EVELYRW HabionD, A Black (Wyholes and the Geometry of Black Female Seauality The female body inthe Weat is mot @ uniiary sign athe, like a coin tt has id, is white; om the ote, notwoite or, protosplealy, black. The two bodies fot be separated, nor ean one body be understood in isotation fromthe other inthe Wests metaphori constrection of white (and the stereotypes not-uhite _gathersin) is what she had beter not be ‘heat white woman as well os the not ‘white man are symbolically and even ‘theortealy excluded from seruat aligerene. Their funtion contiaues 0 be To east the dierence af white nen and tehite women into sharper reli. (Orornay 19) and activist? Given the rapidity with which new appellations are created I ‘wondered if my new list would still be up to date by the time the article came ‘out More importantly, does this change or any change I might make to my list ‘convey to anyone the ways in which Iam queer? [oot adhe Cmte Rat Peale Sey Even a cursory reading ofthe first isue of dierences on queer theory raclose reading of The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader (Abelove, Barale, and fiaiperin) by now biblical in status—would lead me to answer no, So what youd be the point of my writing for a second issue on queer theory? Well, 1 ould perform that by now familiar act taken by black feminists and offer a “gritique of every white feminist for her failure to erticulate @ conception of a acialized sexuality. | could argue that while it has been acknowledged that ace is nol simply additive to, or derivative of segual difference, few white feminists have attempted to move beyond simply stating this point to deseribe the powerful effect that race has on the construcion and representation of gender and sexuality. | could go further and note that even when race is ‘mentioned it sa limited notion devoid of complexities. Sometimesit is reduced tobiology and other times referred to asa social construetion. Rarely isi used as a “global sign,” a “metalanguage,” as the “ultimate trope of difference, arbitrarily contrived to produce and maintain relations of power and subordi- nation” (Higginbotham 255). If were to make this argument, I wonder under what subheading such an article would appear in The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader? Assum- ng, of course, that they would want to include it in the second edition. How ‘about *Polites and Sex”? Well, it would certainly be political but what would ‘anybody learn about sex from it? As look at my cheices I see that I would want ‘my article to appear in the section, “Subjectivity, Discipline, Resistance.” But ‘where would I situate myself in the group of essays that discuss “lesbian experience," “lesbian identity,” “gender insubordination,” and “Butch-Femme ‘Aestnetie"? Pemaps they wouldn't want a reprint afterall and Vd be off te hook, Maybe I've just hit one of those “constructed silences” that Teresa de Lauretis, ‘wrote about as one of the problems in lesbian and gay studies (“Queer” vil) ‘When The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader was published, | followed ‘my usual practice and searched for the articles on black women's sexually. ‘This reading practice has become such a commonplace in my life I have forgotten how and when I began it. Inever open a book about lesbians or gays ‘with the expectation that I will find some essay that will address the concerns of my Ife. Given that on the average most collections don’t include writers of color, just the appearance of essays by African-Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans in this volume was welcome. The work of Barbara Smith, Stuart Hall, Phillip Brian Harper, Gloria Hull, Deborah MeDowell, and, of course,‘Audre Lorde has deeply influenced my intellectual and politcal work for many ‘years as has the work of many of the other writers inthis volume, Yet, despite the presence of these writers, this text dlplays the consis tently exclusionary practices of lesbian and gay studies in general. In my reading, the canonical terms and categories of the fleld: “lesblan,” “gay,” “butch,” “femme,” “sexuality” and “subjectivity” are stripped of context in the works of those theorizing about these very categories, identities, and subject positions. Each of these terms is defined with white as the normative state of existence, This is an obvious eriticism which many have expressed since the appearance of this volume. More interesting is the question of whether the essays engaging with the canonical terms have been in any way informed by the work ofthe writers of colorthat do appearin the volume. The essays by Hull land McDowell both address the point | am trying to make. Hull describes the ife of Angelina Weld Grimké, a poet of the Harlem Renaissance whose poetry expressed desire for women. This desire is circumscribed, underwritten, and "unspoken in her poetry. MeDowell’s critical reading of Nells Larsen’s Passing Also points to the submersion of sexuality and same-sex desire among black ‘women. In addition, Harper's essay on the death of Max Robinson, one of the ‘most visible African-Americans of his generation, foregrounds the black communities on the issue of sexuality and Ais. ‘Silence” is emphasized as well in the essay by Ana Maria Alonso and Maria Teresa Roreck on the aiDs crisis in “Hispanic” communities. But the issue of silence about so-called deviant sexuality in public discourse and its submersion in private spaces for people of color isnever addressed in theorizing about the canonical categories ‘of lesbian and gay studies in the reader. More important, public discourse on the sexuality of particular racial and ethnic groups is shapedby processes that pathologize those groups, which in turn produce the submersion of sexuality ‘and the attendant silence(s). Lesbian and gay theory fails toncknowledge that these very processes are connected to the construction