On Tue, 9 Jul 1996, Malcolm Dunnachie Thompson wrote:
>
> on a related note: i mean by the term "gay" something more than simply
> sexual attraction to men. i wish to dislodge gayness from its position
> within or underlying the individual, and make it into a political term of
> identification - like "communist". thus, gayness would come to exist as a
> signifier for a political choice involving loving relationships between
> men, anti-sexism, anti-heterosexuality.
[text deleted]
>
> "[Something] to distrust is the tendency to relate the question of
> homosexuality to the problem of "Who am I?" and "What is the secret of my
> desire?" Perhaps it would be better to ask oneself, "What relations,
> through homosexuality, can be established, invented, multiplied and
> modulated?" The problem is not to discover in oneself the truth of sex
> but rather to use sexuality henceforth to arrive at a multiplicity of
> relationships. And no doubt that's the real reason why homosexuality is
> not a form of desire but something desirable. Therefore we have to work
> at becoming homosexuals and not be obstinate in recognizing that we are.
> The development towards which the problem of homosexuality tends is the
> one of friendship." (page 308
Irigaray, also, in her attempts to foster the conditions that will
make change possible, appeals to this same concept of (female, in her case)
homosexual economy
as one of the forces that _logos_ has attempted to exlude from the symbolic
order. The other forces she sees promising include love and the
imagination that desires.
Darlene Sybert
http://www.missouri.edu/~engds/index.html
University of Missouri, Columbia (English)
*****************************************************************************
A discourse may poison, surround, encircle, imprison
or liberate, heal, nourish, fertilize. -Irigaray
******************************************************************************
>
> on a related note: i mean by the term "gay" something more than simply
> sexual attraction to men. i wish to dislodge gayness from its position
> within or underlying the individual, and make it into a political term of
> identification - like "communist". thus, gayness would come to exist as a
> signifier for a political choice involving loving relationships between
> men, anti-sexism, anti-heterosexuality.
[text deleted]
>
> "[Something] to distrust is the tendency to relate the question of
> homosexuality to the problem of "Who am I?" and "What is the secret of my
> desire?" Perhaps it would be better to ask oneself, "What relations,
> through homosexuality, can be established, invented, multiplied and
> modulated?" The problem is not to discover in oneself the truth of sex
> but rather to use sexuality henceforth to arrive at a multiplicity of
> relationships. And no doubt that's the real reason why homosexuality is
> not a form of desire but something desirable. Therefore we have to work
> at becoming homosexuals and not be obstinate in recognizing that we are.
> The development towards which the problem of homosexuality tends is the
> one of friendship." (page 308
Irigaray, also, in her attempts to foster the conditions that will
make change possible, appeals to this same concept of (female, in her case)
homosexual economy
as one of the forces that _logos_ has attempted to exlude from the symbolic
order. The other forces she sees promising include love and the
imagination that desires.
Darlene Sybert
http://www.missouri.edu/~engds/index.html
University of Missouri, Columbia (English)
*****************************************************************************
A discourse may poison, surround, encircle, imprison
or liberate, heal, nourish, fertilize. -Irigaray
******************************************************************************