Unthinking Sex: Marx, Engels and the Scene of Writing

Author(s): Andrew Parker

Source: Social Text, No. 29 (1991), pp. 28-45
Published by: Duke University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/466297 .
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 Sex: Marx,Engelsand theSceneofWriting
Unthinking
ANDREW PARKER

itselfsince I foundout that-

I was also happyin theauditorium
contrary withwhichmychildishimaginings
to therepresentation had
forso longprovidedme- therewas onlyone stageforeveryone.I
had thoughtthat one mustbe preventedfromseeing clearly by the
otherspectators,as one is in themiddleof a crowd;butnow I realized
that, on the contrary,thanks to an arrangementwhich is like the
symbolofall perception,
eachonefeelshimselftobe thecenterofthe
theatre.
MarcelProust,A la recherche
du tempsperdu.
Dramatizing links between core elements of Marxist theory,moments
fromnineteenth-century political history,and scenes fromMarx's and
Engels' "private"life,thisessay suggeststhatWesternMarxism's consti-
tutivedependence on the categoryof productionderives in partfroman
antitheatricalism,an aversion to certain formsof parody that prevents
sexuality fromattaining the political significance that class has long
monopolized. My titleplays on thatof an increasinglyinfluentialessay
published in the 1984 collection Pleasure and Danger: Gayle Rubin's
"ThinkingSex."' Widely noted forits impassioneddefenseof the rights
and practices of a range of sexual minorities,"ThinkingSex" is also a
major revision of Rubin's earlier analysis of patriarchyas a system
predicatedupon genderbinarism,obligatoryheterosexuality,constraints
on female sexuality, and the exchange of women between men "with
womenbeing a conduitof a relationshipratherthana partnerto it." If this
conceptionof the"trafficin women"has provento be immenselyproduc-
tive for feministanalysis, Rubin's concomitantelaborationof what she
termedthe "sex/gendersystem"- "a systematicsocial apparatus which
takes up females as raw materialsand fashionsdomesticatedwomen as
products"- has become nothingless thanindispensable,formingindeed
one of the cornerstonesof the field of Women's Studies.2
Yet Rubin's "Thinking Sex" begins to question the adequacy of this
very framework.Recognizing thather earlier work "did not distinguish
betweenlustand gender"butlumpedtheformerindiscriminately withthe
Rubin
latter, challenges in her lateressay theassumption thatfeminism is
or should be the privilegedsite of a theoryof sexuality.Feminismis the
theoryof genderoppression.To automaticallyassume thatthis makes it
the theoryof sexual oppressionis to fail to distinguishbetween gender,
on the one hand,and eroticdesire, on theother.(307)

28

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Andrew
Parker 29

In arguingfortherelativeautonomyof a new theoreticalobject - one

separate both fromchromosomally-determined sex and fromculturally-
constructedgender- Rubin now reserves the term sexuality "for the
arrayof acts, expectations,narratives,pleasures,identity-formations, and
knowledges, in both men and women,thattendsto clustermustdensely
aroundcertaingenitalsensationsbutis notadequately definedby them."3
Rubin acknowledges,of course, that"genderaffectsthe operationof the
sexual system,and the sexual systemhas had gender-specificmanifesta-
tions" (308) - one need only recall, as I'll do again later in this essay,
Karl HeinrichUlrichs' mid-nineteenth-century account of "sexual inver-
sion" as a confusionbetweenmanifestand latentgenderidentities:anima
muliebrisin corporevirileinclusa. But Rubin's overarchingpointis that,
thoughhistoricallyand structurally imbricatedin one another,genderand
sexuality "are not the same thing"(308).4 Indeed, wherein mostinstances
the binarycodes governinggenderdifferenceleave relativelylittleroom
forhermeneuticerror,sexual orientation- in troublingany simple con-
tinuitybetween outerappearance and inneridentity- remainsfarmore
capable of generatingthe most wrenchinginterpretive anxieties.
If Rubin's essay has helped to place the thinkingof sexualityon the
contemporarypolitical agenda, this would appear to be a task for which
WesternMarxism has been and remains underprepared.A case in point
would be the 1989 "Marxism Now" conferenceheld at the Universityof
Massachusetts at Amherst:of its fifty-eight assorted panels, many con-
taining the word "gender" or its various cognates in their titles, one
session alone was devoted explicitlyto questions of sexuality.Given the
US government'sbrutallygrudgingresponse to the AIDS crisis and its
renewed attacks on the reproductivefreedomsof women, such scanty
attentionseems significantin reflectingwhat counts as political among
the varied knowledges and practices comprising"Marxism Now." My
intentionhere is hardlyto criticize the conference(as if it simplycould
have proceeded otherwise),forits reluctanceseems continuouswithwhat
mightbe described (with a few importantbut relativelyisolated excep-
tions like Alexandra Kollontai)5 as WesternMarxism's traditionof un-
thinkingsex. When Marxisttheoristshave concernedthemselvesdirectly
withsexual issues, theytendto relatethestory(impossible to repeatafter
Foucault) of how a naturalor potentiallyliberatorysexualityhas been set
upon,repressed,commodifiedor otherwiseconstrainedby theinstitutions
of capitalism: as if sexualitywere not always already institutional,exist-
ing only in and throughhistorically-sedimented formsand discourses.6In
addressing, for example, the question "What Has Sexuality to Do with
Class Struggle?"ReimutReiche seemed to answernotmuchin describing
his "personal" interestsin "sexual theory"as paling before genuinely
"political problems": as if the relationshipbetweenthe two could in fact
be figuredsimply as a distinctionbetween the public and the private.7

