Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1998 22:59:22 -0500
From: Yoshie Furuhashi <Furuhashi.1-AT-osu.edu>
Subject: M-TH: Rhetorical "Drive" (Socially necessary sex and socially free sex)


Hugh replies to me:
>>What is a biological sex drive? Is it a scientific concept? A marxist
>>concept?
>
>Yup. What drives the species to reproduce sexually, by men and women having
>sex and consequently offspring. Radical. Drive cos it's a drive. Sex
>because it's sex and biological cos it's biology. Think about it.

Hugh also wrote before:
>>>The sex drive is so strong and all-pervasive in us, and so hardwired with
>>>pleasurable rewards for fulfilling it, that even when our procreative needs
>>>are satisfied there's a whole lot left over for fun.

It seems that the key rhetorical instruments for those who want to
naturalize what is social (such as sexuality) are the words "drive,"
"instinct," and "species preservation."

Those words come from and lead them back again to psychoanalysis,
sociobiology, biological determinism, anthropocentric views of the natural
world--but *not* historical materialism.

Yoshie




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