Reading the writing in the margins: dysfunction, disjunction, disgust, and the bodies of others

ABSTRACT

Intersex’s representation as “border case,” explored via six fictional treatments of unusually sexed bodies, echoes the ways “atypical” and “marginal” sex and sexuality receive attention to defer focus on that never queried because it seems so ordinary. Across the novels, the purported otherness of the intersex character highlights the dysfunctionality of those around them. In this way, dysfunction, disjunction, and disgust exist across the relationships and dynamics surrounding the scapegoated identity and are a means to avoid the hard work of critical self-reflection on the parts of those who do not usually deem themselves “other.” If the supporting characters in all these novels are guilty of failing fully to explore their own marginality, the same has frequently happened with religious bodies’ attitudes to intersex, and this is discussed with reference to accounts of intersex in Judaism and Islam, and tensions surrounding the casting out of sexual “violators” in one Christian tradition.

KEYWORDS:

• Intersex
• novels
• Judaism
• Islam
• Christianity
• disgust

Notes on contributor

Susannah Cornwall is Senior Lecturer in Constructive Theologies at the University of Exeter, UK, and Director of EXCEPT (Exeter Centre for Ethics and Practical Theology). Her most recent book is Un/familiar Theology: Reconceiving Sex, Reproduction and Generativity (Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2017).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ORCID

Susannah Cornwall http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7768-0054

Notes

1 Eugenides, Middlesex, 409.

2 Shostak, “Theory Uncompromised,” 409.

3 Eugenides, Middlesex, 430.

4 Shostak, “Theory Uncompromised,” 410.

5 Shostak, “Theory Uncompromised,” 411.

6 Eugenides, Middlesex, 184.

7 Carroll, “Retrospective Sex,” 201.

8 Urbiniak-Rybicka, “Everyone Is a Snake,” 87.

9 Hollinger, The Meaning of Sex, 84; O’Donovan, “Transsexualism,” 13.

10 Bahreini, “From Perversion to Pathology,” 18.

11 Winter, Annabel, 142.

12 OII Australia, “Kathleen Winter’s Book, Annabel.”

13 Urbiniak-Rybicka, “Everyone Is a Snake,” 90.

14 Neuhaus, “Inventions of Sexuality,” 125.

15 Urbiniak-Rybicka, “Everyone Is a Snake,” 91.

16 Neuhaus, “Inventions of Sexuality,” 134.

17 Butler, Undoing Gender, 39.

18 Neuhaus, “Inventions of Sexuality,” 135.

19 Rodriguez, “Secrets,” 7.

20 Simon, Confessions, 28, 50.

21 Ibid., 48.

22 Ibid., 109.

23 Ibid., 167–8.

24 Ibid., 7.

25 Gregorio, “Introducing I.W. Gregorio.”

26 Cornwall, “Remote Rural Village.”

27 Hare, “Hermaphrodites, Eunuchs”; Cohen, “Tumtum and Androgynous.”

28 Fonrobert, “Regulating,” 288.

29 Ibid., 288.

30 Gray, “Not Judging,” 141.

31 Ibid..

32 Ibid., 142.

33 Lev, “Genital Trouble,” viii.

34 Ross and Plaskow, “Gender Theory,” 212.

35 Peumans and Stallaert, “Queering Conversion,” 118.

36 Ali and Leaman, Islam, 67.

37 Bahreini, “From Perversion,” 17.

38 Ibid., 18.

39 Ibid., 18–19.

40 Holmes, Intersex.

41 Marchal, “Bodies Bound.”

42 Dreger, Hermaphrodites.

43 Nixon and Cornwall, “Mind the Gap?”

44 Ahmed, Cultural Politics, 92.

45 Douglas, Purity and Danger; Malina and Neyrey, Calling Jesus Names; and Moxnes, Economy.

46 Douglas, Purity and Danger, 121.

47 Loughlin, Alien Sex, x.

48 Ibid., x–xi.

49 Dreger, Hermaphrodites, 6.

50 Eugenides, Middlesex, 446.

51 GAFCON is a conservative Christian group, set up in the wake of the first Global Anglican Future Conference, designed as an alternative to the Lambeth Conference, the gathering together of bishops from all the provinces of the Anglican Communion which takes place roughly once every decade hosted by the Archbishop of Canterbury.

52 GAFCON, “The Church of England”.

53 Anglican Consultative Council, “Resolution I.10.”

54 William Nye, Secretary General of the Archbishops’ Council, wrote to the GAFCON Taskforce’s Chair to challenge GAFCON’s characterization of Lambeth I.10 as bindingly authoritative for Church of England clergy (http://www.thinkinganglicans.org.uk/archives/007395.html). GAFCON retorted with a statement majoring on the implications for the Anglican Communion if the Church of England were seen to disregard Lambeth I.10. Interestingly, this statement uses the language of “tearing” the fabric of the Communion, and holds that GAFCON is not a “breakaway,” but a movement aiming to recommit, restore, renew, gather together (http://gafconuk.org/news/secretary-generals-letter-shows-why-gafcon-uk-needed).

55 Berlant, Cruel Optimism.

56 Ahmed, Cultural Politics, 92.

57 Ibid., 93.