In 'Dissolution of the Oedipus Complex' and 'Some Psychological Consequences of the Anatomical Distinctions Between the Sexes', Freud claims to understand the body/sexuality/pleasure beyond culture and history (Laqueur 1990). Freud's narrative, detaching sexuality from reproduction and problematising the notion of exclusive heterosexuality, ultimately does more to serve the primacy and value of both heterosexual relations and the conventions of the patriarchal organisation of the family (Appignanesi & Forrester 1993).
Freud accounts for the transition from the pleasure of the clitoris in younger women, to the primacy of the vagina, in adult females. Prior to the 20th Century, medical and pornographic representations of women's orgasm were only clitoral (Laqueur 1990: 233). Freud's mythology around the development of the healthy adult female asserted vaginal pleasure and an abandonment of clitoral pleasure. Freud, as an authority on mind, body and normality, was a powerful figure, defining acceptable ways for middle class women to use their bodies. The medical profession, emerging out of the Middle class, further defined acceptable/rational/healthy ways to use the body. Internalised notions of normality became powerful forces, where individuals internalise ideas and shame, and label their bodies/pleasures/identities in relation to the sexual degradation of the Other, in this case the mentally disturbed and the lesser classes (Laquer 1990: 235).
In Freud (in Appignanesi & Forrester 1993: 419), women are "made capable of an erotic life based on the masculine type object-love, which can exist alongside the feminine proper, derived from narcissism...it is the baby that makes the transition from narcissistic self-love to object love possible". Freud's narrative, while problematising exclusive heterosexuality (and societal ideas about what women find pleasurable), ends in an adult female, like the homosexual male, defined as narcissistic. She is able to transcend this authentic selfishness via reproduction and sexual practices/pleasures that are defined in relation to men, and to the penetration of the penis of the vagina. The sordid complexity of Freud reveals/suggests the extent to which powerful men and dominant institutions consciously and unconsciously prescribed myths about bodies/pleasures/identities. While Freud may have seen himself as beyond the conventional morality and irrationality of religion, the key organiser of bodies (and identities) before scientific disciplines (gained authority), it would be interesting to explore the extent to which Freud furthers the patriarchal organisation of gender and sexuality through complex modes of self-discipline. Indeed many feminists have examined the extent to which Freud's theory and practice involved the dismissal of sexual abuse in childhood, explaining his/her patients' complaints of abuse as mere problems of development of the individual and his or her Oedipus Complex (Appignanesi & Forrester 1993: 472). This alludes to a history of the ways in which religion and its supposed anti-thesis science reproduced an existing sexual and gender order (in the modern West) which favoured the powerful, and the ambitions of a society dominated by the Gods of sexual reproduction and the power of men over women, of the middle class over the others, of normality over insanity, of rich over poor, of object over subject, of heterosexual over homosexual.
Bibliography
Appignanesi, L. & Forrester, J. (1993). Freud's Women, Virago: London.
Freud, S. 1973, New Introductory Lectures in Psychoanalysis, Penguin: Harmondsworth.
Freud, S. 1977 (1923), 'Infantile genital organisation', in On Sexuality ed. Angela Richards, Penguin: Harmondsworth.
Freud, S. 1977 (1924), 'Disolution of the oedipus complex', in On Sexuality ed. Angela Richards, Penguin: Harmondsworth.
Freud, S. 1977 (1925), 'Some psychical consequences of the anatomical distinction between the sexes', in On Sexuality, ed. Angela Richards, Penguin: Harmondsworth.
Laqueur, T. (1990), Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud, Cambridge: MA.
Tuesday 21 April 2015
Thursday 9 April 2015
Je Suis Ollie
The statistics are in and they tell me that stupid ape is going down. The frenzy of likes on a facebook page I co-administer (Too Informed to Vote for Tony Abbott) provides evidence of the demise of your friend Tony Abbott. After over a year of limited interest, the facebook page has become a veritible hotbed of populist rage.
As co-administrator of the page, perhaps I should be fullfilling my job, posting something witty and thought provoking, engaging with debates about the failure of the trickle down effect, tracing the parallels between the fundamentalism of the Coaltion and that of extremist terrorist groups, or postulising about whether ice or Tony Abbott is the true scourge of society.
Inevitably, I will be read as a green, nihilistic, homo-terrorist in an open relationship with a communist Staffodshire puppy dog. In all my smug self-assurdness, I don't care so much about how tragic humans perceive me, however, I remain highly succeptible to anger managment issues that the Daily Telegraph would define as 'spiralling dangerously out of control'.
On Easter Sunday, a walk in the park descended into a battle between your innocent staffy loving commrad and the world of Lovejoy, and other human-centric 'people' that are so close to death that they really should know the joy of puppy-love. Ollie (or Olive, as I like to call him) was "straying". It's common for him to hang out behind the pack when in the woods. The possibility of food, pats, dinner, shade, scratches, ball, love, eggs, puppies increases loitering likeliness. I returned to the cafe where Ollie was performing. I like to watch him entertain his peoples with his staffy antics. He pretended to hug some some children while nudging toward their sandwiches. They seemed to laugh at the way his ears perked up, pushed to the top of his head like a little girl with piggy tails. They mimiced his snorting as he sniffed the ground while similtaneously peeing on the ice cream freezer. He used his ninja moves and drew on a number of his favourite styles of walk, from the grapevine to the rocking-chair, conducting his own circus of joy. In private this great magician is known as a "little lamb", "pie of the Ollie", "sweet Olive of Olliebama" and even "Bubby bearskin Rug", as he outstretches his body to form one line of delightfullness.
