Category: Blog posts

Argh!

It feels like ages since I’ve written a blog post. Sorry. I’ve been slack! I thought I’d give a quick update on life before I run off into the busyness of everything again.

Based on above, as you can imagine, everything has been crazy recently. I spent all of my October in Berlin studying German, writing and exploring my favourite city in the world. I am now back in Edinburgh for 2 1/2 weeks (only one week left) before I fly to the U.S. for two weeks before getting on a plane and going back home to Australia! So I am busily packing and visiting my favourite Edinburgh places and saying goodbye to everyone I love here. I will miss this city, but I am also really excited about getting home.

But in the middle of all of this, my writing is still going strong!

Sexy Capitalism 

After the amazing success of my Sexy Capitalism fundraiser (which ended in September!!) I have now had the time, energy and motivation to get down the writing. I’ve been working primarily on the first couple of chapters, which will form the basis of a proposal to send to relevant publishers. This is proving to be a really useful exercise not only because it’s motivating me to write, but also because it is forcing me to think about the bigger picture of what the book will look like.

In doing so I think I have changed my structure and outline a million times, but I am finally settling on something I am happy with. My book will work in two parts; part one looking back into our history to investigate the early ways capitalism shaped our sexual and familial relationships, and then part two looking at how these early foundations play out today (in particular reference to the sexual revolution in the 1970s that many people argue changed things dramatically). This I think will be a fun progression and I’m learning a lot while trying to shape it together.

My plan is ideally to have a first draft of my proposal (including a couple of chapters) by the end of the year. I think this is still possible, but will have to work hard given the travel coming up!

Forgiveness

And I am still working on my novel! The last few months have been a bit slow with this, but working with my old writing group in Brisbane I have now set myself some targets to get the second draft done. I am hoping to be finished by the end of April. This is a full redraft, including changing from third to first person, which is a lot of work! However, with some monthly targets I am now seeing faster progress in this, which feels great.

An important shift I also think I have had in this arena has been to start to see Forgiveness more like my other work. Maybe it is because I am in editing phase, but I think I’ve been able to shift my brain space so I now see this more as a piece of writing I can chip away at whenever I want, not something I need to wait for the ‘creative juices’ to start flowing in order to work on. While this may sound like I will end up writing at bad times, it is actually working really well for me. It is giving me the space to think I can do this whenever I want, not just when I have some sense of ‘inspiration’ that I cannot articulate. This is particularly important given the stage of the book I’m at, where I’m doing more editing than writing, and therefore don’t have much space to be as creative anymore.

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Anyway, that’s the update! It’s been busy, and I’m sorry I haven’t been publishing as much! I will probably not blog again for a few weeks given all the travel coming up. I’m hoping to use the US as a proper holiday — i.e. no work! And I have a busy week between now and then.

I’ll see you all on the other side!

“Let it all marinate Simon! It will make the end result tastier.”

It was sage advice from my good friend Holly last week, after I posted about the difficulty of sitting down, reading and feeling like I’ve accomplished something.

Over the past weeks I’ve realised the enormity of amount of material I need to get my head around. After months of delay I’ve finally decided to launch into Sexy Capitalism and am trying to do so with gusto. I’m working on the first few chapters, developing a proposal to send to publishers.

This, I’ve realised means a lot of reading. Actually, I knew this already, but the scale required has probably just dawned on me.

This is not a complaint.  I love the fact that I can spend most of my days reading interesting books and call it work. I am very lucky to have that luxury.

But sometimes it’s hard. Reading feels so unsatisfying at times. It’s difficult to feel like you are making progress when words are simply marinating in your brain rather than being put onto paper. I love to write things down, get them published, hear feedback, and then do it all again. There is a quick thrill to all of that — a thrill that reading does not provide.

But it must be done, and over the past week I’ve realised one other thing — when I read, I write. It’s good to be constantly putting things on paper, but if I really want to get into depth, to make something really tasty, I need to let things marinate properly. Reading gives me the inspiration to keep going. It gives me new ideas, new quotes, new thought bubbles — the very things good writing depends on.

So to the books! I’m sorry if there’s fewer things published in the coming months, but the end result will be much tastier!

Over the weekend climate activist Naomi Klein spoke at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas about her book, This Changes Everything. Not being in Sydney I watched Klein’s talk early this week. You can check it out here:

I am, in general, a big fan of Klein’s worked and really enjoyed This Changes Everything. In fact earlier this year I wrote an essay at Green Agenda on how we adapt Klein’s thesis to the Australian context. More than anyone else Klein has done what we’ve always needed to do — connect climate change to capitalism. This is a very important shift in the debate. 

Yet, in watching Klein’s speech I could not help but feel a little uneasy. Whilst Klein has connected climate change to capitalism she seems to at the same time use capitalism to solve the problem. 

In her FODI speech Klein said that climate change is “the collision between carbon pollution and a toxic ideology of market fundamentalism that has made it impossible for our shackled leaders to respond.” Later on, responding to questions from the audience, she said that she was not “against markets” but rather against the ideology that places markets above everything else. 

For the climate movement this has often been one of the biggest explanations as to why we are struggling to make progress. In her book Klein talks about “bad timing” — that the world has struggled to respond to climate change as it arrived at the exact same time as neoliberalism, which places markets above all other social and environmental needs.

It is here where Klein finds her solutions — a reinvestment in representative democracy that gives our leaders the space they to take action. In her speech she lists a number of these solutions — investment in green jobs, changing who profits from energy production, an end to corporate trade deals, carbon taxes, higher royalties on mining companies, and of course investment in public services. Of course this will never happen unless we change our democracy as well. The last phrase of that quote above is essential here. The problem with neoliberalism is that “it has made it impossible for our shackled leaders to respond”. We need therefore to turn this around, or as Klein says we need to “shut the revolving door between business and government.” We need to bring Governments back to a position of power so they solve the problem.

In other words the state will solve things for us — a position that is increasingly found in left reasoning. After the 2008 Global Financial Crisis for example many championed the idea of a “Green New Deal”; a model shaped on Roosevelt’s new deal of the 30s that saw mass public spending. Other activists have often looked at the investment Governments made during the early 40s to fight the Second World War. This investment changed the shape of Western economies dramatically within the space of just a few years. If they could do that then, why can’t they do it now? All we need to do, the left is saying, is give Government the authority to act.

