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The Origin of Queer Theory: Gayle Rubin's "Thinking Sex"

New Discourses

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The Constructivist Alternative to Sexual Essentialism

Foucault criticizes traditional understanding of sexuality as a national natural libido yearning to break free of social constraint. He argues that desires are not pre-existing biological entities, but rather that they are constituted in the course of historically specific social practices. The new scholarship on sexual behavior has given sex a history and created a constructivist alternative to sexual essentialism.

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