COMP 421 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Heteronormativity, Haemophilia, Libido
27 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Bersani - Is the Rectum a Grave 8-9
● positioning gay men as outside of the general public
● They gays as perpetrators of the aids crisis - not worth helping
○ They should be allowed to die
○ They are endangering “the family/child”
○ They are being quarantined/killed/allowed to die
● What is the actual threat posed by homosexuality?
○ So much so that a father will kill his son or people will burn down the house of the
three hemophiliac children…
○ According to some people - the danger/threat is the parody of masculinity - threat
to the male/machismo
■ (12) gay-macho style, butch/fem lesbian, s/m
■ Subversive parodies
■ (13) “rise of the macho-style amongst gay men … semiotic thrills warfare”
■ Problem is that to read it as subversive you have to look at the effects on
heteronormative structure
■ The straight man can separate it from himself
■ Limits of parody - it doesn’t really have an effect on the macho man
■ (14) parody is an erotic turn-off
● Appeal of violating the male heterosexual identity
○ (16) Ties it in with Victorian sex workers
○ Promiscuity and an insatiable sex drive
■ Ability to keep having sex (unlike hetero males)
○ (18) suicidal ecstasy of being a woman - why suicidal?
■ (19) Borrows from MacKinnon and Dworkin
■ For them sex is a liberalization of social power dynamics
■ All penetrative sex is violent/phonographic - all penetration is rape
■ Idea that to be penetrated is to abdicate power
○ Bersani thinks they are right - there is an abdication of power
■ But he thinks this is a good thing
■ (22) - sex as non-romantic is a virtue
■ (24) gay man taking the position of woman (suicidal ecstasy)
● He is trying to destroy the ego - figure of the man
● “Radical disintegration and humiliation of the self”
○ (25) in order to have a relation you have to have “selves”
■ Bottoming is a way of letting go of the self - death drive/suicidal
■ Male power = swelling of the ego
■ Rectum a grave - grave of the ego/self/subject
○ People are not bothered by the gay lifestyle - they are bothered by gay sex
■ Rejection of the power dynamic and subjectivity
■ Humiliation/debasement/potential annihilation
Halberstam - Queer Negativity and Radical Passivity
● Idea of losing the mother (125)
Document Summary
Bersani - is the rectum a grave 8-9. Positioning gay men as outside of the general public. They gays as perpetrators of the aids crisis - not worth helping. So much so that a father will kill his son or people will burn down the house of the three hemophiliac children . According to some people - the danger/threat is the parody of masculinity - threat to the male/machismo. (13) rise of the macho-style amongst gay men semiotic thrills warfare . Problem is that to read it as subversive you have to look at the effects on heteronormative structure. The straight man can separate it from himself. Limits of parody - it doesn"t really have an effect on the macho man. Appeal of violating the male heterosexual identity. (16) ties it in with victorian sex workers. Ability to keep having sex (unlike hetero males) For them sex is a liberalization of social power dynamics.
