A Radical Queer Utopian Future: A Reciprocal Relation Beyond Sexual Difference.

Abstract

This paper explores visions that imagine selfhood beyond sexual difference and therefore re-imagine sexuality beyond an "orientation." Further I draw on theory to formulate ontological bases for such visions and discover potential methods for programmatizing these. The paper looks to and brings together non-theoretical and disparate sources such as fictional utopias in feminist science fiction and the practices of contemporary anarcho-queer communities in order to find visions of alternative telos and ethos that dare to imagine a future landscape of selfhood beyond sexual difference. It then draws on ontological philosophy not directly related to issues of sex/gender or sexual difference in order to formulate ontologies that may offer alternative ways of understanding the formation of self that could underpin and enable such ethics beyond sexual difference. Specifically the "ontological ethics" of Simone de Beauvoir's Ethics of Ambiguity and Judith Butler's later works (1997-2005) that enable an ethos of "reciprocity" or "nurturing" that offer an alternative account of the development of selfhood than the antagonistic self / other relation presumed by sexual difference. Finally it looks to similarly disparate ontological, political and pedagogical theories and practices in order to formulate strategies for the practical end of programmatizing a future of selfhood beyond sexual difference.