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I get asked about the history of QT or women's studies pretty frequently, so I wanted to post this for my records (comments seem to disappear when they get too old).
Clare Hemmings, Why Stories Matter: The Political Grammar of Feminist Theory is really the best history of this in Women's Studies and how it slid into queer/gender--although that was not the point of the book. It also reflects a lot of the debates we have here on ovarit. I think every ovarit interested in the history of feminism should read it. She is much too generous to Butler, but some of her points about GT are accurate. [I am posting the archive links for most of these bc it allows you to read the books for free.]
I get that a lot of people think QT came out of critical theory, specifically postmodernism, but this really isn't an accurate story. No one in Continental theory was really part of the LGB struggle that birthed queer theory, except Michel Foucault and Guy Hocquenghem--but they were pretty peripheral.
Postmodernists (Lyotard, Jameson, Derrida, MF to a certain extent, Irigaray, Kristeva, Baudrillard, et al.) had absolutely no interest in identity politics of any kind, which is why feminists criticized them. It was only Butler who was narcissistic enough to want to account for her own butch specialness through philosophy by taking swipes at feminism. Just look at any pomo reader; hardly anything (if at all) on sexuality is ever included in them.
Queer theory came from the academics actively involved in the AIDS struggle and Queer Nation. They were mostly English lit nerds like Eve Kosovsky Sedgwick. It is easy to follow this trajectory bc GT never once used the word "queer" in it ever, while Fear of a Queer Planet was published only 3 years later. The editor, Michael Warner (I am not a fan) is an 18th century Lit guy but very active in the gay community and wrote a famous piece with Lauren Berlant who helped found Queer Nation, but did her dissertation on American Literature, called "Sex in Public." This is much more the origin of queer theory and what we critique around here but they were both in English Depts and neither are particularly friendly towards postmodern theory (Lauren much more than Michael). Btw, Lauren declared herself a 'they' before she died. It was a thing (insert eye roll).
If you look at the table of contents at FoaQP, it has the who's who of where it all began. The one I truly dislike the most is Janet Halley--a law professor at Harvard, of course. She wrote a book about why we need to 'take a break from feminism' bc we, feminists, do not 'understand' sexuality. God I dislike her so, so much. Her book literally argues why queer theory should displace and silence feminism. If we want to blame someone--someone who actually influences legal policy--it should be her, not JB (though she can suck it, too, but that is more about her now, than GT which openly said men cannot be women.) And I am not exaggerating about her influence; just read how she informed Harvard's sexual assault policies in the NYT.
I do not lay queer theory at the door of cultural studies either, though there is a good deal of overlap, bc queer theory actually eclipsed the latter and stole its momentum. Queer theory killed cultural studies, much like how the trans movement eclipsed and deep-sixed the BLM movement. Note how for a minute the fight was about CRT in school, then there was an influx of books about gender out of nowhere? No one questioned this. Publishing is a big player in all this, of course. Cultural Studies was making great strides to ask important questions about the construction of identity, its instability and such, as well as about consumerism and power. Just look at any CS reader. Here is one of the best. It has one little section on sex and, ironically, they are both by straight people (essentially). But Duke University Press had this 'Queer Series' that was very popular and published a lot of books (re: Queer Art of Failure by 'Jack' Judith Halberstam) with queer in the title, mostly by lit professors trying to make themselves relevant and hip (Robyn Weigman takes them down for this quite nicely).
So there you have it: a brief academic history of queer theory.
Whoa, thanks for both the short history and the resources, those are all going on my reading list.
I do wish more people here were interested in QT and/or the history of what went on in academia and how we actually ended up where we are. I had some resistance towards QT as well - I have to admit that this was the extent of my familiarity with QT for ages (until I finally decided to give Butler a go); I’m pretty sure I’ve seen vague references to this video around here, so I’m clearly not the only one. Btw, any idea what he means by the “founding document of QT”?
Which is kinda funny, when you consider that a) pomo is here (and on radblr) often used in connection (and often almost synonymously) with QT, and b) everyone kinda blames postmodernists for QT. Though to be fair, QT is heavily influenced by pomo, surely, even if postmodernists themselves had no direct part in QT? Or is it just Butler?