of the sexualities of ‘whites, historically and contemporaneously. Queer Words and Queer Practices am not by nature an optimist, although I do believe that change is possible and necessary. Does a shit from lesbian to queer relieve my sense of anxiety over whether the exclusionary practices oflesbian and gay studies can be resolved? If queer theory Is, as de Lauretis notes in her introduction to the lack (Whole an the Geonetry of Blick emae esuaity ‘rst special issue of digerences, the place where “we [would] be willing to ‘examine, make explicit, compare, or confrontthe respective histories, assump tUons, and conceptual frameworks that have characterized the self-representa- tions of North American lesbians and gay men, of color and white,” and ifitis “rom there, (that) we could then go on to recast or reinvent the terms of our sexualities, to construct another discursive horizon, another way of thinking the sexual,” then maybe [had found a place to explore the ways in which queer, black, and female subjectivities are produced (iv-»). OF course, | first had to gather more evidence about this shift before jumped into the fray Inher genealogy of queer theory, de Lauretis argues thatthe term was arrived at inthe effort to avoid all the distinctions in the discursive protocols tat emerged from the standard usage ofthe terms lesbian and gay. The kind of ‘distinctions she notes include the need to add qualifiers of race or national affiliation tothe labels, “lesbian” and “gay.” De Lauretis goes on to address my ‘central concern. She writes: The fac ofthe matter is, most af us, lesbians and gay men, do not ‘know much about one another's sexual history, experiences, fantasies, desire, or modes of theorizing. And we do not know enough about ourselves, as well, when it comes fo differences between and within lesbians, and between and within gay men, in relation 1 race and its ‘attendant differences of class or ethnic culture, generational, ge0- graphical, and socio-political location. We do not know enough to theorize those differences. (vil; emphasis added) She continues: ‘Thus an equally roubling question inthe burgeoning field of “gay ‘and lesbian studies” concerns the discursive constructions and ‘constructed silences around the relations of race to identity and. subjectivity in the practices of homosezualities and the representations ‘of same sex desire. (ei) In my reading of her essay, de Lauretis then goes on to attribute the problem of the lack of knowledge of the experiences of gays and lesbians of color to gays ‘and lesbians of color. While noting the problems of thelr restricted access to Publishing venues or academic positions, she concludes that “perhaps, toa gay “writer and critic of color, defining himself gay is not ofthe utmost importance;he may have other more pressing priorities in his work and life” ((x). This isa woefully inadequate characterization of the problem of the visibility of gays nd lesbians of color. Certainly institutional racism, homophobia, and the general structural inequalitiesin American society have a great deal more todo ‘vith this invisibility than personal choices. [have reported de Leuretis's words at length because her work is symptomatic ofthe disjuncture Isee between the stated goals ofthe volume she edited and what it actually enacts Despite the presence of writers of color the authors ofthe essaysin the differences volume avoid interrogating their own practices with respect tothe Issue of difference. That isto say to differences of race, ethnicity, and represen- lation in analyzing subjectivity, desire, andthe use ofthe psychoanalyticin gay and lesbian theory. Only Ekua Omosupe explicitly addresses the issue of black Female subjectivity and her essay foregrounds the very issue that queer theory ostensibly is committed to addressing. Omosupe still sees the need to announce her skepticism atthe use ofthe term lesbian without the qualifier, “black,” and addresses the lack of attention to race in gay and lesbian studies inher analysis of Adrienne Rich's work (108). For her, the term “lesbian* without the racial ‘qualifier is simply to be read as “white” lesbian. Despite her criticism, however, she too avoids confronting difference within the category of black lesbian, speaking of “the” black lesbian without attention to or acknowledgment of a ‘mullipliity of identities or subject postions for black women. She Une ttle of Audre Lorde’s collected essays is Sister Outsider, which she argues is “an apt metaphor for the Black lesbian’s position in relation to the white «dominant politiea cultures and toher own Black community as well” (106). But ‘metaphors reveal as much as they conceal and Omosupe cannot tell us what kind of outsider Lorde is, that is to say what sexual practices, discourses, and subject positions within her black community she was rebelling against. As with the Hull and MeDowell essays, Omosupe's article acknowledges silence, erasure, and invisibility as crucial Issues in the dominant discourses about black female sexuality, while the essay and the volume as a whole continue to enact this silence, ‘Thus, queer theory as reflected in this volume has so far failed to theorize the very questions de Lauretis announces thatthe term “queer will address. | disagree with her assertion that we do not know enough about one another's differences to theorize differences between and within gays ond lesbians in relation to race. This kind of theorizing of difference, afterall sn't that lack Whores andthe Geomexy o Black FemateSexsanty simply a matter of empirical examples. And we do know enough to delineate ‘hat queer theorists should want to know. For me iis a question of knowing. specifically about the production of black female queer sexualities: if the sexualities of black women have been shaped by silence, erasure, and invsibil- fay in dominant discourses, then are black lesbian