Notes on Semen

Sexual Difference The Irigiray Reader

[] each age is preoccupied with one thing, and one alone. Sexual
difference is possibly that issue in our own age which could be our
salvation on an intellectual level (165) (this is interesting it was
written in 1984, and whilst difference is still an important issue, I
wonder whether the difference of self is what the burning issue
might be. If so what has this got to do with semen?)
Irigiray notes further that the question of sexual difference is never
fully answered because it reverses our current values particularly of
the self which suggests that the moment sexual difference is
considered, a blurring of naturalized and constructed identities start
to occur resulting in a breaking down of the stabilized concept of
self, particularly with regards to the concept of the masculine.
However, an unpacking of this, suggests Irigiray, could unveil fertile
ground, not just within flesh and reproduction, but also in thought,
art, poetry and language. It will be the creation of a new poetics
(165).
In order to do this, new foundations of knowledge need to be built
upon that are different to the foundations of men. This knowledge
should not be built with traditional
understandings of
psychoanalytic male/female boundaries.
If the work of sexual difference takes place, a revolution of thought
and ethics is needed. We must reinterpret the whole relationship
between the subject and discourse, the subject and the world, the
subject and the cosmic, the macroscopic, the microscopic. And the
first thing to say is that, even when aspiring to a universal of a
neutral state, the subject has always been written in the masculine
from, as men, despite the fact that [] man is sexed and not a
neutral man (166)
Thirty years later we have new knowledge being built upon that
reconsiders the boundary between masculine and feminine
boundaries.
Kristeva through the concept of abjection the exclusion of
unwanted characteristics is also the make-up of ones own identity
and understanding of self - reemphasizing the importance of the
corporeal
Butler Sex and gender are constructed and practiced social
actions resulting in affects on the world
Grosz A reconsideration of how Self might be constructed
with regards to the external and internal readings The Mobius
Strip.

However what becomes clear through these readings is not fully

unpacked as a bodily fluid. KRSITEVA SAYS
IRIGIRAY SAYS
GROSZ SAYS
Using Lacans Symbolic Order, Irigiray articulates that in order to
define ones self, man defines woman. This is an exclusionary tactic
which marks the feminine as an object, a thing, a place to anchor
and find ones self. In this respect the female floats, as she has no
place of her own, enveloping the masculine self in order to allow
space and time to exist (169)
There is a two way enveloping going on here as whilst he allows
her to envelop him in order to anchor him, which enables him to
enact a type of visual representation, he surrounds her with culture.
This defines her, but gives her no place, it claims her as his own
(170)
As such, a redefinition of space needs to be considered. Rather than
the male defining the female through exclusionary tactics, an
unknowable space is needed for sexual difference to occur. Sexual
difference is the recognition that I can never fully know You, this
space is a space of acceptance of the unknowing and is found in the
space or interval between the man and the woman. Whatever
identifications are possible, one will never exactly fill the place of
the other the one is irreducible to the other (171). Of course the
unknowing is traditionally a castrating space for the male because if
one sex is never fully consumed by the other there will always leave
a residue, a jouissance that cannot be defined through the
construction of boundaries.
THIS IS ALL VERY WELL, BUT BEFORE THE BOUNDARY BETWEEN
SEXUAL DIFFERENCE IS CONSIDERED A RECONSIDERATION OF THE
MALE BODY AND HIS FLUIDS ARE NEEDED. FOR EXAMPLE WHY IS
SEMEN SEEN LESS AN ABJECT FLUID AND MORE AS An OBJECT THAT
OFFERS SEXUAL DEFFINITITION?
The residue that flows between sexual difference, particularly
between bodies that are enveloped (having sex), can be associated
with mucosity the inertia of a body deprived of the mucus and the
act associated with it is located to the fallen body or the corpse
(174). This really interesting, as if mucosity is a bodily fluid, vaginal
and penile mucus, it is then falling within the realms of KRISTEVAs
Abject. Without the abject the body becomes the corpse another
abject, which of course forms Kristevas primary argument We need
those things that we reject in order to stay alive However what is
interesting about Irigirays position, which Krsiteva does not touch

upon, is that the visceral difference between the mucosity of male

and female is not fully known to either as the transgressive space
between the self and other is an unknowable one. Thus the
assimilation of other as an object and marker for ones self cannot
happen through exclusionary tactics (175). However this still relies
on heterosexualisation of self and other, and I wonder whether or
not the space that operates past the objectification of ones own
semen might also be a useful unknowable space to explore? I
wonder whether or not this space could reconsider Krsitevas
position that semen is NOT a threat to (sexual) identity?
HOW MIGHT SPACE RECONSIDER THE ROLE OF SEMEN AND SELF IN
THE CONSTRUCTION OF MY OWN SELF?
The Egg and the
Sociological Reader

Sperm

Emily

Martin

in

Gender:

Martin notes that medicine reinforces the naturalization of gender

constructs through the language used to describe the reproductive
process (384).
As such by extolling the female cycle as a productive exercise,
menstruation must necessarily be viewed as a failure; (385) and by
extension sperm as a product.
Medicianl texts descrive
menstruation as: Debris, representitive of necrosis, death tissue and
expulsion, which are systematic of abjection. Conversely male
reproductive physiology is evaluated quite differently as an
enthusiastic production which manufactures several hundred million
sperm in one day. Even the description of the reproductive process
is incredibly gendered. The sperm is streamlined, denoting its
capacity for minimal resistance, it is fully utilized. It also delivers
genes to the eggs. Their tales are strong and efficiently powered.
Together with the force of ejaculation, they can propel the semen
into the deepest recesses of the vagina [] they can burrow
through the egg coating and penetrate it (386)
Thus the sperm is deemed valuable because it is made rather than
expelled. IN THIS RESPECT SEMEN IS THE CARRIER OF SPERM, A
PRODUCT, THIS MAY SUGGEST THAT WHILST THIS IS A BODILY FLUID
THAT TRANSGRESSES BOUNDARIES IT ULTIMATELY IS MORE ABOUT
BIRTH THAN EXPULSION.
Even the egg germ cell is not analogous with the sperm in these
books as the ovaries produce 2 million eggs at birth of which only
5000 remain at menopause, this is deemed by some textbooks as
wasteful.
As such it is perceived that it is the male who
continuously produces fresh germ cells, and the female, who has

stockpiled germ cells

degeneration (385).