It is this argument that I find increasingly unconvincing.

While the left often equates capitalism to neoliberal markets, capitalism is far more complex than that. In relation to this discussion in particular I think many in the left have failed to fully grasp the role the state plays in capitalist society. Let’s put this simply: the modern state is an integral part of capitalism. The state and capitalism grew together, and each depend on the other for their survival. The state is there to represent the interests of the capitalist, and political, class. It always has, and always will.

It is here where the idea of a once great and progressive state becomes problematic. While yes the state once had more authority to implement mass programs such as The New Deal, that did not mean it did so in order to best represent the interests of the general population. In fact Roosevelt, the great progressive hero, was regularly criticised for being too close to Wall St interests, with much of the New Deal being opposed by elements of the US left. The New Deal was a response to a political need of the time, but was a response that largely benefited the capitalist and political class.

And it is with this understanding that I fear the consequences of Klein’s solutions. While Klein often talks about building a ‘mass movement’, something which is clearly necessary, this movement is still one targeted at politicians. She wants a movement to convince politicians that they should act in our interests.

Klein therefore is advocating for the use of capitalism to solve a problem caused by capitalism. While it may be great (it also may not) if the state did much of what Klein wants it to do, I find it unconvincing it is possible. You cannot separate capitalist economy from the state and therefore I struggle to believe that our political class is ever going to implement major changes that threaten capitalism in the way Klein advocates. Here is where you end up with a strange middle proposition. If we rely on the state to solve the problems for us then they are going to do so in ways that benefit their own class interests. It was this that lead to the doomed emissions trading schemes in years gone by and it this that I suspect will result in geoengineering being presented as the next great solution. These are “solutions”, devised by the state, that in no way challenges their class interests. In doing so they are solutions that are non-solutions.

This all seems really strange when Klein, and the environment movement as a whole, seem to have many of the other answers right in front of her. Some of the greatest climate movements of recent years — divestment and direct action in particular — have been so successful because they have bypassed the political class in order to achieve their goals. These are forms of direct action that don’t rely on us asking our leaders to do something for us. They are actions in which we show our own leadership. Klein also talks about the rise of energy collectives in Germany, structures that operate outside the capitalist economic and political system, and are solving climate change at the same time. These structures are far more convincing to me than movements that ask our political class to do things for us.

Naomi Klein is certainly inspiration to watch and she certainly has got it right that capitalism is the problem. But by turning almost solely to the state she is also trying to use capitalism to solve the problem as well. Can you solve a problem caused by capitalism with more capitalism? I don’t think so.

Last week I published a review of Genes and the Bioimaginary by Deborah Lynn Steinberg in The Guardian. The book covers a whole range of research about genetics, but one chapter — on the gay gene — particularly grabbed my interest. Below is the first draft of the article I wrote for The Guardian (completely overhauled), which focuses on the gay gene chapter and a debate I’ve had with Dr Qazi Rahman on the issue. Enjoy!

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In a recent response to my article questioning the science of the ‘gay gene’ Dr Qazi Rahman argued that not only is the science of the gene ‘on track’, but that gay, lesbian and bisexuals should embrace it as a way to further LGB rights. As he argued: 

“Finding evidence for a biological basis should not scare us or undermine gay, lesbian and bisexual (LGB) rights (the studies I refer to do not include transgendered individuals, so I’ll confine my comments to lesbian, gay and bisexual people). I would argue that understanding our fundamental biological nature should make us more vigorous in promoting LGB rights.”

I was really happy to see Dr. Rahman’s response and in particular that he engaged with the politics around the gene. While I clearly disagree with Dr. Rahman on the validity of the science I think he misses a key issue. Dr Rahman’s political position is based on the idea that ‘the science is there’ and that it is just up to society to figure out how to deal with it. Science is neutral in the whole process. A recently published book, Genes and the Bioimginary, written by Professor Deborah Lynn Steinberg from the University of Warwick, argues this is not the case.

In Genes and the Bioimaginary Steinberg investigates the cross between genetic research and our society. Steinberg argues that “culture — including science — forms the context, locus and foundation of the search for genes.” In other words, genetic science both shapes culture and is inherently shaped by culture, or as Steinberg explained to me “the popular has infused the scientific even as the scientific has infused the popular.” 

Steinberg makes this argument through a range of informative and interesting case studies, from the search for a ‘criminal’ and a ‘Jewish’ gene to the role of genes in debates about race, gender and even in science fiction. But it is in her chapter on the gay gene that I think she makes her point the best. In doing so it offers a fascinating insight to Dr. Rahman and my debate.

Steinberg starts with the premise that the very search for the gay gene is problematic as it is searching for a biological cause for a cultural construct. This is the exact argument I made in my initial piece. But Steinberg expands on this by arguing the scientific research pointed to by advocates such as Dr. Rahman have been hugely influenced by the way homosexuality is constructed within our culture. 

To do so Steinberg looks at the first key study into the ‘gay gene’, released by Dean Hamer in the journal Science in 1993. For a quick reminder Hamer’s study investigated 40 pairs of self-identified gay brothers, with the team arguing markers on the X chromosome could influence the development of same-sex orientation in men. Look at Hamer’s process however, and we can see particular cultural influences that not only shaped the research but the following debate.

Hamer’s study was conducted in two parts. The first involved creating family trees for the gay men with the aim of identifying other gay relatives. The result showed more relatives on the maternal than the paternal side. From this Hamer inferred a pattern of maternal inheritance, discounting fathers as part of the genetic process. Part two of the study involved an analysis of the DNA of the gay brothers ‘to see if they had inherited genes in common that could, by inference, be linked to their sexuality’. It was from this that Hamer concluded that homosexuality could be influenced by markers on the X chromosome — or in other words that there was a gay gene passed down by mothers.

Scientists have criticised Hamer’s study for not being ‘statistically significant’ (i.e. there were not enough participants to draw conclusions) but investigating the process opens up new questions. Primarily, Steinberg argues that the process, which focused heavily on maternal markers was based in cultural stereotypes of gay men. As she told me:

“In many different respects the premises of the research were all embedded in pre-existing cultural stereotypes and ideas about gay men and about their relationships with their mothers. They were, in a way, tired tropes. What I was suggesting there is that it’s science from a false premise. The underlying assumptions that organise doing that kind of research were already problematic.”

