Super-Cultural Constructs
Here is the compiled slideshow for my amateur photoshoot at the the Museum of Sex.
Super-Cultural Constructs
The first class discussion on Foucault left me reeling, because I could not understand how I had missed or completely misinterpreted some of his most emphasized points. Granted, reading on a crowded train doesn’t help, but neither does a lifetime of preconcieved notions. Especially in an era of narcissistic self-publication, where everyone is their own private expert, I could barely handle being wrong. With this in mind, sitting to read the Weeks essay on the social construction of sexuality, I resolved to take each word at its literal sense, and directly ingest every suggestion presented. The conflict here was that I just don’t share the extreme nature of Weeks’ (and possibly Foucault’s) conviction that every aspect of sexuality is a result of social construction, of the human imagination, of the profit and power machine that runs our world. The essence of humanity for me includes both this world of intrusion and construction, as well as another world where things are as they seem, unobstructed and not yet fallen prey to analysis.
Finally, reading Norton’s article on essentialism and queer history, I found a bit of common ground. Norton grounds his argument in queer theory, but through his lens, I think we can look at the entire scope of sexuality in a more realistic and productive light.
A walk through the Museum of Sex somehow did not leave me reeling, shocked or intimidated like Foucault’s dense musings. I only felt a little embarrassed taking too many pictures, but I decided that it would be for the sake of academic processing thereafter. The display of vintage condoms reminded me of browsing vintage pulp magazines in a thrift store, while the VD posters reminded me once again of the ignorance-to-caution ratio medicine exhibits in most social arenas. The art was incredible, funky, well thought-out, and made me wonder why it cannot be on display in an art museum. Only a couple of the other displays illicited any sort of surprise from me, and I wonder which part of what I have now internalized as Norton’s formulation of sexuality contributes to this lack of sock value in the spposedly taboo context of sexuality. I think Joseph put it best in his blog — “[There is found] common ground between the two virtually incompatible arguments here: that homophobia is a construct, while homosexuality is innate.”
So which is it, a group of college age people wandering around a showcase of all the things people don’t talk about in public, some of us scribbling in notepads, some squinting to read each word of the exhibit descriptions, some gawking, some yawning — is this the constructed, or the innate reaction to sex on display? If Foucault’s claim is correct, our culture has been over-saturated with discourse on sexualtiy, to a point where not much is off limits, and there is not much left to say. Because we are expected to be shocked and to gawk, but have already imagined that we’ve heard and seen it all, has this new construct pushed us to indifference, or worse, to feign indifference?
The room that appealed most to me was the spotlight on the permanent collection. Most telling to me is the Iron Hole display, a medieval theater-dungeon populated with wildly experimental and promiscuous robots. It is clear that building this intricate dollhouse must have been a labor of love for someone who was equally obsessed with robots, sex, and the modern tendency toward the robotization of sex. Physical machinery and technology plays a very small part in this, while the social and personal relation of self to sex seems more and more detached, less personal and more welllll mechanical. Maybe this is the most overwhelming effect the Museum of Sex can have on a person — a feeling of alienation and detachment between self and sex. After all, when something is put on display, it calls this intensified level of attention to itself.
“Look at me,” it says, “I am special because I am abnormal and beautiful and should be scrutinized from several angles. Look. I am strange, I am in a glass case, I am removed from you and there are many other things like me also in glass cases with small tablets of information nearby so you can further study us. You don’t know us, we are not a part of you. We are on display.” The impersonality of sex in a museum reflects the impersonality of sex in modern culture, because, like in the museum, it is on display. It is for sale, printed on the backs of ill-fitting sweat pants, and flickering through beer commercials. This being the construct, the sex we keep in our home and out of the display case feels most like Norton’s concept of innate, or maybe even super-cultural, sexualtiy.
That said, it is imortant to mention that this is in some ways not at ALL what Norton is persenting. He writes that basically, despite various public opinions and attempts to closet homosexuality, queer culture has thrived, maintained momentum, and shared many similar traits across different cultures and time periods. This is meant to say that queer culture, queer expression, and the fluidity of sexuality is a human quality that is more innate, or transcends beyond this other tendency at oppression and censorship. Clearly, whether this paradox is innate or constructed, it is inevitable — some people push to self-expression at all costs, while others push to curtail “deviant” or temporally unacceptable self-expression. Also, at all costs. Somehow the oppressors tend to get their hands on more resources, and so their impulse overrides the other, at least in the public eye, and the land of recorded history. However, it appears that this gives even greater life and greater importance to the queer culture that persists, survives, and develops under the radar in unfavorable and oppressive circumstances.
Tags: discourse, essentialism and queer theory, identity, image, museum of sex, propriety, queer culture, technology
