Bergner on Culture

Photo courtesy of new-paradigm.com

Jennifer:

“The direction of lust could change-easily. It could change according to a culturally constructed system; the learned seemed far more potent then the congenital, the prenatal” (147). In Daniel Bergner’s The Other Side of Desire, he claims that this is what Herdt’s research suggested. However, from an anthropological standpoint, I feel that it is much more complex than that. In my opinion, Bergner is making a giant and seemingly unfounded leap when he suggests that desire could change with relative ease. Yes, it is true that it operates according to a culturally constructed system, such as the sexual desires of the Sambian boys during the various stages of their lives. However, it is a mistake to suggest the Baroness has created a “culture” in her basement. She is perhaps structuring behaviors, but entering her basement for a few hours cannot be sensibly compared to being reared in a society with normalized, sexual stages, in a culture that has belief systems, and political and economic structure.

 

Bergner’s interpretation of his experience during his taxi rides before and after his visit with the Baroness is too great a generalization and not in the slightest bit what I would call analytical. He also claims he sensed this often when working with the paraphilic, “this” referring to the idea that lust could change easily. How is culture changing the desires of the paraphilic’s throughout the course of their lives? He has made a poor attempt at connecting the culture of the Sambian people and their culturally-constructed desires with his own desires over the course of a night and to the desires of the paraphilics.

As I was reading over Bergner’s conclusions, I couldn’t help but think that if this idea was credible, that culture could be re-created in a basement, then ex-gay programs would work. The re-creation of rituals and the attempt to ingrain the correct and accepted desires into the minds of gay individuals would successfully “deprogram” them. However, ex-gay programs prove to fail over and over again because they are based upon this incredibly mistaken notion.