daed.2007.136.2.47 by guest on 24 September 2021 So Mustanski and colleagues selected embryo formation or disease, the genet- Frameworks a subset of men who, judging from the icist’s method is to study the mutant in of desire Laumann survey, would comprise only order to understand normal processes. 27 percent of men expressing some com- Although Mustanski and his colleagues ponent of homosexuality. Thus, even if prefer to consider homosexuality as part the authors were to ½nd genetic linkages, of the natural variation of the human genetic studies of this sort give insuf½- species, this ½g leaf cannot hide the bas- cient theoretical attention to the possi- ic framework of ‘normal versus mutant,’ ble meanings of such ½ndings. which emphasizes ½xed typologies rath- The study also compares the dna of er than biological processes and life- gay men with those of their heterosex- cycle analyses. ual brothers. Since all siblings share 50 If some sociologists can frame homo- percent of their dna, the dna regions sexuality in ways that better appreciate (genes) that are present in higher fre- its complexities, why can’t biologists? quency in the genomes of the gay broth- After all, the tools exist within their ers then become regions of interest, as ½eld: biologists know how to look at be- potentially related to male homosexual- havior or cellular states as processes or ity. But to ½nd the brothers for the study, emergences rather than as static cate- the authors advertised in homophile gories. In studying the role of gene net- publications, and the mean Kinsey score works in the process of embryonic de- for their sample was 5.46.7 Again, this velopment, for example, Eric Davidson sample would represent, according to and his colleagues have pinpointed the Laumann study, only about one- ‘feed-forward’ genetic networks that quarter of men expressing or feeling de½ne cell transitions as the fertilized some aspect of homosexuality. egg divides and the resulting cells dif- As Mustanski and his colleagues free- ferentiate into specialized tissues. The ly acknowledge, their ½ndings are mere- process is self-generating, involves hun- ly suggestive, providing trails to be fol- dreds of genetic elements and their feed- lowed rather than explanations to be back loops, and progresses historically had. In their own words, they identify –each new cellular state provides the “candidate genes for further explora- necessary conditions for the next one tion” and hope that any future molecu- until a stable feedback loop is estab- lar analysis of “genes involved in sexual lished.9 Using a more complex version orientation could greatly advance our of a cybernetic thermostat regulation understanding of human variation, evo- loop, the system maintains a stable dif- lution and brain development.”8 But ferentiated state under a broad range of here, they reflect the point of view of (though not all) conditions. Conceptu- most classical genetic studies. From ally similar approaches have been em- Thomas Hunt Morgan’s ½rst analysis of ployed to devise models of the emer- the white-eyed fruit-fly mutant to pres- gence of perceptual competence in de- ent-day dissection of genes involved in

9 E. H. Davidson et al., “A Genomic Regula- 7 0=exclusively heterosexual, and 6=exclusive- tory Network for Development,” Science 295 ly homosexual. (5560) (2002): 1669–1678; E. H. Davidson, The Regulatory Genome: Gene Regulatory Net- 8 Mustanski et al., “A Genomewide Scan,” works in Development and Evolution (New York: 277. Academic Press, 2006).

