Fashioning the Body: Versions of the Citizen, the Self, and the Subject

“We must not forget that the psychological, psychiatric, medical category of homosexuality was constituted from the moment it was characterized-Westphal’s famous article of 1870 on “contrary sexual sensations” can stand as its date of birth- less by a type of sexual relations than by a certain quality of sexual sensibility, a certain way of inverting the masculine and feminine in oneself…the homosexual was now a species,” (43).

Why does American culture in many ways still analyze homosexuals with the antiquated Westphal theory?  Perhaps one reason is because many Americans find cliché feminine gay men and masculine lesbian women to be novelties, useful in humor and entertainment. Examples including Family Guy, Will and Grace, and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, often appeal to Americans with stereo-typical “gay” antics. I admit that I have found these shows funny, and that many of these shows help to shape my opinions of homosexual people as a teenager.

“It is possible that the West has not been capable of inventing any new pleasures, and it has doubtless not discovered any original vices. But it has defined new rules for the game of powers and pleasures,” (48).

Isn’t the act of a confessing a pleasure which the West invented? Confession is a form of release for the one confessing and is often a vicarious pleasure for the one who is listening. Occidental people get much joy out of confessional gossip. For example, a confessor often hears in reply to one's sexual confession statements and qustions such as, “You slept with her/him! What was it like? How do you feel about this now?”  The listener often digs deeper into the subject of the confession in order to satisfy one’s curiosity. In this way, the process of confessing and the process of listening to a confession are forms of pleasure in Western societies. That is why I disagree with Foucault when he states that the West may not have invented new forms of pleasure.