Libidinal economy, prostitution and consumer culture

Textual Practice

Volumn 24, Issue 1, 2010, Pages 93-121

  Bennett, David ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE   (Australia)

Author keywords

Bataille; Consumer culture; Freud; Libidinal economy; Lyotard; Marcuse; Prostitution; Psychoanalysis; Radical sexual politics; Reich

Indexed keywords

EID: 77950171071     PISSN: 0950236X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/09502360903230912     Document Type: Article

References (107)

1. Linda White Dove, ,Healing "compulsive spending"" New England Holistic, http://www.neholistic.com/articles/0042.htm (accessed 19/10/04). Ms White Dove,s web site can be found at http://www.lindawhitedove. com
2. Anon., ,Amen, The Pearl, a Journal of Facetiae [sic] Voluptuous Reading 1 (1879), p. 32
3. Martha Woodmansee and Mark Osteen, ,Taking account of the new economic criticism: an historical introduction" in Martha Woodmansee and Mark Osteen (ed.), The New Economic Criticism (London and New York: Routledge, 1999), pp. 3-50
4. See, e.g., Donald N. McCloskey, The Rhetoric of Economics (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985)
5. This omission has been addressed in a more recent collection, Nicole Bracker and Stefan Herbrechter (ed.), Metaphors of Economy (Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2005), which includes David Bennett, ,Desire as capital: getting a return on the repressed in libidinal economy" 95-112
6. The earliest usage cited by the OED is from 1662
7. See Francis Grose, A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (London: S. Hooper, 1785)
8. Richard A. Spears, Slang and Euphemism: A Dictionary of Oaths, Curses, Insults, Sexual Slang and Metaphor, Racial Slurs, Drug Talk, Homosexual Lingo, and Related Matters (New York: Jonathan David Publishers, 1981)
9. Alan Richter, Dictionary of Sexual Slang: Words, Phrases, and Idioms from AC/DC to Zig-zig (New York: John Wiley, 1993)
10. Gordon Williams, A Dictionary of Sexual Language and Imagery in Shakespearean and Stuart Literature (London and Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Athlone Press, 1994), Vols I-III
11. Jonathon Green, The Cassell Dictionary of Slang (London: Cassell, 1998)
12. See Sigmund Freud, ,The unconscious" in A. Richards (ed.), On Metapsychology: The Theory of Psychoanalysis (1915; Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1984), p. 184
13. and Sigmund Freud, in James Strachey (ed.) Psycho-Analysis, Vol 20, Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud (1926; London: Hogarth Press, 1961), pp. 265-266
14. See, e.g., Frank J. Sulloway, Freud, Biologist of the Mind: Beyond the Psychoanalytic Legend (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992), pp. 62-69
15. The phrase ,the domestic economy of the mind, appears in Sigmund Freud, ,Fragment of an analysis of a case of hysteria (,Dora,)" in A. Richards (ed.) Case Histories 1: ,Dora, and ,Little Hans, (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1977), p. 76
16. and ,the economics of the libido, appears in Sigmund Freud, in James Strachey (ed.) Civilization and its Discontents, trans. Joan Riviere (1930; London: Hogarth Press, 1979), 17, n. 7. Freud referred admiringly to Smith and Hume in his correspondence when still a student
17. Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, Vol 5, Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, trans. James Strachey (1900-1901; London: Hogarth Press, 1953), p. 561
18. For a fuller discussion of Freud,s attitudes to money and their influence on his ,economic, model of the mind, see David Bennett, ,Burghers, burglars and masturbators: the sovereign spender in the age of consumerism, New Literary History, 30(2) (1999), pp. 269-294
19. See Freud, ,Dora" 153 and Sigmund Freud, in Marie Bonaparte, Anna Freud, and Ernst Kris (ed.) The Origins of Psychoanalysis. Letters to Wilhelm Fliess, Drafts and Notes: 1887-1902 (New York: Basic Books, 1954), p. 325
20. See Bennett, ,Burghers, Burglars and Masturbators" passim
21. William Alcott, The Young Man,s Guide (1833; Boston: Lilly, Wait, Colman, and Holden, 1834)
22. John Todd, The Student,s Manual (Northampton, MA: J.H. Butler, 1835)
23. Alice B. Stockham, Tokology: A Book for Every Woman, rev. ed. (New York: R. F. Fenno & Co., 1911)
24. For discussions of the history of masturbation-phobia and contrasting interpretations of the role of economics in it, see Bennett, ,Burghers, Burglars and Masturbators" and Thomas W. Laqueur, Solitary Sex: A Cultural History of Masturbation (New York: Zone Books, 2003)
