To the Editor of the New York Times:
Re: The articles "Birds Do It. Bees Do It. Humans Seek the Keys to It" and "Pas de Deux of Sexuality is Written in the Genes" (Science Times; April 10, 2007).
As a PhD student focusing on literature and sexuality, I find it deeply distressing that a group of articles purporting to describe the newest developments in research on human sexuality manages, through its near-exclusive focus on evolutionary psychology/biology, to uphold the oldest of stereotypes about men and women (aggressive vs. passive, straightforward vs. capricious), heterosexuality and homosexuality - an aberration, "evolutionarily maladaptive", according to the latter article's cited "expert", Dr. J. Michael Bailey.
The alleged neutrality of such research is belied by the desperately convoluted arguments it puts forth to maintain its dubious paradigms - women's bodies have "adapted" to be constantly rape-able; gays are either the genetic residue of extra-fertile heterosexuals or the result of attacks in the womb from "anti-male antibodies". It quickly start to sound less like curious rationality than a fantasia of heterosexual-male lust and paranoia. And, ironically, quite resistant to any real evolution in approach or interpretation.
Minimal research reveals that this Dr. Bailey (whose claim that male bisexuality does not exist was given prominent, and much protested, coverage by the Times in 2005) is a very controversial figure within the scientific as well as the gay/trans communities; he and his circle of affiliates (several of whom, including Meredith Chivers and Ray Blanchard, also show up in these articles) are proponents of a set of highly contested - and, to many, erroneous and even dangerous - ideas about gender and sexuality. The Times consistently, unpardonably fails to mention any of this throughout its bizarrely obsessive coverage of evolutionary psychology; and likewise fails to attend to the many other approaches to the study sexuality in fields from literature to neurology, nearly all of them more supple and sustainable than this one.
[This is really fucked up. I've got lots more to say about it - but I'm saving it for the sensational exposé of the Times' longstanding affiliation with this group of supersketchy, quasi-eugenicist "scientists" that I plan to write next month...after I finish my oral exams, which are in...a week and a half (!!)]
As a PhD student focusing on literature and sexuality, I find it deeply distressing that a group of articles purporting to describe the newest developments in research on human sexuality manages, through its near-exclusive focus on evolutionary psychology/biology, to uphold the oldest of stereotypes about men and women (aggressive vs. passive, straightforward vs. capricious), heterosexuality and homosexuality - an aberration, "evolutionarily maladaptive", according to the latter article's cited "expert", Dr. J. Michael Bailey.
The alleged neutrality of such research is belied by the desperately convoluted arguments it puts forth to maintain its dubious paradigms - women's bodies have "adapted" to be constantly rape-able; gays are either the genetic residue of extra-fertile heterosexuals or the result of attacks in the womb from "anti-male antibodies". It quickly start to sound less like curious rationality than a fantasia of heterosexual-male lust and paranoia. And, ironically, quite resistant to any real evolution in approach or interpretation.
Minimal research reveals that this Dr. Bailey (whose claim that male bisexuality does not exist was given prominent, and much protested, coverage by the Times in 2005) is a very controversial figure within the scientific as well as the gay/trans communities; he and his circle of affiliates (several of whom, including Meredith Chivers and Ray Blanchard, also show up in these articles) are proponents of a set of highly contested - and, to many, erroneous and even dangerous - ideas about gender and sexuality. The Times consistently, unpardonably fails to mention any of this throughout its bizarrely obsessive coverage of evolutionary psychology; and likewise fails to attend to the many other approaches to the study sexuality in fields from literature to neurology, nearly all of them more supple and sustainable than this one.
[This is really fucked up. I've got lots more to say about it - but I'm saving it for the sensational exposé of the Times' longstanding affiliation with this group of supersketchy, quasi-eugenicist "scientists" that I plan to write next month...after I finish my oral exams, which are in...a week and a half (!!)]
posted by Abigail at 4:39 AM
2 Comments:
Well done. I wrote a letter too, because it's appalling that the Times continues to cite Bailey as an expert. My letter is at
http://differenceblog.livejournal.com/51456.html
I check here sometimes hoping to find a fresh sample of your writing. More please.
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