Sign up for a free recipe e-book →

Clarissa's Blog

Fusaro on Gender Theory

Published by

Clarissa

on

Here I want to give a quote directly from Fusaro (in my somewhat uninspired translation), so you can see how he writes:

The gender theory that rules in our society is unceasingly disseminated and propagated by the cultural industry, by the institutions of manipulation, by the journalistic clergy, by the media circus and by the neo-Orwellian Ministry of Love. This gender theory preaches the erotic, sexual and sentimental “fluidity” that denies the existence of a human nature grounded in the sex binary. It mimics, in the erotic field, the logic of the liquid society where merchandise and the financial capital can flow without limits or borders.

Diego Fusaro, The New Erotic Order

I want to congratulate my Italian readers on living in a robust culture that produced such a serious, important thinker as Fusaro. The guy is only 40, and already he’s rising to be the new Zygmunt Bauman.

16 responses to “Fusaro on Gender Theory”

  1. Ileana Avatar
    Ileana

    I’m puzzled though, Victorians were probably as capitalist as they come, yet did not see sex as a commodity. I believe in capitalism (not corporatism), as being the only natural economic order (as opposed to man-made ones). My village baker and the small farmers are also capitalist. Having lived 30 years under communism, I can vouch that depravity existed there as well. However, it didn’t benefit from this amount of marketing and legitimising. It was frowned upon and blamed on the degeneracy of the Imperialist West. Thanks for introducing this guy Fusaro to your readers.

    Like

    Reply
    1. methylethyl Avatar
      methylethyl

      Um. By some accounts, 1 in 3 women between the ages of 16 and 35, in Victorian London, worked as a prostitute.

      Like

      Reply
  2. methylethyl Avatar
    methylethyl

    “fluidity”

    Is it the opposite of commitment?

    I had this problem, when I was young, of not wanting to do certain things, make certain decisions, because some things, once you choose them, necessarily close the door on other options. Just like when you get married you (ideally) give up on shopping around for a partner. When you choose a college, you’re giving up on going to other colleges. When you choose a major… sure you may change majors later but you can’t retrieve the time you already devoted to the original major. Choosing always means saying no to other things.

    The whole “fluidity” thing feels like… telling everybody that they can, and should, keep all their options open forever. It’s a trap, of course. If you don’t get married because you want to keep shopping around… you’re still getting older which limits your options whether you like it or not. If you don’t choose a college… then what you’re choosing is to NOT go to college. Which is fine, but it’s not the same as “keeping your college options open”.

    Pursuing fluidity in most areas of life is failure. It’s like applying to jobs, getting ten offers, and not taking any of them because accepting one would mean rejecting the other 9. That’s not keeping your options open, that’s failure. If you can’t commit to anything, you can’t build anything– whether it’s a family, a career, a business, or a life.

    I don’t understand who benefits from that– from keeping large numbers of people stupidly under the impression that you don’t ever have to choose, commit, close the other doors, cut off the other possibilities, in order to do anything meaningful, or even functional.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      “Is it the opposite of commitment?”

      • Absolutely. It’s the mentality that gets very anxious that committing will make it impossible to move on to a better, newer, shinier option when it comes along. It’s the antithesis of love because love is precisely about not being able to notice, let alone want, the new option. We are being schooled to believe that the love that persists, that isn’t instantly transferable is a terrible imposition.

      As Zygmunt Bauman said, the only choice we aren’t allowed to make is to stop choosing.

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply
      1. methylethyl Avatar
        methylethyl

        It seems like a philosophy that entirely denies the existence of opportunity costs.

        It also seems like a sure way to lock in long-term loneliness.

        Liked by 1 person

        Reply
        1. Clarissa Avatar
          Clarissa

          These costs are very profitable, too. So is loneliness. People need anti-depressants, anti-anxiety meds. Alcohol, weed, all sorts of self-medication.

          And to think that the useful fools herd themselves into this trap under the banner of freedom and liberation.

          Liked by 1 person

          Reply
          1. methylethyl Avatar
            methylethyl

            Liberated from what? Having a good life, leaving a positive legacy, and dying surrounded by people who love you?

            Like

            Reply
            1. Avi Avatar
              Avi

              “Liberated from what? Having a good life, leaving a positive legacy, and dying surrounded by people who love you?”
              Oh, they would never be able to see that. In many cases also because they never experienced any of those things themselves.

              Like

              Reply
              1. methylethyl Avatar
                methylethyl

                That’s incredibly sad.

                Like

  3. ol Avatar
    ol

    I have never heard of him, but guess who is going to buy his book now.

