Weeks, Norton, and The Thunder Cats
Re: Weeks and Norton
Before I embark on my scintillating, Charlie-Rose-like monologue about this week’s reading, I would like to reinstate one of my comments during last week’s class. This won’t take too long (a quickie if you will).
Last week, I said that discourse, despite its therapeutic qualities, is perhaps the most nocuous player in the poker table of sexuality’s repression—or at least that was my implication. I thought of a possible solution: what if, and I say this with my hypothetical voice, there was some underground society—let’s call them the Thunder Cats, for sake of clarity—that was able to amass members until it reached an uncountable number. One day, these licentious Thunder Cats decide that their sexuality has been suppressed for far too long. Anyway, they revolt. They discontinue the discourse and they cut the chitchat, because it hasn’t been working. And they begin to have intercourse in every public domain indiscriminately without mercy. Of course, a concerned parent notified the authorities and most of the orgies were put to an immediate end via tear gas. But the Thunder Cat sex rampage does not end due to the high number of members. For the next few years, indecent sexual behavior in parks, libraries, and whatever other establishment that can be called to mind will be a force to be reckoned with in the war against society and it’s sexual conventions, rules and regulations.
My question: If a large enough group of people revolted against a sexually oppressed society by having sex instead of engaging in discourse and instead of writing about it, would we be sexually free? Would we no longer abide by the conventions of the Victorian era if we—as Nike has been suggesting this whole time—just did it? Would we be liberated from the omnipotent prudishness of the bourgeoisie through the infinite orgasms of these heroic Thunder Cats? Post your opinion, please!
Rictor Norton discusses something fun. In a crowd of men, how can one decide who is gay and who is not? There is, supposedly, a certain look. It seems that gayness, something that is abstract, has taken a sort of form. Some people determine queerness by looking at a man/ woman’s walk, listening to a man/ woman’s speech, and observing a man/ woman’s style. Society has certainly embodied the homosexual as someone flamboyant or androgynous and has certainly gone farther than producing fun, derogative labels.
Something seems to be happening, in terms of labels, in our society today. Titles that were meant to be defamatory and offensive are becoming tools of empowerment—such as the superfluous use of the “N” word in Hip-Hop music.
Is sexual orientation innate or is it another bowel movement of society? I think it is a mixture of both. Whether or not someone can be born with the ability to comprehend sex is beyond me, but I do know that a society shapes how the individual perceives oneself as a sexual being. Is it possible that the soul of a former homosexual can inhabit a newborn vessel? Just maybe, but the influence of society on one’s sexual orientation seems inevitable. Weeks writes “We learn very early on from many sources that “natural sex is what takes place with members of the “opposite sex. “Sex” between people of the “same sex” is therefore, by definition, unnatural.” The conventions of sexuality—what is normal and what is not—are part of the cultural ethos that tattoos itself in the sponge-like mind of a child.
My Conclusion: A child may be born with a specific sexual orientation, but only society can teach him/ her how to walk, talk and dress in order to accommodate that specific label.
Go Thunder Cats.
February 15th, 2010 at 12:40 am
I don’t know if discourse about sex is inherently the problem. Rather, I think it is the revolutionary importance given to discourse about sex, or the fact that so much pleasure is derived from sex (perhaps in some cases, more pleasure than is derived from the act itself – essentially ars erotica vs. scientia sexualis). If we (we being those who engage in discourse about sex) could remove these things from this discourse that might in itself be somewhat of a liberation.
February 16th, 2010 at 12:26 pm
David’s post on Weeks and Norton brings up a number of themes worth exploring further (by David and the rest of you) in the Thursday posts and class discussion. So I hope others will join Kaitlyn in commenting on his or in writing your own post. Her caveat about discourse is a good one. Try extending it to the way in which the “discourse of sexual liberation” (which we might apply to David’s example) is key to the logic of the Repressive Hypothesis that Foucault strives to expose—because is produces susceptibility to the power relations of scientia sexualis.
Here are some questions to consider:
To what extent is David’s example, especially the third paragraph—and which, as a thought experiment is valuable to think through collectively–part of what Weeks calls the “naturalistic fallacy”?
To what extent is the Thunder Cats revolt to be regarded in the area that Weeks calls “Cultures of Resistance” and how do we put the two together? Look at Norton’s conclusions about political uses of essentialism and social constructionism as one possible way to approach such a combination.
To what extent does current US society (especially popular media) resemble the Thunder Cats’ actions? Does the Museum of Sexuality engage in this discourse of sexual liberation in keeping with the Repressive Hypothesis that Foucault refutes?
February 18th, 2010 at 10:39 am
I’ll leave the deeper thinking to my post, when I’ve fully formed my thoughts (I’m only one cup of coffee in today – I need some time.)
I want to address this comment by David, though:
“My Conclusion: A child may be born with a specific sexual orientation, but only society can teach him/ her how to walk, talk and dress in order to accommodate that specific label.”
I wonder if it’s even possible to know. David Sedaris’ essay “Go Carolina” from “Me Talk Pretty One Day” comes to mind ( http://www.enotalone.com/article/9166.html ) as an example of childhood “gay behavior” being innate, but, then again, this was written when Sedaris was in his forties, so it’s impossible to tell what he imposed on his childhood self in his reflection and writing. I feel like the question is a sort of Catch-22; watching children to catch these behaviors might box them into a certain social construct. Plus, plenty of gay men do not adhere to the stereotypical gay walk, talk, and dress. I think it depends on what culture the person wants to be a part of – whether it be a sort of “queen” culture or whether sexuality plays a more subtle part of the person’s lifestyle. (This is a long winded version of saying I agree with you. But the essay is definitely worth reading!)
February 20th, 2010 at 8:06 pm
Before anything, I must comment on how beautifully your post was written. Enough to make even this non-English major cry with pure, uncynical literary joy.
But onto the less dramatic and more academic aspect of the post. You write, “Would we be liberated from the omnipotent prudishness of the bourgeoisie through the infinite orgasms of these heroic Thunder Cats?” I think not. By engaging in public sex in front of people who abhor the very idea of sexuality, I think the Thunder Cats are only exasperating the situation, making the prude bourgeoisie huddle further behind their brick wall of Puritanism. A more subtle approach of brainwashing, would, I think, work better. And Katharine’s comment about possibly self-imposing salient gay behaviors on a younger self is an important addendum to your last point.