Sexuality and Society Term 2. Week 1 Renegotiating heterosexuality

Outline Introduction Heterosexuality and patriarchal power Deconstructing heterosexuality --as institution --as identity --as discourse --as sexual practice Conclusions

Two analytical/ political perspectives– 1) This week– feminism, concentrating on heterosexuality as a gender relation, a power relation between men and women. Look at heterosexuality through the lens of gender, the social relations of men and women. 2) Week 3--Queer Theory — Problematises the foundational categories of second wave feminism. In particular it sees gender not as the lens through which to examine social or sexual life, but as something which is itself produced through -- necessitated by- heterosexuality.

Institutionalised heterosexuality The American poet Adrienne Rich-- Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence (1978), excerpt in Jackson and Scott, eds Feminism and Sexuality. Her term ‘compulsory heterosexuality’ recognises the 'constraints and assumptions that, historically, have enforced or ensured the coupling of women with men and obstructed or penalised our coupling or allying in independent groups with other women. 216 Developed notion of the ‘lesbian continuum’-- recognises continuities in intense female friendship, whether or not it is sexual.

Rich on compulsory heterosexuality Not all women in heterosexual relationships are or feel oppressed but as an institution heterosexuality does not foster their interests or autonomy: ‘of course there are differences in the qualitative experience of individual women in relation to men, but this depends on chance or luck; women lack the collective power to determine the meaning and place of sexuality in their lives’. (237)

Other, related, ways of conceptualising the institutionalisation of heterosexuality Heteropatriarchy (Wilkinson and Kitzinger 1993) --heterosexuality as the defining characteristic of patriarchy as a social system Heteronormativity (Richardson 1996) –the cultural norms of normative heterosexuality that signal ‘the asymmetry, institutionalisation and regulatory power of heterosexual relations’ (Holland, et al The Male in the Head, p. 171), Still much used to describe assumptions about sexual practices, identities, etc. but without assuming it is all-determining. Both of these see heterosexuality as organising social life, not just sexual relations.

Newer theorisations ask: Is renegotiating heterosexuality possible? Recent approaches challenge the totalising picture of heterosexuality put forward by Rich and others. Is it really a unified package? Dominant culture perpetuates this idea (we all assume we know what ‘being a heterosexual’ means) but we shouldn’t reproduce it in our critique. Therefore better to examine distinct aspects of heterosexuality to see whether they are really totally integrated/ interdependent and whether there is potential to destabilise the package. Challenge picture of heterosexuality as ‘coherent, natural, fixed and stable category, as universal and monolithic’ (Richardson 1996:2)

Distinct aspects of heterosexuality: heterosexuality as an aspect of social structure, e.g. a type of family structure heterosexuality as a subjectivity or social identity heterosexuality as discourse heterosexuality as sexual practices and experience How far are these separable in practice? Can one aspect change without change in the others?

Heterosexuality as a social institution, aspect of social structure Still important, but changed quite a lot since Rich’s original publication in 1978, especially the centrality of marriage to heterosexual relationships. See especially Hawkes on the ‘uncoupling of marriage, sex and reproduction’. Still more importance than many think, although marriage may no longer be the linchpin of heterosexuality. For instance patterns of life in the ‘post- divorce’ family need to be examined (Carol Smart in A New Sociology of the Family? and other articles and books with Bren Neale in Library)

Heterosexuality as social identity Debate stimulated by Wilkinson and Kitzinger (1993) Responses by Smart and Jackson at different times argue that heterosexual women cannot form an identity around being heterosexual. Since it is a dominant category, it would be like forming an identity around being white, a defense of privilege. Moreover, most of these feminist women are fully aware of the privileged status of heterosexuality. It’s rather than they don’t recognise themselves or their relationships in the constructs of heterosexuality that are perpetuated by sexology and romantic love in the dominant culture, on the one hand, or by radical feminism, on the other. Rather they have sought to destabilise heterosexual identity, and make room for the emergence and development of a variety of what Smart calls heterosexualities-- in the plural --that are critical of dominant discourses. Identity constructed discursively.

Discourses of heterosexuality See literature on sexology as discourse, especially construction of the continuing centrality of intercourse in the literature on ‘female sexual dysfunction’. Early and very influential article by Hollway (1984), excerpt in Jackson and Scott (course excerpts also) identifies three key discourses that locate women (and men) in relation to heterosexual relations: 1) male sex drive discourse 2) to have-and-to-hold discourse 3) permissive discourse Hollway argued that women could manipulate these discourses but had not yet constructed a discourse around female empowerment in women’s own terms.

Heterosexuality as sexual practices Empirical studies Dunscombe, J. and D. Marsden (1996) Vanwesenbeeck, I (1997) Holland, J et al (1998) The Male in the Head Analysis of reported experiences of women being treated for perceived sexual problems in performing heterosex (Kaler 2007, Cacchioni 2007) Can look in Sexualities and other journals for other studies.

Holland et al The Male in the Head Study started as a study of young men and women’s (non)use of condoms to protect themselves from HIV but went on to look at the discourses and practices of heterosexuality that inhibited women from practicing safe sex. Found that most of the girl informants (aged 16-21) assumed that sex is for the man and that it is her responsibility to intuit and predict his wishes. The authors say they had assumed that there were male and female sexual cultures/ discourses that collided, and that the male culture was the more powerful. But found that even the female discourse was dominated by what they called ‘the male in the head’, the surveillance power of male-dominated heterosexuality. For the young women to be feminine was to construct themselves within male-dominated constructs. Young men were also guided in their behaviour and anxieties by presumptions about how men should act. A few of the young women did express a more empowered sense of themselves in relation to men, usually as a result of bad experiences. But it had to be renegotiated with each partner, because it is not institutionalised.

Conclusions Richardson argues that narrowing debate on heterosexuality onto erotic relations is limited. Rather than looking at how social life is shaped by heterosexist assumptions, as she argues feminist scholars and activists used to, many feminist now concentrate on how sexual life is shaped by gender inequalities. Next week will continue looking at the power relations of heterosexuality by looking at the strip club, lap-dancing club, then more explicitly at theoretical questions regarding the relation between gender and heterosexuality in Week 3.