Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
The MIT Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to October.
http://www.jstor.org
LEO BERSANI
I will leaveyouwondering,
withme,whyit
is thatwhena womanspreadsherlegsfora
camera,sheis assumedtobe exercisingfree
will.
-Catherine A. MacKinnon
There is a big secretabout sex: most people don't like it. I don't have any
statisticsto back this up, and I doubt (although since Kinseythere has been no
shortageof polls on sexual behavior) thatany poll has ever been taken in which
thosepolled were simplyasked, "Do you like sex?" Nor am I suggestingthe need
for any such poll, since people would probably answer the question as if they
were being asked, "Do you oftenfeel the need to have sex?" and one of myaims
will be to suggestwhythese are two whollydifferentquestions. I am, however,
interestedin myratherirresponsibly announced findingsof our nonexistentpoll
because they strikeme as helping to make intelligiblea broader spectrumof
viewsabout sex and sexualitythanperhapsany othersinglehypothesis.In saying
that most people don't like sex, I'm not arguing (nor, obviously,am I denying)
that the most rigidlymoralisticdicta about sex hide smolderingvolcanoes of
repressedsexual desire. When you make thisargument,you divide people into
two camps,and at the same timeyou let it be knownto whichcamp you belong.
There are, you intimate,those who can't face theirsexual desires (or, correla-
tively,the relationbetween those desires and theirviewsof sex), and those who
know that such a relationexistsand who are presumablyunafraidof theirown
sexual impulses.Rather,I'm interestedin somethingelse, somethingboth camps
have in common,whichmaybe a certainaversion,an aversionthatis not the same
thingas a repressionand thatcan coexist quite comfortablywith,say, the most
enthusiasticendorsementof polysexualitywith multiplesex partners.
The aversion I referto comes in both benignand malignantforms.Malig-
nantaversionhas recentlyhad an extraordinaryopportunityboth to express(and
to expose) itself,and, tragically,to demonstrateitspower. I'm thinkingof course
of responsesto AIDS-more specifically,of how a public health crisishas been
treatedlike an unprecedentedsexual threat.The signsand sense of thisextraor-
dinarydisplacementare the subjectof an excellentbookjust publishedby Simon
Watney,aptly entitledPolicingDesire.' Watney's premise is that "AIDS is not
onlya medical crisison an unparalleledscale, it involvesa crisisof representation
itself,a crisisover the entireframingof knowledgeabout the human body and its
capacitiesforsexual pleasure" (p. 9). PolicingDesireis both a casebook of gener-
ally appalling examples of this crisis (taken largely from governmentpolicy
concerningAIDS, as well as frompress and televisioncoverage, in England and
America) and, most interestingly, an attemptto account for the mechanismsby
which a spectacle of sufferingand death has unleashed and even appeared to
legitimizethe impulse to murder.
There is, firstof all, the by now familiar,more or less transparent,and
ever-increasingevidence of the displacementthatWatneystudies.At the highest
levelsof officialdom, therehave been the criminaldelaysin fundingresearchand
treatment, the obsession withtestinginsteadof curing,the singularlyunqualified
membersof Reagan's (belatedlyconstituted)AIDS commission,2and the general
4. On November 15, 1987-a month after I wrote this-60 Minutesdid, in fact, devote a
twenty-minute segmentto AIDS. The report centered on Randy Shilts'srecentlypublished tale of
responses and nonresponses-both in the governmentand in the gay community-to the AIDS
crisis (And the Band Played On, New York, St. Martin's Press, 1987). The report presented a
sympatheticview of Shilts's chronicle of the delayed and half-heartedeffortsto deal with the
epidemic, and also informedviewersthat not a single officialof the Reagan Administrationwould
agree-or was authorized-to talk on 60 Minuteson the politicsof AIDS. However, nearlyhalfof
the segment-the firsthalf-was devoted to the murderouslynaughtysexual habits of Gaetan
Dugas, or "Patient Zero," the French-Canadianairline stewardwho, Shiltsclaims,was responsible
for 40 of the first200 cases of AIDS reportedin the US. Thus the reportwas sensationalizedfrom
the verystartwiththe mostrepugnantimage of homosexualityimaginable:thatof the irresponsible
male tartwho willfully spread the virusafterhe was diagnosed and warnedof the dangersto othersof
his promiscuity.I won't go into-as of course 60 Minutes(whichprovidesthe bestpoliticalreporting
on Americannetworktelevision)didn't go into-the phenomenonof Shiltshimselfas an overnight
media star, and the relation between his stardom and his irreproachablyrespectable image, his
longstandingwillingness,indeed eagerness, to join the straightsin being morallyrepelled by gay
promiscuity.A good deal of his much admired "objectivity"as a reporterconsistsin his being as
venomous toward those at an exceptionallyhigh riskof becomingafflictedwithAIDS (gay men) as
toward the governmentofficialswho seem contentto let them die.
