Mike B. responds:
>If I could be convinced that humans were genetically
predisposed to dominance and submission, I'd give up
on the socialist project.
Why? I have always understood the socialist project as ending human suffering, and not to give rise to a particular type of human being. The problem with your approach is that you are fixated on producing a particular type of person -- one who is not interested in domination/ submission in any relationship. But producing that particular type of person is not a guarantee that suffering will be reduced. In fact, we cannot say what particular type of person or society will emerge as suffering is reduced. I can say from personal experience that the person I am now is radically different from the ones I used to be, and I fully expect this one to morph into other ones as I continue to pursue the goal of eliminating suffering. What I have to keep in mind is that all of these selves are also no-selves, and that the goal is not to have a particular self/no-self, but to produce as little suffering as possible and regard the consequent self/no-self and community created with equanimity.
> For now my opinion is that people are socialized to accept
dominance by existing authority and have been since at least the
dawn of class society.
But what if people enjoyed erotic D/s before the dawn of class society?
> I have become convinced of this view through a critical reading of
the reasearch done by Reich, Fromm, Horney and others.
I am convinced that people have a genetic predisposition to D/s by decades of experience in the kink community, interacting with and learning from people who live D/s as part of their lives.
> "She sees sadomasochism as a fundamental principle of everyday
life, including work and family relationships; and she sees it, more
important still, not primarily as a sexual matter at all, but as
integral to power, dependence, and unfreedom."
She can see it that way, but her vision is not necessarily reality. Do you know how much of her time was spent studying/living kink life?
> Further Kovel writes that Chancer roots,"sadomasochism
in the dynamics of power rather than instinct."
It is fine that he theoretically roots it there, but again, did this decision emerge from his studying/living kink life?
Mike D. writes:
> The construction of these social norms is based on the process
of identity-formation: "The greater the diversification of subjective
identities, the more securely power maintains its hold on us."
&
> According to Foucault's queer theory, then, "one does not resist the
forces of normalization [i.e., heteronormativity] by inventing new kinds
of social or sexual identity, as many sex radicals in the U.S. still seem
to believe." Breaking down the population into further identity-based
classifications is the technique through which biopower controls us by
regulating the categories of our thought and identity.
Which is why I write about the Buddhist idea of no-self so much. The Buddha came to the same insight, just 2,500 years before Foucault. There is some very interesting work being done now about the similarity of queer theory and postmodern thought and Buddhism, especially Zen. See: Zen and the Art of Postmodern Philosophy: Two Paths of Liberation from the Representational Mode of Thinking by Carl Olson.
> Indeed, Foucault's queer theory can serve as the basis of a critique
of ANY version of identity politics --black lib, women's lib, gay lib, etc.
As does Buddhism.
> Whereas gay liberation had placed its trust in identity politics, queer
activism entailed a critique of identity and an acknowedgement that
different social groups could transcend their idenity-based particularisms
in the interest of resisting heteronormative society
Hence my "Queer Buddhist Resister"
> "[Queer theory's] anti-identitarianism gives rise to ... the promise that
we may think and act beyond the confines of identity, including group
identity, and the risk that in doing so the specificities of race, gender,
class, sexuality, and ethnicity might be overlooked or lost. Queer theory
is the discourse that explores those promises and risks."
I think Buddhism helps here in the sense that it acknowledges that these specifities exist, but demonstrates that the most effective way of dealing with them is to acknowledge them without attaching/clinging to them. Buddhism realizes that existence is ever changing particulars rooted in emptiness.
> Whoever that was (apologies, horrible memory for names) suggested
Buddhism was one such way of understanding subjectivity. Call me an
old-fashioned historical materialist, but I have to seek my understanding
of subjectivity elsewhere, namely science (no offense meant to the
religious among us).
But Buddhism demands that any of its tenets be empirically provable. Buddhism is not opposed to science, but rather, an ally.
> In either case, I think that Foucault's queer theory's stance on bdsm or
S-M is clear: any attempt to 'clinic-ize' such practices, to base them on
a theory of the sadist or masochist as an identity, is part of the operation
of "bio-power" and as such, only serves to reinforce "heteronormativity."
Here we disagree. When I whip somebody I am assuming the identity of a sadist. What I must keep in mind, however, is that I am both being and not- being a sadist at the same time. For me queer theory (like Hume's thought in the article I posted a link to) needs to take a Buddhist turn in order grow.
> All these ideas do lead me to believe that the way that humans think about
their own sexual practices is far more important for the way sex relates to
society than which actual sex practices one does...
Again, we disagree. Thought, theory, abstraction are all well and good sometimes, but the actions that are taken and whether the outcomes increase or decrease suffering is what the game is all about. I think the left needs a new slogan: "Out of your heads and into the streeets."
> Instead we should talk about the more productive question of how we should
understand sexuality's relation to modes of social control.
Okay, you first. How should we understand sexuality's relation to modes of social control?
> Of course, we should also criticize Dean for demoting class to 'just another identity,'
and Foucault for his radical anti-Hegelianism, but those are whole different post.
Why shouldn't we praise Foucault for his radical anti-Hegelianism? And while we are on the subject, what is so great about Hegel? He hated African peoples and thought Prussia was the be-all end-all of civilization. Is it just he wrote so much that he made possible the production of tens of thousands of Masters/Ph.D. theses? I'm serious, what practical, pragmmatic tool did he give to the world that can help end suffering?
I know lbo-talk is a Hegel-happy elist, but from what has been posted, I am unimpressed. What am I missing? (I fully accept that the error is on my part. You can't all be wrong. LOL).
Curtiss writes:
> Those who act as dominants do not hold hegemony over the production of
sexual pleasure in the way the owners of capital hold the means of material
production.
Exactly. In some important ways the Dom serves the sub and the sub controls the Dom.
> The workers whose hides receive a tanning via the extraction of their
surplus labor has no recourse for except the sale of their labor power.
Submissives are individuals who seek a minimum of sexual pleasure from other
individuals who are dominants--and then, I suppose that many of these individuals
may prefer to be submissive sometimes, dominant other times, and sex without
these roles at others.
Curtiss is right again. Many people are now switches being Dom and sub as they decide. To draw correlations between erotic D/s and economic D/s seems very shaky.
Brian Dauth Queer Buddhist Resister