Comments on: Psychoanalysing Sexuality

By: Em

Em — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 01:58:56 +0000

You may be relying on an outdated conceptualisation of psychoanalysis to form your opinion. Different psychoanalytic theorists have varying views on homosexuality. I personally think psychoanalysis lends itself to being open to all forms of sexuality due to an acceptance of the person for whoever or whatever they are. For this reason, it is actually the opposite of categorising people, and instead is interested in a deeper understanding of the whole person in their infinite complexity.

By: Simon Holloway

Simon Holloway — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 04:59:01 +0000

Lou, your uses of ellipses have taken me out of context. The second part of that quote (“academics in these disciplines”) was a reference to sociology, anthropology and psycho-analysis. As for the first half of my quote, I would still defend that. You said that you and your colleagues collect data and test your hypotheses against that data; I would agree that this is precisely what linguists do. But I would also argue that it is not a ‘scientific’ method, in the strict sense of the term, as data is never empirical and cannot ever be tested by anything more rigorous than the hypotheses themselves.

By: Lou

Lou — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 04:06:18 +0000

“The term pseudo-science is not pejorative, incidentally: I would grant the same title to linguistics. … on the basis of superficial features and it is surprising how readily people will step into them.”

Thems fighting words, there! I am soooo going to take you up on this one! I think you have a narrow view of linguistics. This is NOT the type of linguistics my colleagues and I do. We collect data and we find patterns. We make hypotheses and we test those hypotheses against what we find in the data. Naturally, we don’t do it in laboratory conditions, unless we want to know how people use language in a laboratory. We do it in as naturalistic a setting as is possible.

Anyway, I will restrict my rant and rave for the moment because I am enjoying your blog and want to read more of it….and then get back to my data!

By: Jen

Jen — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 20:47:49 +0000

And so many people do want to be given a label. Apparently most bisexuals get a bad deal because they have no clearly defined cultural identity of their own and both ‘pure’ sides look down on them as if they were a kind of mongrel.

By: Simon Holloway

Simon Holloway — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 03:04:06 +0000

Actually, I get called that too, but only when I defend the agents of Satan.

As for your point regarding the continuum, that works for me so long as it is a continuum in the truest sense. It needs to be completely fluid, rather than being marked with discrete locations, and needs to have a (potentially) infinite number of variations. That is why I prefer the idea of it possessing more than the one dimension. I realise that my delineation is too complicated, but complexity is a positive thing. It breaks down when people actually want to be given a label, of course.

By: Judy Redman

Judy Redman — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 09:21:30 +0000

Simon, you move in the wrong circles. When I defend gay people, I’m called an agent of Satan! :-)

But more seriously, the theory makes most sense to me is that sexual orientation is a continuum, with some people being strongly straight, others strongly gay and others at varying places in between. And in homophobic societies, many of the people who are in the middle identify as straight because it’s easier.