Also, I get the impression that most people aren’t entirely sure what pomo is - it seems that the word has either lost its original meaning (I forgot how Lyotard exactly defined it, but it was pretty neat) or people use pomo when they maybe mean post-postmodernism (which is a thing). You know, like how we say liberal feminists when we’re talking about what are obviously neoliberal feminists (if they can be called feminists), because this is the internet and nobody can be bothered with typing those three extra letters.
(replying here, rather than to your comment because i want to save this post)
I have a lot to say to all of this, but first I want to review Thinking Sex. This is all a deep dive for me as this is entirely my training, field and teaching (I really wish I could say more w/o doxxing myself). It is a personal reflection as well for me, looking back and what went right/what went wrong. In the meantime, Rubin also did this and it answers the 'founding text' question--and yes, Thinking Sex, was much more foundational to queer theory as we understand it today, than GT--which is a whole other wormhole.
I know it is easy to write off and demonize--many of the blogs I've been directed to do this w/o actually engaging the argument or tone or context or anything, and I refuse to do this. If someone actually does the due dilligence, I am happy to read their perspective, and have found myself in agreement, but those who cite a sentence I have no patience for. They are cherry picking and I get the sense they have not done their homework (as in Dr. Em, et al.). I hope those interested will read Rubin's words even though they def skew pro-sex work and trans at times. In some ways, this is the only way the academy lets anyone talk about sexuality at all. Indeed, we can make the case that Rubin was more correct on 'transsexuality' than Stryker's critique permits/denies.
As to postmodernism, I've specifically addressed (complained, tbt) this in past posts.
Another long one here.
More pomo blah blah here.
I need to garden/touch grass.
Now I'm quite embarrassed to admit I've never heard of Thinking Sex, but then I haven't even heard of Rubin (nor Califia) until I watched that video. Guess that's another one for my reading list. I did read The Traffic in Women when you posted a link recently and actually quite enjoyed it.
Agreed; I'm really not a fan of the weirdly popular idea we should avoid certain books purely because the author/content is deemed 'problematic'.
I love The Traffic in Women. I cannot believe she wrote that as an undergrad! so smart. Thinking Sex is the foundational text of the 'pro-sex' feminist position, but the reasoning is important since the AIDS crisis created such an anti-sex culture. Of course its all been warped and perverted (pun intended) now for neoliberal patriarchal capitalism.
Do NOT read Califa. She is a TiF and a creep and a terrible writer and not at all a scholar. She has no credentials. That is one of my general problems with the crap people refer me to--yes, I am an intellectual snob. I am not going to take the word of some generic blogger over someone who has put in the time and effort, even if in a direction I don't agree with. Honestly the one to read in so many ways is Michel Foucault. The man was an incredible philosopher of history and its relationship to power. HIs long-ass sentences are hard to follow but well worth the effort.
I have to admit, I am peeved at the priorities around here sometimes. So Neil Gaimen assaults (sounded violent) women and treats the mother of his child like shit, but we can still enjoy his work (give him $$). But Foucault has an opinion--to lower or remove the age of consent, in order to a) limit gov't oversight into private lives that have criminalized homosexuality--which it was when he was alive and b) get rid of a law hypocritically used against homosexuals yet hardly ever directly towards straight men (thus girls weren't ever really protected under it anyway)--and he is Satan. The one accusation against his actions was retracted by the jealous colleague who leveled it. No 'victim' ever made an accusation.
Foucault leveled one of the best critiques of psychiatry ever written. We should be using it now to challenge the entire 'mental health crisis,' from which the medical-industrial complex and big pharma benefit from immense profits.
Happy to read some together.
The criticisms I have seen of Foucault don't mention the Tunisia accusation, it seems to be pretty widely recognized as a hoax. I have seen the critique of the farmhand Jouey story in his History of Sexuality I, which was an adult man coercing sexual activity from a young girl, and this radio interview with Guy Hocquenghem and Jean Danet in which they talk at length about sex between adults and children, how the children can enjoy it and even be the seducer, and as long as it's not violent or forced it is ok. If the link doesn't work - it's a pdf - google The Danger of Child Sexuality, an interview with Michel Foucault.