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/daed.2007.136.2.47 by guest on 24 September 2021 Anne veloping human infants.10 Such dynam- Grace, or in discussions about butch and Fausto- Sterling ic models have room for speci½c infor- femme , may derive from par- on mation about gene action during neural ticular, but certainly far from universal, sex development–the sort of information practices within the gay community. But Mustanski and his colleagues seek–but are they a reasonable basis for biological they provide a more productive frame- investigations of homosexuality? work for understanding human desire Theo Sandfort recently reviewed aca- as a developmental process rather than demic accounts of the relationship be- a typological state.11 tween gender and sexual orientation.13 The Mustanski article illustrates one He argues that we now understand ho- other–and quite central–component mosexuality to have multiple and not used in biological approaches to the always synchronous components (at- study of homosexuality: the imposition traction, orientation, behavior, self-iden- of a sex/gender schematic. The formal ti½cation) and varied expression accord- analogies are (1) ‘male:female’ is as ing to gender, ethnicity, social class, and ‘heterosexual male:homosexual male’; culture. In other words, the concepts of (2) ‘male:female’ is as ‘:hetero- and are no longer sexual female’; and (3) ‘masculinity: seen as bipolar. Rather, “it has become feminity’ is as ‘straight male or lesbian: good practice to discuss them as multidi- gay male or straight woman.’ This is the mensional phenomena . . . [as] feminini- logic that led Simon LeVay to study the ties and .”14 He then places hypothalamus in gay men, hoping to the origin, in American psychology, of ½nd the same differences in the brains the idea that homosexual men are femi- of gay versus straight men that others nine and lesbians masculine, in the work had reported when comparing the brains of Lewis M. Terman and Catherine C. of (presumably straight) men and wom- Miles, published in 1936. Sandfort re- en.12 The Mustanski paper cites a num- minds us that Terman and Miles iden- ber of studies based on this concept–a ti½ed homosexual men who did not ½t concept that is also often embraced by this pattern of opposites, but failed to and acted out within the gay commu- theorize about masculine gay men. Sub- nity. The stereotypes seen on Will and sequent citations of their work followed suit, and the unquestioned link of male homosexuality to femininity was born. 10 D. Mareschal and S. P. Johnson, “Learning to Perceive Object Unity: A Connectionist More recent and more multifaceted Account,” Developmental Science 5 (2) (2002): attempts to correlate gender expression 151–172. with sexual orientation have yielded cor- respondingly more complex results. 11 M. D. Lewis, “Self-Organizing Individual Differences in Brain Development,” Develop- mental Review 25 (2005): 252–277. 13 T. G. M. Sandfort, “Sexual Orientation and 12 S. LeVay, “A Difference in Hypothalamic Gender: Stereotypes and Beyond,” Archives of Structure Between Heterosexual and Homosex- Sexual Behavior 34 (6) (2005): 595–611. ual Men,” Science 253 (1991): 1034–1037; W. Byne et al., “The Interstitial Nuclei of the Hu- 14 Ibid., 599. For a longer discussion of some man Anterior Hypothalamus: An Investigation of the subtleties involved, see also J. H. Gagnon, of Sexual Variation in Volume and Cell Size, An Interpretation of Desire: Essays in the Study of Number and Density,” Brain Research 856 (1–2) Sexuality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, (2000): 254–258. 2004).

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/daed.2007.136.2.47 by guest on 24 September 2021 Current changes in gay and lesbian people can understand why the word Frameworks subcultures also contribute to the dis- ‘choice’ is bad in this context. First, it of desire cussion. Among gay men, there has is easily used–especially in the popular been a move away from femininity, as and political arena–to deny rights. This evidenced by the new gay macho, leath- usage implies that just as a person can ermen, and web sites such as www. ‘choose’ not to commit a crime and thus straightacting.com (“your masculine avoid prosecution, so, too, a person can gay guy hangout,” “a site for guys who choose not to be gay and thus avoid ho- like sports and change their own car mophobic violence or losing out on so- oil”). An analogous site– http://les- cial bene½ts afforded to straight people. biansclick.com/Butch-Femme/index. ‘Choice’ also carries with it the conno- html–offers, as the url suggests, infor- tation of conscious control and easy mation and connections for feminine changeability; yet few homosexuals be- lesbians. At this point, we do not have lieve that they chose their state of desire. clear answers to the question of the re- Indeed, the history of homosexuality is lationship between gender (masculini- ½lled with stories of people who tried for ty and femininity) and homosexuality, years to become straight before accept- making it dif½cult to interpret biologi- ing that, for whatever reasons, they felt cal studies premised on the idea that gay how they felt.15 Nor can heterosexuals men are more like (straight) women and choose to change their states of desire. gay women more like (straight) men. Even those who argue that being gay is a Sandfort recommends three research choice would vehemently deny that they areas that, if carefully investigated, could make such a choice. might help us add gender intelligently Rather than defend this oversimpli½- to a framework for understanding the cation of choice, academics prefer to development of human desire. First, he frame the opposition to biology in terms suggests we learn more about how dif- of social construction. They point out ferent groups (men, women, homosex- that regardless of where our sexual de- ual, heterosexual) understand the con- sires and our gender senses originate, cepts of masculinity and femininity. Do they are not easily changed. Just as biol- self-perceptions correlate with external ogy does not really imply permanence or perceptions? Second, he asks how the determinism, social construction does social and cultural environment (includ- not necessarily imply flexibility or im- ing gay subcultures that value male fem- permanence. But as with the biologist, ininity and female masculinity) influ- the social constructionist has yet to offer ence individual perceptions of masculin- a coherent account of the development ity and femininity. Third, he wonders of individual desire. The conventional what the consequences of gender per- constructionists do not explain how the ception and identi½cation are. How do body comes to feel desire, to respond they contribute to sexual practices and to touch, or to quiver when a person to desires? And, I would add, do the behav- whom it is attracted walks through the iors train brain circuits or otherwise in- door. Indeed, to date, attempts to offer fluence brain development rather than such accounts have found little empiri- (or in addition to) vice versa? cal support.

