Sexual (Dis)Orientation: Gender, Sex, Desire and Self-fashioning

233 Pages·2004·21.293 MB·English

by  Tamsin Wilton (auth.)

Sexual (Dis)Orientation
Also by Tamsin Wilton
AIDS: Setting a Feminist Agenda (edited with Lesley Doyal and Jennie Naidoo)
ANTIBODY POLITIC: AIDS and Society
ENGENDERING AIDS: Deconstructing Sex, Texts, Epidemic
FINGER-LICKING GOOD: The Ins and Outs of Lesbian Sex
GOOD FOR YOU: A Handbook on Lesbian Health and Wellbeing
IMMORTAL, INVISIBLE: Lesbians and the Moving Image
LESBIAN STUDIES: Setting an Agenda
SEXUALITIES IN HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE
UNEXPECTED PLEASURES: Leaving Heterosexuality for a Lesbian Life
Sexual (Dis)Orientation
Gender, Sex, Desire and Self-fashioning
Tamsin Wilton
Professor ofH uman Sexuality
University of the West of England, UK
* © Tamsin Wilton 2004
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2004 978-1-4039-0572-7
'Pure Morning'
Words and music Molko/Olsdal/Hewitt
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First published 2004 by
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PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave
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ISBN 978-1-4039-0574-1 ISBN 978-0-230-50621-3 ( eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9780230506213
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully
managed and sustained forest sources.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British library.
library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Wilton, Tamsin.
Sexual (dis)orientation: gender, sex, desire, and self-fashioning I
Tamsin Wilton.
p.cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4039-0574-1 (pbk.)
1. Women -Sexual behavior. 2. Gender identity. 3. Lesbians.
4. Lesbians -Identity. I. Title: Sexual disorientation. II. Title.
HQ29.W55 2004
305.3-dc22 2004043790
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 OS 04
For Steph Keeble, with love and in appreciation for her generosity
in feeding mind, body and soul so excellently. Respect!
Never trouble trouble 'til trouble troubles you.
(Traditional Cornish saying)
... trouble is inevitable and the task, how best to make it, what best way to
be in it.
(Judith Butler 1990, Gender Trouble)
Contents
Acknowledgements viii
Introduction: What's All This About? Comments
on Method and Language 1
1 Of Models and Muddles: Disorientating
Theories of Sexuality 6
2 Declaration of Self-Interest: Epistemological and
Methodological Conundrums 23
3 What is Sex? Asking the Impossible Question 54
4 Telling the Difference: Desire, Safety and Sameness 76
S Haunted by the Gynander: Disruptive Genders 100
6 Stand by Your Man? Telling Heterosexual Stories 126
7 Your Mum's an Oxymoron: Sexuality and
Reproductivity 154
8 The Lesbian Vanishes? Notes for a New Sociology
of the Erotic 177
Appendix 197
Notes 201
References 203
Index 214
vii
Acknowledgements
As always, the dreadful business of writing has been made possible by
many people, to each of whom I owe a debt of gratitude.
The project advisory team of the Faculty of Health and Social Care at
the University of the West of England, at Bristol, provided practical sup
port without which the empirical research at the heart of this book
could not have been carried out. The team were Steph Keeble, Professor
Robin Means, Professor Steve West and Professor Peter Hampson, and I
thank them.
The usual suspects must be thanked for helping me retain something
of what passes for sanity during the gruelling process of carrying out the
fieldwork and piecing the material together into this book, and the one
that preceded it. They are jacky Brine, Clare Farquhar, Mandy and Kath,
Hilary Lindsay, Cecile Velu, Lynne and Lisa, Lesley Doyal, Hilary and
Harriet, Kim Hastings, Gaynor and Tati and Debbie Epstein. Special
thanks to Mandy Kidd, for refusing to be queered, and keeping me on
my toes!
Phil Wookey rode in like the cavalry during a computer crisis, and
Hilary Bright keeps my hands in working order so that I can write. I am
deeply indebted to Steph Keeble, not only for unwearied support and
critical engagement but also for the ballast provided by friendship and
addictively good food. Members of my family, including daughter-out
law Steph, Lyn Jennings, spare son Will and Petroc, the man in black,
have all rallied round the flag, and Guy Marshall continues to put his
mailbox at my disposal. My son, Tom Coveney, has grown into a treas
ured friend who continually reminds me why it is important to gnaw
away at the foundations of gender and who prevents me drifting into
intellectual laziness.
Members of the Lesbian Study Group of the British Sociological
Association gave valuable critical feedback and particular thanks to
Nicky Thorogood for keeping the group going and to Gill Dunne for
additional support. Tee Corinne's delighted feedback on my writing has
meant a lot; you are in my thoughts, Tee. I am grateful, too, to col
leagues and friends in the School of Sociology at UWE who, always will
ing to engage in off-the-wall debate about matters sexual (in a
sometimes hostile or dismissive environment), provided those unquan
tifiable but necessary spurs to thought. For this, and wider support,
viii
Acknowledgements ix
thanks to John Bird, ]em Thomas, Simon Clarke, Sean Watson, Arthur
Baxter, Gail Darke, Julie Kent, Carolyn Erina and Alison Assiter.
Colleagues in sexualities studies/queer studies, whose generosity kept
me provided with the kind of intellectual fuel necessary to keep going,
include Matthew Waites, Noreen Giffney, Michael O'Rourke, Jeffrey
Weeks and Diane Richardson. Particular thanks to Michael and Noreen
for organising the Queer Symposium at University College, Dublin,
where I received immensely useful feedback on some of my more off
the-wall ideas. Fellow members of the Gay and Lesbian Association of
Doctors and Dentists (GLADD), in particular Susan Bewley, have kept
me from flying too high in the social constructionist sky, as have Lisa
Saffron, Lesley Doyal and Bernedette Muthien.
Thanks to Helen Sandler, Raj Rai and their colleagues at Diva Books for
doing such a good job of publishing the first book to come from this
research, thus enabling me to pay off some of my debt to my partici
pants and turn my attention to this one. I want to thank here all those
women who took the trouble to give me their reactions to this earlier
book, especially Angela Brookes, whose generous feedback encouraged
me to think in wider terms.
Nick Pollard (DBTB) not only introduced me to Holly and Toshi, he
managed to teach me computing skills I had always resisted acquiring
and acted as a lively and always willing sounding board for some pretty
off-the-wall ideas about sex and desire. For all of this, and his friendship,
I am deeply grateful.
The greatest debt I owe is, of course, to the women (and some men)
who took part in the empirical research around which this book is built.
Their generosity, honesty, trust and willingness to share difficult and
intimate things with me were a joy and inspiration. I thank them with
feeling!