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30 Sex
Unthinking

Recognizing theseshortcomings, othertheoristshave proposed insteadto

analyze the materialconditions of "desire": as if thisconceptionof desire
- in tending in practice almost inevitablytoward the monolithic,the
unmodifiedand thehetero- could possiblyperformthetheoreticalwork
of an unnamedand seeminglyunnameablesexuality.8Why has thinking
sex provento be so difficultforWesternMarxism?Why,if neversimply
or entirelyan absence, does sexualityforman aporia, a blockage within
the tradition'sproduction-centered paradigm?
What I findremarkableby contrastis thatMarxismhas experiencedno
such difficultyin thinkinggender- fromthe nineteenthcenturyonward
a range of discourses has existed throughwhich the Woman Question
could at least be broached. Gender as a categoryregisteredeven if, for
classical Marxism, it was typicallyclassed as an epiphenomenon.The
historyof Marxist theoryhas been among otherthingsa historyof con-
testingthis secondary and derivativestatus: not only, forexample, has
Marx's typical proletarianlong since been identifiedas male (his indus-
trial labors formingthe normagainst whichdomesticworkappears to be
non-labor), but even the concept of class, as Joan Scott has recently
argued,can itselfbe viewed as masculinistin its implicitassumptionof a
familial division of labor.' In consequence, Marxist feministshave cre-
ated new forms of analysis in which class and gender are accorded
commensuratehermeneuticweight- and such workhas enabled the im-
portantrecognitionthatclass makes its influencefeltonly in and through
its genderedembodiments,and vice versa.'0 Yet Marxistfeminism,too,
"has typically proceeded in the absence of a theoryof sexuality and
withoutmuchinterestin the meaningor experienceof sexuality.Or more
accurately,it has held implicitlyto a view of female sexualityas some-
thingthatis essentiallyof a piece withreproduction""- which helps to
explain why,even among Marxist feminists,the maternalis oftencon-
struedas a synechdochefor woman as such, and this despite the rather
obvious factthatfemininesexualityis not reducibleto what is, afterall,
only one of its possible components.'12
I should add, at thispoint,thatMarxism's problemswiththinkingsex
are perhaps not as bleak or as totalizingas I've just made themout to be.
More and more historicalresearch- I'm thinkingof such workas John
D'Emilio's "Capitalism and Gay Identity""- is currentlybeing com-
piled on the myriad ways that class position affectsthe formationof
sexual practicesand identities.And Jeffrey Weekshas even suggestedthat
"the veryidea of 'sexuality' itselfis an essentiallybourgeoisone, which
developed as an aspect of the self-definition of a class, both against the
decadent aristocracyand the rampantimmoralityof the lower orders in
the course of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries."'4 But both
D'Emilio and Weeks proceed fromwhat theyassume to be a knownand
invariantcategory(production)in orderto illuminatewhat is, fromthis

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Andrew
Parker 31

perspective,unknownand contingent(sexuality). Thus, while we have

begun to appreciatehow class impingesupon sexual formations,we still
have nothingresemblingwhatmightbe called a sex-inflectedanalysis of
class formations(indeed, thisreversalof termsdoesn't make any kindof
customarysense). Yet if feministreadings have found insistentfigura-
tions of genderin Marx's writingeven - or especially - when the rela-
tion of men to women is not his explicitly thematized concern, this
strategymightbe borrowedin the interestof performing a sexual reading
of Marx's texts,a reading thatcould map the (de)structuringeffectsof
eroticismeven - or especially - in workswhose subjects seem utterly
unsexy. The remainderof this paper takes up this latterpossibility: if
Marxist theorytraditionallyhasn't thoughtsexuality,I want to begin to
explore some ways that sexuality- in one of its prominentforms-
neverthelessthinksMarx.
My maintextwill be The EighteenthBrumaireof Louis Bonaparte,that
inspired work of political journalism in which Marx, armed "with the
weapons of historical research, of criticism,of satire and of wit," ex-
plored the causes and consequences of Napoleon III's coup d'6tat in
December 1851.'5 Writtenin the early monthsof 1852 for a German
emigr6 newspaper in New York, the EighteenthBrumaire (as Engels
described it) "laid bare the whole course of French history"fromthe
workers'uprisingsof June1848, throughthedefeatof thepetty-bourgeois
Montagne in June 1849, to Bonaparte's coup on the anniversaryof his
uncle's ascension to power- the original 18thBrumaireof Napoleon I.
In Engels' view, Marx succeeded in graspingthe essence of these events
whereothercommentatorsfailed because "it was preciselyMarx who had
discovered the greatlaw of motionof history,the law accordingto which
all historicalstruggles,whethertheyproceed in the political, religious,
philosophical or some otherideological domain,are in factonly the more
or less clear expression of strugglesof social classes.... Consequently,
events nevertook [Marx] by surprise"(14).
Despite thetenorof Engels' remarks,mostcontemporary readersof the
Brumairewould probablyagree thatMarx was surprisedby recentevents
in France. For Marx confrontednot only a crisis in French historybut a
crisis in his theoryas well, a crisis of representationtestingthe limitsof
thisclaim thatpolitics is "only themoreor less clear expression"of class
antagonisms.Seeking to confirman importanttenetof his earlierwritings
- the notion thatthe state functionsas "but a committeefor managing
the affairsof the whole bourgeoisie"'6- Marx begins the Brumaireby
tryingto match each parliamentaryfactionwithspecific class interests.
What frustratesMarx's design, however,is his discovery of "the most
motleymixtureof cryingcontradictions"(43), forratherthanrepresent-
ing coherentlytheinterestsof any one or even of several classes, thestate
underBonaparteseems to have "made itselfan independentpower" (131),