sexualities doubly silenced? ‘What methodologies are available to read and understand this perceived Void and gauge its direct and indirect effects on that which is visible? Conversely how docs the structure of what is visible, namely white female sexualities, ‘shape those not-absent-though-not-present black female sexualities which, as O'Grady argues, cannot be separated or understood in Isolation from one Another? And, finally, how do these racialized sexualities shaped by silence, erasure, and invisibility coexist with other sexvaltes, the closeted sexualities of white queers, for example? It seems to me that there are two projects here that need to be worked out. White feminists must refigure (white) female sexualities 50 that they are not theoretically dependent upon an absent yet ever-present pathologized black female sexuality. | am not arguing that this guration of (white) female sexuality must try to encompass completely the ‘experiences of black women, but that it must inelude a conception ofthe power ‘relations between white and black women as expressed inthe representations of sexuality (Higginbotham 252).! This model of power, as Judith Butler has argued, must avoid setting up “racism and homophobia and misogyny as parallel or analogical relations," while recognizing that “what has to be thought through, is the ways in which these vectors of power require and deploy each other for the purpose of their own articulation’ (18), Black feminist theorists ‘must reclaim sexuality through the creation of a counternarrative that can reconstitute a present black female subjectivity and that includes an analysis of power relations between white and black women and among dilferent groups ‘of black women. In both cases Iam arguing forthe development of a comples, relational but not necessarily analogous, conception of racialized sexualities (GanMohamed 94). In order to describe more fully what I see asthe project for Dlack feminist theorists I want to turn now to review of some ofthe current discussions of black women’s sexuality. The Problematic of Silence ‘To mame ourselves rather than be named we must fist see ourselves. Forome of sth will ot be eae So long unnirrored, we may have Jongotten how we took. Nevertheless, le can’ theorize in avoid we mutt Ihave cuidnce. (O'Grady 14) Black ferinist theorists have almost universally descrived black women’s sexuality, when viewed from the vantage of the dominant discourses, as an absence. In one of the earliest and most compelling discussions of black women's sexuality, the literary critic Hortense Spillers wrote: “black wornen Are the beached whales ofthe sexual universe, unvoiced, misseen, not doing, awaiting :heir verb” ("Interstices" 74). For writer Toni Morrison, black women's sexualltys one ofthe “unspeakable things unspoken,” ote Afican-American experience. Black women’s sexualitys oRen described in mesaphorsof speech. ty space that i simultaneously lessness, space, or vision, asa “void” or visible (exposed) and invisible and where black women’s bodies are always already colonized. In addition, this always already colonized slack female body thas so much sexual potential that it has none at all “Interstices” 85). Histort- cally, black women have reacted to this repressive force of the hegemonic discourses on race and sex with silence, secrecy, and a partially self-chosen invisibility Black feminist theorists, historians, literary erties, sociologists, law- yers, and cultural erties have drawn upon a specific historical narrative which purportedly describes the factors that have produced and maintained percep. tions of black women’s sexuality (including their own). Three themes emerge {inthis history frst, the construction ofthe black female as the embodiment of sex and the attendant invisibility of black women as the unvoiced, unseen everything that is not white; second, the resistance of black women both to negative stereotypes of their sexuality and to the material effects of those stereotypes on their lives; and, finally, the evolution of a “culture of dis- semblance” and a “politics of silence” by black women on the issue of their sexuality. The historical narrative begins with the production of the image of a pathologized black female “other” in the eighteenth century by European colonial elites and the new biological scientists. By the nineteenth century, with the increasing exploitation and abuse of black women during and after slavers, US, black women reformers began to develop strategies to counter negative stereotypes of their sexuality and their use as a justification for the rape, lynching, and other abuses of black women by whites. Although some of the ‘ck (Nos al he Gut uf Bch ene Senulty strategies used by black women reformers might have initially been character: ‘ed as resistance to domirant and increasingly hegemonic constructions of their sexuality, by the early twentieth century black women reformers pro- moted a public silence about sexuality which, it could be argued, continues to the present This “politics f silence," as described by historian Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, emerged as 2 poltical strategy by black women reformers who hoped by their silence and by the promotion of proper Vietarlan morality wo demonstrate the lie of the Image of the sexually immoral black woman (262) Historian Darlene Clark Hise argues that the “culture of dissemblance” that this politics engendered wis seen as a way for black women to “protect the sanciity of inner aspects of their lives” (915). She defines this culture as “the behavior and attitudes of Black women that created the appearance of open- ness and disclosure but actually shielded the truth of their inner lives and selves from their oppressors" (915). *Only with secrees”” Hine argues, achieving a self-imposed invisibility, could ordinary Black women accrue the psychic space and harness the resourees needed to hold their own” (915). And by the projection of the image ofa “super-moral” black woman, they hoped to garner greater respect, justice, and opportunity for all black Americans (915). OF course, as Higginbotham notes, there were problems with this strategy. First, it did not achieve its goal of ending the negative stereotyping of black ‘women. And second, some middle-class black women engaged in policing the behavior of poor and working-class women and any who deviated from a Vietorian norm in the name of protecting the “race.”’ My interpretation of the Cconservatizing and policing aspect of the “politics of silence” is that black ‘women reformers were responding to the ways in which any black woman could find herself “exposed” and characterized in racist sexual terms no matter ‘what the truth of her individual life, and that they saw this so-called deviant individual behavior as a threat to the race as a whole. Finally, one of the most enduring and problematic aspects ofthe “politics of silence” is that in choosing silence black women also lst the ability to articulate any conception oftheir sexuality. ‘Without more detailed historical studies we will not know the extent of lure of dissemblarce,” and many questions will remain to be an: this swered.* Was it expressed differently in rural and in urban areas; in the north, ‘est, or south? How was it maintained? Where and how was it resisted? How was shaped by class? And, furthermore, how did itchange overtime? How didsomething that was intially adopted asa political strategy in a specific histori- cal period become so ingrained in black life as to berecognizable asa culture? Ordid it? What emerges from the very incomplete history we have isa situation in which black women’s sexuality Is ideologically located in a nexus between. race and gender, where the black female subject isnot seen and has no voice. Methodologically, black feminists have found itdifieult even to fully character- {ze this juncture, this point of erasure where Aftican-American women are located, As legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw pus It, “Existing within the overlapping margins of race and gender discourse and the emply spaces i 8 a location whose very nature resists telling” (405). And this silence about sexwality is enacted individually and collectively by black women ‘and by black feminist theorists writing about black wom It should not surprise us that black women are silent about sexuality. ‘The imposed production of silence and the removal of any alternatives to the ‘production of silence reflect the deployment of power against racialized sub- jects, “wherein those who could speak did not want to and those who did want to speak were prevented from doing so” (lanMohamed 105). Its this deploy ment of power at the level of the social and the individual which has to be historicized. It seems clear that we need a methodology that allows us to contest rather than reproduce the ideological system that has up tonow defined the terrain of back women’s sexuality. Spillers made this point over a decade ‘ago when she wrote black American women do not participate, as @ category of social and cultural agents, in the legacies of symbolic power, they ‘maintain no allegiances to a strategic formation of texts, or ways of talking ‘about sexual experience, thal even remotely resemble the paradigm of syn bolic domination, except that such a paradigm hasbeen their concrete disas ter” (Interstices” 80). To date, through the work of black feminist literary crities, we know more about the elision of sexuality 9 black women than we do about the possible varietios of expression of sexual lesire.* Thus what we have is a very narrow view of black women’s sexuabty. Certainly it is true, as Crenshaw notes, that “in feminist contexts, sexualty represents a central site of the oppression of womens rape and the rape trial are its dominant narrative trope. In antiracist discourse, sexuality is also a central site upon which the repression of blacks has been premised; the lynching narrative is embodied as fits trope” (405). Sexuality is also, as Carol Vance defines it, “simultaneously & domain of restriction, repression, and danger as well asa domain of explora betwees ck cates ad dhe Geomeuyo lack ams Senuaty tion, pleasure, and agency” (1). The restrictive, repressive, and dangerous aspects of black female sexuality have been emphasized by black feminist writers while pleasure, exploration, and agency have gone under-analyzed. | want to suggest that black feminist theorists have not taken up this project in part because of heir own status in the academy. Reclaiming the body as well as subjectivity Is @ process that black feminist theorists in the academy ‘must go through themselves while they are doing the work of producing theory. Black feminist theorists are themselves engaged in a process of ighting to reclaim the body—the maimed immoral black female body —which can be and slil is used by others to diseredit them as producers of knowledge and as speaking subjects. Legal scholar Patricia Williams illuminates my point: “no ‘matter what degree of professional Lam, people wll greet and dismiss my black femaleness as unreliable, untrustworthy, hostile, angry, powerless, irrational, and probably destitute..." (95). When reading student evaluations, she finds ‘comments about her teaching and her body: "I marvel, ina momentof genuine bitterness, that anonymous student evaluations speculating on dimensions of ‘my anatomy are nevertheless counted into the stalistieal measurement of my teaching proficiency” (95). The hypervisibility of black women academics and the contemporary fascination with what bell hooks calls the “commodification ‘of Otherness” (21) means that black women today find themselves precariously perched in the academy. Ann duCille notes: ‘Mass culture, as hooks