25. ,W" ,Remarks on Masturbation" in David J. Rothman, Steven Marcus, and Stephanie A. Kiceluk (ed.), Medicine and Western Civilization (New Bruns wick, New Jersey, and London: Rutgers University Press, 1995), p. 91
26. Originally published in Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, 12(6) (1835)
27. James Phillips Kay, The Moral and Physical Condition of the Working Classes Employed in the Cotton Manufacture in Manchester (1832; Manchester: E.J. Morten, 1969), p. 57
28. Anon., ,Sub-Umbra, or sport amongst the She-Noodles, The Pearl, a Journal of Facetiae 2 (1879), pp. 34-35
29. Anon., ,The Passenger,s Story, (,A short tale taken from the Christmas number of the Pearl,), Swivia; or, the Briefless Barrister. The Extra Special Number of The Pearl, Containing a Variety of Complete Tales, with Five Illustrations, Poetry, Facetiae, Etc. (Christmas 1879), p. 46
30. Anon., ,The Passenger,s Story" p. 46
31. The costs of masturbation to the nation were a theme of Alfred S. Dyer,s Facts for Men on Moral Purity and Health, Being Plain Words to Young Men Upon an Avoided Subject (London: Dyer Brothers, 1884), pp. 13-14
32. See Carolyn Dean, Sexuality and Modern Western Culture (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1996), p. 4
33. A.J.B. Parent-Duchâtelet, De la prostitution dans la ville de Paris considérée sous le rapport de l,hygiène publique de la morale et de l,adminstration ouvrage appuyé de documents statistiques (Paris: J.B. Baillière, 1836)
34. Studies indebted to Parent-Duchâtelet,s include such monuments to statistical and taxonomical method as Bracebridge Hemynge,s ,Prostitution in London" in Henry Mayhew (ed.) London Labour and the London Poor (1861; London: Frank Cass & Co., 1967), Vol 4, 2
35. and William Acton,s study, Prostitution, considered in its moral, social and sanitary aspects in London and other large cities (London: John Churchill, 1857)
36. Parent-Duchâtelet described prostitutes as ,a people apart" ,differing as much in their morals, their tastes, and their Habits from the society of their compa triots, as the latter differ from the nations of another hemisphere,. See A.J.B. Parent-Duchâtelet, Prostitution in Paris, Considered Morally, Politically and Medically: Prepared for Philanthropists and Legislators from Statistical Documents, ,translated from the French by an American physician, (Boston: C.H. Brainard, 1845), pp. 19-20
37. Dr. Julien F. Jeannel,s De la prostitution dans les grandes villes au XIXe siècle et de l,extinction des maladies vénériennes (Paris: J.B. Baillière, 1862), p. 174, concluded that: ,Laziness, greed, disorder, hereditary debauchery, unregistered prostitution, utter abandonment, and a distaste for work, these are the true sources of public prostitution
38. The stereotypes inscribed in Parent-Duchâtelet,s research findings would prevail in commentaries on prostitutes for the next century and half. See Alain Corbin, Women for Hire: Prostitution and Sexuality in France after 1850, trans. Alan Sheridan (Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 1990), p. 7
39. H.A. Frégier, Des classes dangereuses de la population dans les grandes villes, et des moyens de les rendre meilieures (Paris: J.B. Baillière, 1840), 2:259
40. Havelock Ellis cites this view in ,Sex in relation to society, in Studies in the Psychology of Sex (Philadelphia: Davis, 1910), Vol 6
41. quoted in Lucy Bland and Laura Doan (ed.), Sexology Uncensored: The Documents of Sexual Science (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1998), p. 248
42. Parent-Duchâtelet, Prostitution in Paris, p. 51
43. See A.C. Pigou (ed.), Memorials of Alfred Marshall (London: Macmillan, 1925), p. 325
44. J.M. Lipkis, ,Historians and the history of economic thought: a response to Lawrence Birken, History of Political Economy, 25(1) (1993), p. 94: ,No-one can read much Marshall without encountering his favorite bête-noire, the epitome of wasteful expenditure-woman,s fashions
45. G.B. Shaw, ,Mrs Warren,s Profession (1894)" in Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant, Vol 1 (London: Constable, 1931), p. 242
46. Parent-Duchatelet described prostitutes as ,a people apart" ,differing as much in their morals, their tastes, and their habits from the society of their compatriots, as the latter differ from the nations of another hemisphere, (Prostitution in Paris, pp. 19-20). The stereotypes inscribed in his research findings would prevail in commentaries on prostitutes for the next century and a half
47. Corbin, Women for Hire, pp. 22
48. See Hemynge, Prostitution in London, pp. 216-217, 220
49. Charles Desmaze, Le crime et la débouache à Paris: Le divorce (Paris: G. Charpentier, 1881), v
