Central and East European
Society for Phenomenology

Repository | Series | Book | Chapter

194543

Reality and ambiguity in sexual identity

William Wilkerson

pp. 129-135

Abstract

What, in the end, is the emerging fusion account of sexual identity? Where does it locate sexual identity in the midst of all these factors and forces? In the common sense view of minority sexual identity, a person begins with a desire for same-sex relations, which they initially ignore or repress. This factor may be thought to result from an independent biological force acting within a person's life. At some point, in a singular moment of selection, the individual chooses to express this desire and create a minority sexual identity. Identity on this account reflects an already given desire; indeed identity expresses the desire in a self-consciously chosen life. Choice, accordingly, lies between a given desire and the identity, and this makes it easily compatible with an equally common sense picture in which desire originates within the body, as a biological fact to which individuals must acquiesce. Here we deal with coming out as a kind of discovery, a revealing of what already is.

Publication details

Published in:

Wilkerson William (2007) Ambiguity and sexuality: a theory of sexual identity. Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan.

Pages: 129-135

DOI: 10.1007/978-1-137-05173-8_9

Full citation:

Wilkerson William (2007) Reality and ambiguity in sexual identity, In: Ambiguity and sexuality, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 129–135.