Joanne Kim GRMN 4231 Essay 1 The Acquisition of Sexuality: Two Women and a Poisoning by Alfred Döblin offers insight into the concepts of phenomenology and acquiring orientation in Ahmed’s article “Orientations: Toward a Queer Phenomenology”. Two Women and a Poisoning details the entanglement between two married women, Elli and Margarete (Grete), and their plot to poison their husbands. In “Orientations: Toward a Queer Phenomenology”, Ahmed discusses how orientations are not inherent, but rather acquired by repeated actions and shaped by one’s interactions with the world, and vice-versa. Similarly, Elli and Grete’s homosexuality is attempted to be explained through various lenses, notably, a heteronormative lens, and Döblin’s text frames their …show more content…
The two women’s friendship, and relationship with their husbands, is the “background”—what allows objects to emerge and be within reach (Ahmed, 549)—with the object in this context being Elli and Grete’s relationship. The way in which Elli’s relationship with Grete interacts with society, and how society influences her, is also evident when the court medical officer, Dr. Th. stated that though Elli’s plot to poison her husband was deliberate, she was “physically and mentally below par” and “her deed must be judged otherwise than if she had been perfectly sane and healthy.” (Döblin, 104). This shows that the homosexual relationship Elli was involved in impacts the view of one’s physical and mental health, as a “sane and healthy” individual would not have been vulnerable to being in such a relationship. This also reinforces heteronormative ideas, as heterosexual relationships are seen as “healthy” whereas homosexual relationships can only be explained as a deficit in one’s health, whether of body or …show more content…
For instance, a husband or sister was the most “logical”, heteronormative explanation, and essentially erased the possibility of queerness. Gender becomes secondary when “explaining” the queerness at hand. Similarly, Grete’s masculine role serves as an explanation of how she could have been in a sexual and/or romantic relationship with another woman. Their relationship is not based on the dynamic of a woman in relation to a woman, but rather, the result of queer desires, dispositions, and environments that drove these women into such a relationship. In addition, Elli is also described as being Grete’s “man”. However, the context in which Elli is a “man” is different from Grete’s masculine role—Grete was “not a woman who had ever been happy in the company of men, least of all that of her own husband.” (Döblin, 46). Elli therefore replaces the role of Grete’s husband whilst providing enjoyable company for her. This is once again an instance in which gender is seen as secondary in order to better fit heteronormative
In Kennedy and Davis’ article the debate over who is constituted as the “true” lesbian reflects the tension between heterosexuality and butch-fem identities when taken into account ethnic background and assigned gender roles in the relationship. While lesbianism is supposed to pose as a challenge to heterosexuality as the norm, as Kennedy and Davis’ article shows, within the lesbian community practices like the specification of butch-fem roles becomes a tool of oppression similar to conformity to heterosexual traditional gender roles. To illustrate the point that sexuality is based on the “cultural interpretation of sexual experiences” and “articulation” of power relations in society (Halperin 424), this paper focus on Kennedy and Davis’ debate over who is the real lesbian, and it draws on examples from the film Forbidden Love and Lee’s article “Why Suzie Wong is not a Lesbian”. I argue that sexual deviance or otherwise is always defined by a power elite in the interest of protecting and legitimating the current sexual norms. While lesbian culture is meant to be a challenge to these heterosexual norms, and yet its definition of butch-fem roles performs its own marginalization that ultimately reinforces traditional male-female roles. Interestingly, it also uses this power structure to establish the racial exclusions of non-white women that can be traced through the history of European colonization.
In an effort to legitimize all subcategories of sexuality considered deviant of heterosexual normatively, queer theory acknowledges nontraditional sexual identities by rejecting the rigid notion of stabilized sexuality. It shares the ideals of gender theory, applying to sexuality the idea that gender is a performative adherence to capitalist structures that inform society of what it means to be male, female, gay, and straight. An individual’s conformity to sexual or gendered expectations indicates both perpetration and victimization of the systemic oppression laid down by patriarchal foundations in the interest of maintaining power within a small group of people. Seeking to deconstruct the absolute nature of binary opposition, queer theory highlights and celebrates literary examples of gray areas specifically regarding sexual orientation, and questions those which solidify heterosexuality as the “norm”, and anything outside of it as the “other”.