The ‘genes versus choice’ opposition is 15 M. Duberman, Cures: A Gay Man’s Odyssey also wanting on the ‘choice’ side. Most (New York: Dutton, 1991).

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/daed.2007.136.2.47 by guest on 24 September 2021 Anne In The Mismeasure of Desire, philoso- ing) to focus on the reproductive success Fausto- Sterling pher Edward Stein reviews a number of some offspring over others. If parents on of constructionist approaches to under- could manipulate the development of sex standing the origins of sexual desire. homosexuality in some children, so that Theories based on experience (rather they forgo reproduction in favor of sup- than genes) fall into three major cate- porting their siblings, parents could con- gories: early sexual experience, family tinue their genetic line by increasing the dynamics, and childhood gender roles. survival chances and reproductive possi- Early sexual experiences might be eith- bilities of selected grandchildren. er pleasant or unpleasant, and thus Stein considers a third category of might provide positive or negative feed- experiential theories: childhood gender back for either or ho- roles. This approach examines the ex- mosexuality. Such experiences might tent to which children engage in gender- include seduction or (in this modern typical behaviors–understood to be cul- era of priestly scandal) sexual aggres- turally speci½c. Those who are gender sion–or a chance encounter involving typical are thought to become trained in mutual desire. This latter scenario sug- some way by this typicality; such train- gests that even young or preadolescent ing in turn leads to the development of children may have unformed or part- heterosexual identity and desire. Gen- ly formed sexual desires, and that the der-atypical behavior, on the other hand, chance acting-out of these desires (i.e., is thought to shape adult sexual desire in the innocent childhood games of ‘play- atypical directions. It is for this reason ing doctor’ or kissing under the table) that many parents who spot early gen- might carve a psychic groove that en- der-atypical play in a child try hard to trains future encounters. change such behavior in hopes of staving Stein then analyzes two forms of the off future homosexuality. Some cite ear- second category of explanation, family ly gender atypicality as proof of a biolog- dynamics. The best known of these are ical cause, the logic being that behaviors theories stemming from Freud’s Oedi- in the very young must be caused by pal triangle. In Freud’s view, male ho- something genetic, since a two- or three- mosexuality appears in families with year-old would be too little to have been a strong mother and a distant father, influenced by experience. There are oth- while (male) heterosexuality results er evidential categories–e.g., twin stud- from strong paternal identi½cation and, ies, comparative anthropology, and the in adulthood, the replacement by other study of the history of sexuality–that women of the mother as love object. are used by both sides of the genes ver- This theory, it should be noted, is un- sus experience, nature versus nurture de- usual in that it attempts to explain het- bate. That the same considerable schol- erosexuality as well as homosexuality, arship supports both sides of supposed- although, as many have commented, ly incompatible theories provides more Freud’s theories of female sexuality are evidence that the analytical framework more inchoate. Less well known are a needs revision. variety of sociobiological theories that What evidence exists for the varieties employ the concept of parental manipu- of experiential theories of desire? In the lation. According to such theories, par- now classical study Sexual Preference: Its ents subconsciously realize that it would Development in Men and Women, Alan Bell, be advantageous (evolutionarily speak- Martin Weinberg, and Sue Hammer-

