THE DESIRE TO DISCOVER GAY BRAINS Neuroscience after the HIV/AIDS Crisis
THE DESIRE TO DISCOVER GAY BRAINS Neuroscience after the HIV/AIDS Crisis
Author(s): Chris ZivalichSubject(s): Gender Studies, Philosophy of Science, Social Theory, Health and medicine and law
Published by: Central European University
Keywords: gay; male brain; pathologization; sexuality;
Summary/Abstract: In this article, I attempt to locate the way in which male “gayness” has been explained,studied, and politically legitimized within neuroscience,after the HIV/AIDS crisis of the 1980s, as a difference in the brain. Drawing on the influential and hotly contested work of Thomas Kuhn (1962/1970) and his notion of the incommensurability of scientific paradigms,coupled with the important work of biologist-feminist Anne Fausto-Sterling (2000) and new materialist feminist scholarship,I argue that “male gay brain”politics is made possible through specific assumptions about gender, the central nervous system, and the desire to pathologize sexual behavior.
Journal: Pulse: the Journal of Science and Culture
- Issue Year: 1/2013
- Issue No: 1
- Page Range: 91-97
- Page Count: 7
- Language: English