Even without appealing to Foucault, I think one can still say that
your reply is full of undefined terms, hasty generalizations, and
concepts that need much unpacking before one can begin to speak about
them. At the very least, if one is doing what one calls philosophy,
it's dangerous to appeal to that ephemeral thing called the
phenomenological observation or empirical fact without a lot of
caveats; that's not even postmodernism, just critical reasoning:
> Subject: Re: Rape
> Reply-to: foucault@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
{snip}
>
> This is not using the term "sexual" in the same sense that I used it (see
> my earlier post on definitions). "Sexual" here means "concerning those
> matters between genders" whereas I was using the term to mean a bodily
> based desire. I'm sorry but I cannot buy the total Foucaultian-Butlerian
> view that all sexuality is socially constructed. Why don't people look at
> themselves and see the bodies they have!!!
First off, this is a basic collapsing of the terms 'gender' and
'sex,' not to mention 'sex' and 'sexuality,' into a sloppy whole. It
does not necessarily follow from what sort of body one has what one's
sexuality is, and if one rejects the biological determinist position,
then one must be open to some form of social or psychological
constructionism.
Furthermore, re: 'gender':
A significant portion of the population is born with 'indeterminate'
genitalia at birth; it is then up to the doctor, usually, to assign
those persons a gender. What gender that is depends partly on the
percieved suitability of the present anatomy, and to a great extent
on the social prejudices of the doctor and/or the parents. If one
wants it, this is a clear-cut case of at least one instance of a
socially constructed gender--not just the gender identity, mind you,
but the body itself.
> So, your reply here does not
> address the point I wqs making (or really just asking a question about).
> Further, I find it very difficult to put any reliance on or accept the
> words of a person who hae claimed that all heterosexual sex is rape.
It's not even worth debating the assertions behind that claim? Such a
person is *a priori* wrong?
> This,
> now I see, makes some sense from a foucaultian standpoint but ignores the
> basic facts that we are "sexual" beings: that is, beings with certain
> sexual organs and drives. "sexuality" might be socially constructed, I
> admit this wholeheartedly; but we still have sex- we still are sexed!
>
>
An interesting equivocation between "having sex" and "being sexed."
Is sexuality active or passive? An attribute or a performance?
Something one owns, or something one does? Your language here is
unclear.
Further, what does it mean, then, if you admit that "sexuality" (I
presume here you mean identification of object choice) is
constructed, but (thank Godd!) we still "have" sex. If sexuality is
constructed, then just what significance does this "sex" that we have
(or that is done to us) take on?
> >
> >2)Monique Plaza (1980):
> >
> >it is social sexing which underlies rape;
> >
> >While it may not be exclusively practiced on women, "rape is sexual
> >essentially because it rest on the very social difference between the
> >sexes... It is social sexing which is latent in rape. If men rape women,
> >it is precisely because they are women in a social sense"; and when a male
> >is raped, he too is raped "as a woman"
> >
>
> Same comments apply. This only proves my point more, however, because when
> we say that when a male is raped he is repaed as a woman, what we mean is
> that the person doing the raping is rapiong as a man. But then one must
> still answer my previous questions of what differentiates the abuse of
> women throughout history from the abuse of jews, barbains, etc.
>
What differentiates rape from the abuse of "jews, barbarians, etc.",
is the fact that rape cuts across and through all of these categories
of oppressed persons--there has been a rape of jewish women,
barbarian women...rape is a category that is inflicted upon both
women as a class in general, individualized women, and women *of* a
particular class in specific. The rape of a captive population's
women acts an act of supplementary terror, over and above the
generalized terror.
> >- in his characterization of hysterization of women as 1 of the 4 unified
> >strategies in the deployment of sexual power/knowledge, Foucault seems not
> >to consider that rape could be the primary tool through which women are
> >"hysterized".
> >
> Now this is an intersting insight and I am not sure how to treat it because
> I am not sure what you mean by "hysterized." But still, the point I take
> it is that throuhg the implicit threat of rape, men exert a certain control
> over women which makes them prone to thie hysterization. This agin has
> nothing to do with sex but with power.
