Women's intoxication as ‘dual licentiousness’: An exploration of gendered images of drinking and intoxication in Sweden

Abstract

In this article, it is suggested that an important cultural image of intoxication in some Western societies appears to be ‘intoxication as ecstasy’, intoxication as escape from the everyday into a ‘wild’ and ‘natural’ state. The purpose of this article is to discuss this cultural image and its link to gendered ideas about sexuality and, on the basis of this discussion, to develop a hypothesis for further testing. The hypothesis developed proposes that women–via the cultural linking of their sexuality to biological processes of reproduction–are placed closer to nature than men. This makes women's drinking and intoxication seem more dangerous than men's, because drinking and intoxication would seem to make women come even closer to nature. It is suggested that women's ‘dual licentiousness’ threatens the distinction between nature and culture.

• Intoxication
• sexuality
• escape
• ecstasy
• nature–culture
• gender

Notes

Notes

1. I recognize that feminist theorists have criticized men's use of intoxication as an excuse for violent behaviour or sexual assault; that there are many theoretical accounts of sexuality from a feminist perspective and that there are many studies of women considered deviants on the grounds that they drink too much, use too much drugs and/or engage in prostitution. The point is that these either focus on cases of violence or problems, or do not theorize intoxication but sexuality or gender. I do not consider these concerns wrong in any sense, quite the other way around, but this leaves an area where cultural studies on alcohol and drug use and feminist and gender theory could be brought closer together to bring new light on issues often treated separately.

2. See Alcoff (2000) for a discussion of how and why this and other dualisms have been criticized in feminist philosophy; e.g., Alcoff mentions that dualisms such as natural versus social and mind versus body, have been used “for eons to rebuke women's liberatory aspirations” (natural versus social) and “has rendered women inherently less capable of achieving thought” (mind versus body) (Alcoff 2000, 857).

3. Weber too writes about the orgy as a social phenomenon, as resulting from dance but also from, e.g., alcohol use in the Dionysian cult (Weber 1970b, 278–279; Weber 1978, chapter XIV). I choose to discuss Maffesoli on this point because he emphasises ecstasy rather than rationality as dominant in contemporary society.

4. Although Gefou-Madianou (2002) does not discuss such needs as biological or psychological, I would argue that discussions about what women ‘need’ is common in everyday talk about drinking and intoxication as well.

5. See the debate in the aftermath of the 1990s films about women's and men's gender identity made by journalist/writer Marianne Ahrne and physician/psychotherapist Rigmor Robèrt, (e.g., newspaper article in Aftonbladet, 4 November, 1998) and the more recent debate starting with a debating article in Dagens Nyheter, written by Professor in Neurophysiology, Germund Hesslow (Dagens Nyheter 19 February, 2005).

6. Further, there is no necessary conflict between the cultural analysis of images and the factual approach–it is, if one wishes, fully possible to argue that what is presented in campaigns and news reports are hard facts, while at the same time agreeing with the analysis of images of women and men.

7. Furthermore, the baby is described as ‘your baby’, using the Swedish singular form (‘din’; p. 9; 11; 17), thus referring to the unborn child as ‘the woman's, rather than as both hers and her partner's (‘ert’ in Swedish).

8. Campaigns against drinking and driving in Sweden are not directed towards men as a gender category or group, which is interesting in itself if drinking and driving is more common among men than among women. Apart from this, such campaigns could be analysed as examples of cultural images of men's intoxication, for example by studying photographs and pictures and the way that these are used and combined with text in the campaigns.