In
Grace’s post last week, she talked about how humans cannot be characterized
absolutely. This got me thinking about labels and stereotypes. The friend of
the homosexual in particular imposes a label on his homosexual friend. Sartre
calls the friend the champion of sincerity because not only does he want to
label his friend as homosexual, but he wants his friend to label himself as
well. But both the homosexual and his friend would be in bad faith through this
action, as they would reduce the man to pure facticity, thus renouncing his
freedom. He would be a homosexual such as a chair is a chair. This paints a
quite confusing picture for our sexual identities.
It
also presents an interesting perspective on arguments for and against same-sex
marriage. People against same-sex marriage who use biology to distinguish
‘natural’ heterosexuality as opposed to unnatural homosexuality are in bad
faith. They use biology to justify their own sexuality, denying any personal
freedom in them. These people deny homosexuality any facticity, and even resort
to treating it as an illness. On the other side of the coin, those who support
same-sex marriage that embrace homosexuality as natural and innate are also in
bad faith. These people fix homosexuality as a bound facticity, and use biology
as an excuse to explain same-sex marriage. Sartre complicates the role of
freedom in our sexuality. Are we free to choose our sexual desires? (I think
not.) Are sexual desires natural and given? Do/can we choose our sexual acts?
Last
week we debated whether sexual identity was based on desires or actions. We
also touched on transexuality. We do not choose our sex—I think that much is
clear. Some argue that we can choose our sexual desires, but I do not agree.
What is clear however is that getting a sexual reassignment surgery is an act
of freedom. A transsexual who undergoes this surgery explicitly transcends his
or her assigned sex. Yet at the same time, this person becomes another
facticity after the surgery. Is sexual reassignment surgery literally just
another sex assignment? Is it pure transcendence or pure facticity? Stories of
people who regret their sexual reassignment surgeries seem to point to pure
facticity. Sex change regret demonstrates that both the male and female sex are
mere facticities of the human body in that people still feel constrained as
either sex. If we grant the sexed body complete facticity, this can serve as
the ground for infinite sexist arguments and assumptions. But if we leave the
body behind completely, we risk acting as though we are a pure transcendence.
On the issue of transsexuals, I think that getting sexual reassignment surgery illustrates the equilibrium that must exist between facticity and transcendence. We can't call sexual reassignment surgery pure transcendence or pure facticity, because it shifts between the two. The decision to modify your given facticity seems to be pure transcendence, but because it requires a body to do so, we cannot consider it as such. And while it involves a physical body, it is not pure facticity because of the transcendent choice that the transsexual must make when choosing sexual reassignment surgery. Thus, it may be the must appropriate expression of freedom (that is, not one of bad faith) for its ability to realize both transcendence and facticity.
ReplyDeleteGoing off your second paragraph, it seems to me that categories of sexuality are socially constructed, but then reified to be facticity. "Homosexuality," "heterosexuality," "bisexuality," are all constructed ideas used to explain sexual phenomenon. However, it is apparent that these categories are too simplistic. Few people occupy the extremes of exclusive homosexuality/heterosexuality. Therefore, I think it reasonable to consider the forces of attraction facticity, inasmuch as attraction by definition is one's being pulled in, rather than pushing towards (therefore involuntary), whereas creating or assigning oneself to a category of sexuality is transcendence. We are not capable of being "_sexuals" because these ideas of sexuality are socially constructed ideas. Sexual attraction is a continuum between the ideas of homosexuality and heterosexuality, but actually existing individuals will fall somewhere in between.
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