by

birth

[which]

is

faced

with

their

This may result in the simultaneous valorization of semen and the

definition of pollutant abjection given to menstruation by Kristeva
(although it is important to note that Kristeva is not stating that this
is the case, rather she is observing this space).
More recent research into the reproductive process system has
continued to use language that is heavily loaded through cultural
constructs of gender, to a point where the female part of this
system starts to resemble a female noir. On the one hand the
traditional view that the egg lays passively waiting for the sperm to
penetrate in order to become fertilized and productive. Conversely
Martin notes that more recent research describes the egg as having
a sticky receptor coat. The egg lies silently waiting in the vagina
ready to capture the oblivious semen (388). In this respect the egg
becomes the femme fatal in which man should avoid at all costs.
(MULVEY QUOTE HERE)
It is through the use of metaphore that the sperm cell is endowed
with personhood, either active penetrator, or unwitting victim in
both sexes, the sperm, is valorized culturally because it indexes a
delicate and important producer of life (389)
LACAN On Jouissance
Lacan notes that it is paternal law that make the distinction between
meaning and jouissance. Law is described as Usufruct meaning
utility, this literally means a right to enjoyment and with reference
to psychoanalysis it means that you can enjoy your means, but
must not waste them (3), loosely jouissance is surplus, or more
than meaning.
Lacan is referring indirectly to Freuds Pleasure Principle, which
articulates that there is a fine line between pleasure and pain (FIND
QUOTE). What Lacan is suggesting is that this fine line is not
between pleasure and pain but rather pleasure and excess. SO
much excess that the subject realizes that the desired pleasure is
not wanted anymore (ALLAIN MILLER). This is hinted at in Lacans
opening to On Jouissance where he states with the passage of time,
I learned that I could say a little more about it [The Ethics of
Psychoanalysis]. And then I realised what constituted my course
was a sort of I dont want to know anything about it (1). Of
course jouissance is more than just an excess of meaning.
Jouissance is located within the realm of theSuper Ego, it is paternal
law that allows the demands of the Super Ego to be realised but
only up to the point, this is usufruct .

There are two types of Jouissance though that Lacan refers to. The
first is bodily jouissance which appears in the bizzare signs of the
body. They are the sexual charcateristics that come from beyond,
from the place we believed we could see under the microscope in
the form of the germ cell. we cant say [this] is life since it also
bears death, the death of the body by repeating it (5). In short
jouissance for the male is localized to the organ For the female
bodily jouissance has another side of discourse and speech in that it
is located within love. (Alexandra Stephens Love and Sex Beyond
Identifications IN THE LATER LACAN AN INTRODUCTION 2007).
However, whilst bodily jouissance maybe appropaite to discuss with
relationship to the concept of the abject fluid, I feel that there is
more to be gained in the second form of jouissance offered to the
male in the form of phallic jouissance, which is his constant search
for sexual completion.
In The Mirror Stage, the infants first site of their self is in the unified
image of the Imago this unification is fleeting and illusionary, but
this does not stop the Subject from desiring this unification through
an attempt to claim the Phallus, the feminine object. As long as the
subject thinks that the Phallic Object has the ability to make them
whole then the other remains the One.
In this respect Phallic Jouissance is the obstacle owing to which man
does not come (7). Man is always Cumming, but to come is to
arrive and as such that can never happen as outside of the demands
of the Subject everything is limitless.
Grosz: Volatile Bodies 195 202
[] bodily fluids have different indices of control, disgust, and
revulsion. There is a kind of hierarchy of propriety governing these
fluids themselves. Those that function with clarity, unclouded by
the specter of infection, can be represented as cleansing and
purifying: tears carry with them none of the disgust associated with
the cloudiness of puss, the chunkiness of vomit, the stickiness of
menstrual blood. (195) - START INTRODUCTION WITH THIS, BUT
ASK WHY, CONSIDERING ITS STICKINESS AND GLOOPINESS WHY I
DO NOT FIND MY SEMEN RESULVIVE OR DISGUSTING THEN GO
INTO STORY AND THEN GIVES EXAMPLES OF WIDER READING OF
SEMEN.
The physiology of sexed subjects can be seen as an analogy for a
vessel Females are correctly seen as, literally, the entry by which
the pure content may be adulterated. Males are treated as pores
through which the precious stuff may ooze out and be lost with the
whole system being therefore enfeebled. (Douglas, 1980: 126)

But this has a naturalizing affect on the body in that the female is
penetrated and the male oozes or secretes into her. Why this is
culturally validated Grosz argues that this does not mean that it is
inevitable. USE AFTER EGG AND SPERM ARTICLE
However this is not to say that we live out bodies without the
mediation of cultural representation as our pleasures and anxieties
are lived and experienced through models, images, representations
and expectations. Those regulating the body [] do not regard the
polluting contamination of sexed bodies as a two way process.
(197).
USE WHEN I REALISE THAT SEMEN IS GROSS WHEN IT
COMES TOWARDS YOU
Men seem to refuse that their bodily fluids are contaminating, yet Grosz
believes that paradoxically it is not the distinction between clean and
unclean women that defines the polluting properties of female sexuality, but
rather the quantity or quality of the men she has been with she is then a
sponge of other mens dirt (197)

Phenomenology is generally displaced in favor of externalization,

medicalization, solidification. Seminal fluid is understood primarily
as what it makes, what it achieves, a casual agent and thus a thing,
a solid: its fluidity, its potential seepage, the element in it that is
uncontrollable, its spread, its formlessness is perpetually displaced
in discourse onto its properties, its capacity to fertilize, to father, to
produce an object. (199)
Why does sperm not qualify as the object a? (199) ANSWER THIS
WHAT IS OBJECT A?
Perhaps it is not after all flow in itself that a certain phallicized
masculinity abhors but the idea that flow moves or can move in twoway or indeterminable direction that elicits horror, the possibility of
being not only an active agent in the transmission of flow, but also a
passive receptacle. (201) CONCLUSION TO FIRST SECTION: IT IS
IMPORTANT TO SHOW THIS WORK, THEREFORE THIS WILL BE
REPRESENTED IN THE FORM OF STAG
Dirt is what disrupts order, and order is conceived of it as arbitrary
arrangement of elements in relative stability or harmony (199) IN

MY DISGUST AT NOT BEING ABLE TO GO OUT IN PUBLIC WITH CUM

UP MY BUM BECAUSE IT DESTABILISES MY IMAGE
The problem with abortion for example is that men mourn not the
loss of their body fludis, but its wastage (202)
However, my inability to go public with cum up my bum is not to be
seen as Jackassian attempt to claim power of the abject and the
corporeal body, as may be construed in Spitting Distance. Instead it
should be seen as an experiment, or a desire for change and
transformation of the hierarchical structures employed through the
visual representation of the body. Stag is a procedure for rewriting
of the kind involved in transforming ones own practices and
activites. (202). It is an experiment which aims to articulate a need
to reconsider flow in and out of my body.
Murat Aydemir Images of Bliss (2007)
Despite images of the ova having been explored, it could be
assumed that Aristotles philosophical and empirical scientific
approaches to semen would be redundant. However, Aydemir notes
that whilst the work of this philosopher may be seen nave and
quaint, his attitudes extend past historicity and becomes dominant
and unchallenged. (4)
Aristotle notes that nature and earth is the female whilst the heaven
and the sun and anything given the title of generator is considered
male or father (Aristotle 1.2) Compare this to Lacans Mirror Stage in
which the nature is given to the mother and law and reason, the
form of humanness is given to the paternal.
Western culture has a long-standing history of turning on the
difference between sperm and mestraul blood into an opposition,
and of deriving a hierarchy between the sexes from it. (9)
In an analysis of Serranos work Semen and Blood III, and an
interview with Metalica, whos album Loaded dons the image, it
becomes apparent that colour, matter and shape are important
aspects in understanding the cultural relationship between semen
and menstrual blood. (8)
Aritotle observes that semen is white. This colour distinguishes it
from other bodily fluids, particularly menstrual blood, because white
signifies a more advanced, in fact the ultimate, stage of purification
of the nutrient (pnuema). (12)
Aristotle read women as deformed men (10)