She expands on this in the book, where she examines the popular reception to Hamer’s study. As Steinberg describes, press reportage at the time took up stereotypes of gay men being inherently connected to their mothers. As she says: 

“Maternal influence was understood throughout the ‘gay gene’ reportage as ‘singularly to blame’ for the ostensible compromised masculinity of gay sons. ‘Gay genes’ maternally inherited,  recapitulated tropes of embodied effeminacy  — popular stereotypes of gay men – intrinsically flawed through their direct corporeal links with femaleness’”

We see this play out significantly in the debate about the gay gene. The Born This Way Blog for example, one of my favourite places to visit when researching this issue, is full of childhood photos people have posted in order to ‘prove’ their sexuality is biological. Little camp boys strutting their stuff apparently highlight that not only is homosexuality genetic, but that it equates to an effeminate personality. This is, Steinberg argues, the problematic basis of the search for the gay gene — a cultural influence that opens up significant questions about the direction of the science.

On a side note is it worth asking whether this can provide some answers as to why, as Dr. Rahman notes, scientific research into female, and in particular lesbian, sexuality is virtually non-existent. Gay gene theorists base their science on an understanding of homosexuality as being a uniform, identifiable identity. In doing so they rarely separate gay men from lesbian women — we are all treated as a uniform same. But if the gay gene comes from the maternal side it throws up serious questions if that is the same for lesbian women. How would our standard image of the butch lesbian match with science that argues lesbians comes from mothers? Are we not searching for that because theorists do not want to find an answer?

Back to Steinberg’s research. As I said before Steinberg argues that not only does culture influence genetic science, but that genetic science has had a major influence on our culture. And here again the influence rests heavily on women.

Steinberg explained to me that she began investigating the gay gene to look at what she at first assumed would take the form of a ‘moral panic’ that typified media reportage at that time about gay lives. Thus she was expecting the reportage of the gay gene would result in a broad panic about the very existence of homosexuality. However, that wasn’t the case. Instead we saw what many would consider a more liberal approach — calls for the science not to be used to repress gay people, and in fact, as Dr. Rahman argues to be used to further LGB rights.

But that does not mean the moral panic did not occur — rather, it was directed at elsewhere: at ‘bad scientists’ and, perhaps most importantly, at ‘bad’ women. The release of the Hamer’s study, and every one to follow it, was met with concern that women would start aborting children who were gay, and in turn calls for restrictions on their rights to do so. “Hence,” Steinberg argues in the book, “the call for a ‘gene charter’ which pits gay freedom against women’s choice and reconstitutes gay rights struggle as a corollary of anti-abortion politics.” Across all of the reportage, women were typcially framed both as ‘homogenic’ (they passed along ‘gay genes’) and as  homophobic (the would abort gay pregnancies).

For Steinberg this is not surprising. Harmer’s study came on the heels of the United Kingdom debating legislation on whether to criminalise late abortions, making abortion a key frame for the ‘gay gene’ debate. However, it goes beyond that. In the first chapter of her book Steinberg points out that the disproportionate burden of genetic diagnostic technology has tended to fall on women — and in particular women’s bodies. This is in part because genetic screening on embryos or in pregnancy involve intrusive procedures on women’s bodies.  It makes sense then that women emerged as a preoccupation of debate about the gay gene, where women were seen at one and the same time as ‘responsible’ for gay genes and threat to their continued existence.

Qazi Rahman is right to debate the political implications of the search for a gay gene.

But in doing so we cannot ignore the culture and the politics that lead to, and influence the search in the first place. Doing so opens up even more questions both about the validity of the science, and more importantly about whether we ever want to find a biological cause for homosexuality in the first place. The gay gene has not only reinforced harmful stereotypes used against gay men, but has also been used as a tool to attack the rights of women. That should give us all pause.

Genes and the Bioimaginary: Science, Spectacle, Culture, by Deborah Lynn Steinberg is published by Ashgate http://www.ashgate.com/isbn/9781409462552

 

This week I interviewed Christopher Ryan, the co-author of the ground breaking book, Sex at Dawn. 

Originally published at ByLine, 31 August, 2015

We often act as if the nuclear family is as old as society itself. Prehistoric families, we’re told, were like The Flintstones — just a less technologically advanced version of our own family structure. But is this really the case?

This week I interview the co-author of the ground breaking book Sex at Dawn, Christopher Ryan. In our interview we discuss prehistoric families, the sex of apes, David Bowie and whether civilisation is actually any good for human kind.

Simon:

Hi Christopher, thanks for the interview. Let’s start with Sex at Dawn. Can you tell our readers what you argue in the book?

Christopher:

Essentially we argue that human sexuality is not primarily about reproduction; that it’s been co-opted by homo sapiens for social purposes. Human beings have sex far more than virtually all mammals.

So human sexuality is merely unique in the fact that we have so much non-reproductive sex. What that indicates is that sexuality fulfils functions as well as reproduction for human beings, as well as dolphins, chimpanzees and bonobos, which are all highly social and highly intelligent species. In all of these species it’s become sort of a social lubricant, a bonding device primarily. And the reproductive elements are secondary.

Simon: You use a range of evidence to back up these claims. Can you go into some more depth about those arguments?

Christopher:

We draw from four sources of data; anthropology, human anatomy and physiology, primatology and contemporary psychosexual research.

For example some of the most interested anthropological evidence we find is that there are plentiful societies around the world in which paternity is not a priority.

That’s something that should not be possible if the mainstream view of human sexual evolution were correct. Because that view argues that humans have always been obsessed with paternity because men would not want to invest in the offspring of other men. So the vision of parenthood in those paradigms is all economical. But what we find is that hunter gatherer societies don’t conform to that economic model. In fact they conform to something much closer to a socialistic or communistic economic model.