>
Again, as I observed some time ago, there is here an implicit
conflation between descriptive and prescriptive statements. You
*asserts* that rape as sexual control has nothing to do with "sex,"
thus either making an implicit empirical unproven claim about what
constitutes "sex," or making a normative claim about what "sex"
*should* constitute.
If you are making the first sort of claim you need to demonstrate how
sex is not empirically and essentially connected with violence; if
you are making the second, all you need to do is show why sex *ought*
not to be about violence. This is much simpler in a
social-constructionist view of sexuality.
>
> >-there is a contradiction at the heart of Foucault's modest proposal, a
> >contradiction which his analysis of sexuality does not serve to resolve:
> >To release "bodies and pleasures" from the legal control of the state, and
> >from the relations of power exercised through the technology of sex, is to
> >affirm and perpetuate the present social relations which give men rights
> >over women's bodies.
>
> I am not sure if I agree here. If men are in control of the state and
> government, then releasing sexual bodies and pleasure froms this legal
> control at least gives women and others a better chance to combat it in the
> battelfield, so to speak. The real problem, though, is to release state
> control from the hands of "males": those sexually constructed beings who
> are constructed to be aggressive and powerful.
>
Bwah? I read what you were saying before is that sexuality is *not*
socially constructed; now you are making a claim that males are
"sexually constructed. . .to be aggressive and powerful." If "sex"
is just "sex," then you either must show that the construction of
males to be violent has nothing to do with gender (in which case,
what *does* it have to do with?), or you have to make some sort of
empirical claim. Either way, you really seem to be contradicting
yourself.
{snip}
>
> It seems to me that men find the focus of their "power" in their sexual
> organ- the penis. It is no surprise, then, that when a male wants to hurt
> someone and exercising power over someone he would do it as much through
> his sexual organ as possible, and he would attack the sexual organs of
> others becuase he sees it as their locus of power.
>
This is a phenomenological/empirical claim; the question is, *why* do
men do this? If we are talking genealogies of desire here, which is what the
construction vs. biologism debate seems to be doing, then one needs
to make some observations about where this perspective comes from. I
mean, this really says no more than "Most serial killers find their
knives and guns to be their focus of power and women to be their
target of choice; it's not surprising that serial killers therefore
kill women using knives and guns."
> >-rape is very much related to this culture's view of women as persons who
> >exist to serve male sexual desires & interests no matter the cost to their
> >own female sexual desires & interests.
>
> Again this does not serve your point but mine, for you are really
> speaking about power and not desire
>
> >
Again, undefined terms. If a serial killer has an ejaculation from
killing someone, how exactly do you sort out whether that
physiological response was triggered by "power" or "desire,"
empirically? Unless you are speaking in normative terms...
>
> Gender inequAlity has nothinf to do with sexual desire but with power.
>
Again, see above. Normative or empirical?
>
> Feeling a little haughty.
Please try and avoid ad hominems.
> I still don't think you have proved your point.
> Many of your analyses and quotes can be used to support the opposing
> opinion. However, what has been shown most emphatically is the
> interconnectedness of jurdico-discursive power and dsiplinary power. What
> I have tried to point out is that rape is an overt juridical form of power.
> What your analysis has helped shown is that it is supported and perhaps
> enforced by an underlying discplinary power or bio-power. Rape is the
> overt form, but the institution of rape-laws, the distinction between
> genders, the obvious male-dominance in society shows that what functions in
> the control of people is the threat of being raped and of being treated
> like a female, which means, from a socially constructed viewpoint,
> powerless, weak, servant. "Males" are socially constructed as aggressive
> domineering individuals, while "females" are socially constructed as
> powerless individuals. "Males" call women who are not "females" dykes
> becuase they do not fall into their socially constructed category of weak
> and so are really "males." It also imposes a certain challenge to "males"
> to dominate these women since they are stepping out of line.