Aydemir identifies ten reasons why semen matters more than

menstrual blood- these range from concepts of quantity (men
produce less semen because it is more concentrated) through to
semen being form giving and thus menstrual blood representing
matter (11).
However I am interested in its temporality and its matter
Aristotle notices that sperm changes when it leaves the body or is
out of the body for an extended period of time I found this out so
I decided to be the empirical scientist that Aristotle was and create
my own tests on Semen.
What Serranos work does is to remind his readers that the
substance that Aristotle and others after him associate as precious
life source, has in fact no life of its own, by itself. (15)
Serranos Untitled XIV (Ejaculation in Trajectory) destabilizes the
Cum shot because it freezes in the air it does not land on skin, and
cannot represent any bodys orgasmic pleasure.
The specific colour of sperm can no longer look particularly smooth,
pure, sterile, even-toned, hygienic, immaculate or neutral. Precisely
the opalescence of white, it appears, provokes differntiality, a
heterogeneity of perspectives, variations in hues and shades, layers
of white on white (26) Adymir is referring to Derrida in the last
part of this quote.
STAG
Aymir suggests that rather than assuming the unproblematic
familiarity and visibility of male pleasure, and also representing the
invisibility of the female pleasure, he views the cum shot as
productive and constitutive of masculinity and its very ambivalence
(106)
In the analysis of feature length hardcore pornography Aymire
suggests that the cum shot in contemporary pornography IS NOT an
empty signifier, instead, the cum-shot may partake of the endeavor
to make masculinity real, to realize or authenticate it in the eyes of
the viewer (94). It is the cultural conceptions of ejaculation, which
is pivotal in the Western conceptualization of gender. Ultimately the
male orgasm marks culture, visibility, materiality and temporality.
The latter in that the cum shot marks the end, particularly with the
latter in mind, there is a link between the cum shot in pornography,
masculinity and narrative. Within pornography particularly it depicts
ejaculation in close-up and it always occurs on the outside of the
body, usually, as in heteroporn, on the female. In this respect the

mandatory visibility of the cum s hot becomes the narrative climax

for the spectator, therefore it is nearly always a full stop. In order
to convince, masculinity must be foregrounded, produced into
visibility, exposed (93).
I AM INTERESTED IN WHAT EXISTS
BEHIND THIS FULLSTOP.
There are three aspects to the cum-shot 1) The close up of the body,
2), temporality, it is not a male desire, but a character bound
request: The male or female co-performers invite or coax their
male partners to ejaculate outside of them. Thus visible and timed
ejaculation is not so much presented as something that men desire,
nor as something the camera or viewer demands, but rather as a
specific, character bound request (95).
However, merely ejaculating in pornography is not the assurance of
masculinity, instead the performance of endurance and skill,
followed by cumming is needed. To come to that point is not good
enough, the performer is expected to Cum (97). In this respects
masculinity is put into question as when the timing of the cum-shot
is not realised, the semen is at risk of becoming meaningless, but
not because it is an empty signifier. It is meaningless in the
construction masculinity, as to control the ejaculation of semen at a
particular point creates the significant discharge which allows the
narrative to climax. What is ultimately bound up, demarcated,
fixated and qualified by and through the narrative at the juncture of
the significant discharge is masculinity itself (101). HOWEVER THIS
IS SO ONLY WHEN IT IS REMOVED AWAY FROM THE MALE BODY
Hard-core narrativity saturates ejaculation with meaning, ascribes
truth to the ending, and convers value on postponement, because
that allows it to calibrate masculine power, granting the male
performer leverage over his body and those of others. The success
of that endeavor is visualized to offer proof to the viewer, and
narrativized to serve as the object for a relevant quest or passage
(108). BUT WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE NARRATIVE MOVES PAST
THIS, WHAT HAPPENS TO THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN
MASCULINITY, EJACULATION AND THE CUM-SHOT?
On the one hand, straight hardcore pornography certainly
participates in the ideological position that associates femininity
with visibility, display and exhibitionism. On the other hand, feature
porn invests its touchstone of narrativity and visibility in the image
of ejaculation, forging the display, the putting into the picture, of the
male body, which is usually avoided at all cost in the culture (105)
Notably the cum shot is absent in stags; ejaculation is not shown in
particular or significant way. Instead, stag films, offer a penetration

or Meat shot at their high point (103) Considering this Aymir

states that because the female climax is not secure in its visibility
on the screen, narratively it is forced to end prematurely
Cum-shots can be read as the rhythmic element in the structuring of
a sex scene, and once multiplied, the feature length hardcore
movie. In this respect, this is the full stop Adymir is talking about
(110)
The self control comes from the controlling of ones own body,
where the involuntary reflex of ejaculation is turned into an exercise
of self-control (111)
Adymir ends his chapter by stating that [i]n the end, the cum shot
cannot end; it can only repeat itself IN THIS MOMENT, THE MALE
CAN ONLY REALISE THAT THE PENIS, SEMEN AND SPERM WHICH HAS
BEEN SEEN AS UNIFIEDD HOMOGENOUS MASS, IS NOW SEPARATE
AND FRAGMENTED. FURTHERSTILL, IT IS REVEALED AS AN OBJECT
PETIT A, AN OBJECT PLUGGING IN THE GAP OF THE IDEAL EGO OF
MASCULINITY. ITS REPETITION EVEVER MORE ASSOCIATED WITH
PHALLIC JOUISSANCE, EACH CUM IS ANOTHER ATTEMPT AT FINDING
AND HAVING THE PHALLUS, BUT BECAUSE IT IS JUST AN
EJACULATION AND OFFERS NOTHING MORE OUTSIDE OF A CULTURAL
READING, IT BECOMES ONLY BODILY FLUID.
Williams, L (1989) Hardcore: Power, Pleasure and the
Frenzy of the Invisible
For the first time in history of the American Cinema, a penis central
to the action of a story appeared in action on screen in a
legitimate theater (100)
The male orgasm is seen as the limits of sexual pleasure in the form
of visual representation (101)
The cumshot as articulated by Linda Williams in Hardcore: Power,
Pleasure and the Frenzy of the Invisible, is a concern that was
developed in later pornographic media, particularly post-1970s. It
was used, paradoxically, to narrate her pleasure.
For to show the quantifiable material truth of his pleasure, the
male pornographic film performer must withdrawal from any tactile
connection with the genitals or mouth of the woman so that the
spending of the ejaculation is visible (101)
The man in contrast [to the female co-performer], almost always
sees himself ejaculate; the act seems much more clearly intended
for his eyes and those of the viewer (101)

