3.1.10

On the textuality of sex

Two blogs earlier I reported about this idea:

That woman is not an origin but a 'writing effect' (écriture feminine). Claim: not sexuality of the text, but textuality of sex (sex is a product of writing).
I couldn't understand what it meant then. Now I think I may do (partly). It may be very easy.
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The claim may be: there is no sexuality of the text, but textuality of sex.
-possibly claimed by: Hélène Cixous
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It is the idea that 'woman' is not so much a biologically identifiable characteristic, as it is a culural one. We may all know the distinction nature/nurture: shortly, the difference between what is genetically caused and what formed you culturally/educationally/etc. What Hélène Cixous now claims, is that what understand to be typically female, is mostly or even only so because of the image we created of female and feminine. We invented 'woman' by writing her in all her nuances, and now women are measured by that image and forced to meet the invented expectations. So when Hélène Cixous says: no sexuality of the text, she means that the text doesn't show us any 'real' sexuality: the female sex exists only within the textual: 'textuality of sex'.
Or: another interpretation of her claim could be as follows:
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The claim may be: there should be no sexuality of the text, but textuality of sex.
-possibly claimed by: Hélène Cixous
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This means something different: it would mean that one should be free of one's biological origin when writing. Any person should be able to write anything, without worrying about what he or she might be for real. Also, the writing should build the idea of your sex, and not the other way around; you shouldn't write from a conviction about your own biological origin and of that of others. You should be writing from a perspective of freedom, letting identity grow while the words flow. Writing shouldn't be a thing of fear and defense. Maybe I'm overdoing this now. But the point at least is: a text always is sexually tainted, and to claim it to be 'just this' or 'just that' does injustice to a text, as everyone may be reading differently into it. That is the textuality of sex we may be looking for: creating it from reading, growing conscious of it culturally, in a free way.
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Maybe it's not so simple, maybe it's not so easy.
Waddoyouthink?

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