argues, produces, promotes, and perpetuates the commodification af Otherness through the explolation af the black female body. Inthe 1990s, however, the principal sites of exploitation are not simply the cabaret, the speakeasy, the musi video, the glam- our magazine; they are also the academy, the publishing industry, the Inuellectual community. (592) In tandem with the notion of silence, black women writers have repeatedly drawn on the notion ofthe “invisible” to describe aspects of black women’s lives in general and sexuality in particular. Lorde writes that “within this country where racial difference creates a constant, if unspoken distortion ‘of vision, Black women have on the one hand always been highly visible, and on the other hand, have been rendered invisible through the depersonalization of racism” (01). The hypervisibility of black women academics means that visibil- ty too can be used to contro! the intellectual issues that black women can and‘cannot speak about. Already threatened with being sexualized and rendered inauthentic as knowledge producers in the academy by students and col- leagues alike, this avoidance of theorizing about sexuality can be read as one ‘contemporary manifestation oftheir structured silence. I want to stress here that the silence about sexuality on the part of black women academics is no ‘more a “choice” than was the silence practiced by early twentieth-century black women. This production of silence instead of speech is an elfect of the institutions such as the academy which are engaged in the commodification of Otherness. While hypervisibility can be used to silence black women academ- {sit can also serve them. Lorde has argued that the “visibility which makes us ‘most vulnerable," that ofbeing black, “is that which i the source ofour greatest strength." Patricia Hill Collins's interpretation of Lorde’s comment is that “paradoxically, being treated as an invisible Other gives black women a peculiar angle of vision, the outsider-within stance that has served so many Alrcan- American women intellectuals as source oftremendous strength” (04), Yet, while invisibility may be somewhat useful for academicians, the practice of a politi of silence belies the power of such a stance for social change. Most important, the outsider-within stance does not allow space for addressing the question of other outsiders, namely black lesbians. Black feminist theorizing about black female sexuality, with a few exeeplions— Cheryl Clarke, Jewelle Gomez, Barbara Smith, and Audre Lorde—has been relentlessly focused on heterosexuality. The historical narrative that domi nates discussion of black female sexuality does not address even the possiblity ofa black lesbian sexuality or ofa lesbian or queer subject. Spillers confirms this point when she notes that “the sexual realities of black American women across the spectrum of sexual preference and widened sexual styles tend to be 1 missing dialectical feature ofthe entire discussion” (“Interstices” 91) [AL this juncture, then, I cannot cast blame for a lack of attention to black lesbian sexuality solely on white feminist theorists. De Lauretis argues that female homosexualities may be conceptualized as social and cultural forms in their own right, which are undercoded or discursively dependent 1pon more established forms. They (and male homosexualities) therefore act as “an agency of social process whose mode of functioning is both interactive and yet resistant, both participatory and yet distinct, claiming at once equality 4nd historical representation while and difference, and demanding politic {insisting on its material and historical speclficity” (“Ques”) If this is true, ack ()bues ae the Geometry f Bick Fel Senay then theorizing about black lesbian sexuality is crucially dependent upon the ‘existence of a conception of black women’s sexuality in general. Iam not arguing that black lesbian sexualities are derivative of black female hetero- exualllies, but only that we cannot understand the latter without understand {ng tin relation tothe former: in particular, since discussions of black female sexuality often turn to the issue of the devastating effects of rape, incest, and sexual abuse, I want to argue that black queer female sexualities should be seen as one ofthe sites where black female desire Is expressed. Discussions of black lesbian sexuality have most often focused on «atferences from or equivalencies with white lesbian sexualities, with “black” axlded to delimit the fact that black lesbians share a history with other black ‘women. However, this addition tends to obfuscate rather than illuminate the subject position of black lesbians. One obvious example of distortion is that Diack lesbians do not experience homophobia in the same way as do white lesbians. Here, as with other oppressions, the homophobia experienced by Black women is always shaped by racism. What has to be explored and historieizedis the specificity of black lesbian experience. want to understand in what way black lesbians are “outsiders” within black communities. This, I [Aink, would force us to examine the construction of the “closet” by black lesbians. Although this is the topic for another essay, I want to argue here that ite accept the existence of the “politics of silence” as an histarieal legacy shared by all black women, then certain expressions of black female sexuality nillbe rendered as dangerous, for individuals and forthe collectivity. From this itfollows then thatthe culture of dissemblance makes It acceptable for some hncterosesual black women to cast black lesbians ax prover ial trator to he ace. And thisin turn explains why black lesbians who would announce or act, out desire for women—whose deviant sexuality exists within an already pre- existing deviant sexuality—have been wary of embracing he status of “traitor” and the attendant loss of community such an embrace engenders.’ OF course, ‘while some black lesbians have hidden the truth of ther lives, there have bee ‘any forms of resistance to the conception of lesbian as traitor within black ‘communities. Audre Lorde is one obvious example. Lorie’s claiming of her biack and lesbian difference “forced both her white and black lesbian friends {c contend with her historical agency inthe face of [this] larger racial/sexual history that would reinvent her as dead” (Karla Scott, qtd. in de Lauretis, Practice 6).1would also argue that Lorde’s writing, with its focus on the erotic,‘on passion and desire, suggests that black lesbian sexualities ean be read as ‘one expression of the reclamation of the despised black female body. There fore, the works of Lorde and other black lesbian writers, because they fore- ‘ground the very aspects of black female sexuality which are submerged—that 4, female desire and ageney-are critical to our theorizing of black female ‘sexualities. Since silence about sexuality Is being produced by black women and black feminist theorists, that silence itself suggests that black women do have some degree of agency. A focus on black lesbian sexualities, I suggest, implies that another discourse—other than sllence—can be produced. 1 also suggest thatthe project of theorizing black female sexualities "must confront psychoanalysis. Given that the Freudian paradigm is the domi: nant discoarse which defines how sexuality is understood in this postmodern time, black feminist theorists have to answer the question posed by Michele Wallace: “is the Freudian drama transformed by race in a way that would render it altered but usable?® (Invisibility 251) While some black feminists have called the psychoanalytic approach racist, others such as Spillers, Mae Henderson, and Valerie Smith have shown its usefulness in analyzing the texts of black women writers. As Tam not a student of psychoanalytic theory, my sug- gested responses to Wallace's question can only be tentative at best. hough Ido ‘ot acceptall aspects ofthe Freudian paradigm, Ido see the need for exploring, its strengths and limitatfons in developing a theory of black female sexualities Itean readily be acknowledged that the collective history of black ‘omen has n some ways put them in a different relationship tothe canonical categoriesofthe Freudian paradigm, thats, tothe father, the maternal body, to the female-sexed body (Spillers, “Mama’s"). On the level of the symbolic, however, alack women have created whole worlds of sexual signs and sig- nifiers, some of whieh align with those of whites and some of which do not. "Nonetheless, they are worlds which always have to contend withthe power that the white world has to invade, pathologize, and disrupt those worlds. In many ways the Freudian paradigm implicily depends on the presence of the black female otter. One ofits more problematic aspects is that in doing soitrelegates lack women's sexuality to the irreducibly abnormal eategory in which there are no distinctions between homosexual and heterosexual women. By virtue of this lack of distinction, there is a need for black women, both lesbian and heterosexual, to, a de Lauretis describes it, “reconstitute a female-sexed body 45a body forthe subject and for her desire” (Practice 200). This is a need that nck (ole an ihe Geometry of Bc Female Semaliy fs perhaps expressed differently by lack women than by white women, whose sexualities have not been subjected to the same forces of repression and domination, And this seems to me to be a critical place where the work of articulating black female sexualities must begin. Disavowing the designation ofblack female sexualities as inherently abnormal, while acknowledging the ‘material and symtolie effects ofthe appellation, we could begin the project of ‘understanding how differently located black women engage in reclaiming the body and expressing desire. What I want to propose requires me to don one of my other hats, that ‘ofa student of physics. As T struggled with the ideas I cover inthis essay, over ‘and over again I found myself wrestling with the juxtaposed images of “white” (read normal) and “black” (read not white and abnormal) sexuality ‘essay, “Variations on Negation,” Michele Wallace invokes the Kea of the black hole as a trope tha’ can be used to describe the invisibility of black creativity in general and black female creativity specifically (Invisibility 218). As a former physics student, Iwas immediately drawn to this image. Yetit also troubled mes As Wallace rightfully notes, the observ. vold, en empty place in space. However, itis not empty; i isa dense and full place in space, Thare seemed to me to be two problems: one, the astrophysics ofblack holes, i.e, how do you deduce the presence ofa black hele? And second, ‘what i it ike insie of a black hole? I don't want to stretch this analogy too far so here are my responses. To the first question, Isuggest that we can detect the presence ofa black hole by its effects on the region of space where itis located ‘One way that physicists do this is by observing binary starsystems. binary star system is one that contains two bodies which orbit around each other under ‘mutual gravitatioral attraction. Typically, in these systems one finds a visible apparently “normal” star in close orbit with another body such asa black hole, ‘hich isnot seen optically. The existence ofthe black hole is inferred from the fact thatthe visible star is in orbit and its shape is distorted in some way or itis detected by the energy emanating from the region in space around the visible star that could not be produced by the visible star alone? Therefore, the Identification of a black hole requires the use of sensitive detectors of eneray and distortion. In tie case of black femole sexualities, this implies that we need to develop reading strategies that allow us to make visible tl her outside oft e hole sees it as a distorting and productive effects these sexualities produce in relation to more visible sex: 1d question—what is it like inside of a Elack hole?