he practicesafe sex. In the face of all that,the shrillnessof a Larry Kramer can
seem likethe simplestgood sense. The danger of not exaggeratingthe hostilityto
homosexuality"legitimized"by AIDS is that,being "sensible," we maysoon find
ourselves in situationswhere exaggeration will be difficult,if not impossible.
Kramerhas recentlysaid that"if AIDS does not spread out widelyinto the white
non-drug-using heterosexualpopulation,as it mayor maynot do, thenthe white
non-drug-using populationis going to hate us even more-for scaringthem,for
costing them a fuckingfortune,for our 'lifestyle,'whichtheysay caused this."5
What a morbid,even horrendous,yetperhapssensiblesuggestion:onlywhen the
"general public" is threatenedcan whateverthe opposite of a general public is
hope to get adequate attentionand treatment.
Almostall the media coverage of AIDS has been aimed at the heterosexual
groups now minimallyat risk,as if the high-riskgroups were not part of the
audience. And in a sense, as Watney suggests,they'renot. The media targets
"an imaginarynationalfamilyunitwhichis both whiteand heterosexual" (p. 43).
This doesn't mean that most TV viewersin Europe and America are notwhite
and heterosexualand part of a family.It does, however, mean, as Stuart Hall
argues, that representationis very differentfrom reflection:"It implies the
active work of selectingand presenting,of structuringand shaping: not merely
the transmittingof already-existingmeaning, but the more active labour of
makingthingsmean" (quoted p. 124). TV doesn't make the family,but it makes
the familymean in a certain way. That is, it makes an exceptionallysharp
distinctionbetweenthe familyas a biologicalunitand as a culturalidentity,and it
does thisby teachingus the attributesand attitudesbywhichpeople who thought
theywere alreadyin a familyactuallyonlybegintoqualifyas belongingto a family.
The great power of the media, and especiallyof television,is, as Watneywrites,
"its capacity to manufacturesubjectivityitself" (p. 125), and in so doing to
dictate the shape of an identity.The "general public" is at once an ideological
constructand a moral prescription.Furthermore,the definitionof the familyas
an identity an exclusionaryprocess,and the culturalproducthas no
is, inherently,
obligation whatsoever to coincide exactly with its natural referent.Thus the
familyidentityproduced on American televisionis much more likelyto include
your dog than your homosexual brotheror sister.
5. Quoted froma speech at a rallyin Boston preceding a gay pride celebration; reprintedin,
among other publications,the San Francisco lesbian and gay newspaper ComingUp!, vol. 8, no. 11
(August 1987), p. 8.
7. Meanings,Mythsand ModernSerualities,London,
JeffreyWeeks, Sexualityand Its Discontents:
Boston, and Henley, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985, p. 198.
8. Weeks has a good summaryof that"neat ruse of history"by whichthe "intentof the earlygay
liberationmovement . . . to disruptfixedexpectationsthathomosexualitywas a peculiar condition
or minorityexperience" was transformed,by less radical elementsin the movement,into a fightfor
the legitimateclaimsof a newlyrecognized minority,"of what was now an almost 'ethnic' identity."