We found a lot of societies where paternity is either a minor issue or a non-issue. For example there are societies in the Amazon where people literally believe a foetus is made from accumulated semen. Therefore a woman is likely to have sex with several different men in order to assure the essence of those men will combine in her foetus. So she’ll have sex with the funny man, and the smart man and the man who’s the best hunter in order to get these qualities into her babies.

We also talk about the Mosul in China where the biological father of a woman’s child really has no obligation whatsoever to be involved in the child’s life. The paternal responsibility for the child falls to a woman’s brothers. They have the primary responsibility of raising, protecting and nurturing those children from the male perspective.

So these sorts of counter examples should be virtually impossible without some sort of extreme cultural force being applied, but in fact what you find is that they pop up all over the world.

And then of course you’ve got the closest primates to humans, bonobos and chimps, and neither of them are particularly obsessed with paternity. Some of the chimps behaviour indicates they may have more of a concern with paternity; there is infanticide, there is a habit of dominant males taking fertile females away from the group, seemingly trying to restrict her sexual interaction with other males. But with bonobos you find absolutely no control by males of the sexual behaviour of females. The question of biological paternity of bonobos is completely obscured by their promiscuous sexual behaviour.

Simon: So how did we get to the norm we have today? In particular why was agriculture so important to shifting sexual attitudes?

Christopher:

Agriculture was pivotal because it introduced the notion of private property.

Once you get this idea of owning things then you start thinking about owning people — you have slaves, you have children seen as the property of the parent or the father, you have women seen as the property of the patriarch. When you have property you start thinking about who’s going to get your property when you die. You’ve spent your life accumulating this property so now you want to make sure it goes to your son. So how do you make sure it’s your son? By controlling the sexual behaviour of your wife. That’s the only way to do it.

Simon: Why was it men who took control when private property came about?

Christopher:

That’s a huge debate and I don’t think anyone has a final answer. The typical response is that upper body strength was essential. With the advent of agricultural society you have the necessity to farm and farming is really hard work that requires a lot of upper body strength. So men’s upper body strength led to more control because they were able to do the sort of work that was most required.

Personally I don’t find that argument to be compelling. I think it has more to do with men being the primary hunters in hunter-gatherer societies, meaning men were more adept with weaponry. When you get agricultural societies, the hierarchy, the organisation, you also get warfare. So you get these conflicts and men are just much more adapted to warfare because of their proficiency with weaponry and possibly because we’re more willing to kill one another.

To me that’s a stronger line of argument, but it’s probably a bit of both.

Simon: Let’s talk about sex today. In your opinion are we seeing a shift where people are breaking away from the norms of the family as you’ve described?

Christopher:

Yeah, very quickly. The acceptance of same-sex marriage is huge in terms of cultural shift, for many reasons. A basic acknowledgement of human rights is the most fundamental way to look at it, but I think it’s very interesting is that explicitly acknowledges that marriage is not about having babies. One of the arguments that the conservatives have always made is that two men can’t have a baby, but what i’m arguing is that sex has never been about having babies. So if sex is not about having babies, if sex is primarily about establishing intimacy, trust, shared pleasure and establishing social networks, then whether its across sexual lines or same-sex really has no importance whatsoever. I see the acknowledgement of same-sex marriage as an acknowledgement of a fundamental argument we make in Sex and Dawn.

Simon: You’re working on a new book. What’s it about?

Christopher: 

The book is called Civilised to Death and the subtitle is ‘why everything is amazing and nobody’s happy’.

We’re saying what’s going on where civilisation is supposed to be this amazing accomplishment providing technological advancements daily, yet suicide rates are up, depression rates are up, senseless inexplicable wars seems to never stop, a third of the children in America are living in poverty? If this is progress, what are we progressing towards?

I thought it was time to step back and reassess civilisation. What this book is essentially asking is civilisation really a net gain for our species and I argue it’s not.

Of course people’s perspectives are different. Some would say ‘I wouldn’t be alive in a prehistoric society’. Everyone can have their personal take on the question but I think it is legitimate to question whether the advances of civilisations are better for us individually or whether we’re being sold a package of bullshit.

Simon: One last question. In our chats before we talked about a shared love for David Bowie. What is your favourite song or album of his?

Christopher: 

There are a lot of songs I really like. The one that first pulled me in was Fame. I was a kid when that came out, late seventies probably. I think it was the first time I heard someone who was really famous talking about how much bullshit it is, how false it is.

In a way that is what I am doing with this book Civilised to Death. There are these things that we’re told to aspire to, like fame, fortune, have sex with lots of people, whatever the way you accumulate points in life. But when the “lucky” few make it to the top of that mountain what they find is that it’s no different from where they started out.

Joseph Campbell argues that is the heroes journey, you go out, you have all these experiences, you’re searching for something and then at the end you go back where you started and what you found is yourself. We’re all running on this wheel and we’re all told that if you get a little bit more money, or get famous or successful then you’ll be happy. That song really struck me because there’s a guy saying “I’m famous and it doesn’t work”.

Of course David Bowie was also a pioneer in other ways. Way before Prince there was Bowie questioning gender. At a time where men were afraid to be seen as effeminate there’s a person getting out there and flaunting it. Identify me! I dare you. I admire him as much for his theatrical performance as much for his musical ability.

Simon: Thank you so much for taking the time today. 

Genes and the Bioimaginary,by Professor Deborah Lynn Steinberg, investigates whether the foundations of much genetic research are scientifically sound.

 

Originally published in The Guardian, 27 August, 2015

The last few decades have seen what some describe as a ‘genetic revolution’. Advances in genetic science have seen genes become all encompassing in political and scientific discussion.

Do a quick survey on recent stories for example and you will find research that claims ‘intelligence, creativity and bipolar disorder may share underlying genetics’ and a much-reported story that found that Holocaust survivors may have passed on the trauma to their children through their genes. Genetics has come to explain almost everything about our identities, whether it is our weight, our sexuality, or even if we are likely to become a criminal.

But is this based on sound science, or instead a cultural phenomenon using science to back it up? That is among the questions Professor Deborah Lynn Steinberg asks in her new book Genes and the Bioimginary.

Professor Steinberg, who researches gender, culture and media studies at the University of Warwick, has been studying the encounters between genes and culture for many years now. Steinberg began working on this issue over twenty years ago through an investigation into genetics, reproduction and the idea of ‘progress’. In this latest book she has expanded on this to look at genetic revolution as a whole. 

