Comments on: Queer Before Queer

By: Layman

Layman — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 21:00:26 +0000

Ok, I finally understood this thing with the origin of babies. Please disregard my question number 3 above.

By: Layman

Layman — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 17:42:56 +0000

Thank you!

So when you say that “We know” something (as in “We know that all research activity begins at the moment it is aroused by sexual activity”) through Freudianism, I feel very tempted to disagree. I think psychoanalysis proposes a series of models of the way our psychology works. These models, however, have only been discussed a lot, but they have not been tested. (Or have they?) So I feel it would be better to replace the phrase “we know” with something like, “The way psychoanalysis seeks to understand this is as follows…”

I think understanding this manifesto will take me a few days, but I’m willing to do it, if you will help me out. So let’s start with some more questions:

1. Which introduction to psychoanalysis do you recommend I read first, so that I’ll understand quickly that part of the bridge you are proposing?

2. Would you kindly try to summarize what the proposal is, in plain language and in brief?

3. I still don’t understand the importance of the “where do babies come form?” question.

4. What does this mean: “any analytical project that demands its truth without accepting its risks is one fated to be a victim of its own perversions”?

Thank you~!

By: Diego Costa

Diego Costa — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 08:52:20 +0000

Hi, thanks for the comment. 1. “We know that all research activity begins at the moment it is aroused by sexual activity” means that the “drive” to research, or to “know”, or (intellectual) curiosity in general derive from a sexual curiosity to know…to know about sex. What’s inside the mother? How do babies come from? How did she not get one like mine? Can she take mine away? And so on…
2. The question: where do babies come from?
3. This first issue, or set of posts is manifesto-like indeed! Thanks for reading!

By: Layman

Layman — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 07:29:28 +0000

Sorry, but I did not quite get it. For example, at some point you say that, “We know that all research activity begins at the moment it is aroused by sexual activity.” Is this the definition of sexual activity or the definition of research maybe? Or maybe you meant sexual research? And later on you certainly lost me when you were talking about Laplanche. Would you kindly explain further what he says? For example, when you say, “Laplanche gives the example the mother’s pregnancy of another child as igniting that puzzling question,” I do not understand which question you mean. Nor do I make anything of the argument that follows. By the way, I think the blog format disallows the use of quotations as footnotes (although references in the footnote are good).

Also, is this intended as a sort of manifesto? That’s what I get from, “I am proposing a Queer Theory turn to psychoanalysis, and vice versa […]”. If so, I am still with the questions of: what is understood by ‘queer theory’, and what by ‘psychoanalisis’? I actually think it is important to discuss things in enough depth that they become clear.

Thanks for writing, keep it up!