Compulsory Sexuality and the Desiring Woman

Abstract

Rich's 1980 essay, 'Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence', left an indelible imprint on feminist research. Even though students today may not have read the essay, the term 'compulsory heterosexuality' nonetheless peppers their essays. The legacy of French philosopher Michel Foucault is no less pervasive. Though he had no sympathy for feminists, his work, in particular the three volumes of The History of Sexuality (1990), continues to provide a methodological framework for some of the best scholarship in the area today. 1 In the 1980s, both writers, it might be argued, were fundamental in moving research on sexuality into the forefront of academic inquiry across the Humanities and in transforming Women's Studies into Gender Studies -but also in diffusing the influence of Second Wave Feminism within the university. By the 1980s, feminism had become an intellectual and policygenerating force, which provided a receptive international audience for the work of public figures (such as Rich and Foucault) who radically extended research into sexuality per se, outside the conventional discourse of sexology. It is all the more paradoxical, therefore, that one of the outcomes of these interventions was a radical undermining of feminism itself. Mourning feminismAdrienne Rich and Michel Foucault inaugurated two very different paths of inquiry within Women's Studies, both of which resulted in the virtual disappearance of the term 'women' -replaced by the terms 'gender' and 'sexuality'. There are reasons for regretting the loss of this term, but there is another term -also lost as a result, at least in part, of the findings of these two paths of inquiry that we mourn with perhaps greater fervour: that of 'feminism' as something in which all women have a stake. Adrienne Rich, quite rightly, pointed to a blind spot of feminism: its failure to consider the way in which 'woman' was a monolithic term that implied 'heterosexuality', excluding certain women, lesbians, from its larger category. Feminism, in its emphasis on woman, reproduced the same compulsory heterosexuality, argued Rich, that it purported to oppose. Meanwhile, bell hooks made many of the same complaints about the treatment of African-American women. The term woman became by its very Sexualities 11(1/2)

“When We Talk about Gender We Talk about Sex”: (A)sexuality and (A)gendered Subjectivities

“…Participants also spoke about how asexuality, in a way, necessitated a gender-neutral or agendered embodied presentation. Significantly, only those participants who had been assigned female at birth spoke about this, as it became clear that being asexual in the socio-structural context of heteropatriarchy when one was read by others as a woman presented particular challenges, since femininity was so aggressively heterosexualized and structured around male sexual desire (Radner 2008). Participants spoke about objectification and sexualization.…”

(Re)theorising laddish masculinities in higher education

“…Such analyses could potentially be applied overseas to phenomena such as US 'hookup culture' (see Garcia et al 2012). However, there is a need for more work on how consumerist values and the contemporary imperative for 'compulsory sexuality' (Radner 2008) inform these gender performances. Furthermore, exploration of masculinities in the neoliberal moment should also focus in more depth on socio-economic factors, in particular how austerity economics and politics create or exacerbate fears and social tensions which interact with the meanings of masculinity for both privileged and marginalised groups.…”

Managed Not Missing

“…These sexual self-enhancement directives rely strongly on a discourse of choice, empowerment, and the limitless potential of transformation, with a distinctive adaption by women in the current postfeminist climate (Gill, 2008a, 2008b; McRobbie, 2009). The postfeminist female (heterosexual) subject is increasingly valued for her ability to adopt the myriad “technologies of sexiness” (Radner, 1999, 2008; Ringrose, 2011) that demonstrate her sexual availability, desirability, and competence. These discourses exhort women to be permanently sexually prepared, proficient, and practicing (Gurevich, Brown-Bowers, Cosma, Vasilovsky, & Cormier, 2014).…”