In films like Deep Throat

female pleasure

thye male orgasm is representative of

Spivak (1981) notes that male orgasmic pleasure normally

accompanies male reproductive bodily fluids.
Aristotle On the Generation of Animals
[]the male and female principles may put down first and foremost
as origins of generation, the former as containing as containing the
efficient cause of generation, the latter the material of it (2.1)
interestingly, the culture/nature binary was put in to effect a long
time ago
In this respect when Grosz (1994) suggests that man does not
represent masculinity only in the moments of sexual conquest,
instead he represents humanness. However it should be noted that
semen is so important that both male and female have it and it is
the concocting of two different semens that make humans. In this
respect the male semen generates the other and the female itself
the latter being the essence of human. There are similarities here
to Lacans concept of the Mirror Stage in which the infant only
becomes subject as a result of paternal law an injection of
understanding from the male. Whereas before this, the infant can
be nothing more than materiality.
Aristotle further suggests that the mother semen is earth like,
material, whereas male semen is celestial or sun-like, a maker if you
will (2.1)
If a male animal is castrated then they seem to act female, but are
of course not, they fall just fall short of it, thus it is neither male or
female. M Aristotle clearly articulates here that what defines male
and female is not only their anatomy, but also their bodily fluids.
(2.3)
Now the object of semen is to be of such nature that from it as their
origin come into being these things which are naturally framed, not
because there is any agent which makes them form is as simply
because this is the semen (18.16)
This is interesting because:
1) Semen needs nothing else in order to make form
2) Aristotle refers to semen as object rather than fluid
However, Aristotle is only referring to male semen, and as such
semen has the ability to be both material and form. It is the male
semen that acts upon the female semen (menstrual blood)

Now that which comes from the generating parents is called the
seminal fluid, being that which has in it a principle of generation, in
the case of all animals whose nature is to unite, semen is that which
has in it the principles from both united parents, be it a fetus or an
ovum, for these already have in them that which contains both
(18.6)
Aristotle clearly articulates that if all humans contain semen then
that means all humans have seminal fluids and are generating.
However, his concluding and qualifying sentence also suggests that
that if even an ovum or a fetus can be seminal, then women are less
seminal than men. This is further suggested later in his text.
Aristotle identifies that everything found in the body MUST fall into
five categories (18.7):
1) Part of the body
2) Part of biology such as growth
3) Secretion of excretion
4) Waste
5) Nutrient
Semen cannot be part of the body because it is homogenous, I
interpret this as being of its own identity and not made up of any
parts. If this is the case Semen is seen by Aristotle as being Unified
and thus this can be read once again alongside Lacans Imago. This
becomes really interesting as the Objet Petit a relies on the object
phallus to be removed from the body. (18.18)
It cannot be a waste product because this goes against nature
ABJECTION (18.19)
It is thus secretion or excretion and as secretion is also related to
waste it thus has to be secretion. Secretion is a process, the later it
is the more potent and more useful it is. Phlegm is the first stage of
secretion, whilst semen is the last. Menstrual blood, because it is as
semen, is a secretion but it happens somewhere between Phlegm
and male semen. Final secretion is smaller, there is less of it
because it is more potent and essentially more nourishing (18.21)
Waste products [] are always due to corruption or decay and to
departure from nature (18.22)
[N]o place has been set apart by nature for waste-products but they
flow whever they find an easy passage in the body [] (18.25)
WASTE PRODUCTS THEN ARE DANGEROUS AND SEMEN (ALBEIT
MALE AND FEMALE) CAN NOT BE A WASTE PRODUCT). Aristotle
reminds us that waste-products is excrement and liquid, whilst
nutrients are solid. (18.30). As menstruation is a secretion and
female semen, therefore it it is not waste (19.3)

The female contributes

menstruation (19.10)

materiality

to

conception

through

If then, the male stands for the effective and active, & the female
[], for the passive, it follows that what the female would contribute
to semen of the male, would not be semen, but material for the
semen to work upon (20.7)
There are once again some interesting links here
1) The way human reproduction is described in our modern world
is as if the male germ cell works on the female
2) In the symbolic order the Paternal Law works upon the
material corporeality of the potential human.. The mother
looks after the flesh, whilst language and culture is applied to
the infant on the part of the Symbolic Father.
ARIUSTOTLE SAID SEMEN CANT FREEZE BECAUSE IT IS LIKE AIR, I
FROZE IT AND SHOVED IT IN MY MOUTH AND UP MY ARSE
ARITOTLE SAID IT CANT FREEZE BECAUSE ONLY WATER FREEZES I
LET IT MELT ION MY ARSE AD GAVE MYSELF AN ENEMA
ARISTOTLE SAIS IT CANt FEEZE BECAUSE ONLY WATER FREEZES I
DRANK IT

LACAN

THE

ETHICS

OF

PSYCHOANALYSIS

The Eye and The Gaze in Four Fundamental Concepts

The gaze may contain in itself the object a of the Lacanian algebra
where the subject falls, and what specifies the scopic field and
engenders the satisfaction proper to it is the fact that, for structural
reasons, the fall of the subject always remains unperceived, for it is
reduced to zero (76-77) The gaze with the capacity of the object
symbolizes the central lack of the subject the gaze never reveals
what the subject hopes it does about himself
The Line and Light in Four Fundamental Concepts
The object a is something from which the subject, in order to
constitute itself, has separated itself off as organ. This serves as a
symbol of the lack, that is to say, of the phallus, not as much, but in
so far as it is lacking (103)
What is a Picture in Four Fundamental Concepts

