Incest, Middlesex, and Intersex
Incest, Middlesex, and Intersex
Having only read the first two books of Middlesex, I feel this post must be about incest, a topic that Eugenides handles with incredible grace and tenderness. When considering incest in general, I feel total aversion – since we’re reading through Foucault’s lens, this is because society has told me that it’s wrong: abnormal. So what do we get when we have two siblings almost entirely withdrawn from society? A breach, and, in Eugenides’ telling, a beautiful one:
“At first they just hugged in the standard way, but after ten seconds the hug began to change; certain positions of the hands and strokings of the fingers weren’t the usual displays of sibling affection, and these things constituted a language of their own, announced a whole new message in the silent room. Lefty began waltzing Desdemona around, European style…” (Eugenides, 39)
The subtleties in his language here and throughout his storytelling are more intimate and poignant than most “normal” stories. The clarinet scenes between Tessie and Milton are gorgeous; Eugenides has this particular way of creating scenes of great meaning with no dialogue. He doesn’t need it – the body language of his characters is telling enough.
Another abnormality. In regards to Desdemona and Lefty, we forget that they’re brother and sister; like Desdemona’s shifts between considering Lefty her brother and husband, the text oscillates. Their relationship is eroticized and we forget, until the word “brother” or “sibling” pops up, and we’re left to question our acceptance of this narration. With a Foucauldian view, I assert that the reason the relationship seems alright is because they are isolated from society and are free from the imposing ideas of normality. The fellow cruise passengers are unimportant – Lefty and Desdemona hide, but don’t quite feel guilt. They are still free from anyone knowing who they are. It is only in America, when established in a new community that watches, in a house segregated by sex (and so the idea of sex is amplified), in a land where male sperm swim more quickly and babies can have hairy chests, that Desdemona feels the full weight of her shame and pulls away from Lefty. Had they stayed in Greece, away from they prying eyes of a normalizing public, they’d have stayed in love.
(This is a fictional assumption. I am still disturbed by incest.)
I don’t know that much about intersex children, but I know enough about the polarized nature of our society and the ostracizing nature of children to call into question the assertion that parents should leave intersex children with their mixed genitalia until they can choose. In an ideal society, I’d say absolutely – the choice should be no one’s but the child. But the issue is far more complicated than the article seems to suggest. Choice is the ideal, but what happens until the child is old enough to make that choice (and, for that matter, how old is old enough?) What bathroom does an intersex child use at school? What boxes do they check? Who do they play with on the playground at an age where play is segregated by sex? Most children have enough problems fitting in – my teeth, pre braces, were the subject of many playground torments. Children tend to identify themselves by age and gender before they can conceptualize other methods of self definition. And while age is definite, and gender is heavily constructed, I wouldn’t discount the fact that they’re both important things for a child to latch on to. And unfortunately, our society has not made it okay to identify as neither/both.
(Just curiously, what pronoun would one use? We have no neuter pronoun…)
Tags: childhood, family, gender roles, identity, incest, Intersex, love, social construction
