>>Yes, but here it's a _particular_ fantasy that is in question. A
>>fantasy of rape -- eroticization of power, as Ken puts it. Suppose
>>all fantasies won't disappear, but will _rape and rape fantasy_ be
>>always with us, even _after_ the abolition of class, gender, and
>>all other oppressions? Will we always eroticize power -- the
>>relation of domination and subordination -- even after the material
>>grounds for domination and subordination cease to exist? Do ideas
>>have "lives of their own," pace what historical materialists (from
>>Marx & Engels, the Frankfurt Theorists, Thomas Laqueur to Foucault
>>in his own way at his best moments) have argued?
>>
>>Yoshie
>
>don't know yoshie. i know rape fantasies are among the top three
>fantasies het women have--least i read this some time ago. do you
>know anything about that, as long as we're on the topic? they've
>done research on the incidence of domestic violence among lesbian
>couples, too. and that apparently is not all that different from
>the incidence of domestic violence among hets. which, to me,
>suggest, as i'm sure you'll agree, that violence isn't only about
>patriarchy.. do you know if they've done any work on lesbian
>fantasy life?
Susie Bright, for instance, wrote about her rape fantasy, and I'm familiar with works by Pat Califia, Dorothy Allison, Lydia Lunch, Kathy Acker, Anne Rice, Kurimoto Kaoru, Kuroki Kaoru (_Jidaraku nimo Hoto ga Aru_), etc. Constance Penley's work is interesting, too. I recommend to all Anne McClintock's "Maid to Order: Commercial S/M and Gender Power," _Dirty Looks: Women, Pornography, Power_, eds. Pamela Church Gibson & Roma Gibson, London: British Film Institute, 1993. Julia Creet's "Daughter of the Movement: The Psychodynamics of Lesbian S/M," _differences_ 3.2 (Summer 1991) should be of interest also (the English Department at the OSU should have hired her, as my local friends & I argued). I myself have enjoyed works by Sade, Bataille, etc. As a matter of fact, I consider myself to be something of an expert on the topic (born in Japan, I believe I have an edge over the rest of you). :)
I don't know, however, if any social scientific research of interest on the above subjects you mention is readily available.
And sure, women fantasize about rape _now_, and lesbians commit domestic violence _now_ too, but we live in a class society with all other oppressions (based on gender, race, sexuality, disability, etc.). Surely, those who do not live in such an exploitative & oppressive society & instead live in _a free association with no oppression of any kind_ are unlikely to commit domestic violence or rape (such people do not exist now, but imagine such a future). And if we make all exploitation & oppressions disappear, we have no material ground that may give rise to rape fantasies. Rape fantasies are not in our genes.
>basically, put it this way: i think objectification is part of
>sexuality, that it's not necessarily a 'bad' thing. i think you
>can't get around the fact that you objectify the other--some call
>that violence.
I think I agree with you about "objectification," though it depends on what you mean by this word. To me, "objectification," however, is not the same as exploitation (in the Marxist sense of the term), alienation (again in the Marxist sense of the term), oppression, violence, etc.
And "objectification" isn't the same as eroticization of power or rape fantasies, nor does the former necessarily entail the latter. When one eats an apple, one "objectifies" it, but one does not necessarily eroticize the apple, nor can it be said that one "rapes" the apple, much less that one "fantasizes" about "raping" the apple. When one takes a photograph of another human being, one "objectifies" him or her, but one is not necessarily "eroticizing" power over, "raping," or "fantasizing about raping" him or her.
BTW, do you (or does anyone) know of a good genealogical account (be it Marxist, cultural materialist a la Raymond Williams, or Foucauldian) of the term "objectification"?
Yoshie