50. Parent-Duchatelet, Prostitution in Paris, Vol 2, p. 23: ,Prostitutes are as inevitable, where men live together in large concentrations, as drains and refuse dumps
51. and Saint Augustine: ,Abolish the prostitutes and the passions will overthrow the world, (De ordine 2.4.12, quoted in Corbin, Women for Hire, 372 n.11)
52. Maxime du Camp, Paris: ses organes, ses fonctions et sa view dans la seconde moitié du XIX siècle, Vol 3 (Paris: Hachette, 1872), p. 460
53. The term ,prostitute class, is used by Hemynge, Prostitution in London, pp. 210-226
54. Karl Abraham, ,The Spending of Money in Anxiety States" in Selected papers of Karl Abraham, M.D., trans. Douglas Bryan and Alix Strachey, introd. Ernest Jones (1917; London: Hogarth Press and institute of Psycho-Analysis, 1927), p. 299
55. Abraham, ,The Spending of Money in Anxiety States" 299-300
56. See also Karl Abraham, ,On the Psychogenesis of Agoraphobia in Chilhood" in Clinical Papers and Essays on Psycho-Analysis (1913; London: Maresfield Reprints, 1979), pp. 42-43
57. See Elaine S. Abelson, When Ladies Go A-Thieving: Middle-Class Shoplifters in the Victorian Department Store (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989)
58. See Mark S. Micale, Approaching Hysteria: Disease and its Interpretations (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995)
59. Paul Dubuisson, ,Les Voleuses des grands magasins" Archives d,Anthropologie Criminelle: De Criminologie et de Psychologie Normale et Pathologique, 16 (1901), pp. 1-20
60. prison cell, but in the consulting room. See Abelson, When Ladies Go A-Thieving, pp. 173-187
61. Wilhelm Stekel, ,The sexual root of Kleptomania, Journal of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology, 2(2) (1911), pp. 239-246
62. Pierre Janet, ,La Kleptomanie et la depression mentale, Journale de psychologie, normale et pathologique 8ème Année (1911), pp. 97-103
63. See, e.g., Wilhelm Reich, ,The Problem of Sexual Economy" in Lee Baxandall, introd. Bertell Ollman (ed.), Sex-Pol: Essays 1929-1934, trans. Anna Bostock, Tom DuBose, and Lee Baxandall (New York: Random House, 1972), pp. 226-249
64. and Wilhelm Reich, Geschlechtsreife, Enthaltsamkeit, Ehemoral [Sexual Maturity, Abstinence and Marital Fidelity] (Vienna: Muensterverlag, 1930)
65. See Wilhelm Reich, The Sexual Revolution, trans. Theodore P. Wolfe (1936, 1945; New York: Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 1971)
66. and Mary Higgins and Chester M. Raphael (ed.), Wilhelm Reich Speaks of Freud (Harmonds-worth: Penguin, 1975), p. 11
67. As Freud puts it in Civilization and its Discontents, ed. and trans. James Strachey (1930; New York: W.W. Norton, 1962), p. 55: ,Since man does not have unlimited disposal, he has to accomplish his tasks by making an expedient distribution of his libido
68. See D.Z. Mairowitz, Reich for Beginners (London: Unwin, 1986), p. 56
69. Wilhelm Reich, The Sexual Struggle of Youth. The Invasion of Compulsory Sex Morality (1932; London: Socialist Reproduction, 1972)
70. Wilhelm Reich, People in Trouble, trans. Philip Schmitz (New York: Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 1976), p. 71
71. See Wilhelm Reich, The Bion Experiments (1938; New York: FSG, 1979)
72. and Myron Sharaf, Fury on Earth: A Biography of Wilhelm Reich (London: Hutchinson, 1983), 223
73. Cf. Wilhelm Reich, in Mary Higgins and Chester Raphael (ed.), The Bioelectrical Investigation of Sexuality and Anxiety, trans. Marion Faber (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1982), p. 126: ,Sexual excitation is functionally identical to bioenergetic charge of the erogenous zones. . . . The concept of ,libido, as a yardstick of ,psychic energy, is no longer a mere metaphor, but applies to energetic processes. Thus, the sexual function is one of the general electrical (orgonotic) processes that occur in nature
74. Fred Botting and Scott Wilson (ed.), The Bataille Reader (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997), p. 18
75. Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man (London: Sphere Books, 1968), pp. 62-63
76. Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, pp. 60-61
77. Georges Bataille, ,The Meaning of General Economy" in The Accursed Share, trans. Robert Hurley (New York: Zoone Books, 1991), 1:25
78. Georges Bataille, Erotism: Death and Sensuality, trans. Mary Dalwood (San Francisco: City Lights, 1986), pp. 132-133
79. Jean-François Lyotard, Libidinal Economy, trans. Iain Hamilton Grant (London: Athlone Press, 1993), pp. 108-109
80. Cf. Jean-François Lyotard, Just Gaming, trans. Wlad Godzich (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1985) p. 4
