Controlling, Determining, and Otherwise Limiting

When a person, group, or other controlling entity seeks, struggles for, or achieves/is granted control over the conduct of another (or others), said party becomes a “governor,” in the broad sense of the term, caught up in “government,” where governmentality refers to the entire range of practices “that constitute, define, organize, and instrumentalize the strategies that individuals in their freedom can use in dealing with each other” (Foucault, Ethics. 300). In other words, in relationships that are first and foremost power relations, there are incentives, tools, and strategies for making use of whatever freedom one has in attempts at controlling, determining, or limiting the freedom of others.

Is not the standard monogamous project one that is best characterized, not as an erotic relationship nor a loving relationship, nor even a domestic partnership, but instead a relation of power? Is not the quintessential concern in the standard monogamous project the ability to control, determine, and otherwise limit the freedom of another? In a relationship where all the love, attention, affection, respect, appreciation, and on and on... in a relationship where all that one could desire from another is not only present but abundant, what need is there for governing the other’s freedom, for curtailing possibility? By what exigency or right does one find it not only acceptable but imperative to make another subject to such governance? And more pressing still, how is it not only acceptable but a normal expectation that one will leverage their very love as the strategic means for procuring such governmental power over another? Yet this is nothing more nor less than the ultimatum that people present each other with every day in pursuing “love”: submit to my governance or else I shall occlude my love for you and reject your love for me!

And just to emphasize that our approaches to love, intimacy, and family are the apotheoses of perversity, the vast majority are not satisfied with merely being granted such governance. “You must govern me in kind!  If you lack interest, even in the slightest, in taking such possession of me, your willing helot, the shallowness of your love is exposed!  If you truly loved me you'd insist on being my governor!”

After all, in this most barbaric of models, to love is to take hold of, to govern, to possess; of course, the inevitable extreme of love, then, is to consume, to devour.  Since it is a mutual and reciprocal domination, of course, the apex of love, love's culmination, is the obliteration of oneself and one's beloved.

St. Valen(trans) Day

The "trans" in Valentrans Day speaks to a "beyond" that is nothing less than the subversion of the violence that we perpetrate upon ourselves through ill-fitting conventions with which we have saddled ourselves. But to understand this, we must first understand a bit about the history of Valentine's Day...

Most of us know Valentine’s Day as the contemptible holiday alleged to be for lovers but which functions in large part to circulate insipid clichés by way of unabashed consumerism. That is, when it doesn’t function as a torturous reminder that empty gestures are still better than involuntary solitude.

The perverse pomp of Valentine’s Day, however, hides within it a certain richness of potential. Valentine’s Day was originally something more akin to Veteran’s Day: a day to commemorate martyrs. An elaborate faux history has been fabricated, circulated, edited, and enhanced to bring the day commemorating the fallen victims of murderous violence into line with rather adolescent notions of romance. These faux histories themselves have a long history. So much so, in fact, that faux history itself is nothing short of a Valentine’s tradition in its own right.

In the spirit of this tradition, I hereby proffer a more authentic faux history of Valentine’s Day:


VALENTINE'S DAY, in its original context, is a celebration of the great Gnostic teacher and mystic Saint Valentinus. Born in Egypt at the beginning of the second century (CE), Valentinus taught a sort of Eastern-influenced existentialist form of mystic Christianity. Valentinus wrote:

“God created man and man created God. So is it in the world. Men make gods and they worship their creations. If would be fitting for the gods to worship men.” (Logion 85: 1-4)

Mankind finds itself always already thrust into a painful and confusing world. So-called orthodox Christians understand this condition as a consequence of original sin; all that is ill or wrong in the world is a consequence of our disobedience to God. On this model our very existence is ineluctably plagued with guilt. Guilt is man’s fundamental burden to bear.