The Objet a operates at three levels

1) Oral this is at nothing (Aneroxia)
2) Anal this is the metaphorical gift
3) Scopic the desire for the other
MY EXPERIENCE AT THE BEGINNING OF THIS ESSAY SEEMS TO
OPERATE IN THE LAST TWO IT WAS SHIT BECAUSE I INITITALLY
THOUGHT THAT THIS WAS SOME KIND OF GIFT. IT WAS SCOPIC
BECAUSE I DESIRE IT TO BE SOMETHING IT IS NOT. THIS IS AS A
RESULT OF THE EXTENSION OF THE PENIS . IN THIS RESPECT THE
OBJECT A IS SOMETHING THAT THE SUBJECT THINKS THEY HAVE,
BUT ACTUALLY IT MEANS SOMETHING VERY DIFFERENT, IT IS THEN
LIKE A PLUG. IT IS A PHALLUS THAT ACTS TO PLUG IN THE UNIFIED
BODY, THE GAP THAT IS MADE BETWEENT HE CONCIOUS AND THE
UNCONCIOS. IN THIS RESPECTS THIS MIGHT SERVE AS A USEFUL IN
ROAD FOR THE ABJECT I DONT KNOW HOW YET
Object a appears at that moment as something other than it
seemed or rather, it now seems to be that something else (112)
referring to the Scopic Object a this was an example made through
painting
In You More Than You Four Fundamental Concepts
[] a is presented precisely at the point of the mirage of the
narcissistic function of desire, as the object that cannot be
swallowed, as it were, which remains stuck in the gullet of the
signifier. It is at this point of lack that the subject had to recognize
himself (270)
The Objet a is a signifier that cannot be fully read in its entirety, it is
once the subject recognizes this, that they recognize themselves,
not in the a but rather in what it is veiling. IN THIS REPSECT THE
PENIS ACTS AS AN OBJECT A FOR IT STANDS IN THE GAP BETWEEN
HOW ONE DESIRES TO BE PRESENTED BY THE OTER AND WHERE HE
SEES HIMSELF AS LACKING. HOWEVER, THE OBJECT A DOES NOT
CROSS THE BOUNDARY BETWEEN UNCONCIUS AND THE EGO,
RATHER IT BLOCKS THE GAP IN ORDER TO CREATE AN IDEAL EGO
THAT IS NOT FRAGMENTED, BUT INSTEAD FRAGMENTED. FOR THE
PENIS, THEN IT ACTS AS THE UNIFICATINO OF HUMANESS, IT IS FOR
THIS REASON THAT SEMEN HAS TO BE SEEN AS AN ONJECT AND
NOT A FLUID. HOWEVER IT IS WHEN THAT FLUID IS FLOWING
TOWARDS [AND BACK IN ME] DOES IT BECOME HARD TO
SWALLOW, THIS REMINDS ME THAT MY BODY IS NOT UNIFIED AND
IS MORE THAN WHAT I HOPE IT REPRESENTS. IN TURN THIS MUST
HAVE THE SAME EFFECT ON MASCULINTY. WHEN A MALE BODYARTIST ENGAGES WITH HIS BODY, IT IS REPRESENTED AS THAT
OBJECT A, A UNFIED MASS. WHEN THE BODILY FLUID ERUPTS AND
MOVES ACROSS THE BOUNDARIES OF THE SKIN, WHAT IS
COMMUNICATED IS THE DELICAY AND MATERIALITY OF THE BODY
THIS IS ITS JOUISSANCE IT IS ALSO TO PRIVLEDGE THE PARTS OF

THE BODY WHICH ARE OT PART OF THAT MIRRAGE DOMINIC

JOHNSSON SHOVING STUFF UP HIS ARSE
Translators Notes by Alan Sheridan in Four Fundamental
Concepts
Objet petit a: The a in questions stands for Autre (other), the
concept having been developed out of the Freudian object and
Lacans own exploitation of otherness. The petit a (small a)
differentiates the object from (while relating it to) the Grand Autre
(the Captialized Other). However, Lacan refuses to comment on
either term here, leaving the reader to develop an appreciation of
the concepts in the course of their use (282).
The Real of Sexual Difference Zizek in Interrogating the
Real (2006) 304 327
the big Other, the symbolic substance of our lives, is: a set of
unwritten rules that effectively regulate our speech and acts, the
ultimate guarantee of Truth to which we have to refer even when
lying or trying to deceive our partners in communication, precisely
in order to be successful in our deceit (57)
However, Zizek continues and notes that the very master signifier
that holds it together is fake, it has no signified and nobody really
knows what it means I wonder whether this is the Object Petit a?
The Other is also always chosen through exclusion.
In On
Jouissance we can see this in the form of Lacans description of Don
Juan and his seduction of a Mille y Tre women. Each is an exception
as each was seduced for a particular Je ne sais quoi. In this respect
the seducer seduces for a different unknown reason as each Other
holds something that is more like what he is looking for. However,
he does not know what he is looking for, it is just something that
that other Other did not have (58)
There is no big Other guaranteeing the consistency of the
symbolic space with which we dwell: there are just contingent,
punctual and fragile points of stability (59)
I WONDER THEN IF THE OBJECT PETIT A IS LIKE A PLUG FOR THE
MASTER SIGNIFIER, ONCE WE KNOW THAT THE OBJECT PETIT A IS
JUST THAT, THE SUBJECT COLLAPSES UPON THEMSELVES LIKE A
BALLOON
There is a difference of Jouissance in Seminar XX
Jouissance of the drives and Jouiussance of the Other

Jouissance of the drives is a closed, ultimately solipsistic, circuit of

drives that find their staisfction in idiotic masturbatory (auto-erotic)
activity, in the perverse circulating around the object a as the object
of drive (59)
Jouisance of the Other is related to the discourse of the Other and
satisfaction is provided by speech itself. The idea is premised on
allowing the Other to enjoy (60)
On the one hand, only an imperfect, lacking being loves: we love
because we do not know everything. On the other hand, even if we
do know everything, love would inexplicably still be higher than
complete knowledge (61)
Sexual difference is not a firm set of static symbolic oppositions
and
exclusions
(heterosexual
normativity
that
relegates
homosexuality and other perversions to some secondary role) but
the name of a deadlock, a trauma, an open question something
that resists every attempt at its symbolization (61)
Lacan explains this through Saussurian semiotic schema where
above the bar Woman/Man exists, and underneath the bar two
identical doors. What Zizek goes on to note here is that underneath
the level of the imaginary there is no difference. It is possible to
state in clearer terms that sexual difference does not designate any
biological opposition to which nothing corresponds to the designated
objects nothing of the Real of some undefined x that cannot ever
be captured in the image of the signified (63)
However, this is not to say that sexual difference does not exist, it
evidently does , but rather beyond the symbolic structuring it
cannot be captured in meaning it therefore is abject.
The Lacanian Real is that traumatic bone in the throat that
contaminates every identity of the symbolic rendering it contingent
and inconsistent (72) The Real is Impossible as our Entry in to
Langauge means that we can never identify it The Abject Is Real
Zizek concludes by stating that the moment we argue about
deconstructing sexual difference, we enforce an alternative binary
to Female/Male. On that is opposite to multitude One that refers to
a container holds everything, because outside of that nothing can
exist (73)

Dirty Spaces: Communications and Contamination in Mens

Public Toilets (2005)
Journal of International Womens
Studies

While they [mens public toilets] are ostensibly places where

functionality reins places where you simply relieve yourself in
practice they are semiotically intricate spaces, filled with anxiety
and unspoken rules (7)
Baracan aims to read masculinity and male heterosexuality through
the critical frame of the male public toilet as there are fresher
insights into reading the male body through its vulnerabilities,
rather than through its armour. It is thus then that she aims to read
through the mutble plural penis, rather than the majestic unitary
phallus (7)
Male public toilets are, I argue. dirty spaces designed to regulate
not only the bodiy functions of eliminations, but also the modes of
interchange and communication between ment hat take place there.
They aim to keep at bay not only literal contamination but the
cultural contagion for which literal dirt so often serves as a
metaphor (8)
Public toilets mitigate more than just a genralised modern shame
about bodily functions. []. Specifically public toilets both express
the attempt to manage fears and anxieties about sexuality and
sexual pollution (9).
It is the people that cross the boundaries and the threaten the purity
of the gendered space of the male public toilet that cause those
anxieties and can become pollutans that in themselves need to be
expelled or purified.
Public toilets uphold gender laws in quite obvious ways through a
process of exclusion. (10) Link to Halberstam
They [] tacitly divide people into categories most notably into
men and women, but also along otherlines such as sexuality[].
(11)
Mens toilets in particular aim to conceal and eliminate forms of
pollution both literal and moral, and they do so by a series of
insistent divisions and separations:
1) The classical arrangement of open urinal and closed stalls is a
binary liquid and solid, penis and buttocks.
2) The division that the imagined penis calls into itself sexual
and urinary Da Vinci (10)
Any sexual practice that brings urine and semen together, whilst
being common, is widely upheld as being disgusting and unclean.
This is appropriate in the mens toilet as one of its functions is to
test for homosexuality. This is seen in the architectural design of