81. Karl Marx, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, 5th ed. (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1977), p. 131
82. Karl Marx, ,Private Property and Communism" in David McLellan (ed.), Karl Marx Selected Writings (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), p. 90
83. Lyotard, Libidinal Economy, p. 97
84. See Jean-François Lyotard, ,On a Figure of Discourse" in R. Harvey and M.S. Roberts (ed.), Toward the Postmodern (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1993), p. 13
85. In Des Dispositifs pulsionnels, Lyotard describes words as objects formed of energy: utterances are energy-events, whereas written or recorded words are stored energy ,that is always reactualizable, re-vivable,. See Jean-François Lyotard, ,On a Figure of Discourse" p. 18
86. Lyotard was caught up in the ,événements, of 1968: he was a lecturer at Nanterre University when the student ,Movement of March 22, occupied the administration building in protest against the arrest of leaders of the anti-Vietnam War movement, and he undertook to write a history or ,antihistory, of the radically disruptive energy-event that he considered such revolutionary political moments to be. See Jean-François Lyotard, ,March 23" in Political Writings, trans. Bill Readings and Kevin Paul Geiman, foreword by Bill Readings (London: UCL Press, 1993), pp. 60-67
87. For an analysis of the movement in twentieth-century market research and advertising that applied psychoanalysis to the task of interpellating a citizen-consumer addicted to spending, see David Bennett, ,Getting the Id to go shopping: psychoanalysis, advertising, Barbie dolls, and the invention of the consumer unconscious" Public Culture, 17 (2005), pp. 1-26
88. John Maynard Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (London: Macmillan, 1936)
89. Anxiety about ,underconsumption, or ,overproduction, has been a common theme in economic analyses since the sixteenth century, contested though it has been by advocates of ,Say,s Law" which holds that ,supply creates demand,. See Jean-Baptiste Say, Traité d,Economie Politique (Horace Say, 1803)
90. Bataille was a member of the Democratic Communist Circle from 1931 to 1934
91. See Bataille, ,The Meaning of General Economy" pp. 25-26
92. Cf. Jean-Joseph Goux, ,General economics and postmodern capitalism" Yale French Studies, 78 (1990), pp. 206-224
93. Quoted in William L. Anderson, ,Say,s Law: Were (Are) the Critics Right?" in Austrian Scholars Conference 7: Proceedings (Auburn, Alabama: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2001), (accessed October 8, 2007)
94. See Joanna Brewis and Stephen Linstead, Sex, Work and Sex Work: Eroticizing Organization (London: Routledge, 2000), p. 191
95. On self-disciplining and repression as, primarily, aspects of bourgeois self-care, see Michel Foucault, History of Sexuality, trans. Robert Hurley (Harmonds-worth: Penguin, 1978), Vol 1
96. However, as John Levi Martin points out in ,Structuring the Sexual Revolution, Theory and Society, 25 (1996), p. 115, thrift, industry and chastity were not capitalist values or virtues as such, but the virtues of the shopkeeper, or petit-bourgeois
97. See Bill Picture, ,X-tina,s image makeover, San Francisco Examiner, July 7, 2004, http://www.examiner.com/article/index.cfm/i/070704c-scoop (accessed 28 January, 2005)
98. Penelope M. Carrington, ,Hooker look is out, Potomac News, January 28, 2005, http://www.insidenova.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=WPN/ HTMLPage/WPN-HTMLPage&c=HTMLPage&cid=1031777505020&tacodalogin=no
99. For a survey of turn-of-the-century porno-chic, see Brian McNair, Striptease Culture: Sex, Media and the Democratisation of Desire (London: Routledge, 2002)
100. Ariel Levy, Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture (Melbourne: Black Inc., 2005)
101. Jeanette Angell, Callgirl: Confessions of a Double Life (Sag Harbour, NY: Permanent Press, 2004)
102. Belle de Jour, The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2005)
103. Kate Holden, In My Skin: A Memoir (Melbourne: Text Publishing, 2005)
104. Jenna Jameson,s How to Make Love Like a Porn Star (New York: William Morrow, 2004) remained on the US bestseller list for six weeks
105. Carol Leigh, ,Inventing Sex Work" in Jill Nagle (ed.), Whores and Other Feminists (New York and London: Routledge, 1997), pp. 226, 230
106. Barbara Sumner Burstyn, ,Hooker look in fashion as porn becomes de rigueur" Dissident Voice, November 3, 2003, http://www.dissidentvoice. org/Articles9/Burstyn-Hooker-Look.htm (accessed 28 January, 2005)
107. Angell, Callgirl, p. 5