Animal/Insectual/Lesbian Sex: Dickinson's Queer Version of the Birds and the Bees

Abstract

As Jane Donahue Eberwein has argued, Puritanism was Dickinson's first language (170). As such, it immersed her in a discourse which over-determined the value, place, and role of both men's and women's bodies. Thereby it sought to shape her subjectivity through saturating her imagination with what philosopher Moira Gatens calls "imaginary bodies." Imaginary bodies are "socially and historically specific [bodies] . . . constructed through a shared language" and "common institutional practices and discourses." 1 One dominant mode by which Puritanism creates imaginary bodies is the discourse surrounding the process of conversion. Typically in Puritan discourse, conversion is represented in the form of an erotic triangle: the "bride" congregant embraces a love of Christ by imitating the male minister's own example. 2 Such a conversion introduces the congregant into a perceptual system structured by an idealization of male bodies and desires for them. In other words, through the process of conversion, the convert inherits a mode of perception that magnifies the positive value of male forms and fully authorizes desire for them. The mere fact that Puritanism's language and practices posit the male minister as the imitative model of conversion to be followed by all congregants and Christ as the final object of desire evidences the way Puritanism privileges the imaginary body of the male over that of the female. 3