Kant’s authoritarian views on sexuality are essentially that sex involves the objectification of one by the other, and that this is immoral. This comes from the carnal lust that one feels for another, that removes that lust-object’s humanity, and renders them something akin to a blow-up doll. However, even Kant could see that sex is necessary for the continued existence of humanity so in order to alleviate some of the moral ‘wrongness’ of it all, he suggested that marriage act as a clause. In marrying someone you give yourself to that person in exchange for that person giving themselves to you, and in doing so become one. This should negate the disregard of one person’s humanity by the other (I guess it then becomes an objectification of your own humanity (in a sense), and that is, apparently, alright). My question, then, is why doesn’t something less formal than marriage (such as a pledge of love for one another) suffice in Kant’s book? Why must institutions recognition of a union be essential?
I don’t really have an answer in my head for my hypothetical question to Kant, but what I would like to point out is a startling comparison to what Foucault was talking about in his ‘A History of Sexuality’. Foucault writes about not a repression of sexuality but a proliferation of sexuality through an institution’s control and co-opting of sexuality. It seems as though Kant takes the morality out of the control of the couple, and instead puts it in the hands of an institution; thereby involving the institution in the sexual lives people. This allows the institution (let’s imply that the institutions involved in marriage are the government, and the whatever church is affiliated with the marriage, should it be a religious one) to set boundaries, and norms, that will affect certain aspects of the union. Will this then give the institution(s) allowance to change aspects of the marriage contract at a whim (not even cell phone companies are allowed to do this)? I’d think so.
In short, I believe that a less-formal commitment than marriage should suffice to overcome Kant’s moral bugbears of sexuality (if there are any at all). It could just as easily involve the combination of two persons into one, all the while keeping your sexuality in your hands, not in the hands of shadowy institutions.
Thursday, 15 February 2007
Wednesday, 14 February 2007
Probably the only time you'll see Foucalt and David Suzuki together in writing.
Foucault’s theory of the institutionalization of sex lends itself to the thought that the institutions control the taboos of sex as well. One such case of the medical community taking advantage of the paranoia of the judiciary (in terms of sex) was detailed in Foucault’s The History of Sexuality (on pages 31-32 (49-50 of the numbered pages)). In it, Foucault tells the story of a village man-child who would receive sexual favors from the young girls in the village, as he had seen countless other village urchins do before him. After being pointed out to the authorities by the girls’ parents he was whisked away to a medical asylum where he was studied (in a very draconic way) in order to determine what motivated such a man. They even took measurements of facial structures and brainpans as if they would yield the secrets as to why he resorted to such hedonism (“Of course. His low-hanging brow, and pineapple shaped head clearly make this miscreant stand out as a defiler, and a deviant!”).
This act of locking a man up in a hospital for the rest of his life only proliferated the discourses on sexuality, after all the doctors who studied the poor man published their findings. This is in line with Foucault’s claims of institutions taking control of sexuality. By publishing these superstitious and biased findings they helped mold sexuality into how they think the common person should see it: as a danger that must be controlled within oneself, lest you become a slave to your own compulsions. Without having read any of the findings I can only assume what they might have stirred up in the mainstream western world: a paranoia of sexual predators lurking within ones own village; a further proliferation of the thought of sex, as disturbing, and rigid; the possibilities are almost endless.
David Suzuki once wrote an essay on how our society’s perception of what is ‘dirty’ and how we inform our children of such was preventing our society’s enjoyment of nature. The common vocal concern of parents in regards to children is an aversion to the child playing with dirt, or soil, when in reality the soil is relatively clean, and harmless. This thought gets ingrained in the child’s head that all of nature is hazardous, or filthy, and must be avoided thus creating an overly sterile society. I imagine the same thing happened/is happening with sexuality through these various institutions, and their disdain for us ‘playing in the dirt’.
This act of locking a man up in a hospital for the rest of his life only proliferated the discourses on sexuality, after all the doctors who studied the poor man published their findings. This is in line with Foucault’s claims of institutions taking control of sexuality. By publishing these superstitious and biased findings they helped mold sexuality into how they think the common person should see it: as a danger that must be controlled within oneself, lest you become a slave to your own compulsions. Without having read any of the findings I can only assume what they might have stirred up in the mainstream western world: a paranoia of sexual predators lurking within ones own village; a further proliferation of the thought of sex, as disturbing, and rigid; the possibilities are almost endless.
David Suzuki once wrote an essay on how our society’s perception of what is ‘dirty’ and how we inform our children of such was preventing our society’s enjoyment of nature. The common vocal concern of parents in regards to children is an aversion to the child playing with dirt, or soil, when in reality the soil is relatively clean, and harmless. This thought gets ingrained in the child’s head that all of nature is hazardous, or filthy, and must be avoided thus creating an overly sterile society. I imagine the same thing happened/is happening with sexuality through these various institutions, and their disdain for us ‘playing in the dirt’.
Monday, 12 February 2007
Issues with my mother... I mean Freud. Freud!