>
Given that you are granting all this, I am extremely perplexed by
your "desire" (or is it a power move?) to retreat to some sort of a
notion of the underlying body and empirical sexuality as some sort of
substratum upon which power is exercized.
> Again, the question which needs to be answered is why are women throuhgout
> all societies "raped"? What distinguishes rape from anti-semitism or
> homophobia? Or, is it the case that all soceities treat their women in
> this way? What about the mythical Amazon's? OR is war simpoly the version
> of "rape" ahgainst other males- rather than attacking their sex organs,
> which is not always avoided, they rape the city of its poseessions?
>
> Just as a last thought, perhaps "males" rape women's sex organs- vagina and
> anu because there are no other holes. Or perhaps the vagina and the anus
> are seen as "natural" the thing closest to nature, and "rape" is simply an
> enactment of man's desire to dominate nature.
You are again moving rather quickly and somewhat bewilderingly
through several distinct levels of analysis and making wildly
differing claims involving empirical, normative, descriptive,
prescriptive, causal, and phenomenological aspects of the situation.
What is "man's desire to dominate nature?" Is this an empirical claim
about the essence of "man"? Do you mean man, homo sapiens, or the
socially constructed "man" you mentioned above? Why do you use the
word "desire" when you seemed very anxious above to differentiate
"desire" from "power"? Are you now admitting a "desire" to dominate?
Why is a hole seen as being close to "nature," whatever *that* means?
>
> In any case, I think the above questions need to be answered to have a true
> understanding of "rape", but also of "maleness" and "femaleness" and of
> power in our societies.
>
Indeed.
///Connor
> Jeff
>
> JLN
> jlnich1@xxxxxxxxxxx
> Department of Philosophy
> University of Kentucky
> Lexington, KY. 40509
>
>
>
_________________________________________________________
E.M. Connor Durflinger Philosopher for Hire
"Have Forestructures, Will Travel"
Reverend, Universal Life Church
bc05319@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx PIC Program at B.U.
_________________________________________________________
your reply is full of undefined terms, hasty generalizations, and
concepts that need much unpacking before one can begin to speak about
them. At the very least, if one is doing what one calls philosophy,
it's dangerous to appeal to that ephemeral thing called the
phenomenological observation or empirical fact without a lot of
caveats; that's not even postmodernism, just critical reasoning:
> Subject: Re: Rape
> Reply-to: foucault@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
{snip}
>
> This is not using the term "sexual" in the same sense that I used it (see
> my earlier post on definitions). "Sexual" here means "concerning those
> matters between genders" whereas I was using the term to mean a bodily
> based desire. I'm sorry but I cannot buy the total Foucaultian-Butlerian
> view that all sexuality is socially constructed. Why don't people look at
> themselves and see the bodies they have!!!
First off, this is a basic collapsing of the terms 'gender' and
'sex,' not to mention 'sex' and 'sexuality,' into a sloppy whole. It
does not necessarily follow from what sort of body one has what one's
sexuality is, and if one rejects the biological determinist position,
then one must be open to some form of social or psychological
constructionism.
Furthermore, re: 'gender':
A significant portion of the population is born with 'indeterminate'
genitalia at birth; it is then up to the doctor, usually, to assign
those persons a gender. What gender that is depends partly on the
percieved suitability of the present anatomy, and to a great extent
on the social prejudices of the doctor and/or the parents. If one
wants it, this is a clear-cut case of at least one instance of a
socially constructed gender--not just the gender identity, mind you,
but the body itself.
> So, your reply here does not
> address the point I wqs making (or really just asking a question about).
> Further, I find it very difficult to put any reliance on or accept the
> words of a person who hae claimed that all heterosexual sex is rape.
It's not even worth debating the assertions behind that claim? Such a
person is *a priori* wrong?
> This,
> now I see, makes some sense from a foucaultian standpoint but ignores the
> basic facts that we are "sexual" beings: that is, beings with certain
> sexual organs and drives. "sexuality" might be socially constructed, I
> admit this wholeheartedly; but we still have sex- we still are sexed!
