outlaws, porn stars and ‘civilized’ sexual morality

    

 

 
 

 


 
in this post i present to you my final sexual ethics paper, written in february 2014. while what i write i find to be complete common sense, and despite an outpouring of support for the LGBT community on social media, i still find that these accepting values are not always carried over into everyday life. in other words, while most people preach for equality, they still treat the queer community as the social “other” in subtle, subtextual ways, mainly by allowing one's sexuality to define who he or she is as a person. to get anything accomplished we all need to be participating in this conversation, so, here is my voice-
 

Outlaws, Porn Stars and ‘Civilized’ Sexual Morality

 

On February 21, 2014 a Duke University freshman porn star wrote an open letter to the public in response to overwhelming online and on-campus harassment following the revelation of her identity or “alter-ego” to thousands of her peers via the fraternity network. Confidently claiming her right to choose and authorize her own sexuality, she states, “Let’s be clear about one thing: I know exactly what I’m doing. What about you?” (Lauren). Directing the question back at her audience, she begs readers to consider how they take part in the construction and marginalization of her sexuality. In doing so, she provokes readers to take on a constructivist perspective towards sexuality, to see sex as “a result of diverse social practices that give meaning to human activities, of social definitions and self-definitions” that they can participate in changing (Weeks 31). The constructivist position, which emphasizes the fluidity and illimitability of sexual desire, is counterbalanced by the nativist approach, which instead sees “that a given pattern of sexuality is native to the human constitution” (Connell 265). From this approach grows the adverse, underlying Western (Christian) assumption that forms of sexual desire which fall outside of “natural” or socially sanctioned sexual practices reflect moral deviance and, in popular belief, mental illness. Thus as nativism plays into the misguided oppression and discrimination against certain groups for the benefit of others, the Duke University student porn star and constructivists such as Sigmund Freud, Christine Gudorf and Martha Nussbaum advocate that we step away from the nativist model, insisting instead that social institutions and infrastructures take the embodied experience of the human being and freedom of choice as their main priority.

 
Freud was the first scholar to adopt a constructivist attitude toward sexuality, assessing in his essay “’Civilized’ Sexual Morality and Modern Nervous Illness” that one’s sexuality is complexly related to one’s environment, and thus is never pre-social or destined. For example, a person may decide whether or not to be openly homosexual depending on what is or is not taken as “normal” within a given context, and how that context might react; in severe cases, “the man who… cannot fall in with this suppression of instinct, becomes a ‘criminal,’ an ‘outlaw’ in the face of society” (167). As such, Freud suggests that sexuality is a complex moral issue which shapes subjects into being and behaving. Further, he offers the idea that Western morality (i.e. sex only acceptable within lawful marriage) is unrealistic and detrimental, since it is dependent upon, and in constant tension with, individuals’ repression of their natural instincts and drives. Accordingly, he states that “it is one of the obvious social injustices that the standard of civilization should demand from everyone the same conduct of sexual life,” seeing that an individual’s reservoir of unsatisfied sexual desire is subconsciously channeled or “sublimated” into either socially sanctioned activities on the one hand (if lucky) or madness (i.e. “hysteria”) on the other (171). In this way, Freud perpetuates Victorian-age, nativist perceptions associating the constitution of one’s sexuality with neurotic illness. What future scholars take away from Freud’s work, however, is not this association but the groundwork of the constructivist argument, that sexuality is cultivated by the meanings society assigns to it.
 
Freud’s argument lies at the heart of Christine Gudorf’s assertion that the inherited, dimorphic (i.e. dualistic) sexual paradigm is becoming less and less intelligible to modern society. Developments in biological research, for example, have challenged the nativist, Christian assumption that “humans were ‘naturally’ divided into two sexes,” with unusual chromosomal patterns offering the possibility of third-sex or perhaps unclassifiable sexes (866). Alfred Kinsey’s sociological research complements these new biological findings with his discovery that “there is, in fact, a spectrum of human sexual orientation from exclusively heterosexual at one end to exclusively homosexual at the other,” denying the possibility of dualistic classification of sexual desire (873). As such, a polymorphic paradigm emerges out of our old dimorphic one, posing challenges to any simple identification of an individual’s sexuality and thus its import on that individual’s “moral” status. Accordingly, in their essay “The Unclean Motion of the Generative Parts: Frameworks in Western Thought on Sexuality,” Connell and Dowsett suggest that the polymorphic approach leads “to a more fragmented and multi-leveled account of sexualities” which unsettles binaries of regular/irregular, and thus acceptable/unacceptable, sexual practices and desires (280).