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32 Sex
Unthinking

not only freeingitselffrombut even overwhelmingits putativegroundin

production:
thestateenmeshes, controls,regulates,
superintends and tutorscivil
societyfromitsmostcomprehensive manifestationsoflifedowntoits
mostinsignificant fromitsmostgeneralmodesof beingto
stirrings,
theprivateexistenceof individuals;wherethrough themostextraor-
thisparasiticbodyacquiresa ubiquity,
dinarycentralization an omni-
science,a capacityforacceleratedmobility and an elasticity
which
findsa counterpart only in the helplessdependence,in the loose
shapelessness,oftheactualbodypolitic.(62)
Far fromissuing in the revolutionaryupheaval thatMarx had predicted
would erupt,French historyunder Bonaparte appears instead to have
swerved fromits dialectical course, generatingonly what Marx glumly
describes as "confusions of cause and effect"(132): "passions without
truth,truthswithoutpassions; heroes withoutheroic deeds, historywith-
out events; development,whose sole drivingforceseems to be thecalen-
dar, wearying with constant repetition of the same tensions and
relaxations" (43). Bonaparte would seem to have thrown"the entire
bourgeois economy into confusion"(135), in the process confusingthe
termsof Marx's own account.
Some of the best recent readings of the Brumaire have shown how
Marx sought to contain this confusion by treatingBonaparte's rule as
merely a temporaryaberration,a setback that history"even now" is
workingto correct."Let therebe no misunderstanding," he writes: the
state "is not suspended in midair" (123); historyis proceeding on its
dialectical path; therevolution,despite appearances,"is thoroughgoing";
soon "Europe will leap from its feet and exultantly exclaim: Well
grubbed,Old Mole!" (121). (We'll shortlysee how interestingit is that
this voice of authenticrevolutionshould end up citing...Hamlet.)Strug-
gling desperatelyto support this optimismby identifyingsome social
class that Bonaparte can be said to represent,Marx turnsfirstto the
peasantry,thento a morenarrowlydefined"conservativepeasantry,"only
to reject each of these groupsin turnin favorof a solutionthat,given his
own terms,is hardlya solutionat all: a class withno class, a metonymic
assemblage rather than a metaphoric unity, the pseudo-class of the
lumpenproletariat who formed"the scum, offaland refuseof all [other]
classes":
Alongsidedecayedroudswithdubiousmeansof subsistenceand of
dubiousorigin,alongsideruinedand adventurousoffshoots
of the
were
bourgeoisie, vagabonds,dischargedsoldiers,
dischargedjail-
birds,escaped galley slaves, swindlers,mountebanks,lazzaroni, pick-
pockets,tricksters,
gamblers,maquereaus,brothelkeepers,porters,
literati, knifegrinders,
ragpickers,
organ-grinders, beggars-
tinkers,
in short,thewholeindefinite, mass,thrown
disintegrated hitherand
which theFrenchtermla boh/rme.
thither, (75)

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 Parker
Andrew 33

A grotesque, serializedmasswhoseheterogeneity is as fullylexicalas it

is social, thelumpenin Marx's analysismerelycirculategoodsbutpro-
duceno valuethemselves - Marx'ssinequa nonfortheemergence ofan
authentically politicized His
consciousness. catalog owes much to Adam
Smith'sinventory in The WealthofNationsof similarkindsof "unpro-
ductive"work:
The sovereign,forexample, with all the officersboth of justice and
war who serve underhim,thewhole armyand navy,are unproductive
labourers.... In the same class must be ranked, some both of the
gravestand mostimportant, and some of themostfrivolousof profes-
sions: churchmen,lawyers,physicians,men of lettersof all kinds;
players, buffoons,musicians, opera-singers,opera-dancers,& co....
Like the declamationof the actor,the harangueof the orator,or the
tune of the musician, the work of all of themperishes in the very
of itsproduction.
instant
Marxmightsay thatall of theseactivitiesare mereparodiesof produc-
tion;an actorcan represent thelaborofothers,butsucha representation
is nottobe confusedwithlaborstrictly defined.Indeed,thatthesovereign
can be classed withother"theatrical" professions enablesMarxto con-
cludetheBrumaireon a positivenote.ForbyarguingthatBonaparateis
just an actorwho belongsas well to a class of actors- the"appalling
parasiticbody"of the lumpen(121) - Marx in effectcan salvage the
paradigmofrepresentation - ofthepriority ofa productivegroundto its
secondary andderivative politicalexpression - evenas Bonaparteseems
to havereducedthisparadigmto shambles."
This,at least,wouldappeartohavebeenMarx'sgoal. Theproblem, as
he clearlyacknowledges, is thatthiscrisisinrepresentation
hasexceeded
thepoliticalrealmas suchin saturating Frenchhistory and societyin a
morepervasiveconfusion of groundandexpression.In thefamousopen-
ingpages of theBrumaire, Marxdescribesthisoverriding problemas a
perversegeneralization of thetheater,an eruptionwithincivil societyof
literaryrelationsthat
have perverselyoverstepped theirtextual limits:
Hegel remarkssomewherethatall facts and personages of great imn-
portancein world historyoccur, as it were, twice. He forgotto add:
the firsttime as tragedy,the second as farce.Caussidiere forDanton,
theMontagneof 1848 to 1851 forthe
Louis Blanc forRobespierre,
Montagne of 1793 to 1795, the Nephew fortheUncle. And the same
occursin thecircumstances
caricature thesecondeditionof
attending
the eighteenthBrumaire!(15)
Marx's point,of course,is notsimplythatFrenchhistory repeatsitself
but thatit has done so alonga scale of descendingliterary
values. For
farce is the most declass& of theatricalspectacles: ratherthanimitating
the nobilityof a tragicaction, farce is a secondaryand derivativemode
that imitatesonly the conventionsof theater.This is precisely Marx's
diagnosis of the course of Frenchhistorysince the era of theRevolution;

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34 Sex
Unthinking

instead of seizing the momentand acting, the French in the nineteenth

centuryhave only, well, acted:
Just when they seem engaged in revolutionizing themselves and
things,in creatingsomethingthathas neveryet existed, preciselyin
such periods of revolutionarycrisis they anxiously conjure up the
spiritsof thepast to theirservice and borrowfromthemnames,battle
cries and costumesin orderto presentthe new scene of worldhistory
in thistimehonoureddisguise and thisborrowedlanguage. (15)