Thus "the breakdownof roles,identities,and fixedexpectations"was replaced by "the acceptance of
homosexualityas a minorityexperience," an acceptance that"deliberatelyemphasizesthe ghettoiza-
of heterosex-
tion of homosexual experience and by implicationfailsto interrogatethe inevitability
uality" (ibid.,pp. 198-199).
such people as "innocentvictims."It is as ifgay men's "guilt" were the real agent
of infection.And whatis it,exactly,thattheyare guiltyof? Everyoneagrees that
the crimeis sexual, and Watney,along withothers,definesit as the imaginedor
real promiscuityfor which gay men are so famous. He analyzes a storyabout
AIDS by the science correspondentof the Observerin which the "major argu-
ment, supported by 'AIDS experts in America,' [is] against 'casual sexual en-
counters.'" A London doctor does, in the course of the article,urge the use of
condoms in such encounters,but "the main problem . . . is evidently'promis-
cuity',with issues about the kinds of sex one has pushed firmlyinto the back-
gound" (p. 35). But the kindsof sex involved,in quite a differentsense, may in
factbe crucial to the argument.Since the promiscuityhere is homosexual prom-
iscuity,we may, I think,legitimatelywonder if what is being done is not as
importantas how many times it is being done. Or, more exactly,the act being
representedmay itselfbe associated withinsatiabledesire, withunstoppablesex.
Before being more explicitabout this,I should acknowledgethatthe argu-
mentI wishto make is a highlyspeculativeone, based primarilyon the exclusion
of the evidence thatsupportsit. An importantlesson to be learned froma study
of the representationof AIDS is that the messages most likelyto reach their
destinationare messagesalreadythere.Or, to put thisin otherterms,representa-
tionsof AIDS have to be X-rayedfortheirfantasmaticlogic; theydocumentthe
comparative irrelevance of informationin communication. Thus the expert
medical opinions about how the virus cannot be transmitted(informationthat
the college-educatedmayorof Arcadia and his college-educatedwifehave heard
and referto) is at once rationallydiscussed and occulted. SueEllen Smith,the
Arcadia mayor'swife,makes the unobjectionablecommentthat "there are too
manyunansweredquestionsabout thisdisease," onlyto conclude that"if you are
intelligentand listenand read about AIDS you get scared when it involvesyour
own children, because you realize all the assurances are not based on solid
evidence." In strictlyrationalterms,thiscan of course be easilyanswered: there
are indeed "many unansweredquestions" about AIDS, but the assurancesgiven
by medical authoritiesthat there is no risk of the HIV virusbeing transmitted
through casual contact among schoolchildrenis in fact based on "solid evi-
dence." But what interestsme mostabout the New YorkTimesinterviewwiththe
Smithsfromwhich I am quoting (theyare a genial, even disarmingcouple: "I
know I must sound like a countryjerk saying this," remarksMr. Smith,who
reallyneverdoes sound like a countrybumpkin)is the evidence thattheyhave in
fact received and thoroughlyassimilatedquite differentmessages about AIDS.
The mayor said that "a lot of local people, including himself,believed that
powerfulinterests,principallythe national gay leaders, had pressuredthe Gov-
ernmentinto refrainingfromtakinglegitimatesteps to help contain the spread
of AIDS."12 Let's ignore the charmingillusion that "national gay leaders" are
18. Ibid.
19. CatherineA. MacKinnon,Feminism Unmodified:Discourseson Lifeand Law, Cambridge,Massa-
chusetts,and London, England, Harvard UniversityPress, 1987, pp. 3 and 172.
