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A review by chaseledin
What Do Gay Men Want?: An Essay on Sex, Risk, and Subjectivity by David Halperin
5.0
David Halperin's extended essay is divine and essential for understanding "what next" in the (specifically) gay movement in the United States. Though he never proposes a distinct plan of action, he effectively argues against the predominating psychoanalytic framework imposed on gay male subjectivity since and as a result of the AIDS/HIV epidemic in the United States, starting as early as the 1980s, with increasing urgency in the early 1990s. Halperin reflects on idea(s) and practice(s) of "abjection" in Michael Warner's and Jean Genet's works, especially to emphasize rhetorical and non-normative methods for constructing strings of "queer futurity" (see Jose Munoz).
In-Depth Abstract: In What Do Gay Men Want?, queer theorist David Halperin argues that gay male subjectivity has been mediated by psychological and psychiatric institutions, especially in order to confront safe sex practices in the wake of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the United States. Halperin employs Michel Foucault’s History of Sexualities to delineate academic and academic focus on political activism in place of queer affect starting in the 1980s. He writes, “If we are to keep [Foucault’s radical] hope alive, we will have to forge queer alternatives to the modern, scientific culture of the self and its psychological hermeneutics of the subject” (p.8). The goal, Halperin writes, is “not to discredit psychology as an intellectual project so much as to escape a style of thinking that understands the person in terms of individual interiority and judges subjective life according to a normative standard of healthy functioning” (p.9). At the core, Halperin uses Michael Warner’s 1995 essay, “Unsafe: Why Gay Men Are Having Risky Sex,” to bring into focus the intensive rhetorical and psychoanalytic analyses that dominated the reception of HIV/AIDS in the gay community in the early 1990s. In particular, Halperin is interested in confronting the “affective structure of gay male subjectivity, shaped by originary social experiences of rejection and shame, and bristling with impulses to transgress” (p.57). Halperin’s main example centers around “abjection”: a term Warner uses to investigate why gay men would put themselves at risk, having sex with HIV-positive sexual partners via barebacking (subculture). In conjunction, Halperin illuminates Jean Genet’s conception of “abjection” in Miracle of the Rose (1943) and The Thief’s Journal (1948), pointing out, specifically, the moment of abject/transgression in the jailhouse when the Spanish police confiscate Genet’s vaseline tube. Halperin argues that “abjection” is a distinctly social transgression that, in light of Foucault’s call to political intervention, cannot be adapted either within a psychological framework (which is, instead, abject or perverse) or a purely theoretical framework (since theory cannot substantiate effective and perpetual social engagement or change). Instead, Halperin argues for a “non-disciplinary model of gay subjectivity” that takes “abjection and spirituality out of the realm of the miracle and transcendence--and return them to the vicissitudes of social existence” (p.108). In other words, Halperin is interested in a gay male subjectivity that is “not a subjectivity of [psychologizing] risk, an object of social hygiene, or a target of therapeutic intervention” (p.110). Instead, Halperin calls for a gay subjectivity that is “far from having to be bracketed, denied, suppressed, or closeted; [a subjectivity that] can impel political resistance” (p.110).
Halperin's text is profound, well argued, and insightful, even for queer theorists in 2015, who may be interested in "what next" after gay marriage threatens to become the next "new normal." To read this text in conjunction with Tim Dean's Unlimited Intimacy, is timely and crucial. Five stars.
In-Depth Abstract: In What Do Gay Men Want?, queer theorist David Halperin argues that gay male subjectivity has been mediated by psychological and psychiatric institutions, especially in order to confront safe sex practices in the wake of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the United States. Halperin employs Michel Foucault’s History of Sexualities to delineate academic and academic focus on political activism in place of queer affect starting in the 1980s. He writes, “If we are to keep [Foucault’s radical] hope alive, we will have to forge queer alternatives to the modern, scientific culture of the self and its psychological hermeneutics of the subject” (p.8). The goal, Halperin writes, is “not to discredit psychology as an intellectual project so much as to escape a style of thinking that understands the person in terms of individual interiority and judges subjective life according to a normative standard of healthy functioning” (p.9). At the core, Halperin uses Michael Warner’s 1995 essay, “Unsafe: Why Gay Men Are Having Risky Sex,” to bring into focus the intensive rhetorical and psychoanalytic analyses that dominated the reception of HIV/AIDS in the gay community in the early 1990s. In particular, Halperin is interested in confronting the “affective structure of gay male subjectivity, shaped by originary social experiences of rejection and shame, and bristling with impulses to transgress” (p.57). Halperin’s main example centers around “abjection”: a term Warner uses to investigate why gay men would put themselves at risk, having sex with HIV-positive sexual partners via barebacking (subculture). In conjunction, Halperin illuminates Jean Genet’s conception of “abjection” in Miracle of the Rose (1943) and The Thief’s Journal (1948), pointing out, specifically, the moment of abject/transgression in the jailhouse when the Spanish police confiscate Genet’s vaseline tube. Halperin argues that “abjection” is a distinctly social transgression that, in light of Foucault’s call to political intervention, cannot be adapted either within a psychological framework (which is, instead, abject or perverse) or a purely theoretical framework (since theory cannot substantiate effective and perpetual social engagement or change). Instead, Halperin argues for a “non-disciplinary model of gay subjectivity” that takes “abjection and spirituality out of the realm of the miracle and transcendence--and return them to the vicissitudes of social existence” (p.108). In other words, Halperin is interested in a gay male subjectivity that is “not a subjectivity of [psychologizing] risk, an object of social hygiene, or a target of therapeutic intervention” (p.110). Instead, Halperin calls for a gay subjectivity that is “far from having to be bracketed, denied, suppressed, or closeted; [a subjectivity that] can impel political resistance” (p.110).
Halperin's text is profound, well argued, and insightful, even for queer theorists in 2015, who may be interested in "what next" after gay marriage threatens to become the next "new normal." To read this text in conjunction with Tim Dean's Unlimited Intimacy, is timely and crucial. Five stars.