In chapter 8, Giddens explores episodic encounters. He questions if this is a way of avoiding intimacy, or could it be a way of expanding on the relationship? I wonder if episodic encounters really are incompatible with the ‘norms’ and ‘rules’ of the “pure relationships”. (147) He also ventures into the concept of plastic sexuality. He essentially defines this as “sex detached from its age-old subservience to differential power” (147). He discusses the visible deconstructions of maleness: “the leather queen”, “macho gay”, and “denim groupie” Giddens brings up a good point that as much as they are pushing limits, they are simultaneously affirming what has already been taken for granted by phallic power in our society— and that our identity, all aspects of it is reflexive.
Giddens discloses thoughts from an interview with a woman on homosexual relationships. She claims that homosexual relationships can be very long term, but are usually not “for life” (148). She also says she feels heterosexual couples stay together longer than gay couples do, even though with recent movements that this is changing. I would argue she feels this way only because heterosexual couples have been the only “acceptable” type of marriage in the past. If the norm were that heterosexual couples traditionally didn’t get married to become life partners if she would still feel this same way about hetero and homosexual relationships/marriages? Heterosexual relationships are already so prescribed to be a certain way, that I feel homosexual marriages (if and when legally accepted) could be more freeing because the couple can really choose what they want the relationship to look like. At the risk of sounding really naive, could I suggest that gay couples maybe have more room to create a different kind of “marriage” because they are not confined by tradition?
In one of Hite’s studies she found that heterosexual women said they wanted more “verbal closeness”. Is it socially constructed that women need more “verbal closeness”? Are women training to think like a “woman?” I just don’t see how that need can be biological. I feel its all about expectations and roles-- and because women and men have been socialized to have different expectations then they inevitably act accordingly because that it what they have been taught to feel (148).
Giddens discusses “equalization” as a very important part of the transformation of intimacy. He tends to make huge generalizations when discussing this, “women are angry at men for…” and “men’s anger against women is because of…”(149). He mentions that men are becoming zombies—“all playing the rules of the male game plan and as a consequence have lost touch with, or are running away from their feelings and awareness of themselves as people’ (149).
He then moves on to a (dramatic, in my opinion) discussion of Goldberg’s ideas about the “hazards of being male”. I mean, saying “men are in a no-win situation” if choosing to be in a relationship—really? (Maybe this offended my because I do have a unwarranted fear of being in a relationship with a person who only feels confined, and over-bared by the relationship itself). It seems he does a lot of blaming the woman, as if it were her fault for choosing such a guy to be in relationship. Well since he generalized about men so much, it seems women wouldn’t have much of a choice since apparently all men feel the same about relationships with women anyway (i.e. “Women become angered by the very characteristics that attracted them in the first place”. (150)). It must be the woman’s fault because “many women are likely to long precisely for the kind of man who won’t commit; indeed, an aversion to commitment, for reasons already explained, often maximizes both his attractiveness and the challenge he offers” (154).
Barbara Enhrenreich brings up the ‘male rebellion’—to stay free a male has to stay single. She addresses the historical notion that men once were supposed to live longer, until the stress from being the sole provider and harder workers built up and they became physiologically weaker than women (because women were probably never ever stressed themselves, right?). Men therefore, began to renounce their breadwinner role- taking care of themselves financially and pushing off all other responsibilities to the women. Goldberg recommends that men change themselves by enhancing their friendships with other men, by developing a feminine side and by choosing to be with women who are autonomous.
Chapter 9 was not easy for me to understand. Between the conflicting yet consistent viewpoints of Reich, Marcuse and their comparison to Foucault, it was hard to follow. Nevertheless, these were the main points. Reich makes the statement that a sociopolitical reform without sexual liberation is practically impossible, because freedom and sexual health are the same thing. He does value Freud’s Free Association technique; he feels it deviates from a persons true problems. Herbert Marcuse criticizes ego psychology and explores the burden of repression and its negative effects on our society. Both Reich and Marcuse believe that modern civilization is inherently repressive.