Though Marx recalls thateven the greatFrenchRevolutionariesdressed

themselvesup as resurrectedRomans, he aims here specificallyat later
revolutionarymovementsthat"knew nothingbetterto do thanto parody,
now 1789, now the revolutionarytraditionof 1793 to 1795" (15). These
parodies culminatewith the rule of Bonaparte, an actor disguised as a
statesman(a kind of Ronald Reagan avant la lettre)who "conceives the
historicallife of thenationand theirperformancesas comedyin themost
vulgar sense, as a masquerade where the grand costumes, words and
postures merelyserve to mask the pettiestknavery"(76). Under Bona-
parte only "the ghostof the old revolution"walks about; unable to "get
rid of the memoryof Napoleon," the French continuallymistake the
Nephew forhis Uncle, thepresentforthe past: "An entirepeople, which
had imagined thatby means of a revolutionit had impartedto itselfan
accelerated power of motion,suddenlyfindsitselfset back intoa defunct
epoch" (17). Marx concludes thatonly whenthese ghostsof the past can
be busted,whenreal action replaces mereacting,whenall costumeshave
been returnedto the theaters,will revolutiononce morebecome possible:
"Society seems now to have fallenbehindits pointof departure;it has in
truthfirstto create foritselfthe...conditionsunderwhich alone modern
revolutionbecomes serious" (19).
Revolution hence is a serious business where seriousness itself is
definedas an abilityto distinguishthe imaginaryfromthereal, represen-
tations fromwhat they represent,the theatricalfromthe authentic.If
"men and eventsappear as invertedSchlemihls,as shadows thathave lost
theirsubstance" (44), Marx seeks to invertthisinversionby treating"the
spectacle of politics as a farcewhich,if it is merelyexposed as such, will
vanish into air like Prospero's masque.''8 Though Jeffrey Mehlman has
claimed thatMarx affirmsthisbecoming-theater of history,'9myreading
has argued just the reverse: that Marx is not celebrating an endless
profusionof simulacrabut decryingany such mistakingof historyforits
other.If the Brumaire itself adopts a consistenttheatricalrhetoric,de-
scribingFrenchhistoryas a progressionof prologuesand scenes, it does
so not to endorse this imagerybut to reduce it ad absurdum.For while
Marx's language exuberantly imitates the theater, the text implies
throughoutnot only thathe finds this drama wantingbut- in keeping
withan inherently classical conceptionof theatricalspace - thathe is not
himselfon stage: "the spectacle is representedto a subject who remains

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Andrew
Parker 35

outside the drama,outside representation."20 Indeed, preventedby politi-

cal events fromassuming a leading role, Marx situates himself in the
non-dramaticspace of criticism,an exterior site from which he can
parody the parodywhile still retaininghis ironic distance. This is not of
course to say thatMarx was disinterestedin his theatricalcriticism(noone
could have been less so thanhe), but thathis interestswould be circum-
scribed as wholly differentfromand externalto those portrayedon the
stage. For if all of France confuses theaterwith history,insides with
outsides, the imaginarywiththe real, Marx the critic does not, offering
the Brumaireas testimonyto the factthathe, forone, has not been taken
in.
Though Marx would not perform(in) this scene of writing,his texts
quite typicallyact otherwise.In a longerversionof thisessay I describe
how, in theEconomic and Philosophic Manuscriptsas well as in Capital,
this exteriorspace of criticismis rupturedwhen Marx undertakes"read-
ings" of Faust and Timon of Athens. I consider as well Marx's highly
fraughtrelationshipwithFerdinandLasalle, a rival forthe leadershipof
the Germanworkingclass whomMarx pilloried not only forhis Jewish-
ness and (what, forMarx, amountedto the same thing)his sexual prom-
iscuity,but fora play Lasalle wrotethatMarx pointedlycondemnedfor
its "failuresof representation."
Here, however,I'd like to take up thethreadof theBrumaireonce more
by repeatinga question posed by Rousseau in his Lettred d'Alembert:
"Who among us is sureenoughof himselfto bear theperformanceof such
a comedy withouthalfwaytakingpartin the turnsthatare played out?...
For is being interestedin someone anythingotherthanputtingoneself in
his place?" ' I raise thesequestionsin connectionwiththeBrumairesince
its authorseems especially to be "interestedin someone." For whydoes
Marx hate Bonaparte so much?The obvious (if no less true) response is
thatBonaparte was the preeminentclass enemywho evisceratedthe life
of a nation.But the moreone triesto account forthe virulenceof Marx's
rhetoric- he calls Bonapartean "indebtedadventurer"(68), a foreigner
who identifiedthecourse of Frenchhistory"withhis own person" (57) -
themoreone begins to suspectthatMarx recognizedsome uneasykinship
between Bonaparte and anotherindebtedforeignerwho similarlytended
to identifythe course of French historywith his own person: Marx
himself.Indeed, theonlytwo individualsin theentireBrumairewho seem
fullyaware of what is "really" happeningin France are Bonaparte and
Marx, bothof whomare imputedwiththeknowledgethatessence differs
fromappearance, insides fromoutsides,historyfromtheatre.The knowl-
edge theyshare thus remainsunique since theyalone are unconstrained
by class position- "Bonaparte understood" (110), writes Marx, who
similarly,almost empathicallyunderstands.But the implicationsof this
secret sharingmusthave been, at some level, terriblyunsettlingto Marx,

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36 Sex
Unthinking

forif Bonapartedetachedhimselffromtheclass structure, "representing"

