On Thu, 9 May 1996, Gregory A. Coolidge wrote:
> Judith Butler would vehemently disagree with you that sexuality occurs at the
> jucture of biology and social construction. The radicallness of Butler's
> account, is that sex is in no way biologically motivated. If it were, one
> has some grounds to label lesbians, gays, as abnormal, based upon thier
> bilogocal make-up, which because of X and Y chromosomes, dictates that
> females should behave like females and males should behave as males in
> the realm of sexuality. Butler's point, borrowed from Foucualt, is that we
> are to imagine sex as devoid of biological determiantions, to view it
> entirely as a social construction.
I understand Butler's point insofar as a purely biological
explanation of sexual behavior, especially if it attempts to
designate what is "normal" and what is "abnormal," can cast anything other
than "heterosex" in an ethically negative light. Where I disagree with
Butler is at the point at which she finds it necessary to jettison
completley ideas of biological influences on sexual behavior in favor of a
notion of sex as pure social construction. I think it might be more
useful to critique the degree to which the appeal to biology dominates
discussions of what is normal and what is abberant; if part of sex is
what you're born with and part is what you inherit within various fields
of social discourse, surely discourse is capable af asserting competing
claims of what is normal and abnormal as well. Furthermore, as others
have pointed out, the meaning of "what you're born with," is itself a
particular discourse; and why ignore the biological discourse in favor of
discourses of "social construction?"
In such a way, one's sex can not
> be construed as noraml or abnormal, it simply is what it is. To rest
> sex on any notion of the biological, would, for Butler, put an inherent
> limit on the sexualities open to individuals, it is to play the game
> of normalizing sexuality (as is the case now), by attaching it to
> biology as the foundation of noraml human sexuality. Such a notion may
> appear ridiculous to you, since it avoids our obviously biological
> nature as organisms (we are clearly creatures composed of genes, etc.), but it is what Butler would like you to imagine
> when you conceive of sexuality, and when you attempt to critique
> contempoary controls and limitations on human sexuality. It is a theoretical
> vantage point from which to conceive of sexuality, perhaps not to be taken
> literally, but to be taken quite seriously in the realm of the political.
>
I wholeheartedly agree that such theoretical viewpoints are to be taken
seriously, certainly as seriously as so-called objective viewpoints handed
to us by scientific discourse. But I would like to see a more amiable
marriage between discourses appealing to science and those appealing to
social theory, because the topic of sex is certainly inhabited by
discourses of all sorts.
Incidently, recent developments in the scientific discourse of
sexuality are perhaps less oppressive as far as attempting to label sexual
preferences as "normal" and "abnormal." In the past decade there have been
numerous articles elucidating brain regions that differ among
heterosexuals and homosexuals, with corresponding differences in genetic
expression and biochemical profiles. These differences suggest that there
can be no appeal to biology as a basis for the view that heterosexual
preferences are "normal;" rather, we are likely to find a biology of sex
as variegated and complex as human sexual behaviors/preferences
themselves.
> Judith Butler would vehemently disagree with you that sexuality occurs at the
> jucture of biology and social construction. The radicallness of Butler's
> account, is that sex is in no way biologically motivated. If it were, one
> has some grounds to label lesbians, gays, as abnormal, based upon thier
> bilogocal make-up, which because of X and Y chromosomes, dictates that
> females should behave like females and males should behave as males in
> the realm of sexuality. Butler's point, borrowed from Foucualt, is that we
> are to imagine sex as devoid of biological determiantions, to view it
> entirely as a social construction.
I understand Butler's point insofar as a purely biological
explanation of sexual behavior, especially if it attempts to
designate what is "normal" and what is "abnormal," can cast anything other
than "heterosex" in an ethically negative light. Where I disagree with
Butler is at the point at which she finds it necessary to jettison
completley ideas of biological influences on sexual behavior in favor of a
notion of sex as pure social construction. I think it might be more
useful to critique the degree to which the appeal to biology dominates
discussions of what is normal and what is abberant; if part of sex is
what you're born with and part is what you inherit within various fields
of social discourse, surely discourse is capable af asserting competing
claims of what is normal and abnormal as well. Furthermore, as others
have pointed out, the meaning of "what you're born with," is itself a
particular discourse; and why ignore the biological discourse in favor of
discourses of "social construction?"
In such a way, one's sex can not
> be construed as noraml or abnormal, it simply is what it is. To rest
> sex on any notion of the biological, would, for Butler, put an inherent
> limit on the sexualities open to individuals, it is to play the game
> of normalizing sexuality (as is the case now), by attaching it to
> biology as the foundation of noraml human sexuality. Such a notion may
> appear ridiculous to you, since it avoids our obviously biological
> nature as organisms (we are clearly creatures composed of genes, etc.), but it is what Butler would like you to imagine
> when you conceive of sexuality, and when you attempt to critique
> contempoary controls and limitations on human sexuality. It is a theoretical
> vantage point from which to conceive of sexuality, perhaps not to be taken
> literally, but to be taken quite seriously in the realm of the political.
>
I wholeheartedly agree that such theoretical viewpoints are to be taken
seriously, certainly as seriously as so-called objective viewpoints handed
to us by scientific discourse. But I would like to see a more amiable
marriage between discourses appealing to science and those appealing to
social theory, because the topic of sex is certainly inhabited by
discourses of all sorts.
Incidently, recent developments in the scientific discourse of
sexuality are perhaps less oppressive as far as attempting to label sexual
preferences as "normal" and "abnormal." In the past decade there have been
numerous articles elucidating brain regions that differ among
heterosexuals and homosexuals, with corresponding differences in genetic
expression and biochemical profiles. These differences suggest that there
can be no appeal to biology as a basis for the view that heterosexual
preferences are "normal;" rather, we are likely to find a biology of sex
as variegated and complex as human sexual behaviors/preferences
themselves.