Au-delà de la bisexualité constitutive : la queersexualité psychique

Abstract

BackgroundThe emergence of queer theories and LGBT movements, while dialoguing with psychoanalysis because of its promises to explore the intimate of the sexual, puts back on the agenda the obsolescence of psychoanalysis and its collusion with the heterosexual, patriarchal and colonialist norms. Psychoanalysis is once again confronted with one of its failures: its repression of sexual and gender pluralities, which goes hand in hand with their pathologization. Unknown or even despised by psychoanalysts, queer studies nevertheless represent an inescapable heuristic reality for research in psychoanalysis. ObjectivesThis work wishes first to question the theoretical validity of psychic (constitutive) bisexuality by articulating it with queer perspectives. It also wishes to defend the thesis of a psychic queersexuality starting from the postulate of an essentially queer psyche. MethodThe author presents a series of “traditional” and contemporary theoretical perspectives on the concept of psychic (bi)sexuality and describes the particularities of the queer perspective in the humanities and social sciences. In addition, it questions the psychoanalytical theoretical reflections as they appear in critical studies. ResultsIn most psychoanalytical work, psychic bisexuality remains a structuring element in the identifications and psychological genesis of the individual. According to critical approaches, it is only useful in reaffirming the distribution of male and female roles according to the social law dictated by the colonialist patriarchy, while at the same time producing exclusion and pathologization. Queer studies provide a deconstruction of the dominant norm by privileging not only the plurality of identities, genders, sexes and sexualities, but also the intersectional approach; the latter allows for an extension of this field of study to aspects of race, class, globalization, terrorism, etc. Queer studies thus question the necessary articulation of psychoanalysis with the political, conceived as inseparable from the psychic construction of each individual. Psychic queersexuality seems to be confirmed by the intersection of psychoanalytical models and queer theories. ConclusionWithout losing its identity and its clinical objectives and in order to avoid clinical views with deadly effects that queer activists denounce, contemporary psychoanalysis has the duty to articulate its theories to queer studies. According to the author, this is the most relevant and complete model for a psychoanalysis in accordance with its time. Psychic queersexuality could represent the starting point for such an articulation.