On Fri, 24 Sep 2004, BklynMagus wrote:
> I think it is much better to view humans as animals with a sexual component,
> demonstrated by the possession of genitalia. Accepting this as a ground, the
> question them becomes what are the ways to deploy this genitalia that cause
> suffering and what are the ways to deploy it that do not. Then the state of
> normativity is reduced to that which harms and that which does not.
Whaaa--? By this logic, doesn't some SM stuff violate your standard of "normativity"? Moreover, what sex is "harmful" is far from self-evident. For some, a one night stand and no further contact with a sexual partner is just fine; for others, this produces significant psychological harm (feelings of abandonment, betrayal, deception, etc.). Who gets the power to decide what nonharmful, "normative" sex is?
The political problem here, as my man Foucault emphasized, is not the specific norms people apply to sex; it is the existence of the concept of "normal" sex itself. Dividing the population into normals and deviants (using any criteria, including Brian's "harmful/ not harmful" dichotomy) is ideological through and through and can only lead to further surveillance, control, and stigmatization.
Miles