To even recommend speaking about difference that is sexual an ontological question might induce—not without justification—strong reluctance from both the edges of philosophy (the standard guardian of ontological concerns) and gender studies. Those two “sides,” them so, share at least one reason for this reluctance, related in some way to the fact that the discussion would attempt nothing new if we can call. Traditional ontologies and old-fashioned cosmologies were highly reliant on intimate huge difference, using it as their founding that is very structuring, principle. Ying-yang, water-fire, earth-sun, matter-form, active-passive—this style of (often explicitly sexualized) opposition ended up being utilized because the principle that is organizing of ontologies and/or cosmologies, in addition to of this sciences—astronomy, as an example—based to them. And also this is exactly exactly exactly how Lacan could state, “primitive technology is a kind of sexual strategy.”1 Both science and philosophy broke with this tradition at some point in history, one generally associated with the Galilean revolution in science and its aftermath. Of course there clearly was a easy and many basic method of saying exactly exactly what characterizes modern technology and modern philosophy, it might be phrased correctly with regards to the “desexualisation” of truth, of abandoning intimate distinction, much more or less explicit type, since the arranging concept of truth, supplying the latter’s coherence and intelligibility.
Reasons why feminism and sex studies find these ontologizations of sexual distinction extremely problematic are unmistakeable.
Fortified from the ontological degree, intimate huge difference is highly anchored in essentialism—it turns into a combinatory game associated with the essences of masculinity and femininity. Continue reading