In Sigmund Freud’s work, Sexuality and the Psychology of Love he gives his theory for homosexuality in women as a more convoluted form of the Oedipus Complex. From what I can gather there are two main ways (according to Freud) that a woman can become a homosexual: One is through penis envy; and the other comes from the girl “retiring in favor of” leaving men to her mother. I have a hard time believing either of these, though if I had to choose the most plausible I would have to choose the penis envy one (but even that one’s a stretch for me). I will look at both cases somewhat in depth and explain my disbelief afterwards.
Penis envy, it’s exactly what you think it means. According to Freud, penis envy occurs when a young girl first sees a male naked and notices that he has a penis and she does not, this is a traumatic experience for the girl as it makes her feel as though she’s lacking in something. This can then go one of three ways, she can transfer her desire for a penis into an attraction for men, by way of taking her father as a love object and trying to find a man like him; she can renounce sexuality altogether; or she can develop a desire to obtain this penis by taking on the characteristics of being a man, thus becoming a homosexual woman. Freud doesn’t exactly say what causes a woman to choose one of these paths, but they eventually all do, as they seem to cover all the bases. My problem is that this is a very male-centric viewpoint being taken. What’s to say that the girl will see a naked boy and jump to the conclusion that he is her superior? It was brought up by one of the people in my group that the boy does not suffer from ‘breast envy’ when being breastfed, so why should the girl feel penis envy?
The second of Freud’s theories is a bit more complicated to explain, but no less hard to swallow. The little girl goes through a female Oedipus Complex transferring her object of love from her mother to her father, whom she realizes desires to have a male child. The girl then desires to give her father the child but for whatever reason, she comes to the realization that this cannot happen (this is either due to the superego’s (the part of the brain that deals with social norms) awareness in the girls mind, or the fact that her mother has given birth, and not her). So, as a form of disappointment, the girl gives up taking men for her love-object, as she realizes that she cannot compete with her mother. As if that wasn’t strange enough, Freud then claims that the girl becomes a male and goes through a second Oedipal Complex, this time from the perspective of the boy (hating his father and loving his mother), thus she has a sort of androgynous quality about her. This theory seems very convoluted, and seems like Freud had a fairly solid theory with the Oedipal Complex but found no obvious way for it to apply to women. I dare say that he worked backwards with the Oedipal Complex and tried to accommodate it for women. Accommodation does not necessarily render an argument invalid, but Freud’s seems forced.
Freud had some very revolutionary ideas and the simple fact that he was trying to unravel sexuality in his time is worthy of accolade in itself. I am, by no means, claiming that I beat Freud by refuting his claims because when it comes down to it, Freud was a doctor, and a founder of an acclaimed school of psychology, and my claim to fame is being an avid fan of Dune. I do, however, have some qualms about his theories and their applications.
Penis envy, it’s exactly what you think it means. According to Freud, penis envy occurs when a young girl first sees a male naked and notices that he has a penis and she does not, this is a traumatic experience for the girl as it makes her feel as though she’s lacking in something. This can then go one of three ways, she can transfer her desire for a penis into an attraction for men, by way of taking her father as a love object and trying to find a man like him; she can renounce sexuality altogether; or she can develop a desire to obtain this penis by taking on the characteristics of being a man, thus becoming a homosexual woman. Freud doesn’t exactly say what causes a woman to choose one of these paths, but they eventually all do, as they seem to cover all the bases. My problem is that this is a very male-centric viewpoint being taken. What’s to say that the girl will see a naked boy and jump to the conclusion that he is her superior? It was brought up by one of the people in my group that the boy does not suffer from ‘breast envy’ when being breastfed, so why should the girl feel penis envy?
The second of Freud’s theories is a bit more complicated to explain, but no less hard to swallow. The little girl goes through a female Oedipus Complex transferring her object of love from her mother to her father, whom she realizes desires to have a male child. The girl then desires to give her father the child but for whatever reason, she comes to the realization that this cannot happen (this is either due to the superego’s (the part of the brain that deals with social norms) awareness in the girls mind, or the fact that her mother has given birth, and not her). So, as a form of disappointment, the girl gives up taking men for her love-object, as she realizes that she cannot compete with her mother. As if that wasn’t strange enough, Freud then claims that the girl becomes a male and goes through a second Oedipal Complex, this time from the perspective of the boy (hating his father and loving his mother), thus she has a sort of androgynous quality about her. This theory seems very convoluted, and seems like Freud had a fairly solid theory with the Oedipal Complex but found no obvious way for it to apply to women. I dare say that he worked backwards with the Oedipal Complex and tried to accommodate it for women. Accommodation does not necessarily render an argument invalid, but Freud’s seems forced.
Freud had some very revolutionary ideas and the simple fact that he was trying to unravel sexuality in his time is worthy of accolade in itself. I am, by no means, claiming that I beat Freud by refuting his claims because when it comes down to it, Freud was a doctor, and a founder of an acclaimed school of psychology, and my claim to fame is being an avid fan of Dune. I do, however, have some qualms about his theories and their applications.
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