Sex Changes: Transformations in Society and Psychoanalysis
The last half-century has seen enormous changes in society’s attitude toward sexuality. In the 1950s, homosexuals in the United States were routinely arrested; today, homosexual activity between consenting adults is legal in every state, with same-sex marriage legal in Massachusetts and Connecticut. In the 1950s, ambitious women were often seen as psychopathological and were told by psychoanalysts that they had penis envy that needed treatment; today, a woman has campaigned for President of...
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The last half-century has seen enormous changes in society’s attitude toward sexuality. In the 1950s, homosexuals in the United States were routinely arrested; today, homosexual activity between consenting adults is legal in every state, with same-sex marriage legal in Massachusetts and Connecticut. In the 1950s, ambitious women were often seen as psychopathological and were told by psychoanalysts that they had penis envy that needed treatment; today, a woman has campaigned for President of the United States.Mark Blechner has lived and worked through these startling changes in society, and Sex Changes collects papers he has written over the last 45 years on sex, gender, and sexuality. Interspersed with these papers are reflections on the changes that have occurred during that time period, both within the scope of society at large as well as in his personal experiences inside and outside of the therapeutic setting. He shows how changes in society, changes in his life, and changes in his writing on sexuality - as well as changes within psychoanalysis itself - have affected one another. One hundred years ago, psychoanalysis was at the cutting edge of new ideas about sex and gender, but in the latter half of the 20th Century, psychoanalysts were often seen as reactionary upholders of society’s prejudices. Sex Changes seeks to restore the place of psychoanalysis as the "once and future queer science," and aims for a radical shift in psychoanalytic thinking about sexuality, gender, normalcy, prejudice, and the relationship of therapeutic aims and values.
Sect. I Psychoanalysis, Sexuality, and Prejudice1 Homosexuality and the Rorschach Test 32 Psychoanalysis In and Out of the Closet 73 The Experience of Hating and Being Hated 314 Homophobia in Psychoanalytic Writing and Practice: A Comment on Trop and Stolorow (1992) and Hanna (1992) 375 The Interaction of Societal Prejudice with Psychodiagnosis and Treatment Aims 476 The Closeting of History 577 Selective Inattention and Bigotry: A Discussion of the Film Trembling before G-d 63Sect. II Sex, Gender, and the Good Life8 Maleness and Masculinity 779 Disgust, Desire, and Fascination: Psychoanalytic, Cultural, Historical, and Neurobiological Perspectives 9510 The Gay Harry Stack Sullivan: Interactions between His Life, Clinical Work, and Theory 10511 AIDS 13312 Intimacy, Pleasure, Risk, and Safety 14313 Love, Sex, Romance, and Psychoanalytic Goals 14914 Polymorphous without Perversity: A Queer View of Desire 15715 Erotic and Anti-Erotic Transference 16916 The Political Is Psychoanalytic: On Same-Sex Marriage 181Afterword 189References 191Index 207
