Read Kiss of the Spider Woman Online
Authors: Manuel Puig
Tags: #Regional.Latin America, #Fiction.Magical Realism, #Fiction.Literature.Modern, #Acclaimed.Horror 100 Best.Index
Kiss of the Spider Woman (36 page)
Furthermore, Marcuse favors not only a free flow of the libido, but also a transformation of the same: in other words, the passage from a sexuality circumscribed by genital supremacy to an eroticization of the whole personality. He refers therefore to an expansion more than an explosion of the libido, an expansion that would extend to other areas of human endeavor, private and social, such as work, for example. He adds that the entire weight of civil morality was brought to bear against the use of the body as mere instrument of pleasure, inasmuch as that reification was considered taboo and relegated to the contemptible privilege of prostitutes and perverts.
Differing from this position, J. C. Unwin, author of
Sex and Culture
, after studying the marital customs of eighty uncivilized societies, seems to support the very generalized assumption that sexual freedom leads to social decadence, since, according to orthodox psychoanalysis, if an individual does not perish from his neurosis, the imposed sexual constraints can help to channel such energies toward socially useful ends. Unwin has concluded from his exhaustive study that the establishment of the first foundations of an organized society, its subsequent development and appropriation of neighboring terrain—in other words, the historical characteristics of every vigorous society—are evident only from the moment when sexual repression has been instated. While those societies in which freedom of sexual relations is tolerated—whether prenuptial, extraconjugal or homosexual—remain in an almost animal state of underdevelopment. But at the same time, Unwin says that societies which are strictly monogamous and strongly repressive do not manage to last very long, and if they do in part, it is by means of the moral and material subjugation of women. Therefore, Unwin claims that, between the suicidal anguish that the minimizing of sexual necessities provokes and the opposite extreme of social disorder attributed to sexual incontinence, a reasonable medium ought to be found which might provide the solution to such a critical problem—that is to say, an elimination of the “surplus repression” about which Marcuse speaks.
Sex and Culture
, after studying the marital customs of eighty uncivilized societies, seems to support the very generalized assumption that sexual freedom leads to social decadence, since, according to orthodox psychoanalysis, if an individual does not perish from his neurosis, the imposed sexual constraints can help to channel such energies toward socially useful ends. Unwin has concluded from his exhaustive study that the establishment of the first foundations of an organized society, its subsequent development and appropriation of neighboring terrain—in other words, the historical characteristics of every vigorous society—are evident only from the moment when sexual repression has been instated. While those societies in which freedom of sexual relations is tolerated—whether prenuptial, extraconjugal or homosexual—remain in an almost animal state of underdevelopment. But at the same time, Unwin says that societies which are strictly monogamous and strongly repressive do not manage to last very long, and if they do in part, it is by means of the moral and material subjugation of women. Therefore, Unwin claims that, between the suicidal anguish that the minimizing of sexual necessities provokes and the opposite extreme of social disorder attributed to sexual incontinence, a reasonable medium ought to be found which might provide the solution to such a critical problem—that is to say, an elimination of the “surplus repression” about which Marcuse speaks.
Chapter 10
In a survey quoted by the sociologist J. L. Simmons, in his book
Deviants
, it was established that homosexuals are subject to a considerably stronger rejection on the part of people than are alcoholics, compulsive gamblers, ex-convicts and former mental patients.
J. C. Flugel, in his
Man, Morals and Society
, claims with respect to those who during infancy have strongly identified themselves with paternal or maternal figures of a particularly stern disposition, that as they grow up they will embrace conservative causes and will be fascinated by authoritarian regimes. The more authoritarian the leader, the more confidence he will awaken in them, and they will also feel very patriotic and loyal when fighting in support of traditions and class distinctions, as well as in favor of rigidly disciplinary educational systems and religious institutions, while at the same time wholly condemning sexual abnormalities of any type. On the other hand, those who in infancy somehow reject—on an unconscious, emotional or rational level—such rules of parental conduct will favor radical causes, repudiate distinctions of class and treat understandingly those who exhibit any unconventional inclinations: homosexuals, for example.
Man, Morals and Society
, claims with respect to those who during infancy have strongly identified themselves with paternal or maternal figures of a particularly stern disposition, that as they grow up they will embrace conservative causes and will be fascinated by authoritarian regimes. The more authoritarian the leader, the more confidence he will awaken in them, and they will also feel very patriotic and loyal when fighting in support of traditions and class distinctions, as well as in favor of rigidly disciplinary educational systems and religious institutions, while at the same time wholly condemning sexual abnormalities of any type. On the other hand, those who in infancy somehow reject—on an unconscious, emotional or rational level—such rules of parental conduct will favor radical causes, repudiate distinctions of class and treat understandingly those who exhibit any unconventional inclinations: homosexuals, for example.
For his part, Freud, in “Letter to an American Mother,” says that homosexuality, while certainly not an advantage, ought not to be considered a reason for shame, since it is neither a vice nor degrading, but simply a variation in sexual functions produced by a certain arrest in sexual development. In effect, Freud judges that the overcoming of the “polymorphous perverse” stage of childhood—in which bisexual impulses are present—due to socio-cultural pressures, is actually a sign of maturity.
