"Lesbian Sexuality and Perverse Desire"

by: Teresa deLauretis

In "Lesbian Sexuality and Perverse Desire," deLauretis stresses the importance of performing gender through perverse desire in voyerism. DeLauretis presents Freud's psychoanalytical theory of perverse desire and somewhat inverts his theory through a lesbian "film-within-a-film" of desire. Freud states that "perverse desire" is the act of sexual or emotional gratification other than the sex act itself. DeLauretis works on this theory of perverse desire and transcends the argument to say that perverse desire is an essential component of fantasy. She stresses the importance of observing personal desires in order to experience being a subject of desire as well as a spectator of the desire. DeLauretis provides an example of a lesbian film-within-a-film where a filmmaker creates her desire of her partner through charecterization while she and her partner are spectators of this film or desire. The film becomes the fantasy of the spectators and the filmmaker (one of the spectators) is the fantasy of the character created in the film. In this way, deLauretis presents that spectatorship is active and passive through this lesbian film.

This film is an example of the theory of autoeroticism described by Laplanche and Pontalis who believe that a subject can experience autoeroticism without relation to an object. Irigaray, on the other hand, in her description of the vaginal lips kissing, states that autoeroticism occurs between two females because of the sameness of their bodies (showing some objectification).

DeLauretis continues her argument by presenting some feminist criticisms which include the "masquerading" of lesbians in order to achieve "equality" of pleasure through heterosexuality. She states that heterosexuality is doubly forced on women through women's forced desire towards men and that sexual desire belongs to men only (p.31). She continues by presenting non-lesbian films in whicgh women spectators and pleasures are represented (ex- "Desperately Seeking Susan").

In conclusion, deLauretis points out that when "engaging in spectators fantasy and identification, a film's effects are neither structural nor totally structured by the film (p. 50). She shows how complicated and contradictory effects are in the representation of a subject and how the spectator is a vital component to the interpretation and representation of fantasy.

summary by: Connie Silbernagel