Summary
The last half century has seen enormous changes in society’s attitude toward sexuality. In the 1950s, homosexuals in the United States were routinely arrested; today, homosexual activity between consenting adults is legal in every state, and same-sex marriage is legal in Massachusetts.
In the 1950s, ambitious women were often seen as psychopathological and were told by psychoanalysts that they had penis envy that needed treatment. Who at that time thought that women would come to outnumber men in the psychoanalytic profession, that a woman, Hillary Clinton, would be a frontrunner for president of the United States, and that another woman, Sarah Palin, would be the Republican nominee for Vice President?
In 1950, interracial marriage was illegal in 30 states. Who at the time would have thought that the son of an interracial marriage, Barack Obama, would be elected president of the United States?
I have lived through these startling changes in society. This book collects papers I have written over the last 45 years on sex, gender, and sexuality. Interspersed with the papers are reflections on the changes that have occurred during that time period in society and in my life. I show how changes in society, changes in my life, and changes in my writing on sexuality, as well as in psychoanalysis in general, each affected one another.
One hundred years ago, psychoanalysis was at the cutting edge of new ideas about sex and gender, but in the latter half of the 20th Century, psychoanalysts were often seen as reactionary upholders of society’s prejudices. The book Sex Changes seeks to restore the place of psychoanalysis as the “once and future queer science;” it aims for a radical shift in psychoanalytic thinking about sexuality, gender, normalcy, prejudice, and the relationship of therapeutic aims and values.
Sex Changes is written for all people interested in contemporary thinking on sex, gender, and sexual orientation. It has special interest for psychoanalysts, psychiatrists, psychologists, other mental health professionals, students of sexuality, legislators, and other policy-makers. It combines the most forward thinking about sexuality with core psychoanalytic ideas of the unconscious and identity, yielding a new vision of human sexuality.