>
>
An interesting equivocation between "having sex" and "being sexed."
Is sexuality active or passive? An attribute or a performance?
Something one owns, or something one does? Your language here is
unclear.
Further, what does it mean, then, if you admit that "sexuality" (I
presume here you mean identification of object choice) is
constructed, but (thank Godd!) we still "have" sex. If sexuality is
constructed, then just what significance does this "sex" that we have
(or that is done to us) take on?
> >
> >2)Monique Plaza (1980):
> >
> >it is social sexing which underlies rape;
> >
> >While it may not be exclusively practiced on women, "rape is sexual
> >essentially because it rest on the very social difference between the
> >sexes... It is social sexing which is latent in rape. If men rape women,
> >it is precisely because they are women in a social sense"; and when a male
> >is raped, he too is raped "as a woman"
> >
>
> Same comments apply. This only proves my point more, however, because when
> we say that when a male is raped he is repaed as a woman, what we mean is
> that the person doing the raping is rapiong as a man. But then one must
> still answer my previous questions of what differentiates the abuse of
> women throughout history from the abuse of jews, barbains, etc.
>
What differentiates rape from the abuse of "jews, barbarians, etc.",
is the fact that rape cuts across and through all of these categories
of oppressed persons--there has been a rape of jewish women,
barbarian women...rape is a category that is inflicted upon both
women as a class in general, individualized women, and women *of* a
particular class in specific. The rape of a captive population's
women acts an act of supplementary terror, over and above the
generalized terror.
> >- in his characterization of hysterization of women as 1 of the 4 unified
> >strategies in the deployment of sexual power/knowledge, Foucault seems not
> >to consider that rape could be the primary tool through which women are
> >"hysterized".
> >
> Now this is an intersting insight and I am not sure how to treat it because
> I am not sure what you mean by "hysterized." But still, the point I take
> it is that throuhg the implicit threat of rape, men exert a certain control
> over women which makes them prone to thie hysterization. This agin has
> nothing to do with sex but with power.
>
Again, as I observed some time ago, there is here an implicit
conflation between descriptive and prescriptive statements. You
*asserts* that rape as sexual control has nothing to do with "sex,"
thus either making an implicit empirical unproven claim about what
constitutes "sex," or making a normative claim about what "sex"
*should* constitute.
If you are making the first sort of claim you need to demonstrate how
sex is not empirically and essentially connected with violence; if
you are making the second, all you need to do is show why sex *ought*
not to be about violence. This is much simpler in a
social-constructionist view of sexuality.
>
> >-there is a contradiction at the heart of Foucault's modest proposal, a
> >contradiction which his analysis of sexuality does not serve to resolve:
> >To release "bodies and pleasures" from the legal control of the state, and
> >from the relations of power exercised through the technology of sex, is to
> >affirm and perpetuate the present social relations which give men rights
> >over women's bodies.
>
> I am not sure if I agree here. If men are in control of the state and
> government, then releasing sexual bodies and pleasure froms this legal
> control at least gives women and others a better chance to combat it in the
> battelfield, so to speak. The real problem, though, is to release state
> control from the hands of "males": those sexually constructed beings who
> are constructed to be aggressive and powerful.
>
Bwah? I read what you were saying before is that sexuality is *not*
socially constructed; now you are making a claim that males are
"sexually constructed. . .to be aggressive and powerful." If "sex"
is just "sex," then you either must show that the construction of
males to be violent has nothing to do with gender (in which case,
what *does* it have to do with?), or you have to make some sort of
empirical claim. Either way, you really seem to be contradicting
yourself.
{snip}
>
> It seems to me that men find the focus of their "power" in their sexual
> organ- the penis. It is no surprise, then, that when a male wants to hurt
> someone and exercising power over someone he would do it as much through
> his sexual organ as possible, and he would attack the sexual organs of
> others becuase he sees it as their locus of power.
