lachance@chass.utoronto.ca
Gutterman
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| 19.0 |
Gutterman places gender before sexuality. But
sexuality is never final. Let me quote Foucault,
Gutterman's great authority figure, who said in an
interview that he thought "we should consider the
battle for gay rights as an episode that cannot be the
final stage" to which Adam Mars-Jones adds gay rights
was not a category mistake but an insufficient agenda (75).
Let me also quote from a 1971 manifesto written by Carl
Wittman:
we have to define for ourselves a new pluralistic, role-free social structure for ourselves. It must contain both the physical space and spiritual freedom for people to live alone, live together for a while, live together for a long time, either as couples or in larger numbers; and the ability to flow easily from one of these states to another as our needs change. (162)Sounds like a pretty sophisticated take on "identity formation". A role-free social structure is one where there is the freedom to try on roles. |
19.0 |
| 20.0 | Including those of the closet and those of being out. Wittman goes on to talk about closetry. The passage recognizes the risks involved and counsels patience with those not yet ready to take such risks. Wittman recognizes that collusion with the forces of oppression extends beyond a given identity. His is not the minority politics of the one-in-ten. That will get you tolerance not transformation. Wittman wants to "free the homosexual in everyone". | 20.0 |
| 21.0 | That does not translate into being homosexual but it does translate addressing the gay and lesbian constituents of an audience and exposing yourself to the threat of being so-labelled. Gutterman wants the reader to believe that stable identities are ineffective and to some extent morally corrupt because they block coalition building. Gutterman is in a sense wagging a finger at us identity politic folks saying we are not good enough to carry on the revolution. Gutterman needs to consider collusion and then his whole assignation of values good/bad would just have to go: a good oppressor oppresses, a good oppressed person revolts. Gutterman might have done so if his editors, Harry Brod and Michael Kaufman had let the wagging finger rise to a limp wrist or keep both under check! | 21.0 |
copyright 1997 François Lachance
lachance@chass.utoronto.ca