only a non-representative class, one of Marx's greatestanxietieswas that
he too did not (simply) representanyone,thathis own writings(even as
they traced the effectsof the division between intellectualand manual
labor) were potentiallyas unproductiveas the lumpen he despised.22
Perhaps understanding Bonapartetoo well, findinghimself"halfwaytak-
ing part in the turnsthat are played out," Marx may have realized, in
effect,thatit takes one to know one: the veryphrase,as Eve Sedgwick
has suggested, around which male same-sex desire began to organize
itself in the nineteenthcentury.Lest one takes this possibilityof homo-
eroticismto be extraneousto the Brumaire,an impositionof contempo-
rary concerns upon a text that historicallyresists them,we need only
recall thatthelast page of thetextfeaturesnotonlythefamousprediction
of the fall of theVendomeColumn butalso an image of sexual inversion,
Madame Girardin's bon mot that France has been transformedunder
Bonaparte froma governmentof mistressesto a governmentof "hommes
entretenus[kept men]" (135)--a transformation Marx must have felt
keenly ambivalent about to
havingalreadybegun dependupon theregular
financialsupportof one FrederickEngels.23
I am not to be sure suggesting,despite the immenseamountwe know
about his life, that Marx was "a homosexual." Of course not, and for
several reasons, not the least being that noone could have been more
indefatigablyheterosexualthan he: "Love," he wroteto his wife Jenny,
"not forthe being of Feuerbach,not forthe transmutation of Molechott,
not forthe proletariat,but love forthe beloved, and particularlyforyou,
makes a man a man."24 More to the point, the very category of "the
homosexual" (as distinct,forexample,from"the invert")comes intolegal
and medical currencyonly towardstheend of the nineteenthcentury.Yet
the phenomenondescribed by Sedgwick as male homosexual panic was
certainlywell-establishedby the mid-1800s as men became increasingly
"pressed to defend theirfriendshipsagainst imputationsof homosexual
feelings," feelings that were particularlylikely to arise whenevermen
collaboratedclosely witheach other.25 In Sedgwick's words:"Because the
of in
paths male entitlement,especially the nineteenthcentury,required
certainintensemale bonds thatwere not readilydistinguishablefromthe
most reprobatedbonds, an endemic and ineradicable state of what I am
calling male homosexual panic became the normal condition of male
heterosexualentitlement."Since, in thisreading,the threatof homopho-
bic persecution regulated not only "a nascent minoritypopulation of
distinctlyhomosexual men" but "the male homosocial bonds thatstruc-
ture all culture," then no man could ever be sure of proving- or be
exempt fromhaving to prove- "that he is not (that his bonds are not)
homosexual."26If one resultof thisdouble-bindwas a paranoic aversion
to self-disclosure,anothermay have been thenineteenthcentury'sobses-

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Andrew
Parker 37

sive fantasyof an authenticself immunefromthedangersof theatricality,

a fantasythathas generatedcommentaryfromLionel Trilling'sSincerity
and Authenticity to Nina Auerbach's recentPrivate Theatricals. Indeed,
thatmale homosexualpanic and antitheatricalism resonatestrikingly with
one anothercan be seen in thispassage fromDavid Marshall's The Figure
of Theater, which describes the intense ambivalence unleashed in the
writershe discusses towardsthe possibilitythattheatricalrelationsmay
exist "outside the playhouse": "Theater, for these authors,represents,
creates, and respondsto uncertaintiesabout how to constitute,maintain,
and representa stable and authenticself; fears about exposing one's
characterbeforethe world; and epistemologicaldilemmasabout knowing
or being knownby otherpeople."27
That Marx and Engels were concernedabout knowingor being known
by other people seems a safe inferencegiven the evidence of several
lettersrecentlytranslatedinto English for the firsttime in full. Dating
from 1869 (when Marx was revising the Brumaire for its firstGerman
edition), these lettersare remarkablein thattheyreveal first-hand knowl-
edge of the writingsof Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, the Hanoverian lawyer
who, in a series of bookletsappearingin themid 1860s withthecollective
title Researches into the Riddle of Love between Men, developed his
theoryof sexual inversionpostulatingthe existenceof a "Third Sex": the
Urningor Uranian whose anatomicallymasculine outside misrepresents
a spirituallyfeminineinside.28Ulrichsmakes his appearance in theMarx-
Engels correspondencein connectionwiththe currentpolitical situation
in Germany,where Wilhelm Liebknecht's pro-Communistorganization
seemed to be losing groundto the General Association of GermanWork-
ers (the ADAV) whose leadership,afterthedeath of Lassalle, passed into
the hands of JohannBaptistvon Schweitzer.The firstSocial Democratto
hold legislativeofficein a European parliament,Schweitzerwas a lawyer
who authoredthe four-actcomedyAlcibiades oder Bildung aus Hellas, a
play "withsome strikingly realisticreferencesto Greek love." It was only
through Lassalle's interventionthatSchweitzercould firstjoin and then
rise to prominencein the ADAV, forhe had been arrestedin 1862 when
"two elderly ladies enjoying a quiet stroll throughthe public park of
Mannheim came upon Schweitzer and an unidentifiedyoung man in a
highlycompromisingsituation."29 Ulrichs had been casually acquainted
with Schweitzer,and in response to the arrestcomposed a legal defense
which he sent to Schweitzer in jail. When Schweitzer nonethelesswas
convicted and barredfromthe practiceof law, Ulrichs began writinghis
booklets about Uranismin an effortto repeal theanti-sodomyprovisions
of theNorthGermanPenal Code, therebylayingthegroundworkforwhat
would later become the German homosexual movement. Schweitzer,
meanwhile,was finallyadmittedto the ADAV over the protestsof some
of its memberswhen Lassalle argued that"the abnormalityattributedto