the stalls, which promoted the (veiled) display of the penis and by
banishing the spectator of the sexualised buttock.
As a physical-psychical place, the mens toilet is to culturally lade,
too uncontrollable, too ambiguous, to keep categories watertight
(11)
With the scientific studies on peanuts in bars, it seems that the dirt
in the men public toilet cannot be left in the private. However, this
boundary is easily inverted, where the public invades the private.
When the man feels that his personal space has been encroached
on in the small divisions of urinary trough, he can feel the presence
of that person.
More poignantly for me the fear of contagion off of the toilet seat
results in a number of preparatory strategies for protection wiping
the seat, covering it with paper, not going publically at all. If you do
brave the toilet the fear of the warmth of the previous user strikes
your body. The warmth is not so much a sign of disease as a
physical trace of the body of a stranger, an unwanted meeting of
mens intimate parts by proxy, via the mediating object of the toilet
seat (12).
In this respect the politics of the male toilets put men in
uncomfortable proximity not with strangers, but rather with other
men. Therefore these spaces are one site where the complexities
of male-male relations are bought forcefully and corporeally into
play (13)
Whilst being a site of anxiety it is also a democratic space, in that
whilst food might dictate specific hierarchies and class structures,
the excremental activity that follows cannot be distinguished in this
way. In this respect the anus is a democratizing organ (16)
[T]he democracy of the mens room is at best uneasy, for the
superficial egalitarianism of the space is always potentially
undermined by the hierarchies of masculinity, which are held in
place not only by bonding, but also by competition, aggression and
by violence literal, imagined and symbolic (17)
However, toilets may remind us of our shared corporality, and the
anus a democratizers, but it is also a culturally fraught bodily site
and this is why it is closeted away in the cubical, why the (veiled)
penis is on show (18) I REMEMBER BEING IN HOSPITAL AT ABOUT
EIGHT, IN THE PREPARATION OF A CIRCUMCISION I WAS REQUIRED
TO BATHE AND PUT ON AN OPERATING GOWN.
I WAS SO
CONCERNED THAT IT WOULD REVEAL MY ANUS THAT I PUT IT ON
BACK TO FRONT. AT THE AGE OF EIGHT I WAS MORE WORRIED

ABOUT PEACOCKING MY ARSE THAN MY DICK. AROUND ABOUT THE

SAME TIME THOUGH I WENT THROUGH A STAGE WHERE IN THE
BATH I USED TO SHOVE MY FINGER UP MY ARSE SO I COULD FEEL
THE EXCREMENT THAT MY BOWELS WERE READY TO EVACUATE
FROM MY BODY.
[T]oilets may also be places of retreat, communality, or jocularity.
The revelation of private parts, coupled with the public management
of bodily functions we learn to control in childhood, might be one
reason for the occasional emergence of childhood clear that
emerges in the toilets (19) I REMEMBER BEING A KID AND
PLAYING WORD FIGHTS WITH MY TWO BROTHERS MUM PUTTING A
PING PONG BALL INTO THE TOILETS EVEN WORKING AT THE UNION
BAR AT UNIVERSITY I CAN RECOUNT A NUMBER OF OCCASIONS
WERE MALE DRINKERS WOULD SEE WHO COULD FILL UP A PINT
GLASS WITH URINE IN ONE GO. AT THE END OF THE NIGHT THERE
WOULD BE A TROUGH FULL OF THESE CONTAINERS, WAITING FOR
ME TO PICK THEM OUT, WASH THEM UP AND REUSE THEM THE NEXT
NIGHT.
Public toilets remain a complex and resonant cultural site with
deeply embedded spiritual rules. These rules reflect and amplify a
much broader set of cultural conditions. They remind us of the
complexity of contemporary masculinity. (21)
Linda Williams White Slavery in the Ethnography of
Sexworkers: Women in Stag Films at the Kinsey Archive
(2005)
Stag films are anonymously made, short, undated silent films
displaying one or more hardcore acts (108). They are usually
bogusly credited and underground in their distribution. They were
huge in the first two thirds of the Twentieth Century. They were
presented in fraternities, mens lodges and traveling side-shows. I
imagine this is the where the English tradition of the Stag Party
comes a last engagement with masculine youth before marriage
Compared to the high production value of feature length porn which
came about around the early part of the 1970s, the Stag Film is
rough round the edges, lacks successful production values and
usually involved amateur performers. As both men and women
were payed it is likely that the women were sex workers. They
usually take place in the depressing confines of hotel room (112). In
many respects these film portrayed highly misogynistic (114).
However, the ameturenes of these productions reveal some minor
moments of documentary filming glitches and mistakes laughing
and revulsion (Smart Alec).

Whilst heterosexual pornography is generally considered a place to

display the female body, it is also about the display of male bodies
to men. Heterosexual pornography, then, has a homosocial and
even homoerotic, component (111). The viewing sensation of such
group activities may have consisted of men watching other men get
hard, whilst trying not to get hard in front of other men. I HAD MY
OWN EXPERIENCE OF WATCHING PORN WITH A GROUP OF FRIENDS
I MUST HAVE BEEN ABOUT 16 I REMEMBER A VERY LONG
LEGGED WOMAN BY A SWIMMING POOL BENT OVER, WEARING HIGH
HEALS, PLACING HER FINGER INTO HER ARSE. THE TENSION COULD
ONLY LAST FOR A CERTAIN TIME BEFORE I HAD TO GO UP STAIRS.
ON MY RETURN NOTHING WAS SPOKEN, BUT THE FILM STILL
CONTINUED.
I AM SURE, IN RETEROSEPCT, THERE WAS AN
UNDERLYING KNOWING OF WHAT HAD JUST HAPPENED A
QUEERNESS IN THE ADMITTANCE TO LACK OF CONTROL IN FRONT
OF MY PEERS IN THIS RESPECT THE HOMOSOCIAL ACTIVITY OF
WATCHING PORNOGRAPHY, WHILST STILL PROBLEMATIC IN THE
REPRESENTATION FEMALE, REVEALED AN UNCOMFORTABLE
BLURRING BETWEEN PRIVATE AND PUBLIC SPACE
In this respect these films and the homosocial bonding they invoke
may go some way in undermining the monolithic masculinity that is
culturally presented to us.
Of course when the female strips in these films, they are stripping
for the view of the men. The simple fact that absolutely one of the
male bodies strip as completely [] as the female bodies []: if the
penis is crucial and must be shown to confirm the actual penetration
of the meat shot takes place, the rest of the male body is under
no such similar compulsion to be put on display (113) This is in
distinct contrast to feature length porn or even the portal sites that
contain pornographic images the man is as naked as the woman
(most of the time). However, these men usually refer to monolithic
examples of heterosexuality and masculinity. Conversely the men in
the Stag Films are decidedly average. Many of which are wearing
masks (280) HOWEVER I DONT THINK THAT THE AVERAGENESS OF
THE STAG FILM IS A DEFENSE AGAINST HOMOEROTIC PLEASURE,
INSTEAD IT MIGHT CONFIRM IT THE AVERAGENESS OF THOSE MEN
COMPARED TO THE HEIGHTENED BEAUTY OF THE HIGH QUALITY
HETEROSEXUAL PORNO MALE PERFORMER MIGHT REMIND ONE OF
THEIR OWN
Homosociality in the Classical American Stag Film:
Screen, On-Screen (Waugh, T (2001)

