Homosexual DesireOriginally published in 1972 in France, Guy Hocquenghem's Homosexual Desire has become a classic in gay theory. Translated into English for the first time in 1978 and out of print since the early 1980s, this new edition, with an introduction by Michael Moon, will make available this vital and still relevant work to contemporary audiences. Integrating psychoanalytic and Marxist theory, this book describes the social and psychic dynamics of what has come to be called homophobia and on how the "homosexual" as social being has come to be constituted in capitalist society. Significant as one of the earliest products of the international gay liberation movement, Hocquenghem's work was influenced by the extraordinary energies unleashed by the political upheavals of both the Paris "May Days" of 1968 and the gay and lesbian political rebellions that occurred in cities around the world in the wake of New York's Stonewall riots of June 1969. Drawing on the theoretical work of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari and on the shattering effects of innumerable gay "comings-out," Hocquenghem critiqued the influential models of the psyche and sexual desire derived from Lacan and Freud. The author also addressed the relation of capitalism to sexualities, the dynamics of anal desire, and the political effects of gay group-identities. Homosexual Desire remains an exhilarating analysis of capitalist societies' pervasive fascination with, and violent fear of, same-sex desire and addresses issues that continue to be highly charged and productive ones for queer politics. |
Contents
New Introduction by Michael Moon | 9 |
Preface to the 1978 Edition by Jeffrey Weeks | 23 |
Introduction | 49 |
AntiHomosexual Paranoia | 55 |
Disgusting perverts | 73 |
Capitalism the Family and the Anus | 93 |
Homosexual ObjectChoice and Homosexual | 113 |
The Homosexual Struggle | 133 |
Conclusion | 148 |
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Common terms and phrases
anal anal stage anti-homosexual anti-psychiatry anus appears Basini becomes behaviour bisexuality capitalist castration Charlus child choice civilised concepts Deleuze and Guattari dominant drive erotic existence expression fact father fear feminine Ferenczi FHAR France French Freud Freudian function gay movement Genêt's genital guilt guilt-inducing Guy Hocquenghem Havelock Ellis hetero heterosexual Hocquenghem homo homo-erotic homosexual desire homosexual libido Ibid identity ideology imaginary individual invert Jean-Paul Sartre Juliet Mitchell L'Anti-Oedipe Lacan lesbian liberation libidinal libido Male Homosexuality masculine masochism means mode mother narcissism nature neurosis neurotic normal Nosology object-choice Oedipal Oedipalisation Oedipus complex oppression organisation paranoia passive penis person perverse phallic phallus phantasy pleasure political polymorphously privatisation Proust psychiatry psychoanalysis psychological relation relationship repression reproduction revolutionary role sadism Sandor Ferenczi Sartre Schérer Schreber sexual object signifier social society Sodom and Gomorrah struggle sublimation theory Three Essays tion Törless unconscious Wilhelm Reich woman women