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38 Sex
Unthinking

Dr. von Schweitzerhas nothingwhateverto do withhis political charac-

ter.... I could understandyour not wishingDr. von Schweitzer to marry
your daughter.But why not think,work,and strugglein his company?
What has any department of political activityto do withsexual abnormal-
ity?"30
Engels, forone, seemed to thinkthe two had somethingto do withone
another.
Condemningelsewherethe ancientGreeks fortheir"abominable prac-
tice of sodomy[which]degradedalike theirgods and themselveswiththe
myth of Ganymede,"31 Engels writes the following to Marx when
Schweitzer succeeded. Liebknecht'seffortsnotwithstanding, in unifying
the two main wings of the ADAV:32
Manchester,22 June1869
Dear Moor,
I don't know whetheryou have such fineweatherthereas we have
here,but daylighthas been so exhaustedthat,on the longestday, we
had to turnthe gas on at 4 o'clock in the afternoon.And it is devilish
to read or writewhenyou don't know whetherit is day or night.
Tussy [Marx's daughterEleanor, then visitingthe Engels house-
hold] is veryjolly. This morningthe whole familywentSHOPPING;
tomorroweveningtheywantto go to the theatre.[...]
So thatis Wilhelm[Liebknecht]'sentiresuccess: thatthemale-fe-
male line [Schweitzer's factionof the ADAV] and the all-femaleline
[thegroupsupportedby theCountessvon Hartzfeld,Lassalle's former
patron] have united! He really has achieved something there.
Schweitzer will naturallybe re-elected[as head of the ADAV] - in
view of the precipitancywithwhichthebusiness has been conducted
- and thenhe will, once again, be thechosen one of generalsuffrage.
Wilhelmis also preservingan obstinatesilence about thisevent.
The Urning [identifiedby the editors of the correspondenceas
Ulrichs'Argonaulticus, butthisvolume wouldn'tappear untilSeptem-
ber of that year] you sent me is a very curious thing. These are
extremely unnatural revelations. The paederasts are beginning to
countthemselves,and discoverthattheyare a power in thestate.Only
organisationwas lacking, but according to this source it apparently
alreadyexists in secret.And since theynow have such importantmen
in all theold partiesand even in thenew ones, from[Johannes]R6sing
[a Bremen merchant]to Schweitzer, they cannot fail to triumph.
Guerreaux cons,paix aux trous-decul [waron thecunts,peace to the
assholes] will now be theslogan. It is a bitof luck thatwe, personally,
are too old to have to fearthat,whenthispartywins,we shall have to
pay physical tributeto the victors.But the youngergeneration!Inci-
dentallyit is onlyin Germanythata fellowlike thiscan possiblycome
forward,convert this smut into a theory,and offerthe invitation:
introite[thetitleof a sectionfromUlrichs' earlierbook Memnon],etc.
Unfortunately,he has not yet got up the courage to acknowledge
publicly thathe is "that way," and muststill operate coram publico

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AndrewParker 39

"fromthefront," ifnot"goingin fromthefront" as he once said by

mistake.ButjustwaituntilthenewNorthGerman PenalCode recog-
nizes thedroitsdu cul; thenhe will operatequitedifferently.Then
thingswillgo badlyenoughforpoorfrontside peoplelikeus,withour
childishpenchantforfemales.IfSchweitzer couldbe madeusefulfor
anything,it would be to wheedle out of this peculiar honorablegen-
tlemantheparticulars in highandtopplaces,which
ofthepaederasts
wouldcertainly forhimas a brother
notbe difficult in spirit.
I...I
Close of post. Best greetings.
YourF.E.
Astonishingin the virulence of its misogynyand homophobia,Engels'
letterproceeds fromanticipatinga visit to the theaterto reflectingon
Schweitzer's recent victory- which thenputs him in mind of the book
Marx had sent him. Recognizing some resemblance(if only fleetingand
parodic) between thepaederasts' secretsocieties and those of theradical
left,he fantasizesabout whatwill happento "poor frontside"men- "like
us," he adds, to dispel any doubt- if the paederasts carry the day, a
strategythatallows him the freedomto experience vicariously the anal
eroticismhe seems to condemn.If it's a good thing,on theone hand,that
Marx and I are too old and unattractiveto have to engage in such acts
ourselves, it's even betterfor me to imagine, on the other,the fulsome
erotic surplus that would accrue to us fromengaging in homophobic
blackmail. The ease with which this scenario occurs to Engels surely
indicates his awareness that he could always be so targetedhimself.
Indeed, described by his biographersas a "semi-bachelor" who lived
unmarriedfirstwith Mary Burns, then after her death with her sister
Lizzie (whom he would marryon herdeathbed),and thento theend of his
life witha succession of designatedhousekeepers,Engels musthave felt
himselfacutely vulnerableto the imputationof homoeroticfeelings- a
vulnerabilityexacerbatedby his identificationwithand subordinationto
his closest male friend,of whomhe wrotelate in life: "I have done what
I was cut out for- namelyto play second fiddle- and I thinkthatI have
done quite well in thatcapacity. And I have been happyto have had such
a wonderfulfirstviolin as Marx.""33The erotic overtones of all this
fiddlingaround could hardlyhave been lost on Engels, for whom pro-
scribed and prescribedmale behavior indeed must have looked remark-
ably similar. Caught in a vise-like double bind that I can never
acknowledge directly(with Marx above all), mybest policy would be to
guard against self-revelationby safely attacking"real" inverts- which
will help mitigatemy "devilish" fear thatI don't really know if it's day
or night.
If Marx replied directlyto Engels' lettera copy no longer survives.
(Elsewhere he called Schweitzer a "shitty cur," urging a friend to
"spread" jokes about him in the newspapers.34)We do, however,have a

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40 Sex
Unthinking

subsequent letter demonstratingMarx's own familiaritywith Ulrichs'

work,a letterthat- thoughfarless panickedthanEngels' - manages to
registera similarambivalence (43:403):
London, 17 December 1869
Dear Fred,
I couldn'tacknowledge
Bestthanksfor?100. Yesterday becauseof
thesudden appearanceof [Wilhelm]Strohn[a memberof theCommu-
nistLeague]. The poor fellowhad his blood relapseagainin May.
Becauseof his health,he has hadto hangaroundsincethenin Swit-
zerland, etc.; looks very poorly and is very peevish. The doctors
himtomarry.
recommend Strohnwillbe returning
fromheretoBrad-
ford, and desires you to returnhim the Urnings or whateverthe
paederast's book is called.
As soon as he goes (on Monday) I shall myselfbuzz aroundtown
to raise the [J.P.] Prendergast[authorof The CromwellianSettlement
of Ireland]. I couldn't do it last week because of the filthyweather,
which I couldn't risk TO UNDERGO in my not-yet-restored state of
health.