Several contemporary schools of psychoanalysis would disagree with that judgment; they would instead see in the repression of the “polymorphous perverse” one of the principal reasons behind the malformation of personality, especially in terms of the hypertrophy of aggressiveness. As for homosexuality itself, Marcuse points out that the social function of the homosexual is analogous to that of the critical philosopher, since his very presence is a constant reminder of the repressed elements of society.
With reference to the repression of “polymorphous perversity” in the West, Dennis Altman states in his work, cited above, that the principal components of such repression are on the one hand the elimination of the erotic from all human activity that is not definitely sexual, and on the other hand the negation of the inherent bisexuality of all human beings: society assumes, without pausing to reflect at all, that heterosexuality equals sexual normality. Altman observes that the repression of bisexuality is effected by the forced implantation of seemingly prestigious historico-cultural concepts of “masculinity” and “feminity” which manage to suffocate our unconscious impulses and mask themselves in the consciousness as the only appropriate forms of conduct, at the same time that they succeed in upholding, down through the ages, the supremacy of the male—in other words, clearly delineated sexual roles which are learned during childhood. Moreover, Altman adds, the sense of being male or female is established, above all, by means of the other: men feel that their masculinity depends upon a capacity to conquer women, and women feel that fulfillment can only come about through being coupled with a man. On the other hand, Altman and the whole Marcusian school condemn the “strong man” stereotype which is presented to males as the most desirable model for emulation, since the said stereotype tacitly implies an affirmation of masculinity through violence, which explains the constant presence of the aggressiveness syndrome in the world. Finally, Altman underscores the lack of any form of identity for the bisexual in contemporary society, and the pressures that he suffers from both sides, given that bisexuality threatens equally the exclusively homosexual forms of bourgeois life as well as heterosexual forms, and this characteristic would explain the reason why avowed bisexuality is so uncommon. And as for the convenient but—until a few years ago—merely potential parallelism between the struggle for class liberation and the one for sexual liberation, Altman emphasizes that in spite of Lenin’s concern for sexual liberty in the USSR, his rejection of anti-homosexual legislation for example, such legislation was reintroduced in 1934 by Stalin, and as a result, the prejudice against homosexuality—as a type of “bourgeois degeneration”—held fast in a number of Communist parties of the world.
It is in different terms that Theodore Roszak comments upon the sexual liberation movement in his work entitled
The Making of a Counter Culture
. There, he expresses the concept that the kind of woman who is most in need of liberation, and desperately so, is the “woman” which every man keeps locked inside the dungeons of his own psyche. Roszak points out that this and no other is the form of repression that needs to be eliminated next, and the same with respect to the man bottled up inside of every woman. Furthermore, Roszak has no doubt that all of the above would represent the most cataclysmic reinterpretation of sexual life in the history of humanity, inasmuch as it would involve a restructuring of all that concerns sexual roles and concepts of sexual normality that are currently in force.
The Making of a Counter Culture
. There, he expresses the concept that the kind of woman who is most in need of liberation, and desperately so, is the “woman” which every man keeps locked inside the dungeons of his own psyche. Roszak points out that this and no other is the form of repression that needs to be eliminated next, and the same with respect to the man bottled up inside of every woman. Furthermore, Roszak has no doubt that all of the above would represent the most cataclysmic reinterpretation of sexual life in the history of humanity, inasmuch as it would involve a restructuring of all that concerns sexual roles and concepts of sexual normality that are currently in force.
Chapter 11
The qualification “polymorphous perverse” which Freud applies to the infantile libido—referring to the indiscriminate pleasure derived by the child from his own body or the body of others—has also been accepted by more recent scholars, like Norman O. Brown and Herbert Marcuse. The difference between them and Freud, as already indicated, lies in the fact that Freud considered it proper that the libido is sublimated and channeled into an exclusively heterosexual direction, definitely a genital one, while more recent thinkers approve and even favor a return to polymorphous perversity and to an eroticization that goes beyond the merely genital.
In any case, affirms Fenichel, Western civilization imposes on the girl or boy the models of their own mother or father, respectively, as the only possible sexual identities. The probability for a homosexual orientation, according to Fenichel, is all the greater the more the child identifies with the progenitor of the opposite sex, instead of what would generally occur. The girl who does not find the model offered by her mother to be satisfactory, and the boy who does not find the model offered by the father to be satisfactory, would as a consequence be prone to homosexuality.