Off-

Thomas Waugh provides an interrogation into how homosiciality is

presented within the American Stag Film

Not only are most of the anonymous male artists during the heyday
of the stag fanatically focused on the female organs, but they also in
most cases do everything in their power to avoid showing male
organs, to keep thos pleated trousers on (276) - IN MY STAG FILM
I AM NOT SIMPLY INVERTING THE BINARY OF REVEALING THE CLOSE
UP OF THE PENIS IN THE SAME WAY THAT THE FEMLAE DID IN THE
STAG THIS HAS NO PARTICULAR FUNCTION RATHER TO REENFORCE
INSTEAD I AM REVEALING THE INVISIBLE SPECTATOR OF
PORNOGRAPHY
These films do reveal the fleshy pricks of the anonymous and in turn
the symbolic phallus in short masculinity (276)However the
question of masculinity does not erupt regularly in these films. Only
a few films allow the Stag heroine to play with the flaccid and spent
penis (227), or alternatively in Getting His Goat the unexpected
copulation with a goat rather than the females he stole the clothes
from.
These films, rather than just showing the vagina or meat shot also
reveals a whole spectrum of male homosociality, the experience of
having a penis (at least pre 1972) (278)
In getting together to collectively get aroused if not off at the
spectacle of Ima Cunt, the Stag Spectators were reenacting some of
the basic structural dynamics of the patriarchy, namely, the male
exchange of women, in this case the exchange in fantasies and
images of women (280)
The
stag films
were never
interested in
representing
hypermasculinised bodies Fire men, body builders, police officers,
burglers etc. (287)

{Formatting Citation}Publics and COunterpublics Michael

Warner 2005
Diogenes, the Greek Philosopher, would stand in the middle of the
market place and masturbate his attempt was to do without the
distinction between private and public it should be noted that this
was achieved with disgust form other ancient greeks (21). Because
public and private spaces so deeply embed notions of gender, to
transgress these in the way Diogenes dis, is to transgress sex and
gender (22)
The terms public and private often give the impression of abstract
categories for thinking about law, but these are not just theoretical
spaces. [T]heir power, as feminism and queer theory have had to
insist, goes much deeper (23)

These terms are learned and go along with terms such as active and
passive front and back, top and bottom. They quasi-natural they
are also fraught with abjection, cleanliness and self-mastery the
toilet. In this respect they help to create a sense of selfhood and
are quite difficult to distinguish form the experiences of sex and
gender. Masculinity, at least in Western cultures, is felt partly in a
way of occupying public space; femininity, in a language of private
feeling (24) THIS MAY HAVE BEEN MY PROBLEM WHEN TRYING TO
EXIT THE HOUSE WITH CUM UP MY BUM
However, not all sexualities are private or public in the same way
Warner continues with homosexuals kissing, which does not evoke
the same public reaction as to heterosexual couples.
[M]en have discovered that to challenge the norms of straight
culture in public is to disturb deep and unwritten rules about the
kinds of behavior and eroticism is appropriate in public (25)
SEX IN PUBLIC
Berlant and Warners essay is not about the sex that people have in
public, but rather how public space mediates sex. Some aspects of
this is fairly obvious, sex shops, phone sex, or lap dances. However,
Others are organized around sex but not necessarily sex acts in the
usual sense: queer zones and other worlds estranged from
hetrerosexual culture, but also more tacit scenes of sexuality like
official national culture, which depends on a notion of privacy to
cloak its sexualization of national membership (187) THIS NEEDS
TO GONEXT TO THE SECTION THAT STATES I WAS TOO
UNCONFORTABLE TO LEAVE THE HOUSE
They go onto give to examples as to how public mediates sex. Time
magazine, in the in 1993, published the new image of the American,
a culmination of different ethnic faces. The point being that racism
in America will be wiped out by the early part of the next century,
due to a higher proportion of mixed race relationships than just
white. There are two things going on here, the need for Western
culture, specifically American here, to homogenize difference. This
unification of different cultures does not alleviate racism but rather
renders it down to a single normalised category, white. Secondly
this action is an example of how national public identity is organized
around sex. Time magazines claim that racism can be eliminated
through the promotion of heterosexuality, in which Other identities
are watered down (190).

Ther second example, again taking place in the latter part of the
Twentieth-Century, is the zoning laws that were passed in New York
City. This meant that businesses such as adult bookstores, eating
and drinking establishments and other businesses that specifically
dealt with adult content were relocated to the waterfront away from
residential areas.
Within Within the reserved districts, adult
businesses are disallowed within five hundred feet of another adult
establishment or within five hundred feet of a house of worship,
school, or day-care center (191)
This act demonstrates how the hegemonic control of
heterosexuality, or more appropriately heteronormativity, tries to
organize public space in order to protect the sanctity of marriage
and the family (191). THE WATERFRONT ACTS AS THE UPMOST
EDGE OF NEW YORK SOCIETY, BEYOND THAT IS NOTHING. IN THIS
RESPECT IT ACTS AS A BOUNDARY AND ALL THOSE THAT HAVE BEEN
PUT THERE ALSO BECOME METAPHORICAL OF WASTE. A complex
cluster of sexual practices gets confused in heterosexual culture,
with the love plot of intimacy and familialism that signifies
belonging to society in a deep and normal way. Community is
imagined through scenes of intimacy, coupling and kinship. And a
historical relation to futurity is restricted to generational narrative
and reproduction (194)
Heterosexuality is not a thing. We speak of heterosexual culture
rather than heterosexuality because that culture never has more
than a provisional unity, It is neither single Symbolic not a single
ideology nor a unified set of shared beliefs. (192) Even though it
thinks it might be Instead it is some series of fractured concept
and are in constant conflicts. Heterosexuality is not a monoculture
as there are always multiples. However the conflicts that exist in are
rarely percioeved in practice, but Berlant and Warner aim to reveal
some of them.
Private live or Intimate life is the endlessly cited elsewhere of political public
discourse, a promised haven that distracts citizens from the unequal
conditions of their public and economic lives, consoles them for the damaged
humanity of mass society, and shames them from any divergence between
their lives and the intimate sphere that is alleged to be simple personhood
(193) the private space is also a space which is used to manage

