>(Not a great fan of Judy's,
> otherwise. More Leo's side on the cross dressing issue.)
Some of what (Leo) Bersani says in "Homos" about homo-ness is quite germane
to the things we've been discussing, in particular about the valorisation of
sameness and difference. Difficult to read some sections of that book
without being reminded of the Borg, I thought. Good on Gide, although if you
squint at it that chapter looks a bit like a brochure for a "special
interest" package holiday in Bangkok: by exercising the sexual prerogative
of de white man on luvverly Arab Boys, comme Burroughs et al, you are
actually - ta-dah! (shit, I'm turning into Julie Burchill...) -
*undermining* imperialism, rather as white South Afrikans screwing black
prostitutes in the townships were presumably doing their bit to bring down
Apartheid. One of the things I've noticed about racist dystopias is that
they are always *someone's* idea of a sexually-liberated heaven-on-earth: at
the sharp end of oppression you'll always find a rich white male sticking
his cock into someone less rich, less white and less male - ohh, the smooth
skin and winsome smiles of "Kiki" and "Ahmet" - than he is.
What Bersani gets from Gide is the idea that abandonment to sensual
indifference, moving in a disindividuated reverie among the filthy bodies of
the oppressed, is a way of undoing the uptight imperialist selfhood of the
oppressors; but he forgets, as Burroughs liked to forget, about money and
power - about the fact that the "desiring skin" of the immoralist is a white
skin with white skin privileges.
I'm grateful to Bersani for two phrases: "fully complicit in a culture of
death" is one, and "penile oblation" is the other. Oh, and the answer to
that other question of his: no, it isn't, and don't be so silly.
|