It is appropriate here to note a recent work of the Danish doctor Anneli Taube,
Sexuality and Revolution,
where it is suggested that the rejection which a highly sensitive boy experiences toward an oppessive father—as symbol of the violently authoritarian, masculine attitude—is a conscious one. The boy, at the moment when he decides not to adhere to the world proposed by such a father—use of weapons, violently competitive sports, disdain for sensitivity as a feminine attribute, etc.—is actually exercising a free and even revolutionary choice inasmuch as he is rejecting the role of the stronger, the exploitative one. Of course, such a boy could not suspect, on the other hand, that Western civilization, apart from the world of the father, will not present him with any alternative model for conduct, in those first dangerously decisive years—above all from three to five—other than his mother. And the world of the mother—tenderness, tolerance, and even the arts—will turn out to be much more attractive to him, especially because of the absence of aggressivity: but the world of the mother, and here is where his intuition would fail him, is also the world of submission, since the mother is coupled with an authoritarian male, who only conceives of conjugal union as a subordination of the woman to the man. In the case of the girl, on the other hand, who decides not to adhere to the world of the mother, her attitude is due to the fact that she rejects the role of being submissive, because she intuits it as humiliating and unnatural, without realizing that once that role has been excluded, Western civilization presents her with no other role than that of oppressor. But the act of rebellion by such a girl or boy would be a sign of undeniable strength and dignity.
Sexuality and Revolution,
where it is suggested that the rejection which a highly sensitive boy experiences toward an oppessive father—as symbol of the violently authoritarian, masculine attitude—is a conscious one. The boy, at the moment when he decides not to adhere to the world proposed by such a father—use of weapons, violently competitive sports, disdain for sensitivity as a feminine attribute, etc.—is actually exercising a free and even revolutionary choice inasmuch as he is rejecting the role of the stronger, the exploitative one. Of course, such a boy could not suspect, on the other hand, that Western civilization, apart from the world of the father, will not present him with any alternative model for conduct, in those first dangerously decisive years—above all from three to five—other than his mother. And the world of the mother—tenderness, tolerance, and even the arts—will turn out to be much more attractive to him, especially because of the absence of aggressivity: but the world of the mother, and here is where his intuition would fail him, is also the world of submission, since the mother is coupled with an authoritarian male, who only conceives of conjugal union as a subordination of the woman to the man. In the case of the girl, on the other hand, who decides not to adhere to the world of the mother, her attitude is due to the fact that she rejects the role of being submissive, because she intuits it as humiliating and unnatural, without realizing that once that role has been excluded, Western civilization presents her with no other role than that of oppressor. But the act of rebellion by such a girl or boy would be a sign of undeniable strength and dignity.
On the other hand, Doctor Taube asks why such occurrences are not more common, given that the Western couple, in general, exemplifies such exploitation. Here she suggests two factors which act as checks: the first would be present whenever in a home the wife—because of lack of education, intelligence, etc.—is actually inferior to the husband, which would make the authority of the latter seem more justifiable; the second factor would depend upon a slow development of the intelligence and sensitivity of the boy or girl, which would not permit them to grasp the situation. Implicit in this observation is the probability that if, on the other hand, the father is extremely primitive and the mother quite refined but nonetheless submissive, the extremely sensitive and precociously intelligent boy almost inevitably will reject the paternal model. And likewise, the girl will reject the maternal model as arbitrary.
As for the question of why in the same home there can be found homosexual and heterosexual children, Doctor Taube suggests that in every social cell there is a tendency toward the division of roles, and for this reason one of the children will take charge of the parental conflict and keep the other siblings in a rather neutralized field.
Nonetheless, Doctor Taube, after evaluating the primary impulse toward homosexuality and pointing out the character of its revolutionary nonconformity, observes that the absence of other models for conduct—and in this respect she agrees with Altman and his thesis concerning the uncommonness of bisexual behavior, due to the lack of available bisexual models for conduct—causes the future male homosexual, for example, after rejecting the defects of the repressive father, to feel anguished about the necessity for identification with some form of conduct and to “learn” to be submissive like his mother. The process is identical for the girl: she repudiates exploitation, and because of that she hates to be like her submissive mother, but social pressures make her slowly “learn” another role, that of the repressive father.
From five years of age until adolescence there occurs in these “different” kinds of children an oscillation in their original bisexuality. But the “masculinized” girl, for example, because of her identification with the father, although feeling sexually attracted to a male, will not accept the role of passive toy that a conventional male would tend to impose, and will feel uncomfortable and therefore cultivate, as the only means of overcoming her anxiety, a different role that will merely permit play with women. On the other hand, the “femininized” boy, because of his identification with the mother, although feeling sexually attracted to a girl, will not accept the role of intrepid assailant that would tend to be imposed by a conventional female, will feel uncomfortable and therefore cultivate a different role that will only permit play with men.
Anneli Taube thus interprets the imitative attitude practiced, until very recently, by a high percentage of homosexuals, an attitude imitative, above all, of the defects of heterosexuality. What has been characteristic of male homosexuals is a submissive spirit, a conservative attitude, a love of peace at any cost, even the cost of perpetuating their own marginality; whereas what has been characteristic of female homosexuals is their anarchical spirit, violently argumentative, while at the same time basically disorganized. Yet both attitudes have proven not to be deliberate, but compulsive, imposed by a slow brainwashing in which heterosexual bourgeois models for conduct participate—during infancy and adolescence—and later on, at the point of adopting homosexuality itself, “bourgeois” models for homosexual conduct.
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