Giddens take a second to figure out what it means to say that we are fixated with sexuality as a culture. He suggests three interpretations. The first is that because sexuality breeds pleasure and pleasure is the basis of our capitalist culture, then we can therefore assume that sexuality is a production of a capitalistic order. The second interpretation is construed under the influence of Foucault and Freud, whom suggested that “sex as truth” is the basis of modern thought in our society. The third interpretation he poses is that sex is an addiction. This addiction is seen as central to our compulsive qualities of sexual behavior-- which is exhibited through our addiction to porn, media, films, magazines (and other ways in which we can pursue our sexual desires). Giddens proposes that the solution is in recognizing the “confinement or denial of female sexual responsiveness and the generalized acceptance of male sexuality as unproblematic”…he goes on to say “the more sexuality became detached from reproduction, and integrated within an emerging reflexive project of self, the more this institutional system of repression came under tension” (178). Sexual emancipation, “what used to be called perversions are merely ways in which sexuality can legitimately be expressed and self-identity defined” (179). I like that he talks about how by recognizing these “perversions” it can eventually lead to an acceptance of many ways to carry out sexual lives. Radical pluralism becomes an “emancipatory endeavor” in which we can open new doors for our sexual choices without the barriers of moral judgment.
In chapter 10“Intimacy as Democracy” he defines democracy and shows how they are invariably linked to autonomy. Democracy essentially means that people can develop, learn, think, feel, free of judgment and will be heard even if of the minority.
The principle of autonomy is “individuals should be free and equal in the determination of the conditions of their own lives; that is, they should enjoy equal rights (and, accordingly, equal obligations) in the specification of the framework which generates and limits the opportunities available to them, so long as they do not deploy this framework to negate the rights of others” (186). He discusses how institutionalizing the principle of autonomy means “specifying rights and obligations, which have to be substantive, not just formal” …he goes on to say “rights are essentially forms of empowerment; they are enabling devices” (187). And as I agree, rights are empowering—they tend to be empowering for some, not all people. I think that is important to acknowledge. However, I do like how he mentions that “rights and duties thus have to be made a focus of continual reflexive attention”. He moves on to say that the promise of intimacy is the promise of democracy. We need democracy in a relationship in order to achieve intimacy. Women need it as empowerment so they can get out of abusive, violent or oppressive relationships. With democracy comes the dissolution of arbitrary power (which is usually given to males). Giddens also mentions the importance of trust in this issue. Without trust you can have no accountability because one or the other is inspecting and analyzing the motives of the other person. I don’t like that Giddens compares parent-child relationships to political order. I’d like to think there is something different, maybe more emotional, vulnerable and human, about a parent-child relationship than what exists within our political sphere.
Giddens write that “the advancement of self-autonomy in the context of pure relationships is rich with implications for democratic practice in the larger community” (195). He suggests a similarity between democracy of the personal life and democracy of political life. He supports this statement by saying “through mutual threats and attrition, one side or other is worn down and an outcome achieved” (196). Principled negotiation leads to respectful conversation, which inevitably is good democratic communication between any two parties—no matter which sphere political or personal. He discusses how sexuality awakened personal politics and therefore how institutional reflexivity of life politics (i.e. self identity) is a topic we should all pay more attention to.
He discusses how the question “who will I be?” goes hand in hand with “how shall I live”, and these two questions are wrapped up around our (binary) conception of gender. He lists five gender attributions: every person is either male or female, characteristics are either masculine or feminine, gender cues are assessed within the barriers of typical gender behavioral patterns, the difference between gender only enhances our limited views of sexual identities, how we act is because of what we have “naturally” been given. Sex identity is slowly becoming less confining, as society accepts our bodies as something other than what nature gave us. He ends the chapter with a discussion of how emotions affect our behavior, judgments and communication within relationships. I think that it is important to recognize the power of emotional responses. Not every aspect of a relationship can be compared to the realm of communication within politics.
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