Reviews for Homosexual desire

The average rating for Homosexual desire based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2010-06-03 00:00:00 Tom Lindy In his polemical 1978 (English translation) Homosexual Desire, Guy Hocquenghem makes the case that society hates the homosexual, that there is something about him that disturbs society (49). However, this is interesting, because there is no homosexual desire — that is, desire is multiple and not directed toward men or women simply (49-50). Society becomes paranoid about the homosexual, "suffer[ing:] from an interpretive delusion which leads it to discover all around it the signs of a homosexual conspiracy that prevents it from functioning properly" (55). Hocquenghem critiques the Freudean explanation of homosexuality as rooted in the Oedipal Complex, seeing it (from a Deleuzian perspective) as rooted in the family instead of in history, and as a "construction of the whole family romance" (81). He then goes on to critique society for being ruled by the order of the family; even if sexual freedoms have increased and marriage isn't necessary, the family is "the rule inhabiting every individual under free competition. This individual does not replace the family, he prolongs its farcical games" (93). Hocquenghem understands our society as a "phallic society, and the quantity of possible pleasure is determined in relation to the phallus" (95): ejaculation is prized in sex, society is hierarchical, and the phallus is social (96). The anus, however, is private, "has no social position except sublimation" (96), does not exist in the penetrate/penetrated dichotomy of the phallus (97), and is "withdrawn socially" (97). This might be understood metaphorically, as in understanding that to control the anus is to control the social self (the most distressing social act is to soil one's pants) (99). Social use of the anus, Hocquenghem argues, involves "the risk of a loss of identity" (101). Additionally, homosexuals offer a different way to organize society than the reproduction of the family (and that one should be like their parents) (106-109). Hocquenghem explores desire, arguing that desire is object-oriented, not oriented toward a sex or gender (130). The cruising homosexual becomes akin to Deleuze's "voyaging schizophrenic" (131), because "everything is possible at any moment: organs look for each other and plug in, unaware of the law of exclusive disjunction" (131). He critiques revolutionary thought for maintaining the public/private distinction, and offers that homosexuals make private intervene in public (136) and a chance to disintegrate "the civilized illusion common to the political world" (145). Homosexuality offers something outside of politics and the social as it is now known, refusing to capitulate to the logic of sacrifice for the future (147).

Review # 2 was written on 2017-05-03 00:00:00 Lina Lam comme c’était rafraîchissant de lire un texte sur la vie/la culture gaies qui n’était pas basé dans le contexte anglo-américain!