 
Notably, Gudorf acknowledges that the polymorphic paradigm is difficult to adopt or fully accept because of its complexity, because it denies us our desire to order the world around us in simple, knowable terms (865). She particularly focuses on the practical problems polymorphism poses for religious institutions, since the dimorphic paradigm is “foundational for the moral and religious rules and commandments of religions” (880). For example, Christianity’s foundational story of Adam and Eve teaches that man and woman embody specific gender roles which are created in the image of God, and are therefore incontestable. Emerging from this story is the belief that the woman’s sexuality is the origin of sin, and that in order to go to heaven a man must exercise control over his sexuality and thus over women (this is where our Duke University porn star’s problems begin). In other words, this story introduced the culturally engrained dimorphism that moral female sexuality must be passive and the male’s, active. As such, “new work roles and domestic roles for men and women clearly impact religious norms of holiness,” as women take on leadership roles and more and more men become “stay-at-home dads” (Gudorf 881). Such developments begin to make pious observers question: is believing in Christianity incompatible with modern demands and the new social “norms”? Whose interpretation of these rules are we reading? Is the Christian doctrine simply a discourse set to keep those in power with power?
 

 
Martha Nussbaum would say that in many cases it is constructed to do just that. To support her argument, Nussbaum points to the fact that in ancient Greek culture, “bisexual desire was assumed to be ubiquitous, and gender of object was simply far less significant than the choice of the active or passive role” (237). In contemporary Western society, however, bisexuality is presumed to be a transgressive and defining feature of one’s identity, a label of sin and guilt which denies an individual of his or her own self-definition. Through this contrast in moral signification surrounding gender of object in the two cultures we recognize that “our own norms and practices” are “ours rather than universal and necessary,” that the moral standards we hold people to are constituted by the intersection of social practices and political agendas rather than by a “naturally given” set of rules (237). Even if they were “natural,” Nussbaum suggests, “it would not follow that we cannot and should not change” them (237). Accordingly, Nussbaum takes on a liberal perspective, urging her readers to question passively inherited dimorphic categories- which do not account for the historical, cultural, and personal relativity of sexuality- by educating themselves in the ways in which, but more importantly why, these traditions came into being. Ultimately, she insists “that those who are aware of the differences manifested by history are somewhat more likely to be tolerant of the differences they see around them,” therefore the study of sexuality provides the building blocks for a democracy in which all subjects are given a voice and the freedom to choose (256).

 

 
By putting her letter out in the public for all to read, the Duke University porn star was attempting to achieve a similar impact. Using her identity as an educated, well-versed student on one hand, and a confident porn star on the other, she deconstructs what we thought were “given” categories to show that they are, and should be, malleable in practice. Like Nussbaum and Gudorf, she suggests that Western society learn to move beyond the active/passive, heterosexual/homosexual, regular/irregular dimorphisms which have too strong “a bearing on who we are as people -- as good people or bad people” (Lauren). The new polymorphic paradigm, seen as early as in the work of Freud, moves away from the unrealistic confines of the dimorphic structure as “a way of accounting for the sexual categories present at a particular moment in history…and for the sexual options available in a given setting to the individual” (Connell 280). In acknowledging the illimitability of sexuality and sexual identities, the traditional labeling of “good” and “bad” sexuality becomes obsolete. As such, the polymorphic paradigm allows oppressed subjects to take part in their own self-definition and representation, to actively participate in their own social, political and sexual futures.

 





Bibliography
Lauren A. " I'M THE DUKE UNIVERSITY FRESHMAN PORN STAR AND FOR THE FIRST TIME I'M TELLING THE STORY IN MY WORDS." XoJanecom RSS. 21 Feb. 2014. 23 Feb. 2014 http://www.xojane.com/sex/duke-university-freshman-porn-star.
 
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