Criticisms about the legal age of consent at the time being higher for homosexual activity certainly make sense, but these two examples really don't seem to be focused on that as the main concern. It's not hard to see how they can be interpreted as supporting pedophilia.
Don't you think they mean teens, not children, in the vein of Call Me By Your Name, which won awards and was lauded everywhere? That is the kind of classic Greek homosexual, teen/adult sexual liaison MF writes about in HoS Vol 3. The fact is no child or even teen reported him acting on these ideas. Honestly I wish all these rapist teenage boys would just have sex with men and leave the girls alone. A 16 year old raped a 12 year old girl when he was 12. She ended up killing herself. He was given no jail time. I wrote Filia to ask the to contest the sentence. If 12 year olds are raping girls their own age, we have to face they are pornsick and laws are not going to stop them from being sexual or sexually violent.
I think these gay philosophers are talking about boys, not girls. Pedophile laws aren't doing anything to address these boys or curb their behavior, esp when judges let them get away with it. To be honest, I just don't think these gay men think about girls at all. I think they had sex in their teens with older men and are speaking from this experience, which they interpret as something they wanted.
I would agree that the men aren't considering girls much, if at all, and could definitely see them as speaking from their own experiences which they interpret as something they wanted. But even if they are speaking of teens, I'm pretty sure the article specifically says younger than 15, as that was the law of consent at the time. To me, a 20 year old having sex with a 14 year old is not ok and clearly taking advantage of naivety and a power differential. 20 and 17 is something that could be argued about. They don't make that clear at all in the conversation though. It sounds a lot more like they are talking about much older men and teens.
And still, in the farmhand story it is talking about a girl, and she sounds young because it's mentioned that the older girls refused him, and the description in his later talk of her taking the pennies he gave her and happily heading off to the fair to buy treats. Again, it doesn't come across as something in the grey area for older teens. Even if that was his mindset, he certainly didn't make that clear.
There is a lot of room for criticism in regards to current laws surrounding rape or pedophilia and how they are implemented and enforced, but it seems to me that saying they don't work properly so let's figure out why and fix them makes more sense than they don't work properly so let's do away with them altogether and have nothing. I personally think we need to take a much harder look at concepts of masculinity and how media represents and perpetuates them. But until we can change the culture of how men and boys view and treat women and girls, we probably can't do away with the laws entirely.
ETA: I have some more thoughts about the idea of it being something they experienced as teens and interpreted it as being wanted. I'll grant, I personally experienced this so I have that bias, but I understand that it's not uncommon for people who experienced child sexual abuse or rape at any age to become hypersexual in response, or to interpret it as wanted. It's a protective response to avoid the trauma, and also I think children are too young to process sexual experiences like that. So even for the boys, I think it's damaging to them even while they are potentially damaging other kids/girls. I don't think it's ok for any of them, and I think exposure to porn can have similar effects. I've read several stories from adults who explained how exposure to porn messed them up as kids. Including former porn performers who said it played a hand in grooming them into thinking doing porn would be ok, only to end up traumatized.
I guess I've been missing out on something - I haven't seen any Gaimen apologism around here, though to be fair, I haven't been around all that much in the last couple of days. I've only seen TRAs seething on tumblr, because the two women who first wrote about the assaults were apparently terfs lol.
It's been ages since I read Foucault so I wouldn't mind getting reacquainted with some of his work, depending on what you have in mind? Also, you might want to make a new post about that, just in case there are more people who may be interested.
Yeah, I was referring to the long convo here. 214 comments!
