'All Human Beings Are Pregnant, Both in Body and in Soul' The Bisexual Imaginary in Plato's Symposium
In recent years the question of the status of sex that is, sex difference has become one of the most insistent in feminist philosophy. Does 'sex' name a binary difference discoverable in nature, or is this duality carved out from more complex anatomical and other variations? Is it possible to distinguish between the 'physical' (anatomical, physio chemical and genetic) aspects of 'sex' and its social inscription? Does sexed identity follow on from biological sex? Or does the social expectation of sexual difference and its concomitant normative demands (for reproductive heterosexuality, most significantly) influence and to some extent determine the category of 'biological' sex difference itself? These and other questions about sex and sexed identity have crystallised on the basis of theoretical work in a variety of disciplines and need to be addressed on a multidisciplinary front, acknowledging the distinctive transdisciplinary character of the concept of sex. What follows is intended as a philosophical contribution to this communal project, via a reading of the metaphors of pregnancy and birth in Plato's Symposium.