Leo Bersani's: Against Monogamy

I found this essay very interesting and thought provoking. As Bersani gives is compelling critique of monogamy, I found myself asking questions that I had never asked before. One of the ideas that I found the most interesting was the correlation between sexuality and childhood experiences and identity. Thinking about how true it is that parents really do repress chilhood curiosity and promiscuity made me then think about how different our world would be if this restraint was not put in place by society. Bersani also explains bisexuality as "the coincidence of two heterosexual desires [that of the masculine boy for his mother, that of the feminine boy for his father] within a single psyche'. This explanatin of bisexuality makes Freud's theories seems plausible and supports the Oedipus complex as is blends the feminine and masculine Oedipus complexes together. This essay as a whole caused me to think about questions involving natural sexual desires as opposed to desires that are set in place by society.

Bersani's conclusion of his essay I found was very effective in both summing up the argument he presented in his paper, as well as succussful at reminding readers of his point of view. Bersani says that, " If psychoanalysis, in its account of the extraordinary mobility of childhood and, more specificall, even Oedipal desires,has itself described for us the original inconcievability of monogamous fixity of diser, and therefore of a stable sexual identity, monogamy nonetheless is the relational figure most congenial to what we might call the psychoanalytic fidelity of the self to the self, its indifference to signs of self that are not signs of interpretation, and, finally its profoundly immoral rejection of out promiscuous humanity." Bersani's aregument about monogoamy that I fount most interesting what that monogamy is a profound rejection of our promiscuous humanity. When thinking about the idea of promiscuous humanity, it beckons the clarification about what it innate and what is learned by society. Although I would agree with the assertion that children are naturally curious and show little restraint when descovering more about their sexual desires, I also think that there is a tendancy to find heterosexual desires most natural. Although many would disagree with this, I even think that many homosexual couples have heterosexual tendencies as couples most often are seen to have a masculine and a feminie member. The asserstion that monogamy rejects promiscuous humanity seems put this rejection into a negative light. Just and monogamy can restrict from options, it can protect dangerous promiscuity.