Valentinus, however, had a radically different notion. The problems that plague us are not rooted in our collective past insubordination but is instead a defect of creation itself. The burden of blame is not mankind’s but is God’s. This is a shocking statement, but it is important to remember that Valentinus understood that reality is something constructed by the ego. The flawed creation of God is the flawed creation of a God of our own imagination. In other words we exacerbate and compound our woe by interpreting the world and especially ourselves according to radically flawed conventions. According to Valentinus, it is not through some sort of vicarious participation in the ultimate sacrifice of God on the cross that we achieve salvation. We are saved by way of mystic processes of attaining true knowledge (gnosis) of ourselves. We are ignorant, we suffer from our ignorance, and only ignorance’s opposite, gnosis, will save us:

“Perfect redemption is the cognition itself of the ineffable greatness: for since through ignorance came about the defect . . . the whole system [kosmos] springing from ignorance is dissolved in Gnosis. Therefore Gnosis is the redemption of the inner man; and it is not of the body, for the body is corruptible; nor is it psychical, for even the soul is a product of the defect and it is a lodging to the spirit: pneuma (spirit) therefore also must be redemption itself. Through Gnosis, then, is redeemed the inner, spiritual man: so that to us suffices the Gnosis of universal being: and this is the true redemption.” (Adv. Haer. I. 21,4)

TRANS- : across, beyond, on the other side, surpassing.

Trans-scending the ill-fitting conventions that we’ve saddled ourselves with, that cause us suffering, is an act of love towards ourselves. This is the love of Saint Valentinus the Gnostic teacher. This love is a type of work: it is a process of attaining (or creating!) true knowledge (gnosis) of ourselves. This is not an easy path to salvation. The world we happen to find ourselves in thwarts true knowledge of ourselves thereby thwarting our love for ourselves. This story is not only the story of salvation told by Saint Valentinus. This is also the story of Hedwig. Thus, the trans- in Valentrans Day is one of subverting the violence we perpetrate upon ourselves by going beyond the ill-fitting conventions we have saddled ourselves with.

Those of you who know Hedwig’s story, then, know that there are few movies more suited to the authentic spirit of Valentine’s Day than Hedwig and the Angry Inch.

sexuality

Kindred to "family" as vivisected below, anything other than a cursory look at so called "sexual identity" reveals a similarly troubled coherence. Sedgwick, again:

[T]hink of all the elements that are condensed in the notion of sexual identity, something that the common sense of our time presents as a unitary [and universal!] category. Yet, exerting any pressure at all on "sexual identity," you see that its elements include

your biological (e.g., chromosomal) sex, male or female;

your self-perceived gender assignment, male or female (supposed to be the same as your biological sex);

the preponderance of your traits of personality and appearance, masculine or feminine (supposed to correspond to your sex and gender);

the biological sex of your preferred partner;

the gender assignment of your preferred partner (supposed to be the same as her/his biological sex);

the masculinity or femininity of your preferred partner (supposed to be the opposite of your own);

your self-perception as gay or straight (supposed to correspond to whether your preferred partner is your sex or the opposite);

your preferred partner's self-perception as gay or straight (supposed to be the same as yours);

your procreative choice (supposed to be yes if straight, no if gay);

your preferred sexual act(s) (supposed to be insertive if you are male or masculine, receptive if you are female or feminine);

your most eroticized sexual organs (supposed to correspond to the procreative capabilities of your sex, and to your insertive/receptive assignment);

your sexual fantasies (supposed to be highly congruent with your sexual practice, but stronger in intensity);

your main locus of emotional bonds (supposed to reside in your preferred sexual partner);

your enjoyment of power in sexual relations (supposed to be low if you are female or feminine, high if male or masculine);

the people from whom you learn about your own gender and sex (supposed to correspond to yourself in both respects);

your community of cultural and political identification (supposed to correspond to your own identity);

