What Can Queer Theory Do for Intersex

Datos Bibliográficos

ID3628993
AutoresIain Morland (autor de correspondencia)
Año2009
Volumen15
Número2
Páginas285-312
Fecha de publicación2009-04-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaGLQ A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1064-2684 • E-ISSN: 1527-9375
EditorialDuke University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1215/10642684-2008-139
OpenAlexW2161062733
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas30
Referencias citadas29

In this essay I explore how queer theory might account for postsurgical intersex bodies of diminished genital tactility. In other words, I evaluate whether a critique of surgery's effects is possible from a queer theoretical perspective on the body. I contend that for this purpose queer theory must do more than focus on bodily sensations such as pleasure, shame, and touching. The essay makes four key claims: first, that the desensitized postsurgical body cannot be accounted for by a queer discourse in which sexual pleasure is a form of hedonistic activism; second, that a queer discourse of shame enables a degree of critical engagement with the surgical creation of atypically sensate bodies; third, that pleasure and shame are both queer sensations, and queer theory's assumption of a sensorial basis to cultural critique, which is exemplified by the queer touch, flounders when confronted with the desensitized intersex body; fourth, that if queer theory is figured as a kind of reaching-but not necessarily touching-then it can be of greater use in accounting for the problematic yet ambivalent effects of intersex surgery

Ambivalence · Queer theory · Shame · Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting Issues · LGBTQ Health, Identity, and Policy · Sexual Differentiation and Disorders