Title
Author
Main Points
Relevant quotes
The Invention of
‘Heterosexuality
Brandon
Ambrosino
•
Anything that has been constructed
can be deconstructed
•
before 1934 -> heterosexuality meant
abnormal/morbid desire for those of
the opposite sex
•
before 19__ -> no word for
heterosexuality at all
•
the distinction between sex &
sexuality -> “sex has no history” but
sexuality, as a social construct, does
•
There have always been sexual
instincts throughout the animal world
(sex). But at a specific point in time,
humans attached meaning to theses
instincts (sexuality). When humans
talk about heterosexuality, we’re
talking about the second thing.
•
heterosexual sex -> act, natural, fact |
heterosexual identity -> identity,
socially constructed to have
significance by the institutions and
the people who run them
•
Debates about sexual orientation
have tended to focus on a badly
defined concept of “nature”. Because
different sex intercourse generally
results in the propagation of the
species, we award it a special moral
status. But “nature” doesn’t reveal to
us our moral obligations.
“Systematic,
rep
universally applicable
for social managem
could be implemented
scale”.
Queer and Now
Eve
Kosofsky
Sedgwick
•
High rates of LGBTQ+ youth
depression and suicide attempts
•
Christmas effects
•
When the Church, State etc.
are all speaking with one voice
•
Legal holidays, school
holidays, advertisements etc.
•
Normatively you should be able to
figure out someone’s whole sexual
identity if you know one aspect of it
(ex: a person with a penis is a man
who likes a female who is a person
with XX chromosomes etc.)
•
Queer -> when this deduction
is inaccurate
•
She argue against the monolithic
understandings of sexuality that
presume sexual identity as a static
identity category.
•
Queer is “the op
of possibilities,
overlaps, disson
and resonances
and excesses of
when the consti
elements of any
gender, of anyo
sexuality aren’t
(and can’t be m
signify monolith
•
On the Christma
•
“The ho
constitu
image o
family”
•
“They al
up with
other so
once a y
the mon
created
one can
view”
History of Sexuality
Vol. 1
Michel
Foucault
•
Power is productive
•
Michel Foucault -> French, 20th
century philosophical historian, raised
in wealthy, well educated family, who
criticizes powerful institutions and
takes a liberal view to historical facts
(history is a storehouse for ideas, not
necessarily to be used as a set
narrative)
•
(from Rubin) criticizes traditional
understandings of sexuality | desires
are not pre-existing biological entities
but rather, constituted in the course
of historically specific social practices
•
Basically, before the 19th century ->
there was less censorship of sex &
bodies however, with the rise of the
Victorian Bourgeoisie came the rise of
censorship
•
Classifications don’t simply describe,
but constitute identities, in historical
and culturally specific ways
•
Foucault’s doubts/questions:
•
1. Is sexual repression truly
an established historical fact?
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- Fall '18
- Roberto Benedicto
- History of Sexuality
