ABSTRACT
Is it possible to have a queer theory that succeeds in giving an account of the role that the sexual plays in the political without foreclosure? This chapter affirmatively responds to this question, finding examples—not in purely academic elaborations but in the thought produced at the intersection of LGBTQ+ movements and universities—of political theorizing that thematizes sexuality in its most negative and abject aspects. After having presented the ambivalent relationship of psychoanalysis with homosexuality (beginning from the openings that Freud reserves for them despite his heterosexism), the chapter dwells on Mario Mieli, leading intellectual of the 1970s Italian gay liberation movement. Giving centrality to the anus as the most abject of the sexual organs, Mieli rethinks Marcuse in order to propose a revolution that puts an end to civilization’s discontent by saturating society with sexual perversion.
