Idealization, Splitting, and the Challenge of Homophobia

Abstract

How can we account for the persistence of homophobia? What makes homophobia so resistant to change? In this paper we discuss the psychic and discursive persistence of homophobia by problematizing the political unconscious. Focusing on Freud's psychic defense mechanisms, idealization and splitting, we show how these forces can be thought of as the psychic work of discourse. To this end we interviewed fathers of homosexual sons who had initially reacted with panic, but eventually came to “accept” their sons' homosexuality. We discuss the paradox that the fathers' narratives raise: their love and adoration of their (masculine) homosexual sons, and on the other hand their hatred and denunciation of homosexuality. We argue that idealization and splitting in this case operate as regulatory psychic mechanisms in the service of social discourse. This psychic power of discourse reappropriates masculinity (as a fetish) and reinstates the naturalization of heterosexuality and the masculine/feminine binary. The notion of the political unconscious is brought up by concluding that in order to change sexual prejudices we need to understand why we fail to change and how psychic mechanisms work in the service of social and cultural discourse.

Notes

¹The term “targeted” refers to the method of “snowball” interviews, a process of interviewing which usually starts with someone qualified that we know personally, proceeding to a chain of subjects that become less and less related.

²All the interviews were conducted by the second author. The study included twenty-two fathers who where reached through a “snowball” procedure. They were between the ages of 48 and 82, most of them from European countries, some from Arab countries (mainly Morocco and Iraq), and one from Brazil. The fathers defined themselves as secular (some more traditional than others) and as leading a secular lifestyle at home. Some lived in cities, others in the suburbs, villages and kibbutzim. Their education varied; some had only 12 years of schooling (but not less), while others were university graduates. All of them had at least one other child (male or female), and all (but three) were married at the time of the interview. All of the interviews were recorded, transcribed and analyzed following Giorgi's (1975) phenomenological delineation of dominant themes.

³We discuss the concept later in further detail. For now, suffice it to say that we use the term “political unconscious” in order to reveal the politics of the unconscious and the unconscious politics of discourse in tandem.

⁴All the names including fathers and sons are pseudonyms.

⁵Moshe's (and other fathers) use of the term “homo”—“he is a homo”—signifies the double meaning of this term in Israeli-Jewish discourse. On the one hand it is a term used by gay men themselves, a kind of an internal language. On the other hand it is used by homophobic men and women as a derogative, aggressive name calling, even a curse. Sometime, adolescent boys tease one another by using this phrase. This double usage points at the instability, fragility, and ambivalent meaning of this tem in the Hebrew language. Hence, the use of the word homo is contingent on the speaker, how it is being used and on the context. The fathers' use of the word homo has a particular ambivalent meaning: On the one hand they use it as an intimate language, perhaps mimicking their sons. On the other hand they cite the “local bully” using “homo” to attack.

⁶Israel is an interesting place where in a relatively short period of time public attitudes toward homosexuality, media coverage, and legislation went through swift transformations, from silence in the 1950s to hatred in the 1970s to tolerance and openness in the 1990s. For a good historical survey of these changes in the public sphere including changes of the laws, policies and the establishment of support organizations, see Amit Kama (2000). There are three important institutions that dominate and create the ambivalent discourse of homosexuality in Israel: Zionism, Jewish religion and the Israeli army. All emphasize masculinity as the natural and ideal image of (modern) Jewish Man. In contrast, secular liberalism in Israel pushes through the media and by legislation of progressive laws to openness of sexual expression, free gender performance and the acceptance of homosexual cohabitation.

⁷Here and in other places in the paper we mean by “sexual difference” the range of sexual performances and identifications possible within the binaries male/female.

⁸We would like to thank the anonymous reviewer who suggested that the notion “melancholic heterosexuality” could link between discursive splitting, idealization, and the repudiation of homosexuality.

⁹In this proposed definition of masculinity as a cultural fetish, I acknowledge the perverted production of masculinity (but also of femininity) within the regulatory binary system of gender.

¹⁰For a sound criticism of the universality of foundational heterosexuality, see Butler's (2004) chapter “Is Kinship Always Already Heterosexual?” in her book Undoing Gender.

¹¹This sentence was quoted from a comment made by one of the anonymous reviewers. The reviewer criticized our claim that the fathers were not only singling out “feminine homos” but the rest of the gay community (see our claim on p. XX). She or he wrote, “I think this attempt to generalize beyond the gender slippage to the whole community dilutes the fundamental argument, which will turn precisely on this slippage between ‘homo’ and ‘feminine.’” We agree with the comment. At the same time we believe that this is what the fathers were doing, that is, attacking “the rest of the gay community” and not only “feminine homos” (but also conflating between the gay community and “feminine homos”) in order to “save” their son's heterosexual normativity “expressed” by their masculine body and manners (see also Butler, 1997, p. 140).

¹²In 2001 the journal Group Analysis devoted a full volume to the concept of “the social unconscious” to discuss its theoretical and practical implications.