In Genes and the Bioimaginary Steinberg investigates the cross between genetic research and our society. Steinberg argues that “culture — including science — forms the context, locus and foundation of the search for genes.” In other words, genetic science both shapes culture and is shaped by culture, or as Steinberg explained to me “the popular has infused the scientific even as the scientific has infused the popular.” 

What does this actually mean? Most scientists will likely tell you that science is ‘objective’. Science presents the facts and it is up to society to interpret these facts and decide how to use them. Steinberg argues however it isn’t as simple as that, particularly when it comes to genetics. Culture doesn’t just define how we interpret the science, but the very production of the science itself.

Steinberg uses a number of case studies to emphasise this fact. Let’s have a look at a couple.

In one chapter Trace: On Genes and Crime Steinberg investigates the search for a ‘criminal gene’. This is potentially the greatest example of culture influencing the scientific debate. In this chapter Steinberg investigates the research that lead to the production of The Genetics of Criminal and Anti-Social Behaviour in the 1990s, a major symposium bringing together research on genetic criminology. The purpose of the symposium was simple — to investigate whether genes can influence our likelihood of engaging in criminal or anti-social behaviour. Researchers believed they found a positive correlation,  — one researcher for example stating that ‘genes are likely to influence the occurrence of criminal behaviour in a probabilistic manner by contributing to individual dispositions that make a given individual more or less likely to behave in a criminal manner.’

It is here where Steinberg finds a problem. Put simply this research is trying to find a biological answer for what is inherently a cultural problem. ‘Crime’ and ‘anti-social behaviour’ are social constructs, which change depending on our society at the time. What is considered a crime in one decade may be considered normal behaviour the next, making a ‘biological answer’ for crime very difficult to find indeed. Maybe the best example of this fact is that Governments around the world are now issuing marriage licenses to gay couples when homosexuality was considered a crime in the not-so-distant past.

In fact Steinberg argues that much of the genetic research, criminological and other, follows from this false premise. In another chapter she looks at the search for the gay gene, which is again the search for a genetic cause for a socially constructed identity. In doing so, Steinberg argues that gay gene research, which argues homosexuality is passed down by mothers, is based on clichéd social assumptions. As she said to me:

“In many different respects the premises of the research were all embedded in pre-existing cultural stereotypes and ideas about gay men and about their relationships with their mothers. They were, in a way, tired tropes.

What I was suggesting there is that it’s science from a false premise. The underlying assumptions that organise doing that kind of research were already problematic.”

So why is it that scientists are engaging in this form of research? To understand this it’s worth looking at another of Steinberg’s case studies — the impact of genetic research on women.

In her first chapter Steinberg looks at the role genetic research has played in reproductive processes. In doing so she argues that this research, by its nature, is predominantly focused on the female body, both framing women’s bodies as to blame for reproductive problems, and then implementing often intrusive procedures to solve that ‘problem’. We can see this predominantly through the development of IVF capabilities, an intrusive and often painful medical procedure that only impacts women; men’s role may be active, but the process is not bodily invasive for them. Steinberg argues:

“The adversarial construction of the female body is heavily leveraged by the adversariality that pervades the ‘culture wars’ surrounding abortion and the larger questions of women’s bodily sovereignty, reproductive rights and (de)legitimacy as citizens and social actors.

“In this context, the ‘guilty’ burden of genetic risk is, I would suggest, disproportionately weighted onto the female body, whose reproductive processes are already viewed with concern, if not opprobrium with dominant and legal discourse.”

It is here that we can see the paradoxical role of genetic research in modern society. Genetics has been used both to enforce and upend our social norms and constructions. The best examples here are the search for the gay gene and genetic research involving women. While Steinberg expected gay gene research to result in a moral panic about homosexuality, for example, what she found was that it was met with more liberal responses — calls for instance that the gay gene should be used to promote gay rights. The moral panic arose instead about the possibility that women would abort pregnancies that might result in gay offspring. Indeed, genetic research prospects are frequently met with calls to ban abortion based on genetics, in turn enforcing control of female bodies through the restriction of abortion rights. These trends match our social response to these issues, with gay rights advancing across the Western World while abortion rights go backwards. 

It is in this context that Steinberg argues that genetics has become a ‘spectacle’. Genes have become all-encompassing, capturing our cultural and media imaginations in a way science often fails to do. Herein lies the problem however. In capturing the imagination in this way the scientific debate is giving legitimacy to the cultural assumptions it is based upon — whether it is the existence of a criminal gene or the control of female bodies.

It is here where Steinberg comes up with a controversial, and extremely thought provoking conclusion. At the end of the book Steinberg professes an ‘antipathy for genes’ and a strong ‘desire to repudiate them’. While she acknowledges the scientific reality of the existence of gene she admits a wish this wasn’t the case, a desire for us to reject the genetic revolution and all that it holds. As she argues:

“My disaffection for genes arises in part from the instabilities or illogic I perceive in the characterisation of genes as facts. But it is more than this; it is because the conditions of genes — the realities that produced the knowability of genes and that in turn, genes produce — disturb me.”

It is here where Genes and the Biomaginary challenges us in ways we probably hadn’t imagined. Steinberg argues that the seductions of genetic research are based in the very things that genes can’t explain. What makes genetic science attractive thus lies in part in fantasies of mastery and control of human uncertainties: securing identity, preventing crime or illness, fostering desired capabilities, easing suffering, righting wrongs.

Steinberg not only questions the impacts of scientific research but the social conditions and cultural context that make it persuasive. In doing so she opens up fascinating discussions about not just the politics of science, but the purpose of it as a field. It is for this reason this book is worth reading.

Genes and the Bioimaginary: Science, Spectacle, Culture, by Deborah Lynn Steinberg is published by Ashgate: http://www.ashgate.com/isbn/9781409462552

Is Pride still relevant? This weekend I went to Glasgow Pride, and the alternative event Free Pride Glasgow in order to find out.

 

Originally published in ByLine, 25 August, 2015

Pride forms a standard part of the gay political calendar. It is the one day in the year queers take the over the streets, asserting ourselves and our sexuality. I have attended many prides in my life, and recently I have realised how formulaic they have become — a parade through the streets followed by some sort of part. This formula has been criticised by many as being too commercialised and completely de-politicised.

