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.
What????? In NO WAY biologically motivated? I hope for Ms
Butler's sake that you overstate her case. Have you (or has she) ever
heard of the bonobo? How are we to understand that creature, our closest
primate relative (according to people who study such things) and not only
the distinction between their sexual practices and ours but also the
uncanny similiarities between the practices?
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.
Are we not safe in assuming that an overwhelming majority of
living adult and sexually active human beings engage in cross-"sex"
copulation and that such is the case for most of our mammalian
relatives? Is it not then safe to assume that some degree of biological
determinism comes into play in this phenomenon? Is it reasonable to
suggest that biology and nature have NOTHING to do with our choices of
sexual partners?
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.
>
Here, I must disagree again. I think the extreme nature of Ms
Butler's argument makes it absolutely unconvincing and not at all
compelling. If this is the case for people who wish to think of these
issues in other terms, then it seems that Butler's argument (as it has
been presented here in cyberspace) only encourages her opponents in their
belief as opposed to persuading them in the least bit to her point of
view. Her argument opens itself up to ridicule and to the extent that it
does, allows people who have certain political ideas around sexuality/etc
to rest assured in those beliefs. I, personally, think it is better to
unsettle with the familiar rather than mock with the overly sophisticated
and opaque...
derrick