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/daed.2007.136.2.47 by guest on 24 September 2021 smith interviewed hundreds of gay, les- reconsidered, may get re-stored in the Frameworks bian, and straight men and women liv- brain in new form. Thus, the very act of of desire ing in San Francisco. The bulk of inter- asking a person to remember past expe- viewees said that childhood and adoles- riences begins a process of reformulat- cent sexual expression reflected their felt ing the present. desires but did not determine them. The Two anecdotes, one personal and one results also did not ½nd evidence for the from a recent longitudinal study of com- Freudian family dynamic or the parental ing-out stories, illustrate the ‘memory manipulation theories of sexual forma- as evidence’ problem. When I was a lit- tion. Subsequent studies have con½rmed tle girl I went off to camp in the country. these ½ndings. I was interested in natural history and The San Francisco project found what also navigated socially by developing a they claimed was a “powerful link be- niche and staying in it. One summer, tween [childhood] gender nonconfor- I combined niche development with a mity and the development of homosex- crush on the (male) camp counselor in uality.”16 Men and women who report- charge of the nature ‘museum’ (a little ed childhood gender atypical behaviors cabin with found natural objects), and were more likely to become homosexu- I devoted myself to catching snakes and al than those who did not. While the insects and collecting mushrooms and study was quick to note that a signi½cant the like. At the end of the summer, some minority of the homosexual study par- of the group of girls I had met made little ticipants was not gender atypical grow- wooden gravestones for each of us. Mine ing up and some of the heterosexual par- read: “In memory of Anne who liked ticipants were gender atypical in child- bugs better than boys.” I was twelve at hood, it nonetheless rested its conclu- the time. I understood the comment to sions on aggregate statistics. Its conclu- be about my interest in nature (nobody sions, however, cannot be taken at face knew about my crush on the counselor) value. and remembered it in that way as I made The Bell, Weinberg, and Hammer- my way through graduate school in biol- smith study, like Kinsey before them ogy, met and married my biologist hus- and a number since, depends on memo- band, and became a professor of genet- ry, on retrospection. This approach to ics. But fast forward thirty-odd years understanding the origins of human be- from the day my little girl friends wrote haviors deserves some commentary. A my epitaph, and I could be found sepa- retrospective study asks its participants rated from my husband, living on my to review, reconsider, reexamine the own, and courting women (one of past. Anyone who engages in such an whom I eventually married). During exercise does so in the light of present that transitional courting period, I came knowledge and experience. Current upon my miniature grave marker lying events may provoke new memories; old in a box of childhood treasures and read memories may take on new meanings; it with new insight. Of course it meant and old memories, when reevoked and that I had been pegged as gay all along. My little friends knew it, but it took me all that time to understand their mes- 16 Alan P. Bell, Martin S. Weinberg, and Sue Kiefer Hammersmith, Sexual Preference: Its De- sage. (Or could they have just been writ- velopment in Men and Women (Bloomington: In- ing about bugs after all?) Memories get diana University Press, 1981), 188. rewritten; new narratives are scripted.