But what could an alternative look like? This weekend I attended one of the UK’s largest pride events, Glasgow Pride, and an alternative event, Free Pride Glasgow, in order to find out.

Traveling to Glasgow from Edinburgh with my dad and my parter Martyn we could feel the vibe the moment we arrived the city. Rainbows seem to be hovering over Glasgow, with major businesses, churches and public buildings all getting in the spirit. The sun was out and people were already cheering and blowing their vuvuzelas as they headed to the event. The city had a festive mood.

We started the day by going to the main Pride March. The march starts and ends at Green Square, right next to the River Clyde. It is here where the controversy over Glasgow Pride sits as well. After the march revellers are corralled back in to the park to attend the afternoons festivities — a family fair day in the middle of the park. In recent years however Pride organisers have started to charge for this part of the event — £5 last year, and £10 this year. It is this fee that lead to the creation of Free Pride Glasgow.

It is worth here discussing some of the criticisms of modern pride events. From its very beginnings Pride has been the pinnacle of the politicisation of queer identity. “We’re here, we’re queer and we’re proud” was the calling of a movement — an assertion that we will get on the streets to fight for our gender and sexual freedom.

Yet, many feel this has been lost. Pride’s become more of a celebration, and a chance for major corporations to make a profit. That’s a problem. While middle class gays and lesbians have much better lives now, trans* people still die in the streets, young queers face huge mental health issues and our society has not turned away from many of the gender and sexual norms that define our lives. Poverty is still a major issue, making many of our wins often feel irrelevant. There is still much to do.

I can feel this problem from the moment I arrive. Glasgow Pride is huge, with thousands gathering in the park and creating an extremely festive mood. Yet, I immediately notice little under that festivity. Most of the larger floats were operated by huge corporations — Tesco, Sainburys, The Royal Bank of Scotland, Barclays and Nandos, amongst others. These floats, by their nature, are more interested in selling products that advancing LGBTIQ causes. Staff hand out branded rainbow flags, free products and stickers — the whole event being a mass opportunity for free advertising.

Yet, the disconnect goes well beyond that. As I march alongside the thousands of revellers I begin to realise that is what we have become — revellers. Trucks blast classic ‘gay’ pop hits, with marchers either dancing along side or walking in virtual silence. There was no chanting, no slogans, no feeling of a need to fight at all. It was very polite.

The epitome of this culture comes back to the afternoons festivities. After a short period of disturbing the peace we were sent into a park on the edge of the city , away from the prying eyes of the public. This event was designed to be ‘family friendly’, a whole lot of fun and very little else. The message felt clear — our fights are over, the party can begin.

We however decided not go to that event and wandered instead to Free Pride Glasgow. Free Pride Glasgow was established as a direct response to the main pride charging for entry to their event, and in turn became a critique of the direction of the pride movement as a whole. A collective came together to design an event that was not only free, but political as well.

The event started at two but after a drink in the city my dad, Martyn and I didn’t make it there until about four. It was held in the rooms of the Glasgow School of Art Students Association, and from the moment you arrive you can feel the difference.

The event was split into a few different rooms — one for performances and stalls and another for talks and discussions. We stationed ourselves in the performance room, sitting on the hard wooden floor and listening to the poetry and music that ran through the day.

In almost every way this event lacked the professionalism of the main pride festivities. The banners and signs (as above) were hand made, the stalls sitting on old fold out tables, the performers, who I’m assuming were not paid for their attendance, getting up and introducing themselves as they progressed through the day. While this may not sound like a good way to run the day to me it was extremely refreshing.

In a recent essay on sex and capitalism I noted that one of the major arguments by capitalist theorists is that the economic freedom provided by capitalism allows for a unique form of identity expression as well. Capitalism, it is argued, gives us the space to express ourselves how we want, and it creates the drive for corporations to sponsor equality as a way to boost their own brand.

Yet, in attending pride I noticed how this argument falls flat. In a system based not only on the needs of profit, but also on the needs of the nuclear family, the form of expression is very restricted — pride events must be professional and ‘family friendly’ as a way to ensure it fits in line with our mainstream cultural practices. More importantly than this Pride events must be reject the radicalisation of previous parts of the movement — a radicalisation that threatens the state and capitalist class, but more importantly the business sponsors who “allow the event to happen”. This is why we see large corporate trucks blasting pop music and not a single chant in sight, and why we’ve seen pride organisers criticise what they consider to be the ‘extremist’ parts of the LGBTIQ community.

This is where Free Pride Glasgow was different. While mainstream pride is advertised as a way for queers to come out and show pride in their identity, it was in the alternative event where I felt this was more of reality. Free Pride felt to me far more authentic, primarily as it did not allow money to dictate how it should look. Each action, each moment, each expression felt spontaneous. People were enjoying the space in the way they wanted to, rather than in the way they felt they had to.

However there is an issue here. While Free Pride to me felt far more authentic there was still something missing. This, I believe goes to heart of the problem with pride itself. While the process of coming out and being proud has clearly had a positive impact on queer rights, as a political statement this is not sufficient. Coming out and being proud is still in some ways a privileged thing to do, one that taps in to a capitalist idea that equality is solely about the ability to express who you want to be as an individual. I say this as someone who has done some pretty public ‘coming outs’ of my own.

Yet coming out is not sufficient as it misses the notion of community. It makes equality all about the individual, rather than the collective whole. This is how we see rights debates split into different identity groups (gay, lesbian, bi, trans* etc.) with little critical discussion of gender and sexual oppression as a whole.

Here is where I believe that while Glasgow Free Pride made a great start, it also highlighted how much more we have to do. Whilst the day was an important political critique, it was also one still heavily embedded in this form of identity politics. The politics was focused around creating a ‘safe space’, while the talks were almost exclusively focused on the rights of particular marginalised groups — asexuals, bisexuals, trans* people, sex workers etc. Whilst these groups clearly deserve and need this space, at the same time more overarching discussion is still needed. The event, while being a much safer space, in many ways maintained a LGBTIQ rights agenda that took an individualised approach to equality, whilst not looking at gender and sexual liberation as a whole.