—the ualities. To the sanswver is thal we must think in terms of a different geometry. Rather than ‘assuming that black female sexualities are structured along an axis of normal ‘and perverse paralleling that of white women, we might find that for black ‘women a diferent geometry operates. For example, acknowledging this differ- ence I could ead therelationship between Shug and Cellein Alice Walker's The Color Purple as one which depicts desire between women and desire between women and men simultaneously, in dynamic relationship rather than in oppo- sition. This mapping of the geometry of black female sexualities will perhaps require black feminist theorists to engage the Freudian paradigm more rigor ‘ously, or it may eause us to disrupt it. Can I Get Home from Here? {seem lesbian poets a8 a0 af cntertng into datogue=srom the tarsi with Black fit rie theorsts and wie My wo has bento imagine an historca Black ‘woman owonan erofean and tng vert, dsr, ced latent as inigt be: To magne Blk wor’ seals aca prmerpos ere bt ato does not priege To Imagine without apology, voluptuous ‘lack women’s sexualities (Clarke 24) So where has my search taken me? And why does the journey matter? [want to give a partial answer tothe question I posed at the beginning of ths ‘essay. At this juncture queer theory has allowed me to break open the category ‘of gay and lesbian and begin to question how sexualities and sexual subjects fare produced by dominant discourses and then to interrograte the reactions ‘and resistances to those discourses. However, interrogating sites of resistance ‘and reaction did not take me beyond what is generally done in gay and lesbian studies. The turn to queer should allow me to explore in Clarke's words, the “overt, discrete, coded, or latent” and “polymorphous” eroticism of differently Tocated black women. It is still not clear to me, however, that other queer theorists will resist the urge to engage in a re-ranking, erasure, or appropria tion of sexual subjects who are at the margins of dominant discourses, ‘Why does my search for black women’s sexuality matter? Wallace once: hat she feared being called elitist when she acted as though cultural cticism wes as crucial to the condition of black womer: as health, the lave, polities, economies, and the family. “But,” she continued, 1 am convinced that the major batle forthe ‘other of the ‘other [Black women] will be to find voice, transforming the construction of dominant discourse inthe process” (Iavsibil. ‘ty 256). ILis my belief that what is desperately needed is more rigorous cultural criticism detailing how power is deployed through issues lise sexuality and the alternative forms thal even an oppressed subject's power can take. Since 1987, a majer part of my intellectual work as an historian of U.S. science and ‘medicine hes addressed the aibs crisis in African-American communities ‘The Aios epidemic is being used, as Simon Watney has said, to “inflect, condense and rearticulate the ideological meanings of rice, sexuality, gen er, childhood, privacy, morality and nationalism” (ix). The position of black women in this epidemte was dire from the beginning and worsens with each passing day. Silence, erasure, and the use of images of immoral sexuality abound in narratives about the experiences of black women with 10s. Their voices are nct heard in discussions of aos, while intimate details of thelr lives, are exposed 0 justify their victimization. In the “war of representation” that Is. being waged through this epidemic, black women are victims that are once ‘again the “other” of the “other,” the deviants ofthe deviants, regardless oftheir sexual identities or practices. While white gay male activists are using the {ideological space framed by this epidemic to contest the notion that homosexu- ality is “abnormal” and to preserve the right to live out their homosexual Aesires, black women are rendered silent. The gains made by queer activists Will do nothing for black women ifthe stigma continues to 9 attached to their sexuality. The work of black feminist criti is tn Find ways to contest the historical construction of black female sexualities by illuminating how the dominant view was established and maintained and how & ean be disrupted. ‘This work might very well save some black women's lives. [want this epidemic to be used to foment the sexual revolution that black Arrericans never had (Giddings 462). want it tobe used to make visible black women's selF- defined sexualities Visib ity in and oftsett, however, s not my only goal. Several writers, {including bell hooks, have argued that one answer to the silence now beingproduced on the issue of black female sexuality is for black women to see themselves to mirror themselves (61) The appeal tothe visual and the visible {s deployed as an answer tothe legacy of silence and repression. As theorists, ‘we haveto ask what we assume such reflections would show, Would the mirror black women hold up to themselves and to cach other provide access to the aternat ve sexual universe within the metaphorical black hole? Mirroring as a ‘way of negating a legacy of silence needs to be explored in much greater depth than ithas been to date by black feminist theorists. An appeal tothe visual isnot ‘uncomplicated or innocent. As theorists we have to ask how vision is struc tured, and, following that, we have to explore how difference is established, how toperates, how and in what ways t constitutes subjects who see and speak in the world (Haraway, “Promises” 513). This we must apply to the ways in ‘which black women are seen and not seen by the dominant society and to how they see themselves in a different landscape. But in overturning the “politics of silence” the goal cannot be merely tobe