Opening withthefirstof whatwill become a series of strangelyregulated

exchanges, Marx acknowledges the receiptof yet anothermonetarygift
fromhis friend.This circulationof funds,however,immediatelygives
rise to other kinds: the circulation of their friendStrohn's blood; the
circulationof Ulrichs' book35whose titleMarx seems to have forgotten
but which Strohnnow wants Engels to return;the circulationbetween
heterosexualmarriageand sexual inversion;and even the circulationof
verbal signifiers,the word paederast immediatelycalling up the name
Prendergast,whose book Marx can "raise" without"risk" now thatthe
"filthy"weatherhas abated.
WhatEngels' and Marx's lettersbothput intoplay,of course, is a way
of safelyraisingsomethingfilthybetweenthemselves.While manyschol-
ars have noted(how could theynot?) thattheircorrespondenceis smeared
liberally with excrementalimagery,these same readers never acknowl-
edge thatshitcan acquire significanceonly by activatingan economyof
anal pleasures, desires, and attachments.Otherssimilarlyrecognize that
the lumpen- "a coagulating mass," "the scum, offal,and refuse of all
other classes" - both repel and fascinate Marx and Engels, but what
predictablyescapes analysis is just what- or where- thislumpmaybe.
When in 1845 JulesJanincalled the lumpen"foul rags thathave no name
in any language,",36 his descriptionreverberateswith the Church's con-
demnation of sodomy as the act inter Christianos non nominandum.
Indeed, Marx's and Engels' writingson the lumpen echo strikinglythe
emergingdiscourse popularly associated with the gay underworld:the
lumpenare "a phenomenonthatoccurs in moreor less developed formin
all the so farknownphases of society" (10:408); theyhave "theirhead-
quartersin big cities" and are "absolutely venal and absolutely brazen"

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AndrewParker 41

(21:99); they actively "recruit"new members(10:62); they have "un-

healthyand dissolute appetites" and theirpleasure "becomes crapuleux,
wheremoney,filthand blood commingle"(10:50-51). If,as we recall, the
French state receives fromBonaparte "an accelerated mobilityand an
elasticitywhich findsa counterpartonly in the helpless dependence, in
the loose shapelessness, of the actual body politic" (62; my emphases),
we now may betterunderstandwhy the lumpenwould be figuredrepeat-
edly througha rhetoricof anality.
If Marx remainsbothhorrifiedand attractedby thistropology,thismay
be because he findsthatit parodies the centralcategoriesof his thought.
The question of where values come fromanimates the whole of his
evolving critique of political economy, and his dependable answer is
labor defined as "life-activity,productivelife itself" where production
has been modeled on procreation.37In Hannah Arendt's words: Marx's
work"rests on the equation of productivitywithfertility";"he based his
whole theory[of production]on the understanding of laboringand beget-
ting as two modes of the same fertilelife process."38 The heterosexismof
this formulationis not to be dismissed as merelyfigural,forMarx views
labor invariablyas the "life of the species," as "life-engenderinglife";
"productivelabor" is a fact"imposedby Nature"; labor is the"father"and
the earth the "mother"of value.39 Hence Marx's disgusted fascination
withacts (quoting one of Ulrich's Germanreviewers)that"imitatecoitus
between male persons,"acts thatparodyproductionin the "sterile" ways
that theyeroticize "the final ending of the intestine."40Hence, as well,
Marx's mordantdelightin findingthatBonapartesecuredhis rule withthe
sausage -farce - his famous giftto the masses of meat extrudedinto
alien intestinalmembranes.
To thusdiscover farceonce more withinthebody politic is to appreci-
ate why theaterand anality can each stand indicativelyforthe crisis in
representationMarx grapples withthroughoutthe Brumaire.A sexuality
that fails to embody approved gendernormslooks, to Marx, nothingso
much like Bonaparte's theatricalizedFrance: both are travestiesin his
view, parodies of authenticproductionrelationsthatsystematicallycon-
fuse proper insides and outsides. Though Marx's normativecategories
depend fortheircoherence on the demonizationof these parodic others,
theBrumaireneverquite succeeds in expelling themfromitself- which
may help to account notjust forits momentof panic but forthemisogyny
implicit in its antipathyto theater.Adopting a strategythat, by mid-
century,alreadyhad been proventriedand true,Marx attemptsto manage
his ambivalence by recastingit along the axis of gender,the seemingly
stable oppositionbetweenmale and femaleofferingitselfas a remedyfor
sexually-chargedrelationsthatseem to have lost all such distinction.As
Marx will be relieved to discover, it is the woman (Dame Quickly from
HenryIV, Part!) who is "neitherfish nor flesh; a man knows not where

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42 Sex
Unthinking

to have her.""4This displacementonto genderhas been profoundlygener-

ative in its effectsand continues to influence recent readings of the
Brumaire- from Daumier's effeminizingsculpture selected for the
cover of the International Publishers edition, through Dominick
LaCapra's characterizationof Bonaparte's voice as "falsetto,"42to the
following utterlyremarkablepassage by TerryEagleton (which I quote
here in full):
It is not just that bourgeois revolutionswathes itself in theatrical
costume:it is theatricalin its essence, a matterof panache and breath-
less rhetoric,a baroque frenzywhose poetic effusionsare in inverse
proportionto its meagre substance. It is notjust thatit manipulates
past fictions:it is a kind of fiction,an ill-made drama thatexpends
itselfin Act Three and tottersexhaustedto its tawdryconclusion. If
bourgeois revolutionstrickthemselvesout in flashytropes,it is be-
cause thereis a kind of fictivenessin theirvery structure,a hidden
flawthatdisarticulates
formandcontent.43
Breathlessand tawdry,dissimulatingan innerlack withtropesand feather
boas, French historyin Eagleton's synopsis is depicted as an actress, a
sordid floozy whose fate was just what she deserved. Eagleton is alto-
getherfaithfulhere to the spiritof the Brumaire,for it was Marx who
inauguratedthispracticeof blamingthe victim:"It is not enough to say,
as the French do, that theirnation was taken unawares. A nation and a
woman are not forgiventheunguardedhourin whichthe firstadventurer
that came along could violate them" (21). Completingthis predictable
patternof imagery,Marx avers that Bonaparte brings "the bride [of
France] home at last,butonlyaftershe had been prostituted"(37). French
historyas public woman unfettered:oversteppingthe bounds of decent
decorum,she will be figuredunfailinglyas theconsummateactress who,
in leaving the confinesof home,in makinga public spectacle of herself,
infectsher society withher sleazy theatrics.
As JoanScott has recentlyargued,thecategoryof thedomesticsphere
tendsto operatein political theory"as a double foil: it is theplace where
a presumablynaturalsexual division of labor prevails,as comparedwith
the workplace,whererelationsof productionare socially constructed;but
it is also theplace fromwhichpoliticscannotemanatebecause it does not
provide theexperienceof exploitationthatcontainswithinit thepossibil-
ity of the collective identityof interestthat is class consciousness."44
Though Marx has done farmore thanmostto deconstructthe opposition
of the privateand thepublic, theBrumairealso honorsthisdistinctionin
ridiculing"the dames des halles, the fishwives"(114) who, supposedly
notable fortheircharacteristicodeur, formedin Marx's imaginationone
of Bonaparte's constituencies.This engenderingof the division between
privacyand publicitywould be one last attemptto patrolthe distinction
between insides and outsides,one last resistanceto performing the scene
of writing.As I've been implyingthroughout, however,Marx can respect