I def had my panties in a twist over the comments that it was still okay to read Gaiman's books knowing he is a predatory monster. And then all the hair-splitting over the question of rough sex, etc, that he and other 'geniuses' have committed against women. While an actual feminist like Gayle Rubin just gets tossed in the trash bc she was an SM lesbian trying to figure out how sexual repression is a problem of society. Did she and MF argue about the 'taboo' of child sex, yes. Did they actually do it? NEVER. And yet time and again people just condemn their ideas to the trash bin here and elsewhere and I have actually read them and value their contributions to understanding the way power works in our world even when I disagreed with some of their 'evidence' and said as much to my students. I never canceled them the way I see GC bloggers do left and right and lay pedophilia and the trans movement at their door--which is utterly specious as neither talked about trans or queer or any of that.
Yet, rapists and misogynists are constantly 'separated' from their 'art' (and I use the word very loosely). MF describes a story of the milk game and how --at the time-- it was perceived as nothing criminal or tragic. He is not wrong. It was common for poor women and girls to exchange sexual acts for money and this did not make them sex workers or any of that--and this is precisely the change MF is explaining in his genealogy of biopolitics. The story makes me uncomfortable too--but it did happen. (oh and the older girls turned him away bc of who was asking, a mentally disabled man, not bc of what he was asking). MF also starts Discipline and Punish with a graphic description of someone being drawn and quartered. All his books describe and then interpret things from history he finds in archives.
On the other hand, Stephen King "made up" a story about an 11 year old girl literally--and willingly--getting gang banged by a bunch of boys as an act of kindness and the only way to save them and then lovingly details each of the boys' orgasms. Critics refer to it as the 'orgy' scene but it is all boys running a 'train' on an 11 year old. But sure, MF even suggesting we eradicate age of consent laws (he also argued to release all the 'mad' people in asylums, which France actually did to a certain extent) makes him a terrible monster pedophile we should condemn to hell. But Stephen King doesn't apologize to this day for what he wrote and went on to make millions of dollars from the franchise (probably more). Here is a description:
"For almost ten exhaustive pages, King describes each of the boys having sex with Beverly and their orgasms as a version of “flying.” (You also get the sense that King is a bit of a size queen.) Beverly’s desires are positioned as a way for her to overcome her own fears around sex, but mostly the narrative centers on how the boys literally enter adulthood through Beverly’s vagina. King released a statement a few years ago through his fan site Stephenking.com, where he wrote, “I wasn’t really thinking of the sexual aspect of it… Intuitively, the Losers knew they had to be together again. The sexual act connected childhood and adulthood.” Perhaps most horrifying to modern sensibilities is that there is no talk of birth control, condoms, or a realization that a circle jerk would have sufficed."
Okay, so King wrote this in 1986 (post the popularization of feminist movement) and says it 'reflects the time'. Again, he MADE IT UP (and likely jerked off while writing it). MF publishes just one page on the milkgame in 1976 about an oral tale of something that happened in the previous century.
So, here is my theory: Foucault actually provides language and concepts that dismantle patriarchal and heteronormative power structures. He is clearly a threat to the dominant order. Every work he wrote critiqued power and tried to provide ways to see how that power operates to find ways to deconstruct and disarm it. Thus, all the easy breezy dismissals of pomo and him specifically are defenses against (if unconsciously) the crucial enlightenment his work offers readers--concepts that remap the way we think about institutions that dominate our lives (biopower, bio-politics, neoliberalism).
King writes books that uphold misogyny, place white men at the center of the world, create a sense of imperiled white masculinity through the figure of the innocent boy (or girl, like Carrie, but let's not go down that rabbit hole). Reading King inures one to the many misogynist (and racist and anti-Semitic and classist) themes that recur in his novels, dismissed as 'entertainment', which is the flimsiest screen for dominant ideologies to do their thing. Still, the recurring motif of fear of menstrual blood should be a clue.
I know you weren't saying any of this, but the inconsistency (and anti-intellectualism) of these positions has been making me crazy this past week. Someone like MF would be incredibly useful to the GC movement, and he is one of the most important philosophers of the 20th century and a gay man who died of AIDS. Not a straight predatory monster by any stretch of the imagination.
