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A Critique of Normative Heterosexuality: Identity, Embodiment, and Sexual Difference in Beauvoir and Irigaray

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2020

Ofelia Schutte
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Abstract

The distinction between heterosexuality and homosexuality does not allow for sufficient attention to be given to the question of non-normative heterosexualities. This paper develops a feminist critique of normative sexuality, focusing on alternative readings of sex and/or gender offered by Beauvoir and Irigaray. Despite their differences, both accounts contribute significantly to dismantling the lure of normative sexuality in heterosexual relations—a dismantling necessary to the construction of a feminist social and political order.

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Type
Research Article
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Hypatia , Volume 12 , Issue 1 , Winter 1997 , pp. 40 - 62
Copyright
Copyright © 1997 by Hypatia, Inc.

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