The Blue Monkey Review

Psychotherapists often express reluctance to identify a behavior pattern as a “condition” or “sickness” without guidance from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM). I assume this caution results from their concern that morbidifying a problem may give it greater power, more resilience in the life of the client (some say it is because insurance companies will not reimburse non-DSM complaints—I think readers can evaluate this claim for what it is worth). Any comparison of the several editions of the DSM since the early 1950s will demonstrate that psychiatrists, who develop the DSM, only reluctantly add disease-entities to their standard diagnoses. These professional concerns help explain the glacial rate of acceptance that a condition that has afflicted millions has only recently gained the status of a DSM-endorsed condition (or, let me hastily add, Montenegrin newspaper Republika reports that the next DSM will include it). Hundreds of years of observation and study, and thousands (millions?) of pages of discussion have finally borne fruit in the new diagnostic category: romantia.

Continue reading "Romantia" »

Posted by at 1:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Four years ago, when I first considered signing up for an online dating site (Yahoo Personals) I had just become single again (“separated” was the box I checked off for my YP profile) after more than 20 years of marriage. Any experience that I had of dating was by then decades old and totally irrelevant to my new situation. I’m not shy, but I think I can also admit that I am not very adept at saloon repartee. And I have enough sense to know that approaching a single woman can more likely come across as threatening or pathetic, than as attractive, exciting, or seductive. But, although I knew nothing about online dating, I already assumed that I might as well have a virtual “L” tattooed across my cyber-forehead as soon as I sent my credit card info to Yahoo.

Continue reading "Three Myths of Online Dating" »

Posted by at 2:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (12)

SHU student and alpha-blogger Neha Bawa recently posted comments on a survey from the India about marital expectations in the subcontinent. An excerpt follows, but I encourage readers to examine Neha's blog.
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I could live through a marriage being arranged for me because I honestly believe that they last longer and better than the "love marriages," but this is probably why they'll have to drag me to the mandap (altar) kicking and screaming.

Posted by at 10:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

This evening I stumbled upon an article in Pagina 12 entitled “No te casarás con musulmanes,” a short summary and explanation of a recent Vatican document calling upon Catholics to refrain from marrying non-Christians, particularly Moslems. Such unions have often yielded “bitter experiences,” the document warned. At the very least, it urged Christians who married Moslems not to sign any document assenting to Islamic beliefs.

It’s hardly surprising that the Catholic hierarchy would warn against marriages outside of Christianity. Probably the most interesting thing about this document is that it exists, thus signaling that Christian/Moslem marriage has become more frequent, rising to the level of a concern for officials in Rome. But it struck me that, considering the current tensions in the world, this document must have attracted attention elsewhere. I quickly consulted the website of a few other Spanish-language dailies (including El Pais, once my favorite but not largely a close newspaper to me because of its restrictions on non-subscribers). I found no other mention of the document Erga migrantes Caritas Christi in my very brief search, though Google search turned up a handful of references.

What I did quickly find, though, in the New York Times, was an article on gay marriage. It seems that conservative Christians have not mobilized behind the amendment to ban gay marriages as enthusiastically as supporters of the ban had predicted. At the moment, they seem to pin their hopes on the images of gay men marrying gay men (and lesbians marrying lesbians) that will spread across the country beginning Monday when gay marriage becomes legal in Massachusetts. So, it seems like whoever you want to marry these days, you are in trouble with someone.

Continue reading "Marriage" »

Posted by at 12:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

This evening I stumbled upon an article in Pagina 12 entitled “No te casarás con musulmanes,” a short summary and explanation of a recent Vatican document calling upon Catholics to refrain from marrying non-Christians, particularly Moslems. Such unions have often yielded “bitter experiences,” the document warned. At the very least, it urged Christians who married Moslems not to sign any document assenting to Islamic beliefs.

It’s hardly surprising that the Catholic hierarchy would warn against marriages outside of Christianity. Probably the most interesting thing about this document is that it exists, thus signaling that Christian/Moslem marriage has become more frequent, rising to the level of a concern for officials in Rome. But it struck me that, considering the current tensions in the world, this document must have attracted attention elsewhere. I quickly consulted the website of a few other Spanish-language dailies (including El Pais, once my favorite but not largely a close newspaper to me because of its restrictions on non-subscribers). I found no other mention of the document Erga migrantes Caritas Christi in my very brief search, though Google search turned up a handful of references.