And, quite honestly, MF would NEVER say TWAW. But Gaiman does at every turn. He should not be separated from his 'supposed' art. Nor should Picasso or Woody Allen or Roman Polanski or Danny Elfman or Harvey Weinstein (who has def shaped the art he paid for, just read Selma Hayek's testimonial or Cate Blanchett's) or Brian Singer (whose pedo tendencies are all over his films) or Gerard Depardieu or Luc Besson (a total pedo--see The Professional) or Paul Haggis or james Franco or Louis CK or Morgan Spurlock or John Lassiter (Rashida Jones calls out Pixar culture) or Marilyn Manson or any of the rest.
I am not (wholly) calling for their cancellation, but rather trying to un-cancel MF, Gayle Rubin and other scholars who've been dumped in the trash heap of "QT"--often unfairly. Hell, the case could be made to reread GT against Butler's annoying grain. In fact, it could help the GC case to call out her inconsistencies and hypocrisies.
Very very very long story short, thanks for even being interested in reading MF with me.
Oh, I guess I did miss out on quite a lot. I've actually been avoiding the whole Gaiman discourse, mostly because I barely know who he is aside from being a famous-y writer. I don't know where I stand on whether it's still okay to read his books to be honest. I don't mind reading problematic people and most of the time it's completely possible to do so without actually giving them money (e.g. buying their books second hand, etc).
I haven't read anything by King, but have (for some reason) heard a lot about that scene. I can't say I was surprised when I found that his only daughter doesn't identify as a woman tbh.
Interesting how men can get away with anything, from fantasising about child "orgies" to actually committing rape/sexual assault, but TRAs have been trying to cancel Rowling ever since she committed the ultimate sin of tweeting that biological sex is real. Not to mention all those rape and death threats she receives, nor the fact they tried to dox her daughter. But Gaiman is just a victim of a terf conspiracy, according to the popular narrative.
To be fair, I don't think people here are really actively pro cancelling Rubin - I just think the vast majority have never even heard of her. She may be a super influential figure of QT, but I don't think she's really all that famous outside academia. I think you underestimate our collective illiteracy when it comes to QT lol. Or any kind of theory in general, except more mainstream authors like Dworkin, MacKinnon, de Beauvoir etc. I'm pretty sure most women here didn't discover radical feminism or GC via academia, but via social media, which, on one hand can be a great tool for discovering radfem/GC lit, but on the other hand, it's obviously not able to provide us with any in-depth knowledge. In general, I wish more people here considered looking into Foucault, Butler and QT in general, instead of just simply ignoring/avoiding it.
So I can only speak for myself, of course, and I have to assume that much of this comment wasn't a reaction to mine because I certainly have never defended Gaiman or King and hadn't even seen that post about Gaiman (also never seen/read any of his work), but my question would be, is any criticism of a few things someone said automatically condemning all of their ideas to the trash bin? Some people react like that, but not all do. Is it possible to critique some of a person's ideas while also appreciating others? I certainly think so, which is why when I first asked you about Foucault I acknowledged that people are unfairly demonized based on a few quotes. Andrea Dworkin is the best example I can think of. I was certainly open to seeing a different perspective, which is why I asked.
I also think that every single person out there has some good takes and some bad takes, and to a large extent we should try to view them on their own merit or lack thereof. I am always hesitant when any one person is either demonized or deified.
If the argument is that people shouldn't be so hard on MF because there are worse people out there, I'd say can't we be critical of both? A rapist is worse than a rape apologist, but that doesn't mean the rape apologist is beyond reproach.
If the argument is that we shouldn't critique MF because his other work is brilliant, well that's what people have said about Polanski, King etc. Is it ok to separate the art from the artist for people we like but not those we don't? Or if we think that person is particularly monstrous? Where does the line get drawn, and who gets to draw it?
With the farmhand story, is it really true that it was normal at the time and no one had any problem with it considering that the girl's parents went to the authorities and the authorities took action? They don't seem to have been ok with it. We also know that there are countries and communities where children are sexually exploited for money in a similar manner today, and rich Western men do a lot of sex tourism there. We recognize that as an issue of exploitation due to extreme poverty. Can we not also use that lens with the farmhand story? Isn't 'it was perfectly normal for men to marry 14 year olds in the past' an excuse commonly used by creepy men to justify their attraction to minors? If something in MF's later scholarship makes it clear that he did see the interaction as a violation and not just an "inconsequential bucolic pleasure", I'd be interested in seeing it.
