The trouble with 'queer theory'

The best that can be said about this book is that it is interesting. The author uses 'Queer Theory' to criticize sociobiology - or at least sociobiology as he perceives it to be ie that the 50s American family best matches human nature.

I agree with him that the media representations of human evolutionary biology are nearly always simplistic and sometimes crass. But this is not the sum of sociobiology today. It does not exclude feminists, liberals nor lefties. His criticism, and dismissal, of sexual selection is based mainly on Darwin's initial presentation and not much else. He seems to imagine that random mating is the norm and sexual selection, along with sexual dimorphism, is no more than a minor factor in evolution and should be ignored in the case of humans.

Lancaster presents some cross-cultural variations in the behavior of the sexes to argue that human behavior is totally plastic. To use the analogy of height, his argument is the equivalent of saying that because some women are taller than some men this means that the statement 'men are taller than women' is false or no more true than 'men and women are the same height' or 'women are taller than men'. It must be said, though, that this reaction is partly the fault of sociobiologists who, while looking at human universals, have not yet given enough attention to variation. But variation does not mean that the sexual differences in height are not real and sexually selected ie are connected to what led to a successful father as opposed to a successful mother eg a female human was more reproductively successful if she used her energy for reproduction at a relatively younger age (as her number of offspring depended on her reproductive lifespan) than a male who did better if he spent more time growing (as his reproductive success depended more on out-competing other males for access to fertile females). And why should behaviors not also have selection pressures and heritable factors? More complex than a trait such as height, but partly genetic all the same.

Lancaster does not like this focus on heterosexual sex and reproduction in evolution. What he seems to be desiring is random sexual interactions between people of either sex, arguing that humans have the potential for this which needs to be freed so that the 50s family and all it represents - socially, politically and economically - can be overthrown. For Lancaster, gay liberation is not about homosexuals being accepted as a type of people but about the gay within everyone of us needing to be liberated!!

Even if it were possible, and I do not believe it is possible nor desirable, some people would still reproduce, there would still be differential reproduction, and the descendents would still inherit traits that had made their progenitors better reproducers than their progenitors peers. Of course, everyone would still be unique and there would still be variation but, if there are heritable factors in our behaviors, which I believe there are, it's the people who are the most reproductively successful mothers and fathers who pass these on to descendents and into the future. Cultural inheritance matters too but does not replace genetic inheritance.

Queer Theory is apparently a theory that our sexualities are totally plastic and so is all our behavior - we can all be anyone we want to be. Lancaster does look at the relationship between this liberal, free-market sexual behavior and liberal, free-market economics which he's not too keen on. He can see the 'depredations and ravages' of the latter but never even contemplates that the former might be open to the same. Free and random sex does not, for Lancaster, have the potential for exploitation. There are no power differentials in his sexutopia. No conflicts of interest. No bad sexual experiences. He writes as if sexual arousal is always the signal of a desirable and 'good' activity; the measure of all things; the green light for behavior. It feels good so whatever it leads to - all its consequences - must be good. (Actually, this is pretty much what we might expect genes in (especially) a male body to 'want' after all!!)

So Lancaster's opposition to sociobiology with its 'ossified sexual identities and unchanging human nature' leads him to the other extreme of total plasticity of sexual identity and human nature. In spite of my disagreement with him I did find the book entertaining with some interesting, if skewed, arguments. We may have trouble with 'nature' but I anticipate rather more trouble with 'queer theory'.