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/daed.2007.136.2.47 by guest on 24 September 2021 Anne Lisa M. Diamond offers a more theo- damental lesson about women’s health Fausto- Sterling retical and formal version of my story as care that the many successful editions of on she reflects on her own research on sex- Our Bodies, Ourselves taught. It is no more sex ual identity formation.17 Consider three acceptable to develop theories of homo- interviews over ½ve years with the same sexuality without considering what ho- lesbian woman. In the ½rst interview the mosexuals themselves have to say. And woman remembers being different as a yet, memory is unreliable. It is not an child, a tomboy, uninterested in dating objective arbiter of past truths but rather men. But she only began to think of dif- a reconciler of past and present. Recon- ference in terms of sexuality in college, ciliation is a lifelong process, and it mat- after meeting a lot of gay people. Two ters both when in the life cycle a memo- years later, in the second interview, she ry is elicited as well as in what culture remembers being scared by her child- and historical period. hood crushes on female camp counsel- If we have not ½gured out how to make ors. This time around she remembers proper use of retrospective studies, per- linking her difference to sexual feelings haps prospective studies offer a better even as a child. In the ½ve-year follow-up approach. As it turns out, there are not interview her memories are quite explic- many prospective studies to draw on, itly sexual. Diamond asks if one of the and the most oft-cited ones, especially versions is the “true” one, and concludes by Richard Green and his colleagues, that “the very process of telling self-sto- have been roundly criticized. Green ries . . . engages multiple psychological studied so-called sissy boys, brought to mechanisms that promote later consis- his psychiatric practice by parents con- tency by organizing and consolidating cerned that their sons’ gender noncon- preferred versions of events.”18 formity heralded future homosexuality. Retrospective accounts, be they in for- He was able to follow up on no more mal academic studies or stories swapped than two-thirds of his original sample with friends or collections of coming- of sixty feminine boys and found that, out tales, present a dilemma. On the one compared to controls, a signi½cant num- hand how better to ½nd out about expe- ber became either homosexual or trans- riences and emotions than from the very sexual as adults. Psychiatrist Ken Zuck- people who are doing and feeling. If fem- er con½rms these general trends. But inists did nothing else for academia, they questions remain: What happened to successfully and rightly insisted that sci- the one-third or so children he lost track ence cannot ½gure out why people do of? Perhaps they resolved their early what they do, or how they feel what they gender issues and grew up heterosexual. feel, without taking into account what And how are we to understand the fact the feeling and experiencing individuals that these children were brought to re- themselves have to say. This is the fun- searchers’ attention by parents worried about their children’s gender nonconfor- mity? 17 L. M. Diamond, “Careful What You Ask In theory we should be able to design For: Reconsidering Feminist Epistemology and prospective studies that better examine Autobiographical Narrative in Research on Sex- ual Identity Formation,” Signs 31 (2) (2006): the relationship between early gender 471–489. nonconformity and later sexuality. The results would be important, but we 18 Ibid., 478. would be left, still, with the twin prob-

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/daed.2007.136.2.47 by guest on 24 September 2021 lems of process and bodies. What leads So what do we want to know and how Frameworks to gender nonconformity in young chil- do we ½nd it out? First, I suggest that we of desire dren, and how do these early behaviors take a page from contemporary dynam- relate to the emergence at later ages of ic-systems theories. Dynamic systems particular desires? In others words, are complex and interactive. They are what are the processes by which desire also self-organizing and self-maintain- becomes inherent to the body? And, of ing. In some periods of their develop- course, we would still need to consider ment they are unstable in that each cur- how homosexual desire emerges in indi- rent state produces the conditions for viduals who were gender conformists as the next developmental moment19–the young children as well as how heterosex- so-called feed-forward networks. But ual desire forms in both gender typical dynamic systems can also be self-stabi- and gender atypical children. lizing. And stability is one feature of hu- man desire that requires explanation. Our current theories are too narrow- Sexual preference, while not necessari- ly framed. They are shaped by the de- ly a permanent feature of a person’s psy- mands of empirical science and by the che, is very stable, as the failure of many politics of sexuality. Geneticists simpli- decades of efforts to ‘cure’ people of fy their study population to improve same-sex desire shows. their chances of ½nding important genes On the other hand, dynamic systems while social scientists hone the quality can destabilize. If enough of the inter- of their survey instruments to improve supporting subunits are disrupted, the statistical power. Psychiatrists study the entire system can become chaotic; even- children who land on their doorsteps be- tually it restabilizes. The new stable state cause it is reasonable to do so and some can produce the same types of desire, or information seems better than none. a new set of desires may emerge. This, Gay activists tell coming-out stories and I would argue, is what happens when welcome the scienti½c approaches that someone ‘changes’ sexual preference. af½rm personal memories and feelings. The current way of explaining a change Anti-rights groups write their own nar- in desire appeals to a hidden essence ratives and embrace supporting scien- that ½nally works its way to the surface. ti½c results. It is, quite frankly, a mess. Hence people ‘discover’ that they were But it needn’t be. Instead of using a always gay but did not know it, and an- dead-end framework to churn out more nounce that their true nature has ½nally data, we should debate what it is we been revealed. The revelation model is want to understand about human sexu- at the heart of endless hours of friendly ality, argue about the forms of knowl- gossip within the gay community about edge we seek, and consider what the best so-and-so who is surely gay but doesn’t ways of pursuing such knowledge might know it. It’s fun, but offers little sub- be. At the very least, geneticists, neuro- scientists, psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, and humanists of a 19 For general reading on dynamic systems, variety of stripes need to collaborate to consult E. Thelen and L. B. Smith, A Dynamic Systems Approach to the Development of Cogni- move forward. If this does not become tion and Action (Cambridge, Mass.: mit Press, an interdisciplinary conversation, then 1994); S. Camazine et al., Self-Organization in we will be having the same debate ½fty Biological Systems (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton years from now. University Press, 2001).

