Gender, Sexuality, and Identity -- Question 2

Gender, Sexuality, and Identity -- Question 2 "So, is the category bisexuality less or more threatening to the status quo than is homosexuality?"

The passage suggests that in fact, rather than presenting patriarchic constructs of identity with less threatening formulation of human sexual identity, bisexuality does the exact opposite -- it presents common social norms with the more threatening notion that human sexuality is not an either/or 'Chinese menu' option of stable choices. The practice of homosexuality, even when it is deemed taboo and beyond the pale of the human sexual order is still a 'comfort' to the heterosexual norm. The construct of homosexuality suggests that human sexuality exists in an either/or dichotomy. So long as one is attracted to the opposite gender one is, in essence, safe from the presumably aberrant, even pathological orientation of homosexuality.

However, bisexuality presents a potentially fluid rendering of human sexual desire, whereby even the presence of one's marriage and having children do not mean that one can deviate from a heterosexual norm in one's attractions. It is also true that bisexuality is also frightening to individuals who have a stable and secure homosexual identity, individuals who believe they 'always' knew that they were 'different' from others in their peer group, especially if they perceived themselves as more or less masculine than society required their gender to seem. However, the potential for self-identified gays and lesbians and bisexual people to 'pass' as heterosexual, and to not form an easy construction of what is 'not the norm' is in fact more frightening, as it means that someone who is conventionally feminine or masculine can still transgress, and that the either/or categories of sexuality are not stable for any human person. Even a heterosexual, unconventionally masculine or feminine person is more frightening than one who confirms stereotypes, because it shows that common social categorizations are not correct, inclusive, and universally applicable.

SECTION B: Plato's Apology -- Question 4: Socrates views on education

Socrates takes a destabilizing rather than a stabilizing view of human education. This was contrary to the norms espoused by Socrates' own society. Athenian society viewed education as readying a man for serving the city-state by indoctrinating the individual in the Laws of Athens. But Socrates' ideal is also somewhat contrary to our own formulations about what makes a good human being, as the notion that one must probe and question a student with the Socratic method may destabilize one's sense of self and self-esteem. Thus, while upholders of custom in all ages may see education as a potential unifying force and furtherance of custom, Socrates instead suggests that such self-confidence and assumed competence must be questioned. One's self-assumptions must be questioned -- and merely because one is an able administrator does not mean that one is truly wise. The community may esteem one who is successful financially or professionally, but merely because one adheres to community values and thus is deemed a success is not a true marker of one's human excellence, in the view of the philosopher.

SECTION C: Plato's Crito -- Question 5: What made Socrates so attached to Athens?

Socrates was not so much attached to Athenian democracy, as he was to the people and the territory that had given him shelter, education, and in many individual cases, approbation for much of his adult life. Without the freedom accorded by the Laws of Athens, however imperfect he deemed those laws to be, Socrates could not have succeeded as a teacher, even a teacher who contested much of Athenian custom and law. Socrates is not a martyr for the Laws of Athens, however, because he never held those Athenian Laws in high esteem -- he believed in a philosophical tyranny, rather than a pure democracy that could vote a man to death by majority rules. Thus, rather the man stands as a martyr to philosophy, willing to die for the state whose protection he assumed, a state that allowed for him to teach for much of his life. A citizen, even in disagreement with the law, argues Socrates, may willingly engage in acts of civil disobedience and disobey the laws of the city. However, the citizen must also willingly assume the consequences of doing so, even if those consequences are death.

SECTION D: Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale -- Question 8:Cheat nature?

Ironically, the commander of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale says to the main character that one cannot cheat nature, in the sense that the commander believes that feminism and a liberal democracy runs antithetical to what is natural, namely the natural subordination of women to men. Yet he himself is attempting to cheat nature and produce a child, when his own wife is barren, and with a woman who is not simply married to another man, but whose own child has been taken from her, an indignity not even many animals 'in nature' are subject to suffer. Even in the framework of the novel, characters like the commander find ways to follow their natural instincts, as he takes his mistress, not in the regimented and ritualistic way prescribed by his fundamentalist faith, to a kind of brothel-like establishment. There, women who are lesbian are forced to serve men -- but also engage in what feels natural to them, sexually, on their 'off' hours. Even the handmaidens, 'naturally' try to protect their skin to keep their beauty and find ways of dreaming about a life outside of their current plight -- as exemplified in the carved Latin 'don't let the bastards get you down' on a piece of furniture, as well as seek more effective political means of resistance. Even though the Bible is under lock and key to prevent competing interpretations (or of women engaging in reading) transgressions seem to naturally take place in all characters lives take place, even in the lives of the leaders of the land. The commander sees male sexual desire as natural, in contrast to female sexual reticence, while the handmaiden sees her love of her child as natural, in contrast to her own mother's feminism. Overall, the book suggests there is no 'natural' that is stable, and no nature to cheat.