This is not an attack on the organisers of Free Pride, but rather a reflection on the nature of our movement. Battered by years of debate on gay marriage the LGBTIQ movement has found itself caught in a very liberal rights agenda. This is why we see so many in the mainstream turning to celebration. Their rights have been won, so why would we need to continue to fight? Let’s “be happy” (the slogan of this year’s main pride).

Free Pride was different however in that it didn’t accept this. And for that reason alone it felt like a significant step up from the mainstream event. However, just like the rest of us, I don’t think it has found the answers just yet. But in asking the question it made an important first step. In doing so I hope Free Pride moves well beyond the confines of just this one event.

 

 

 

New legislation introduced into the US state of Ohio would ban abortion if the reason is a child having down syndrome.

This sort of legislation has become part and parcel with the debate around genetic research. From discussions about down syndrome to gender and sexuality many fear genetic pre-natal research will result in women aborting children they were otherwise going to have.

I have to say I am uneasy about this whole thing. There is a genuine fear here that genetics could become eugenics — and that is not something we want.

But in saying that there is absolutely no way I could support this legislation or any legislation like it.

Here is one thing I believe: a woman should have the right to choose what she does with her body. No ifs, no buts.

While these abortions may make some uneasy therefore, it is not anyones rights to decide what a woman does with her body. That is the case whether it is because a woman does not think she can support a child or because she’s discovered the child has down syndrome, is a boy or girl, or is gay. No ifs, no buts.

How to stop these feared mass abortions then? First, I suspect our fears are much less than many whip up and that the fears are just a way to push an anti-abortion agenda.

But maybe another solution would be to stop our obsessive focus with searching for genes to explain every part of our selves. Maybe we could accept that some parts of us just ‘are’ and deal with the consequences — positive and negative — of that. Stop our obsessive search for genes and maybe we could stop the fear peddling around them.

What do you think? Would you support a bill like this?

Part two of my essay on the connections between sex and capitalism.

Originally published in Byline, 19 August, 2015

Welcome to part two of my essay on the connection between capitalism and sexual relations.

In part one of my essay we looked at prehistoric families and the rise of agriculture. It was this major change, I argued, that led to the development of much of the social stratification we still see today — the patriarchy and the class system.

This week we’re going to jump ahead 10,000 years and to the rise of global industrial capitalism in the 1800s.

***

Let’s start by looking at sexual relations before the rise of global capitalism.

This is of course a generalisation, but in the 18th and 19th Century, prior and during the industrial revolution, families were largely formed around the ‘Sex Contract’ we talked about in part one of this essay. At this time the majority of people lived in rural areas and survival was as constant struggle. In doing so, marriage was not about love, but instead about ensuring the economic stability. Families — primarily parents — entered into contracts with each other; ones that provided resources for a woman and fidelity, and ideally good genes, for a man.

Industrial capitalism fundamentally changed this. Following the birth of the factory, people flooded to cities, disconnecting themselves from previous economic and social ties. People, including women, were able to create their own identities away from their families. In particular industrial capitalism allowed women to work, giving them significant economic independence.

This had a major impact on our sexual selves. For women it meant they were able to disconnect themselves from the economic traditions of marriage, in turn deciding to marry men they loved. In this time we also see the development of homosexuality as a distinct identity. Gays and lesbians were able to come together in clubs and meeting places and assert their sexuality as being part of their self.

It is important to note here this has often been the argument made by many pro-capitalist theorists. Thinkers like John Stuart Mill and Friedrich Hayek both argue that capitalism gives us the greatest space to create our true identities, whether economically, or sexually. In a debate I had with libertarian Julie Novak last yearshe made this exact point, stating:

“markets help economically emancipate LGBT people, and could even play a part in eliminating antiqueer prejudice. Greater economic freedom makes it even more costly to discriminate.”

Yet, despite these arguments the rise in industrial capitalism was actually followed by a great period of sexual puritanism. The Victorian era was also the time of the desexualisation of women in public debate and the great trials of queer pioneers such as Fanny and Stella and the writer Oscar Wilde. Despite the theory, the great time of sexual freedom did not eventuate. What happened?

We can boil this answer down to the needs of capitalism for an ever-growing workforce. Capitalism relies on a growing economy, in turn requiring an ever-increasing workforce. Industrial capitalism needed a huge population to work the factories to create the wealth for the capitalist class.

It was this need that first put women into factories, but soon a contradiction was found. While women were needed in the factory, capitalists were unwilling to provide any support while they were childrearing. In their essay “Rethinking Women’s Oppression”, Johanna Brenner and Maria Ramas explain:

“Biological facts of reproduction — pregnancy, childbirth, lactation — are not readily compatible with capitalist production, and to make them so would require capital outlays on maternity leave, nursing facilities, childcare, and so on. Capitalists are not willing to make such expenditures, as they increase the costs of variable capital without comparable increases in labour productivity and thus cut into rates of profit. In the absence of such expenditures, however, the reproduction of labour power becomes problematic for the working class as a whole and for women in particular.”

With the unwillingness of capitalists to pay for child care or maternity leave parents were forced to either neglect their kids or looking after them the unsanitary space of the factory. With this the infant mortality rate shot through the roof. In Manchester, for example, there were a recorded 26,125 deaths per 100,000 thousand children under the age of one, three times the rate of mortality of non-industrial areas. This, as Tad Tietze argues, “created severe problems for the system’s ability to ensure the reproduction of the working class.” Capitalists were literally watching as their next swathe of workers died in front of their eyes.

For Brenner and Ramas it was this that lead to the creation of the “family-household system”, an idea introduced by Michèle Barrett, described as a system “in which a number of people, usually biologically related, depend on the wages of a few adult members, primarily those of the husband/father, and in which all depend primarily on the unpaid labour of the wife/ mother for cleaning, food preparation, child care, and so forth.” This is the nuclear family we still see today.

One question you may want to ask is why would women put up with this? With their new economic independence, why would they dare enter into the “family-household system”. First, capitalists, the ruling political class, and some parts of the male workforce changed the rules — from banning women from working after they married to introducing a ‘family wage’ — wages available to men to look after the whole family. Doctrines such ‘coverture’ remained in tact — a legal precedent that meant married couples were seen as one person, a person controlled by the man. Men maintained all of their power, making economic independence much more difficult for women.