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/daed.2007.136.2.47 by guest on 24 September 2021 Anne stance with which to understand human consider the idea of incorporating prac- Fausto- 20 Sterling development–both its stability and its tices. N. Katherine Hayles distinguish- on mutability. es between inscription, which she likens sex If we are to understand desire as a to Foucauldian discourse, and incorpo- dynamic system, we must learn more ration. Incorporating practices are re- about the underlying components that peated actions that become part of bodi- produce a stable state (or become desta- ly memory. Learning to ride a bike is an bilized). There are many levels of organ- archetypal example. We start out unable ization to consider, from the subcellular to balance on two wheels, but by trying to the sociocultural. Here I want to dis- and trying again, we eventually learn to place genes. They don’t belong at the balance without conscious thought. Our bottom of the pyramid or as the ½rst ar- body has memorized the feeling; our row in a linear array of causes. Rather, muscles and nerves know what to do. they belong in the middle. Genes don’t Let me articulate the concept in the lan- cause; they respond. It is important to guage of contemporary neuroscience: understand gene activity as a reaction to We form new neural networks, and we a particular environment or experience. expand and train neuromuscular con- I use environment very broadly here to nections. Sometimes the memory is include both a cellular environment, say, maintained primarily in the peripheral in the developing embryo, and behaviors nervous system; other times the neural and experiences that stimulate gene ac- network involves the brain. tivity. Several features of incorporated The enormous and growing literature knowledge are conceptually interesting on neural plasticity is exemplary. From for an understanding of the develop- birth through , the density ment of human desire. First, there are of synapses in the human brain–a meas- improvisational elements: incorpora- ure of increasing complexity, connectivi- tion is contextual rather than abstract. ty, and speci½city–more than doubles. Second, incorporated knowledge is, lit- Recent work in the neurosciences shows erally, sedimented in the body and thus that central nervous system develop- resists change. Third, because it is habit- ment is dynamic and activity-depend- ual, it is not part of conscious memory. ent. In other words, throughout child- But–and this is the fourth point–be- hood, the brain grows, and nerve cells cause it is contextual, sedimented, and make and lose and remake and stabilize nonconscious, it is possible, through the multiple connections in response to ex- human capacity to narrate our own lives, periences and behaviors. Gene activity for it to become a part of our conscious mediates these events but does not cause thought as well. In proper cybernetic them in a directional sense. thinking our narrations of desire can in A dynamic approach, potentially, can turn modify incorporated knowledge. give us purchase on the question of how All of which places us at the beginning we come to embody desire. While the of a new effort to understand human early and mid-twentieth-century work sexuality. The information already gath- of philosophers, physiologists, psychia- ered using previous methods and con- trists, and psychologists such as Paul Schilder, Douwe Tiersma, and M. Mer- 20 N. K. Hayles, “The Materiality of Informat- leau-Ponty should be revisited in this ics,” Con½gurations: A Journal of Literature Sci- context, I want in this shorter piece to ence and Technology 1 (Winter 1993): 147–170.

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/daed.2007.136.2.47 by guest on 24 September 2021 cepts may be of some use in helping to Frameworks shape new research frameworks, even of desire though I argue that we must radically shift gears, abandoning the old ways and forging new approaches. I urge scholars from the sciences, social sciences, and humanities to devote their energies to developing newly framed analytical projects in discussion with one another. I believe we can recoup the energy lost by continued devotion to the old nature versus nurture, genes versus choice de- bate and charge our batteries with ideas that promise an understanding of hu- man sexuality as something complex, ever changing, and more delectable for its very dynamism.

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