hegemonic values. AND THIS IS HOW I FELT WHEN SWALLOWING

CUM FOR THE FIRST TIME
A whole field of social relations becomes intelligible as
heterosexuality, and this privatized sexual culture bestows on its
sexual practices a tacit sense of rightness and normalcy. This sense
of rightness embedded in things and not just sex is what we call
heteronormativity (194)
Heteronormativity is made apparent through Married Persons
Allowance in the UK, being disgusted, celebrating holidays,
philandering, buying economy size, or owning his and hers (195)
Berlant and Warner do consider what it might mean to queer
heteronormativity, and how in some cases it might become
reductive and suggest a fear of ordinariness. However, they note
that what they are doing in Sex in Public is arguing that the space
of sexual culture has become obnoxiously cramped form doing the
work of maintaining a normal metaculture (197). They continue to
note that ordinariness and averageness is also normative and
therefore this description simply reinforces that heteronormative
culture. Instead, they are asking for a queer culture.
By queer culture we mean a world-making project, where world, like
public, differs from community or group because it necessarily
includes more people than can be identified, more spaces that can
be mapped beyond a few reference points, modes of feeling that
can be learned rather than experienced as birthright (198). In short
a queer culture embraces those which good folks have often
reffered to as criminal intimacies queer culture has developed
relations and narratives that are only recognized in queer culture:
fuck biddies, gal pals, tricks. Queer culture has not only learned to
sexualize these and other relations but also how to use them as a
context for witnessing intense and personal affect while elaborating
a public world of belonging and transformation (199)
Private space, or intimacy, is sloppy, it slops into work and into
political life. People have sex, erotic relationships or other intimacy
with strangers and outside the couple form. However, when these
intimacies, sexualities, splatter into national public life, there is
hygienic recoil. In gay culture, the principle scenes of criminal
intimacy have been tearooms, streets, sex clubs, and parks a
tropism toward the public toilet. Promiscuity is so heavily
stigmatized as nonintimate that it is often called anonymous,
whether names are used or not (201)

But promiscuity teaches, brings us knowledge. Douglas Crimp in

How to Have Promiscuity in an Epidemic (1981) notes that because
gay males where having sex, but not necessarily penetrative sex,
they were able to invent safe sex. The experimentations allowed
the changing of sexual behaviors and not the brutal behavioral
therapies. Gay male promiscuity should be seen [] as a positive
model of how sexual pleasures may be pursued by and granted by
everyone if those pleasures were not confined within the barrow
limits of institutionalized sex (253)
In this respect queer culture is fluid, it moves and can be found in
youth culture, parades, music, cruising. As such, it makes itself
possible, for it cannot be easily pinned down, but also difficult to
recognize as world making because they are fragile and ephemeral (
DOUGLAS 253)
THE PROBLEM I HAVE WITH THIS TEXT IS THAT IN DEFINING QUEER
CULTURE AS ALL ENCOMPASSING AND EPHEMERAL, A BINARY IS
CONSTRUCTED AGAINST HETERONORMATIVITY. WHAT CAN WE DO
ABOUT THIS?
Heteronormative forms of intimacy are supported [] not only
referentially, in overt discourse such as love plots and
sentimentality, but also materially, in marriage and family law, in
the architecture of the domestic, in the zoning of work and politics.
Queer culture, by contrast, has almost no institutional matrix for its
counterintimacies (203) ALTHOUGH THEY HAVE TRIED TO MAKE A
NONOPPSOTITIONAL BINARY WITH THE USE OF COUNTER
MEANING ALTERNATIVE, THEIR USE OF CONTRAST SUGGESTS THAT
THIS IN FACT IS A BINARY.
WHAT WE NEED TO SEE IS THE
COLLAPSING OF THIS BINARY WHERE QUEER CULTURE AND
HETERONORMATIVITY BLEED TOGETHER
Queer Theory is committed to sexuality as an inexcapable category
of analysis, agitation, and refunctioning (205)
Berlant and Warner also make individuals into sex publics. They
recount two individual experiences on their research where in order
to not feel like perverts, to not be stigmatized, but to still operate
outside of a heteronormative culture where sex is reproductive,
individuals became public to intimate disclosure. In one example a
heterosexual couple admit to them about using nonreproductive sex
toys (206).
The second could possibly be considered more
transgressive. In the back of a leather bar in New York, a young
couple performed a sex act to a small public. The bottom, who was
lightly bound to a chair, had his head tilted back by the top whom
poured milk into his stomach, followed by a variety of different
foods. The tops role here was to keep the gag reflex of the bottom
going for as long as possible. After some time had passed, some

groaning and some mourming and cheering form the audience, the
top inserted his fingers into the bottom and forced vomiting. For
Berlant and Warner they realize that we have never seen such
display of trust and violation. We are breathless. But, good
academics as we are, we also have some questions to ask. Word
has gone round that the boy is straight. We want to know: what
does this mean in this context? How did you discover that this is
what you want to do? How did you find a male top do it with? How
did you come to it in a leather bar? Where else do you do this? How
do you feel about your new partner, this audience? (207)
THESE QUESTIONS WERE NEVER ACTUALLY POSED TO THE
PERFORMER AND IN SOME RESPECTS I AM PLEASED. THERE IS
SOMETHING QUEER ABOUT NOT KNOWING ABOUT NOT BEING ABLE
TO CATEGORISE THIS PERSON. IT IS POSSIBLY TOO MUCH TO KNOW
HE IS STRAIGHT WHATEVER THAT MEANS ANYWAY.
In all of this, Berlant and Warner note that both examples cited
above came through the paths of publicity which eventually led to
the production of nonheteronormative bodily contexts. They
intended nonheteronormative worlds because they refused to
pretend that privacy was their ground; because they were forms of
sociability that delinked money and family from the scene of the
good life; because they made sex the consequence of public
mediations and collective self activity in a way that made for
unpredicted pleasures; because, in turn, they attempted to make a
context of support for their practices; because their pleasures were
not purchased by a redemptive pastoralism of sex or by mandatory
amnesia about failure, shame, and self-aversion (208) AND THIS IS
WHY I NEED TO MAKE SURE I CAN FIND A WAY OF DOING THIS
PERFORMANCE I HAVE ALSO FOUND A PATH THROUGH
PORNOGRAPHY AND STAG ALSO THROUGH MY OWN LIFE
EXPERIENCES
MANSFIELD SMITH CUMMINGS

In an entry made in October he said that he "heard from C that the

best invisible ink is semen" because it did not react to detection
methods commonly in use and it was readily available.
Intelligence agents thought they had solved a major problem when
the heard that semen would not react to iodine vapour.
It was reported that the agent who discovered the use for the bodily
fluid was teased so much that he was moved to another
department, and that one agent had to be reminded not to use 'ink'

which was not fresh because of a problem with the smell.

NOT MY WORDS