>
This is a phenomenological/empirical claim; the question is, *why* do
men do this? If we are talking genealogies of desire here, which is what the
construction vs. biologism debate seems to be doing, then one needs
to make some observations about where this perspective comes from. I
mean, this really says no more than "Most serial killers find their
knives and guns to be their focus of power and women to be their
target of choice; it's not surprising that serial killers therefore
kill women using knives and guns."
> >-rape is very much related to this culture's view of women as persons who
> >exist to serve male sexual desires & interests no matter the cost to their
> >own female sexual desires & interests.
>
> Again this does not serve your point but mine, for you are really
> speaking about power and not desire
>
> >
Again, undefined terms. If a serial killer has an ejaculation from
killing someone, how exactly do you sort out whether that
physiological response was triggered by "power" or "desire,"
empirically? Unless you are speaking in normative terms...
>
> Gender inequAlity has nothinf to do with sexual desire but with power.
>
Again, see above. Normative or empirical?
>
> Feeling a little haughty.
Please try and avoid ad hominems.
> I still don't think you have proved your point.
> Many of your analyses and quotes can be used to support the opposing
> opinion. However, what has been shown most emphatically is the
> interconnectedness of jurdico-discursive power and dsiplinary power. What
> I have tried to point out is that rape is an overt juridical form of power.
> What your analysis has helped shown is that it is supported and perhaps
> enforced by an underlying discplinary power or bio-power. Rape is the
> overt form, but the institution of rape-laws, the distinction between
> genders, the obvious male-dominance in society shows that what functions in
> the control of people is the threat of being raped and of being treated
> like a female, which means, from a socially constructed viewpoint,
> powerless, weak, servant. "Males" are socially constructed as aggressive
> domineering individuals, while "females" are socially constructed as
> powerless individuals. "Males" call women who are not "females" dykes
> becuase they do not fall into their socially constructed category of weak
> and so are really "males." It also imposes a certain challenge to "males"
> to dominate these women since they are stepping out of line.
>
Given that you are granting all this, I am extremely perplexed by
your "desire" (or is it a power move?) to retreat to some sort of a
notion of the underlying body and empirical sexuality as some sort of
substratum upon which power is exercized.
> Again, the question which needs to be answered is why are women throuhgout
> all societies "raped"? What distinguishes rape from anti-semitism or
> homophobia? Or, is it the case that all soceities treat their women in
> this way? What about the mythical Amazon's? OR is war simpoly the version
> of "rape" ahgainst other males- rather than attacking their sex organs,
> which is not always avoided, they rape the city of its poseessions?
>
> Just as a last thought, perhaps "males" rape women's sex organs- vagina and
> anu because there are no other holes. Or perhaps the vagina and the anus
> are seen as "natural" the thing closest to nature, and "rape" is simply an
> enactment of man's desire to dominate nature.
You are again moving rather quickly and somewhat bewilderingly
through several distinct levels of analysis and making wildly
differing claims involving empirical, normative, descriptive,
prescriptive, causal, and phenomenological aspects of the situation.
What is "man's desire to dominate nature?" Is this an empirical claim
about the essence of "man"? Do you mean man, homo sapiens, or the
socially constructed "man" you mentioned above? Why do you use the
word "desire" when you seemed very anxious above to differentiate
"desire" from "power"? Are you now admitting a "desire" to dominate?
Why is a hole seen as being close to "nature," whatever *that* means?
>
> In any case, I think the above questions need to be answered to have a true
> understanding of "rape", but also of "maleness" and "femaleness" and of
> power in our societies.
>
Indeed.
///Connor
> Jeff
>
> JLN
> jlnich1@xxxxxxxxxxx
> Department of Philosophy
> University of Kentucky
> Lexington, KY. 40509
>
>
>
_________________________________________________________
E.M. Connor Durflinger Philosopher for Hire
"Have Forestructures, Will Travel"
Reverend, Universal Life Church
bc05319@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx PIC Program at B.U.
_________________________________________________________