and—again—many more. Even this list is remarkable for the silent presumptions it has to make about a given person's sexuality, presumptions that are true only to varying degrees, and for many people not true at all: that everyone "has a sexuality," for instance, and that it is implicated with each person's sense of overall identity in similar ways; that each person's most characteristic erotic expression will be oriented toward another person and not autoerotic; that if it is alloerotic, it will be oriented toward a single partner or kind of partner at a time; that its orientation will not change over time. Normatively, as the parenthetical prescriptions in the list above suggest, it should be possible to deduce anybody's entire set of specs from the initial datum of biological sex alone—if one adds only the normative assumption that 'the biological sex of your preferred partner' will be the opposite of one's own. With or without that heterosexist assumption, though, what's striking is the number and difference of the dimensions that 'sexual identity' is supposed to organize into a seamless and univocal whole.

from Tendencies, pp. 7-8

family

In our time (now) and in our place (here), the institution of marriage is supposed to be assimilated into the institution of family, becoming its very nucleus. This institution, too, exists in a substantially, if not radically, different form than it did even prior to WWII. The failure rate of this institution is, perhaps not surprisingly, expanding nearly on pace with marriage. Though "family" is a term that has shifted and morphed through time and is something that often looked different from place to place, class to class, etc, it is, just like marriage, becoming increasingly incoherent. Consider this passage from Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick:

Think of that entity "the family," an impacted social space in which all of the following are meant to line up perfectly with each other:

a surname
a sexual dyad
a legal unit based on state-regulated marriage
a circuit of blood relationships
a system of companionship and succor
a building
a proscenium between "private" and "public"
an economic unit of earning and taxation
the prime site of economic consumption
the prime site of cultural consumption
a mechanism to produce, care for, and acculturate children
a mechanism for accumulating material goods over several generations
a daily routine
a unit in a community of worship
a site of patriotic formation

and of course the list could go on.

from Tendencies, pg. 6

axioms

the question of why—why does the attitude towards another change as feelings for that other deepen—is actually a constellation of questions all caught up together. is it a natural transition? is it a necessary transition? what is gained in this transition? what is lost in this transition? from whence do our ideas and practices come? regardless of the answers to these questions, it seems to me that there are several interrelated outcomes of this shift that are worthy of scorn: appreciation gives way to expectation, gratitude gives way to demands and ultimatums, exploration gives way to assimilation, and perhaps most crucially, mutual respect is exchanged for mutual control. these maddening outcomes and many other aspects of contemporary monogamy are the original catalysts that led me to question why we go about things the way we do in the first place. the answers to these questions are complex where they are not elusive. I had no desire to suspend all romantic engagements until I had sufficiently grappled with these questions and so proceeded cautiously in my relationships by making use of the following axioms that I considered to be self-evident:

• the contemporary paradigm of monogamy is neither naturally arising nor necessary

• persons are ends unto themselves and should not be used as tools, as means to selfish ends

• love is other-oriented

courtship

one of the interesting starting points for thinking about why our monogamy, our marriage-model, is sickly is one whereby we consider contemporary courtship. courtship tends to proceed along a couple of fairly distinct phases: the fledgling phase of initial contact and engagement, the transitional phase wherein the twosome become "invested," and the final phase, monogamy, wherein the couple play out an ersatz marriage. in the beginning, the generosity and care, the compassion and selflessness of a fledgling relationship is a marvel to behold. we can recognize in these giddy beginnings something precious. generally speaking, the mindsets and concomitant interpersonal dynamics of first and second dates, of that period of time when the future is still a deep nocturnal mystery and anything can happen, of the precipice overlooking sheer possibility, are the lovers in us at their best. we feel privileged to be in the company of this other person of whom we are bedazzled. we make no demands, do not feel we own rights with respect to their time, attention, body, or affection. we do not feel that this beautiful being with whom we are hoping to begin a love affair is accountable to us in any way. we make few assumptions and harbor few expectations. can you imagine a second date where one of the would be lovers demands to know why a call wasn't returned or else demands to know who their date spent the previous several days with and in what capacity? when we first begin the ritual of courtship we lay no claims; the other person is their own person and, beholden to none, can do anything they so desire. that they choose, out of endless other options, to offer their time, attention, affection, etc. is a source of great joy and pride. as the fledgling phase begins to slip into the transitional phase, however, this all begins to change. instead of the other being cherished for who they are in their singular uniqueness, they begin to be measured against implicit and explicit criteria. each person's process of evaluating the other is just one in an extensive series of actions that are consequent upon a critical shift from other-interest to self-interest. the full effect of this shift is realized in the final phase of courtship: monogamy. mutual agreement to be beholden, to be accountable, to be limited, to be possessed, etc. is the mature expression of the shift from other-oriented (e.g. reveling in the undeserved affections of another) to self-oriented (e.g. reciprocal imposition of limits). the question for me is this: why does the first phase give way to the second and third? why can we not retain what is valuable, what is beautiful, in the ways in which we initially engage one another even as our relationships deepen?