The naggy, know-it-all Anzac rattled me with a tone that exibited my lack of respect for my Christian elders.
"Your dog is being a pest".
"What's wrong with you", I asked, a statement demanding a list from the psychologist that he never realised he needed.
"There's nothing wrong with me".
"Shut up", I concluded.
"You just told MY father to shut up", another human pestering me unnecessarily in Ollie's favourite park.
"You're a stupid b***h".
I don't know what it was, maybe it was the frenzy of Erskineville Kings, the fact that it was Ollie's park, or that it was Christ's eternal birthday that made me react in such a manner.
Having made eye contact with the stupid bitch, I looked up and a couple of very stupid looking faces appeared shocked. Murmers of disgust further fueled my outburst.
"Hey, watch your language. There are kids around, you know", said the father whose wife was clearly flirting with Ollie, when I watched her from a distance.
"Just fuck off. F-u-c-k off", I said. My manner was abrupt as I placed Ollie on the lead.
My smug, narrcistitic grandiosity is only reinforced by the fact that I am bragging about this incident on my blog. Amused by my own behaviour, most disappointed that I didn't add "Just fuck off...back to your trashy white suburbs you god fearing breeders".
The page I co-administer, why don't you click like on it? You can be part of his downfall. You can tell your grandchildren that you helped make the moment. I might post something on there too, before I lose my job. When you read it, remember that I wouldn't tell you how to fix your car, bring up your children, how to make Anzac cookies or that Jesus doesn't really love you.
As co-administrator of the page, perhaps I should be fullfilling my job, posting something witty and thought provoking, engaging with debates about the failure of the trickle down effect, tracing the parallels between the fundamentalism of the Coaltion and that of extremist terrorist groups, or postulising about whether ice or Tony Abbott is the true scourge of society.
Inevitably, I will be read as a green, nihilistic, homo-terrorist in an open relationship with a communist Staffodshire puppy dog. In all my smug self-assurdness, I don't care so much about how tragic humans perceive me, however, I remain highly succeptible to anger managment issues that the Daily Telegraph would define as 'spiralling dangerously out of control'.
On Easter Sunday, a walk in the park descended into a battle between your innocent staffy loving commrad and the world of Lovejoy, and other human-centric 'people' that are so close to death that they really should know the joy of puppy-love. Ollie (or Olive, as I like to call him) was "straying". It's common for him to hang out behind the pack when in the woods. The possibility of food, pats, dinner, shade, scratches, ball, love, eggs, puppies increases loitering likeliness. I returned to the cafe where Ollie was performing. I like to watch him entertain his peoples with his staffy antics. He pretended to hug some some children while nudging toward their sandwiches. They seemed to laugh at the way his ears perked up, pushed to the top of his head like a little girl with piggy tails. They mimiced his snorting as he sniffed the ground while similtaneously peeing on the ice cream freezer. He used his ninja moves and drew on a number of his favourite styles of walk, from the grapevine to the rocking-chair, conducting his own circus of joy. In private this great magician is known as a "little lamb", "pie of the Ollie", "sweet Olive of Olliebama" and even "Bubby bearskin Rug", as he outstretches his body to form one line of delightfullness.
The naggy, know-it-all Anzac rattled me with a tone that exibited my lack of respect for my Christian elders.
"Your dog is being a pest".
"What's wrong with you", I asked, a statement demanding a list from the psychologist that he never realised he needed.
"There's nothing wrong with me".
"Shut up", I concluded.
"You just told MY father to shut up", another human pestering me unnecessarily in Ollie's favourite park.
"You're a stupid b***h".
I don't know what it was, maybe it was the frenzy of Erskineville Kings, the fact that it was Ollie's park, or that it was Christ's eternal birthday that made me react in such a manner.
Having made eye contact with the stupid bitch, I looked up and a couple of very stupid looking faces appeared shocked. Murmers of disgust further fueled my outburst.
"Hey, watch your language. There are kids around, you know", said the father whose wife was clearly flirting with Ollie, when I watched her from a distance.
"Just fuck off. F-u-c-k off", I said. My manner was abrupt as I placed Ollie on the lead.
My smug, narrcistitic grandiosity is only reinforced by the fact that I am bragging about this incident on my blog. Amused by my own behaviour, most disappointed that I didn't add "Just fuck off...back to your trashy white suburbs you god fearing breeders".
The page I co-administer, why don't you click like on it? You can be part of his downfall. You can tell your grandchildren that you helped make the moment. I might post something on there too, before I lose my job. When you read it, remember that I wouldn't tell you how to fix your car, bring up your children, how to make Anzac cookies or that Jesus doesn't really love you.
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