What I did quickly find, though, in the New York Times, was an article on gay marriage. It seems that conservative Christians have not mobilized behind the amendment to ban gay marriages as enthusiastically as supporters of the ban had predicted. At the moment, they seem to pin their hopes on the images of gay men marrying gay men (and lesbians marrying lesbians) that will spread across the country beginning Monday when gay marriage becomes legal in Massachusetts. So, it seems like whoever you want to marry these days, you are in trouble with someone.

Continue reading "Marriage" »

Posted by at 12:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Michel Foucault and The History of Sexuality

Before the Nazi occupation, Edmund Bergler was one of the leading psychoanalysts in Austria. He had studied with Sigmund Freud and at that time was assistant director of the Psychoanalytic Clinic in Vienna. Later he would immigrate to the United States and assume an important role in maintaining Freudian orthodoxy in the New World. In a 1937 article on “The Present Situation in the Genetic Investigation of Homosexuality” [Marriage and Hygiene 4: 16-29] Bergler provided a short account of five homosexuals convicted under Austria’s sodomy laws. The court offered the five men the choice of undergoing treatment to cure their homosexual drives or go to prison. One of the men chose treatment but disappeared soon after it began. The other four chose prison. On the face of it, this story is a testament to the satisfaction that these men must have taken in their homosexual lives. But for Bergler, the story (amazingly) supported his view that “there are no happy homosexuals.” Bergler claimed that guilt drove these men to atone for their wrongdoing. Through a long career, Bergler maintained his view of homosexuals as unhappy “injustice collectors” who provoked conflicts that they could then claim as persecution for their homosexuality.

In the early twentieth century a majority of psychiatrists and physicians supported the view that homosexuality indicated maladjustment, at best, or, at worst, mental illness. This psychiatric viewpoint can stand as an example of a sexual discourse, a concept developed by French philosopher Michel Foucault in The History of Sexuality. Foucault’s idea of discourse stands alongside liberalization and revolution as one of the major theoretical tools used today to understand the history of sexuality. Today Blue Monkey will attempt to explain Foucault’s idea of sexual discourse, and to explore its implications for the history and sexuality. We will return to Dr. Bergler and his psychiatric colleagues.

Continue reading "Sexual Discourses" »

Posted by at 11:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Last week we took a tour of the idea of liberalization in the 20th century as it applies to sexuality. Clearly, both behavior and attitudes about sex and sexual behavior have changed enormously in the century we just left. Liberalization, however, generally contains an idea of progress, a sense that there is a direction for sexual relations. We can only find directions of change and meanings like progress retrospectively and then retrofit those directions and meanings onto a much more chaotic set of developments. Depending on the timeframe you examine or the point of view you take on any set of changes, you may have a difficult time believing in the liberalization model when you go to bed at night.

Another way of understanding changes in sexuality in the 20th century is through the notion of revolution. This has become a well-established image in historical change, as in “the scientific revolution,” “the industrial revolution,” “the democratic revolutions.” It is also at the heart of Marxist thought, where revolution results from the continual conflicts generated by changes in economic systems and their associated class systems. The analogy with sexuality works fairly well. A set of repressive ideas and systems are challenged by innovators, new ideas, social change, and raw libido until the old sexual system caves in and startling new practices and ideas prevail. We’ve all taken for granted, for most of our lives, that a sexual revolution tore through American society in the 1960s (or thereabouts) that has given us the sexual freedom we enjoy today. Revolution may work as a stand-in for liberalization if you don’t feel you can abandon it entirely. Rather than a steady progression from repression to freedom you can see repression wrecked by the forces of sexual revolution, resulting in the freer standards and actions that most of us (except parents) agree make life better. So, if we want to think seriously about sex in the 20th century, we have to look at revolution.

Continue reading "Sexual Revolutions" »

Posted by at 10:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (13)

During the research for my last book I kept finding unexpectedly rich sources dealing with the affection of adolescent girls for other girls. What I read in the diaries of these young women seemed to me to contradict current common knowledge in the historical literature, though when I wrote about these relationships I offered some anodyne comments that made no controversial claims. Nevertheless, since the publication of New and Improved I have given more thought and study to these relationships. This has resulted in a paper at last year’s Society for the History of Childhood and Youth, an article in History of Psychology , and a reference article in the forthcoming encyclopedia, Homosexualities.