and strong physical organism is the temptationto deny the perhaps equally
strongappeal of powerlessness,of the loss of control. Phallocentrismis exactly
that:not primarilythe denial of power to women (althoughit has obviouslyalso
led to that,everywhereand at all times),but above all the denial of the value of
powerlessnessin both men and women. I don't mean the value of gentleness,or
nonaggressiveness,or even of passivity,but ratherof a more radical disintegra-
tionand humiliationof the self.For thereis finally,beyondthe fantasiesof bodily
power and subordinationthat I have just discussed,a transgressingof that very
polaritywhich,as Georges Bataille has proposed, may be the profoundsense of
both certainmysticalexperiencesand of human sexuality.In makingthissugges-
tion I'm also thinkingof Freud's somewhatreluctantspeculation,especiallyin
the ThreeEssayson theTheoryofSexuality,thatsexual pleasure occurs whenevera
certain thresholdof intensityis reached, when the organization of the self is
momentarilydisturbedby sensationsor affectiveprocesses somehow "beyond"
those connected withpsychicorganization.Reluctantbecause, as I have argued
elsewhere,this definitionremoves the sexual fromthe intersubjective,thereby
deprivingthe teleologicalargumentof the ThreeEssaysof muchof itsweight.For
on the one hand Freud outlines a normativesexual developmentthat findsits
natural goal in the post-Oedipal, genitallycentered desire for someone of the
opposite sex, whileon the other hand he suggestsnot onlythe irrelevanceof the
object in sexualitybut also, and even more radically,a shatteringof the psychic
structuresthemselvesthat are the preconditionfor the veryestablishmentof a
relationto others.In thatcuriouslyinsistent,ifintermittent, attemptto get at the
"essence" of sexual pleasure-an attemptthat punctuatesand interruptsthe
more secure narrativeoutlineof the historyof desire in the ThreeEssays-Freud
keeps returningto a line of speculationin whichthe oppositionbetweenpleasure
and pain becomes irrelevant,in which the sexual emerges as the jouissance of
exploded limits,as the ecstatic sufferinginto which the human organism mo-
mentarilyplungeswhen it is "pressed" beyonda certainthresholdof endurance.
Sexuality,at least in the mode in whichit is constituted,may be a tautologyfor
masochism. In The Freudian Body, I proposed that this sexually constitutive
masochismcould even be thoughtof as an evolutionaryconquest in the sense that
it allows the infantto survive,indeed to findpleasure in, the painfuland charac-
teristicallyhuman period during which infantsare shattered with stimulifor
which they have not yet developed defensive or integrativeego structures.
Masochism would be the psychicalstrategythat partiallydefeats a biologically
dysfunctional processof maturation.24 From thisFreudian perspective,we might
say that Bataille reformulates this into the sexual as a kind of
self-shattering
nonanecdotal self-debasement,as a masochismto which the melancholyof the
25. Bataille called thisexperience "communication,"in the sense thatit breaks down the barriers
that define individual organismsand keep them separate from one another. At the same time,
however,like Freud he seems to be describingan experience in whichthe verytermsof a communi-
cation are abolished. The termthuslends itselfto a dangerous confusionifwe allow it to keep any of
its ordinaryconnotations.
26. It mightbe pointed out that,unlessyou met your lover many,manyyearsago and neitheryou
nor he has had sex withanyone else since then,monogamyis not thatsafe anyway.Unsafe sex a few
timesa week withsomeone carryingthe HIV virusis undoubtedlylike havingunsafesex withseveral
HIV positivestrangersover the same period of time.
27. Weeks, p. 218.
28. Gayle Rubin, "Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality," in
Carole Vance, ed., Pleasureand Danger:ExploringFemaleSexuality,Boston, London, Melbourne,and
Henley, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1984, p. 309.
29. A frequentlyreferredto study of gay men and women by the Institutefor Sex Research
founded by AlfredC. Kinseyconcluded that "homosexual adults are a remarkablydiversegroup."
See Alan P. Bell and MartinS. Weinberg,Homosexualities: A StudyofDiversity amongMen and Women,
New York, Simon and Schuster,1978, p. 217. One can hardlybe unhappywiththatconclusionin an
"official"sociological study,but, needless to say, it tells us very little-and the tables about gay
sexual preferencesin the same studyaren't much help here either-concerning fantasiesof and
about homosexuals.
30. "Sexual Choice, Sexual Act," pp. 11, 20.
33. This sentence could be rephrased, and elaborated, in Freudian terms, as the difference
between the ego's functionof "reality-testing"
and the superego's moral violence (against the ego).