Historians have neglected to study the impact of labouring classes as agents of change in early modern Edinburgh, and generally in early modern Scotland. Society is seen as stable and tranquil in this period, but there is a growing body of evidence of a higher incidence of riots and other symptoms of social conflict than what it was believed to be. In his chapter in the article, Whatley explores and analyses the first seventy years of the eighteenth century in search of small outbreaks throughout the country of Scotland: ‘the social and political significance of the popularly supported disorder in the first four decades of the century has been both underestimated and imperfectly understood.’ (Whatley, 144). Those protests were not large-scale,
Halperin, David. "Is There a History of Sexuality?." The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader. Ed. Henry
Milstein, Susan A. Taking Sides Clashing Views in Human Sexuality. Ed. William J. Taverner and Ryan W. McKee. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2009. Print.
Integrating scripting theory with the compulsory heterosexuality theory, a heteronormative, dominant sexual script was explicated, the Heterosexual Script (Sorsoli; Collins; Zylbergold; Schooler & Tolman 2007 p. 145-157). Traditionally, societies have encouraged both men and women to obey different sexual scripts (Laws and Schwartz 1977). This heterosexual scripts has been commented to be extremely gendered as well as breeding gender inequality (Pascoe 2007) and this essay aims to depict the means in which it is gendered along with its influences towards men and women in Western’s
Smith, David. ‘Lesbian Novel was danger to Nation.’ Sunday 2 January 2005. The Guardian. Web. 20 Nov 2012. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2005/jan/02/books.gayrights
The beginning of this short research essay began with the author explaining what the essay will be about. This essay primarily focuses on the differences and similarities of sexuality between men, women, gays, and lesbians. It also focuses on time, because throughout time, human sexuality has changed. New scientific evidence has also helped give new insight to the human mind and their most basic needs.
Gender appears as a social construct that comes with fixed roles, as seen more prominently through Gilman’s character Mollie’s thoughts and experiences as a woman. Mainly through Mollie, Gilman ultimately identifies the challenges of not accepting assigned gender roles, as well as the gendered power structure that society is built
Fausto-Sterling, Anne. Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality. NY: Basic Books, 2000.
Marilyn Farwell discusses what makes a lesbian narrative in her book Heterosexual Plots and Lesbian Narratives. Does the text have a political purpose? Can we identify the lesbianism of the authors and characters? What do these writers and characters say about lesbianism and more particularly their own lesbianism?” (Farwell 11).
Wilton, Tamsin. "Which One's the Man? The Heterosexualisation of Lesbain Sex." Gender, Sex, and Sexuality. New York: Oxford University, 2009. 157-70. Print.
How does 'sexuality' come into being, and what connections does it have with the changes that have affected personal life on a more general plane? In answering these questions, Anthony Giddens disputes many of the interpretations of the role of sexuality in our culture. The emergence of what he calls plastic sexuality, which is sexuality freed from its original relation of reproduction, is analyzed in terms of the long-term development of the modern social order and social influences of the last few decades. Giddens argues that the transformation of intimacy, in which women have played the major part, holds out the possibility of a society that is very traditional. "This book will appeal to a large general audience as well as being essential reading for those students in sociology and theory."(Manis 1)
Stein, Edward. The Mismeasure of Desire: The Science, Theory, and Ethics of Sexual Orientation. New York, NY: Oxford UP, 1999. Print. 20 Oct. 2011
In the face of a homophobic society we need creative and critical processes that draw out the complexity of lesbian lives and same sex choices, not a retreat into the comforting myths of heroines and unfractured, impeachable identities