The site won’t let me post this as a comment–
Hi Richard,
This is a perceptive discussion of the implications of the social constructionist position as described by both Foucault and Weeks in this week’s readings. In particular I want to highlight your point that, if the constructionist perspective is accurate, then “Foucault is not only analyzing the history of the discourse in sexuality, he is participating in it as well.” There is a kind of layering on of discourses and practices here. There are those from the time past that are being described and analyzed and there is the analysis itself from the time present—and both enter into what is being constructed in the present.
The key question that arises from this realization is whether all participation is the same in the sense that it promotes of the Deployment of Sexuality (as you sort of suggest). For class, be ready to talk about how resistance operates within the power relations of that Deployment and the status of what Foucault calls a “reverse discourse.”
In regard to Norton’s argument and the quote you cite about the difficulty of changing a person’s innate sexuality from homosexual to heterosexual, we might consider the reverse if attitudes toward homosexuality were to change to more normative ones. What would an essentialist say about this? Would it follow that it would be equally difficult for such a change to occur?