But, as my friend James Reed said in his comments on the SHCY panel mentioned above, since its resurrection in the 1960s social history has relied on an assumption of social continuity. That is to say, any real social issue that you investigate as a historian can, potentially, open avenues to every aspect of the culture. My preoccupation with adolescent crushes has done that for me, drawing me further and further into issues of sexuality in the twentieth century U.S. It struck me that it might be useful to spend some time writing about this, as a means of ordering some of my own thoughts as well as providing interesting copy for regular and irregular readers of Blue Monkey. What follows will examine the model of “sexual liberalization” and show how current sociologists and social historians have treated this idea.

Continue reading "Sexual Liberalization" »

Posted by at 11:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

During the research for my last book I kept finding unexpectedly rich sources dealing with the affection of adolescent girls for other girls. What I read in the diaries of these young women seemed to me to contradict current common knowledge in the historical literature, though when I wrote about these relationships I offered some anodyne comments that made no controversial claims. Nevertheless, since the publication of New and Improved I have given more thought and study to these relationships. This has resulted in a paper at last year’s Society for the History of Childhood and Youth, an article in History of Psychology , and a reference article in the forthcoming encyclopedia, Homosexualities.

But, as my friend James Reed said in his comments on the SHCY panel mentioned above, since its resurrection in the 1960s social history has relied on an assumption of social continuity. That is to say, any real social issue that you investigate as a historian can, potentially, open avenues to every aspect of the culture. My preoccupation with adolescent crushes has done that for me, drawing me further and further into issues of sexuality in the twentieth century U.S. It struck me that it might be useful to spend some time writing about this, as a means of ordering some of my own thoughts as well as providing interesting copy for regular and irregular readers of Blue Monkey. What follows will examine the model of “sexual liberalization” and show how current sociologists and social historians have treated this idea.

Continue reading "Sexual Liberalization" »

Posted by at 11:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Several readers of my recent postings have asked where my romance with Helen Fisher is going. I’m not sure if they felt concern that I might have romantic longings for someone I’ve never met and whose picture I’ve only seen three times. But, we all know there is no accounting for the crazy twists and turns of love. Or, I don’t think that you can account for them. Maybe Helen thinks you can. Anyway, I think it will relieve you to learn that my “thing” for Helen Fisher seems to have faded away. On the other hand, as is often the case in romantic entanglements, I find myself drawn in another direction, toward another intellectual obsession. That’s right. I’m rebounding. There’s someone else.

Continue reading "Love and Marriage" »

Posted by at 5:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

After last week’s extended rant on love and love-addiction, I thought I had finished, that I had said the last word on love, or at least my last word, or at least my last word for now. But in the week that has followed, the subject kept intruding into my life in unexpected ways. For one, over the weekend I finished reading a short novel by Colombian writer Alvaro Mutis, La Ultima Escala del Tramp Steamer (Espasa, 1999). Although the story doesn’t begin as a novel about passionate love, it turns into one. Mutis concludes that “Los hombres…cambian tan poco, siguen siendo tan ellos mismos, que sólo existe una historia de amor desde el principio de los tiempos, repetida al infinito sin perder su terrible sencillez, su irremediable desventura.” [Partial and poor translation: “…there exists only one love story from the beginning of time that through infinite repetition never loses its terrible simplicity [or “innocence”]…” But other forces also worked on me, drawing me back to the topic of romantic love and its “irremediable desventura.”

Continue reading "Love and Lovesickness 2" »

Posted by at 5:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

I had planned to write about love for more than a week. This week, though, as I thought more about the project the Time and the New Yorker that arrived in my mailbox both had texts that seemed valuable. In the end, my ruminations refer most often to the articles in Time. But, my impetus for giving this topic some attention, particularly the connection between love and addiction, goes back a couple of months when a therapist, in fact my therapist, suggested that I look at a book entitled Addicted to Love. I never managed to lay hands on that book, but I have done quite a bit of other reading on afflicted love and even more thinking about it. No, I won't be sharing any of my private life with the world community. I'm sure that's a relief to everyone.

Continue reading "Love and Lovesickness" »

Posted by at 8:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)