Reclaiming Sexual Difference: What Queer Theory Can't Tell Us about Sexuality

Abstract

This article argues that both queer theory's erasure of bisexuality and the masculine bias within the field can be attributed to scholars' overreliance on, and problematic extension of, the Foucauldian theory of sexuality that has come to dominate the field of sexuality studies. By ignoring the fundamental antagonism between sexuality and meaning and overlooking not gender but sexual difference (i.e., the internal, nonsymbolizable alterity within all subjects), Foucauldian-influenced queer critics are unable to conceive of a subject whose constitution does not depend upon the repudiation of difference and the disavowal of internal and symbolic limits. Drawing on a psychoanalytic conceptualization of femininity, this article theorizes bisexual subjectivity and sexuality as a distinct lived relation to the limits of symbolic identity and knowledge, and attempts to show how the concept of sexual difference is critical if bisexual theorists are to challenge the logic of the universal that accounts for the erasure of bisexuality.

Revisiting the Invisibility of (Male) Bisexuality: Grounding (Queer) Theory, Centering Bisexual Absences and Examining Masculinities

“…Recent scholarship has attempted to move bisexuality to the center of queer theory, which highlights the abject nature of bisexuality (Erickson-Schroth & Mitchell, 2009;Feldman, 2009). However, these and other scholars have more commonly celebrated the (closely related) liberatory and transgressive aspect of bisexuality.…”

Ova-looking feminist theory: a call for consideration within health professions education and research

“…Some of these critiques are associated with queer feminism’s origins in queer theory. Feldman ( 2009 ) argues that queer theory erases bisexuality, and that a masculine bias exists within the field that stems from the way in queer theory relies on Foucauldian theories of sexuality. There are proponents of the view that queer theory in practice is less inclusive than definitions within the field suggest- Jeffreys ( 1994 ) argues that where the term queer is used, it is most often used to mean ‘white gay male’, so that whilst claiming to be ‘new and uniquely liberating’, queer theory and, by extension, queer feminism, erases the experiences of many feminists, lesbians, bisexuals and people of colour.…”

Gender and Sexuality Justice in Asia

“…Queer theory, responsible for disrupting the predication of gender on anatomy, the presumption of a heteronormative gender-sexuality-sex alignment and the uncontested acceptance of a heterosexual/homosexual binary (Butler 1999;Sedgwick 2008;Warner 1993), has been accused of dismissing the identity and materiality of gendered and sexual bodies (Callis 2009;Feldman 2009;Green 2002), particular transgender and non-binary subjects (Hines 2006;Namaste 2009). This situation owes its genesis in no small part to Butler's disavowal of an embodiment that is a priori to the conceptualization and appropriation of gender, and that the reiterations of socio-culturally signifiers are responsible for the production of the 'naturalness' of gender-and by extension, sexuality.…”