monogamy

monogamy. the qualifying prefix "mono" means one and the core part of the term, gamos, is a Greek term that actually means "marriage." indeed, the terms for husband and wife are gametēs and gametē respectively. the etymology of the term is not a matter of simple trivia. the practice of monogamy, as much as the word, has everything to do with marriage. this is true despite the fact that often the practice and the word are conceived of in terms of sexual partners: if you are monogamous you restrict your sexual activity to one and only one person. there are several reasons that monogamy, despite it's marital connotations, is understood in terms of what people do with their bodies. the most important reason, perhaps, is that we have made sex the very locus of value and significance in our romantic relations. but i am getting ahead of myself; we can return to this critical issue later.

even though people often intend the term to designate personal dedication to a principle of restricting physical intimacy to a single other, monogamy cannot strictly refer to a quantum of sexual partnering. if we tried to interpret "monogamy" as meaning "one sexual partner" we'd have to contend with incoherency consequent upon considerations of time and meaning. one partner? when? only one partner ever? certainly not: not only is virginity little prized when it pertains to men, few if any would claim that monogamy is not possible between two people when at least one of them has been sexually active with one or more other persons in their life. perhaps the sexual sense of the term is "one partner at a time?" in the strict senses of the terms, this is also not a viable configuration. one partner at a time would necessarily refer to one partner versus multiple partners simultaneously. few if any would imagine monogamy to refer to isolated discrete sexual encounters that involved only two individuals as opposed to a threesome, foursome, fivesome, or other orgiastic assemblages. no, monogamy in the sexual sense, refers to the complex notion of maintaining one and only one sexual partner over the course of an indeterminate period of time. this period varies in duration according to the whims of the two so involved. so the key variable here is clearly time. as we've already discerned, the span is not a single event nor is it all periods of time. so what, we might ask, makes a particular stretch of time distinct from other periods of time where sexual engagements with others does not count as non-monogamy? the period of time integral to the definition of monogamy is one in which a twosome initiate and subsequently enact a marriage whether ersatz (dating) or the genuine article (matrimony).

the institution of marriage, then, is merely the outward facing surface of the gamos, the truer marriage in which all people young and old participate when engaging one another romantically: an interpersonal arrangement that is ruled by an emotionally and psychically gripping constellation of beliefs from which the moral character of certain actions derives. it is this constellation of beliefs that i find lacking at best and the source of great suffering at its worst. from these beliefs arise contractual obligations, the structure of interpersonal dynamics, and the moral relevance of actions. and again i must ask, despite the difficulties that will inevitably befall me should i seriously pursue this inquiry, what if the very concepts that we use to imbue our relations with meaning, value, and significance, yield intense harms? is it worth reevaluating these concepts when such a task can only be done through a process of rending oneself from these grids of meaning that have thus far provided the very conditions of possibility for one's own values, identity, and aspirations? i have no conviction within me as strong and as certain as that which assures me that the long and painful process of tearing off my very skin is worth it as nothing is more important in life than love. yes, i will be utterly naked and exposed. yes i will be afraid. but the stakes cannot be weightier.