seen: visibility in and of itself does not erase a history of silence nor does it challenge the structure of power and domine:ion, symbolic and material that determines what can and cannot be ‘The goal should be to develop a “polities of articulation.” This politics ‘would build on the interrogation of what makes it possible for black women to speak and act Finally, my search for black women’s sexuality through queer theory hhas taught me that I need not simply ad the label queer to my list as another naturalized {dentiy. As I have argued, there is no need to reproduce black womens sexualities as a silent void. Nor are black queer female sexualities simply identities, Rather, they represent discursive and material terrains where there exists the possibilty for the active production of speech, desire, and agency. [Mytharks to Joan Scott, Mary Poovey, Donna Penn, and Geta Patelfrthetrsuppordand Sor het thoughtful and incisive rques of te leas thas essay Notes ot an especially Haze Cay "Me nerd ta inch (cs athe ean a Bch ema Saco lnaon... Bt processes ofracazation, when hey are mentioned tl in mcr ‘odiiat sey, rather tan arctures of inegualy and exploitation, processes of racilaationeremargialized and pveraymballmeming oly when abece are back” (CMuticuerat 195, See Hiuinbthar, Mine, Gigs Corby (ecostracting, an Brown (hs was no justa middle-class phenomenon Inposed on working sass women, Though ‘embraced a desexslized image (Mepaatin 144) Laren and Jesie Faust in Cardy (contig, she tought Larde's Bok ws eller writen than Neen she was sted tht Lae ‘poke so much aout sex anaired alla her ait inen public” She hell Wohin ‘hocsngia lente mye tom the black community. negative image of bck female sexsi edaced the lowest posse denominator, Theenonf he ecindin biary syemsinee mthepert Dyer ‘of black holes in Weald, chapters 8 and 9. "Works Cited Allon, Henry, Mickle Baale, and Dav Halprin, es. The Lesbian and Gay Sten Brown, le Bartley. “Negoatng and Tansforing the Pole Sere: Alem American eins Polis” Poms Saes 182 (198024512, asia Abena, an Stale Janes. Thesriing Blac eminins: Te Vory Prsation ecomructing Nomad: The Engen the Ar-mercan Woman Novis. veer Theory: Lesian and Gay Sevusile: An Induction” dfirnces A Journal of Feminist CataraStudes 321001: H-a the Geometry Bach Fetal Senay bs Feo Studies” Sgn 195 (190 501-008, ‘omer, Jewel *A Cutera Legacy Denied a Discovee lack Leslansn Petton ty —. SatetKnowlges: The Science Qustin i Foland the Pvlege of Pani Perspect” Slans Cybors and Women: Te Rensenton a Nature. New York enersn, Mae Gwent “peaking in Tongs aloes, isetc, nth Black nage of Race." Sign 1.2 (102) 251-74, Ine, Darlene Gack "ape ad the lamer Lives of Back Women in the Me West Pretiminary Though an the Clr of semble.” Sgn 4.4 (1080-0 hooks, el “Selig Hot Pass: Representations of Bch Female Serusty inthe ra stunt hon Aor at Mcgan OSE Lore, Aue iter Ouse: ays and Spach. unansrg N:Crssng 186. Zam New Sp ofr Name, ransbug, NY: Crossing, 182.Grd to (aoe: 1425 ine, “Olympie's Ma: eciming Black Female Subjects" Arnage ‘mosupe, hun. BlchLesbin/Buldager” erence Journal Femina Sie $2,808 501-18, Sat, arse, Towards Bach Fein rithm Conditions 2 (1977: 25-4, sed ome Cinta Black Feminist Anthology: New Yr: Kthen Table, 1985 ty, eerie “Black Perit Theory and the Represenaton ofthe ‘ther "Mall 38-57, Vance, Cane, esr ond Dong Exploring Fale Senay Lonon: Pan, 1980, Memure and Danger Toward a Plies of Sealy” Vance 1-24 ravi: The Mery of the Bs Bangs and Black Hole 2nd ‘Wa, Cheg ed. Chang Our Ou ard: tay on Cito, Theory, and Ming by Wiatce, Meet. isiiiy Blues From Popo Theory New Yok: Yer, 100. Dente. last opal Clare Sete Bay, 180, Wiliams, Pata J The Alchemy of Hace and High: Diary of Late Profesor. Cam Camp, Masculinity, Masquerade (ne might even say thatthe masculine “eal aad th feminine Idea! arerepre sented the pavche by something other than ths aeistypassuy opposition “ity speaking, they spring frm a Zinn tat Fhave not introduced, but of thigh one female pxycho-anatyt has inpolwed the feminine sexual ftitide-the frm masquerade. (Uacan, Four 195) Parody in the Masculine Parody isan erotic trn-lf and ll gay Inenkrowe thie Much campy tas paroditi, and while that may be fun at fe dinmer party, you are out tomake Someone you turn af the camp. Male ‘ay onmp ts, however, largely parody ‘fworen which, obviously, rakes Some other questions, (Berean 508) vention. Both works and both writers have had considerableinfluence. And the packaging ofthe paperbacks is notable in oth cases for featuring a photograph ‘of the author, a practice that is not unknown but is occasional enough among academics to solicit notice.| she || Sore geneous help wth the design ofthe Mark Coper, [Se eee ‘Tris book pubtin of Indiana Univer Press ap/wmemindann epee (nara Py erat ponder Suditterences journal of Feminist Cutters Studien Aight reserved No par of hi book may be reproduced ted in ny oem ry ay ean Information sorage and retire ‘omens pbiser Te eto Amen Univer Presse Resaion seein aan neat atonal Sandor forlnormaton Sclenrs Permanence of Pepe or Pre itary Mater, ANSI 73048 fe Manuacaed in the United Sates tamerea Feminism mets uses hor ede by cm. (lonke om aifereces) ‘Ts callecion signal appeare in 8, summer 108 afters ural ‘tami caluclate indies begphil tenes.) TSBN 025-3278 9 (th ak paper. 'saN0.255.2118:2 (pk sa pope) 4-Femins ery 2 Homose — ‘sabe date I ebor oom I Series Homa 2stsea mo maa Contents Introduction Against Proper Objects Feminism by Any Other Name. Iruerview Sexual Traffic. Interoiew Extraordinary Homosexuals and the Fear of Being Ordinary Black (W)holes and the Geometry of Black Female Sexuality 2 ‘Camp, Masdalinity, Masquerade Melancholic Modernity The Hom(mosexnal Symptom, ‘nd the Homosocial Corpse Revisiting Male Thanatica. Response The “Returns” of Cartography: Mapping Identty-In¢)Difference. Response Passing: Narcissism, Identity, and Difference