Romantic Friendship Between Women
I continue to find myself surprised and shocked by what I read in Major Problems in the History of American Sexuality – and not so much by the theses of the essayists, but by the content of the primary documents published. So full of judgment, so full of values imposed cross-institutionally…and yet, I shouldn’t be surprised, because if I learned anything from reading History of Sexuality (and I did), it’s that the discourse surrounding a particular thing – and in this case, sexuality – encompasses all venues of discussion, public and private, positive and negative, helpful and hurtful, and everything in-between.
De. Ely Van De Warker’s discussion of the sale of an abortion remedy (for lack of a better term) is a perfect example of this. The language he uses leads me to believe that he intends not only to justify the amendment to the law of 1868 that he’s proposing, but also to reprimand the advertising business for doing what an advertiser must, and to back-handedly admonish the women who so chose to take those mixtures. He writes of needing to “suppress the advertisement…of any drug or mixture which is claimed to act as an emmenagogue…for the good of society.” (243) The tone of this article from the New York Medical Journal and something in Van De Warker’s language speaks to his ability, as a valued doctor, to pass judgment on decisions made regarding reproduction, in both action (or inaction) and method. He writes as though his legitimized, affirmed, honored title as Doctor takes precedence over the job that a man in advertising must do – advertise, to whatever extent, the product he is given to work with, make it seem useful and of utmost importance to the public. Ely Van De Warker is just a man with a job, with an hour to begin and an hour to end – the same as the man in advertising. One is not innately more objective than the other or well-intentioned than the other. What I mean by this is not that doctors are necessarily as ‘slimy’ as those who work in advertising, but that the profession of medical doctor, despite all doctors taking the Hippocratic Oath, is not by nature a righteous, virtuous profession, and regular, mortal, mistake-making, ‘sinful’ men and women may work under the title of Doctor.
I had the same feelings regarding Anthony Comstock’s excerpt from ‘Traps for the Young’. Some internet searching told me that Comstock was simply an USPS Inspector and Politician – not a learned academic of morality or linguistic anthropology or anything related to thoughtful discussion of obscenity. To declare that parents might even be too much of a danger to their own children – that’s what tipped me off most heavily to Comstock’s (in my opinion, undeserved) fiery language.
All of the documents and essays assigned this week were interesting to me, both independently and as a collection. I took special interest in the essay on romantic friendships between women, as well, having just recently finished a book on the evolution of lesbian identity in America in the 20th century that focused on romantic friendships for the first 80 pages or so. However, it was the sense of entitlement and boundary-crossing language and advice of the documents in Chapter 7 that struck me most and provided me with interesting materializations of things that Foucault discussed.