It's not just anti-intellectuals and bloggers making these criticisms either. Jane Clare Jones is an intellectual, as was Noam Chomsky and I saw many scholarly articles critiquing him which I could not fully access on Jstor and the like. I do see that the popular arguments going around currently are completely void of nuance, especially on social media where posts have to be short and emotionally evocative, and I can understand why seeing those repeated would be really frustrating.
If the arguments for MF were 'yes, these things he said were disturbing and I disagree with them, but elsewhere his argument about X is very useful for these reasons, I think that would go a long way towards 'un-cancelling' him. Certainly a lot further than arguments that seem to be excusing things he said which look pretty sketchy.
Hey Valkerie,
That MF post was def not about our convos. I was really mad about how easy it was for some to write off Neil Gaiman. You know how quick they are to write of QT around these parts; I have been excited that you and rain and some others are actually open to talking about QT (queer theory, not queer, trans). Tbh, the milk game section of HoS has always skeeved me out and feminists have long been arguing about it. I am way more open to that discussion then the MF is a pedophile or pedophile pusher. I really cringe at that one bc it is so kneejerk and reactionary. Actually the whole name-calling as condemnation and cancelling turns me off, except for 'rapist'--that one I stick to my guns, esp about Trump who is clearly a serial rapist.
That doesn't mean I don't think we can critique statements people make. I guess I am a wee bit exhausted about a lot of the negativity of late. Is it so wrong to want something good in one's life? Like I really enjoy talking philosophy, and I'd rather get excited about a new idea or concept than get my ya-yas reading the idiocy of what are clearly mentally ill people. I cannot help but notice that some folks here (is marydyer a masochist?) would rather spend time scrolling through the reddit posts of TiMs than read a book. That is nuts to me--and this is partly a condemnation of myself. I should be reading, too, rather than posting all the time. I like learning new things, and I have nothing to learn from uneducated trans people who are clearly pornsick and hate women. I am not on any other SM for a reason. I guess it is time for me to block 'translogic' but I fear they'll be little left in my daily feed after that and blocking NSFW.
It is hard to have so many things I love condemned by people who have little to actual info. I have read, taught and published on both queer theory & postmodernism and they made me gender critical, not a TRA. When I saw that video of a professor reducing Rubin to "what article is 50% defending pedophilia" I kind of lost my shit. That is a terrible professor! If you don't like the article or are at least willing to engage with, do not teach it, ffs. At least JCJ understands philosophy generally. I've been reading some of her stuff and she is just, well, wrong about MF. His famous arg about power is NOT about 'norms'; it is that power comes from below. So, for example, if a woman claims make-up is self-care, that is power coming from below. No man is holding a gun to her head, but she herself is doing this--and judging other women who don't. This is power from below. Anorexia is power from 'below.' It is a way of thinking about complicity; sort of how we talk about 'handmaidens' around here.
Anyway, thinking about all this as I garden. Not meeting my goals for exercise this week bc I am trying to just finish this huge gardening project. It is still a ton of exercise though.
Thank you, I appreciate this response very much. The explanation about MF's argument about power sounds very interesting and I can see how that would be a useful framework. The internet and social media is a terrible format. I actually find all the focus on outrage posts a little embarrassing at this point. I also have an old friend very determined to convince me that gc feminism is far right and keeps sending me multiple articles from anti-feminists about how feminism is in league with the far right. So I very much understand how infuriating the oversimplified misinformation is.
ETA: a brief glance at the USA election stuff makes me glad I am not American (until I remember my own countries issues, ha). I am dumfounded that it's come to Biden v Trump. I can not fathom how bad it could get with Trump back as president. And it's pretty discouraging to realize what the fact that he's seen as a viable candidate shows about how women are viewed.