    Like

    Reply
  4. Avi Avatar
    Avi

    Fusaro is a great thinker and an intellectual in the best sense of the term. However, at the beginning of the Covid crisis he made a few – very intelligent and caustic – remarks about the virus and the attendant lockdown policies which ruffled the feathers of the powers that be and he was cancelled.
    One used to be able to hear him on the radio and watching him on TV every single day until then, but after that he was unpersoned and today it is very difficult to find him speaking in mainstream media. Truly a case of censorship of Orwellian proportions.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply
    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      Oh, I didn’t know this. How sad! Juan Manuel de la Prada is also excluded from everything. But there are more and more people who are saying this things. Soon it will be a flood.

      Like

      Reply
  5. cliff arroyo Avatar
    cliff arroyo

    “It mimics, in the erotic field, the logic of the liquid society”

    This seems as good a place as any for this:

    https://twitter.com/GRITCULT/status/1689651986881458176

    so much to unpack in this little video….

    the whole idea adult responsibilities (cooking and cleaning and putting away your clothes) as some kind of martyrdom is repellent enough

    the idea of pregnancy as a horrible burden (I get that it’s very much not fun for a significant period of time for most women, but…)

    it’s posted by a Chinese account?

    and it’s a female putting the ring on her finger?

    my favorite comment (paraphrased): it seems like an elaborate way to say you’re an immature slob….

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
    1. methylethyl Avatar
      methylethyl

      OTOH, it’s funny because it’s at least a little bit true. It seems like a great jumping-off point for discussing some really important, really under-examined issues in modern western atomized geographically-mobile self-indulgent culture. Stuff like:

      1) Prioritizing career, money, and status over family (this applies equally to men and women).
      2) Social and physical isolation of mothers.
      3) The proliferation of furniture, clothing, and stuff that all has to be cleaned/maintained.
      4) The lack of respect for motherhood
      5) the lack of help available for women with babies.
      6) The idea of “me time” and tech-based entertainment as a sort of human right.
      7) Male-female differences in perception and expectations when it comes to household order and cleanliness.
      8) The dearth of good advice from experienced older women, on real-life household management.

      Like

      Reply
    2. methylethyl Avatar
      methylethyl

      FWIW on your second point:

      Sometimes pregnancy (and caring for a baby) ARE a terrible burden. I would have liked to have more kids, but there are a lot of horrible reasons that’s not happening, chief among them being that when I had my kids, everything prolapsed, I suffered a very painful hernia after, and it took me 2.5 years to fully recover after EACH kid. And by “recover” I mean get to the point where I could actually pick up my child in my own arms without my internal organs painfully bulging out somewhere and causing sudden drops in blood pressure. Also the gestational diabetes got harder to control with each kid. Once they were born, I was stuck at home with no help even when my mom and sister were in the same town– everybody’s happy to come hold the baby. Nobody wants to help wash the dishes or mop the floors when you can’t. With my last, I was so anemic I still couldn’t stand upright for more than ten minutes without fainting, two whole months after he was born. I had to sit down for most of his baptism. It was months before I could safely get the baby from the house to the car to go anywhere, without help. And the help wasn’t there. When I tried to tell my own mother about it, she was like “I went back to work fulltime two days after you were born. What’s your problem?”

      If I say I can’t do it, I’m a weenie and a hypochondriac and I’m just trying to shirk the household chores because I’m so lazy. But I was desperate. And that’s on top of the giant hormonal sucker-punch that comes with it. That was for childbirth with “no complications”. I mean, I didn’t need emergency surgery or anything, so WTF is wrong with me that I’d need help? Nothing went wrong, right? …right? No, that’s not right. And there is no “crowd” in which it is OK to discuss any of these things. If you’re dismayed by the lack of support for new mothers, then why did you choose to have kids? It’s not like you’re entitled to help. Why didn’t you think of that beforehand? And why did you have more than one? Among trads you’re a heretic for not wanting to have any more because all children are a blessing and a gift from God (they are, of course, but the same cannot be said of pregnancy and recovery, which are pure hell). No word on how you’re supposed to care for your older ones when you can’t walk. In no context are you allowed to want children, and still acknowledge the gigantic problems.

      Now when I see one of those horrifying stories where some postpartum-depressed mother drives off a bridge with her kids… It’s one of the most awful things that can happen, but I won’t lie– I totally understand how it happens, now. Isolation. No social support. No practical support. No way out. Hormones going haywire. That woman probably had her uterus trying to fall out every time she was on her feet more than five minutes, and a husband who came home from work and griped about the dirty dishes in the sink and then took it personally when she didn’t want sex. It could happen to anyone.

      Like

      Reply
    3. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      This will speak to a certain kind of young woman. The one with the perennially martyred victim of a mother, in particular.

      Like

      Reply

Leave a comment

A conservative literary critic and college professor

Recent posts