But we also saw cultural changes as well. As noted above the rise of capitalism led to a shift to love-based marriage. While this gave women much more independence, it also made things very difficult. Instead of having marriages, and in turn economic stability arranged, women had to ‘fight’ for it. Hunter Oatman Stanford argues women did this by becoming the perfect homemaker. The “cult of the domestic” was developed, “centering on a stereotype that desexualized women and made child-rearing their primary goal. In her role as a domestic angel, the perfect wife was completely pure in body and mind, submitting to her husband’s erotic advances, but never desiring or initiating sex herself.” This standard was developed and pushed heavily by the ruling class. Queen Victoria for example was an advocate both for love-based unions, and female puritanism. A new culture of de-sexualised women was created, one that fitted perfectly within the family-household system.

The family-household system also had a major impact on our other majorly oppressed sexual minority — gays and lesbians. As noted above industrial capitalism allowed gays and lesbians to come together to form their own identity. The ruling class however quickly saw this as a major threat as it discouraged people from having children . The homosexual identity needed to be squashed.

Here again we see a contradiction. Capitalism created the homosexual identity but in turn could not survive if the identity flourished. With the underlying basis of individualism unable to change however capitalists worked to defeat homosexuality in another manner — through pathologising the homosexual identity.

We can see how the ruling class did this through the application of Michel Foucault’s theory of the Scientia Sexualis — or the creation of a scientific approach to sexuality. ‘Abnormal’ sexualities were controlled and cured through the modern magic of science — whether it was shock treatment or imprisonment in asylums. The new homosexual identity was treated as a medical abnormality, one that needed curing in order to bring people back into the familial fold.

***

It is here how we see the connection between modern capitalism and our modern sexual oppression. The relationship between capitalism and sex remains to this day.

The “family-household system”, or as most of us call it, the nuclear family, is still our dominant form of relationships. This is not just expressed through therejection of polyamorous unions and the stigmatisation of the promiscuous. The economic, gender and sexual roles of this system remain dominant until this day.

Women, for example, still conduct the vast majority of the housework, and are in turn expected to spend more time in the home. When children are born it is women who take on the vast majority of care duties, with mothers still taking the vast majority of family leave. The intransigent wage-gap ensures men continue to have greater economic independence than women, meaning women rely more on men for their economic survival. When divorce does occur (as it often does) it has greater economic impact on women than men.

But it goes beyond that. Much of the early nature of the patriarchy revolved around men directly owning women. With the growth of agriculture women fell into the realm the property of men. While that legally no longer occurs men are still engrained with the belief they have the right to control female bodies. This occurs through the restriction of abortion laws or through constant sexual violence of abuse.

While gays and lesbians have had major wins over the past few decades, these need to be questioned as well. The acceptance into marriage, while seen by some as a major victory, in many ways represents a welcoming in to the family-household system, bringing with it many of the expectations the system holds. This is why gays are now increasingly expected to live in monogamous unions, have children and scorn promiscuous sex. We are increasingly expected to enter the family and all the requirements of it.

                                                                             ***

It is in this way that we can see the connection between sex and capitalism, and it is these relationships my book will explore in depth. Starting from our prehistoric society I will explore the history of the family through the rise of capitalism to how the relationships look today. Sex and capitalism are inherently connected and we cannot discuss one without the other.

Some of you may have noticed that I haven’t blogged much recently. That’s because it has been a pretty crazy month, and I have just run out of time. So what has been happening? I thought it would be good to do a round up!

ByLine 

The big news is that this week I launched my crowdfunding campaign at ByLine.com for my book, Sexy Capitalism. The crowdfunder is designed to raise me enough funds so I can get properly started on a first draft — something I can send to a publisher.

The campaign is going well so far. At time of writing I have been going for just over two days and am 15% funded, which is really great. But there is still 85% to go! So it would be really great if you could all jump on board!

You can support the campaign here: https://www.byline.com/project/17

The Fringe

Oh my god it is The Fringe! I have been told by so many people that Edinburgh radically changes during The Fringe and people were right. The city has just changed in the last week — the streets are full, things are happening everywhere and it is just much more lively.

I’ve been to five shows so far, not a bad start! On the first night my partner and I went to some bad comedy, but still worth it. In particular we went to a show where comedians commentate C-grade movies. The movie in question was titled “Santa Conquers the Martians” and was much funnier than the comedians themselves, and luckily funny enough that the night was great.

Otherwise we’ve been to a show called Festival of the Spoken Nerd, which was some really great nerdy comedy fun and last night my dad (who is in town) and I went to a Looking Through A Glass Onion — a show about John Lennon. It was really excellent. But the most interesting has probably been Dicing with Dr Death by Dr Philip Nitschke. I wasn’t really sure what it was about, but the show could be best described as a workshop on how to kill yourself if you ever find yourself in that position (no wonder we had to agree to a waiver saying we wouldn’t follow the instructions literally). I have no intention of following any of Nitschke’s instructions, but it is interesting in that it is something I found useful. The show was also really entertaining — Nitschke basically spoke for the entire hour, but he was never boring. Really worth seeing.

Travel travel travel

Of course this all comes after some pretty awesome travel. My partner Martyn and I went on a holiday to Paris and London and had a great time. I have to say Paris did not grab me — it is a beautiful city, but that was the most I could say about it. And all the potential interesting parts — Montmartre in particular had the feeling of having become a tourist attraction about a place that used to be interesting.

But I love London. London has the same tourist issue, but at the same time I feel it is more organic and interesting and different. We stayed with some friends in Peckham which was a really fascinating part of town (anywhere else and being that far out you’d be in the suburbs, but not in London) and we went to some great exhibitions — the Wellcome Collection and the National Library were two big highlights. Also met up with some good friends and everything was great.

And to add to that my dad is now in town and from tomorrow we’re doing a long weekend in the Scottish Highlands. There will be whiskey and beautiful places, so can’t complain. Am looking forward to it!

***

Phew! That’s it for the moment. No wonder I’m a little tired. Maybe time for a nap?