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AndrewParker 43

such distinctionsonly in theirbreach,findinghimselfactingwhenhe only

would be...acting, criticizingtheaterfroma position already (up)staged,
unthinkingsex but performingit instead. I offeras a coda one last
theatricalengagement.
"In private life," Marx wrote in the Brumaire, "one differentiates
between whata man thinksand says of himselfand whathe really is and
does" (47). At home, indeed, Marx was crazy about the theater,reading
aloud fromFaust to his children,playing the part of Mephistophelesin
parlorproductions,hostingregularmeetingsof a ShakespeareClub where
he was described by a fellow memberas "delightful,never criticising,
always enteringinto the spiritof any fun that was going on, laughing
when anythingstruckhimas particularlycomic, untilthe tearsran down
his cheeks - the oldest in years,but in spiritas youngas any of us. And
his friend,the faithfulFrederick Engels, was equally spontaneous."45
Marx impartedthisenthusiasmto his favoritedaughterEleanor,thefuture
translatorof Madame Bovaryand co-author(withEdward Aveling) of The
WomanQuestion. When she fell seriously ill at age nineteenwith what
Marx describedas "one of these femalecomplaints,in which the hysteri-
cal elementplays a part,"he fullysupportedherin herdecision to become
an actress, to exchange a private for a public audience. She did so,
becoming friendsnot only withHavelock Ellis but also withG. B. Shaw,
to whomshe wroteon the subject of Ibsen's receptionin England:
How odd it is thatpeoplecomplainthathisplays"haveno end"but
just leave you whereyou were,thathe gives no solutionto the
problemhehassetyou!As ifinlifethings"ended"offeithercomfort-
ablyor uncomfortably.Weplaythrough ourlittledramas,andcome-
dies,and,tragedies,andfarces,andthenbeginitall overagain.
Gratefulto Marx forhis encouragement,Eleanor disclosed the following
in a letterto a friend:"Our natureswere exactlyalike! Fatherwas talking
of myelder sisterand of me, and said: 'Jennyis mostlike me, but Tussy
...is me. 46

- forRobbie and Bruce

Notes
Versionsofthisessaywerepresented as lecturesat the"MarxismNow" Conference (Amherst),the
AmericanComparative LiteratureAssociationConference (San Diego),andat Rutgers,
Comell,New
YorkandDuke Universities. I thankmyhostsandaudiencesfortheirhelpfulresponses, as wellas Peter
StallybrassandMichaelWarner fortheirconversation andsuggestions.
1. GayleRubin,"Thinking Sex: Notesfora RadicalTheoryofthePoliticsofSexuality," inCaroleS.
Vance,ed., Pleasureand Danger: ExploringFemale Sexuality(Boston:Routledge& Kegan Paul,
1984),267-319.All further references willappearinthetextabove.
2. GayleRubin,"TheTraffic inWomen:Notesonthe'PoliticalEconomy'ofSex,"inRaynaR. Reiter,
ed.,Towardan Anthropology ofWomen(New York:Monthly ReviewPress,1975),174,158.
3. Eve KosofskySedgwick,Epistemology oftheCloset(Berkeley:Univ.ofCaliforniaPress,1990),
29.
One HundredYearsofHomosexuality
4. Cf. David M. HIalperin, (New York:Routledge,1990),25:
"Now sexualidentity, so conceived,is notto be confusedwithgenderidentity orgenderrole:indeed,

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44 Sex
Unthinking

oneofthechiefconceptual functions ofsexualityis todistinguish, onceandforall,sexualidentity from

matters ofgender- to decouple,as itwere,kindsofsexualpredilection fromdegreesofmasculinity
andfemininity." As Sedgwickobserves, moreover, sexuality extendsindimensions thatmayhavelittle
ifanybearingonthegenderofobject-choice: human/animal, adult/child,singular/plural,autoerotic/al-
loerotic(Epistemology oftheCloset,35).
5. See AlexandraKollontai,SelectedWritings, trans.AlixHolt(London:Allison& Busby,1977).
6. See Jeffrey Weeks,Sexuality (London:Tavistock, 1986),24.
7. ReimutReiche,Sexuality and Class Struggle, trans.SusanBennett (New York:Praeger,1971),8.
8. See, forexample,RichardLichtman, TheProduction ofDesire(New York:The FreePress,1982).
9. JoanWallachScott,Genderand thePoliticsofHistory(New York:ColumbiaUniv.Press,1988),
53-65.See also DonnaHaraway'swonderfully succinctoverviewofthishistory inSimians,Cyborgs,
and Women:TheReinvention ofNature(New York:Routledge,1991),127-148,esp. 132: "The root
difficulty [forMarx]wasan inability tohistoricizesex itself;likenature, sexfunctioned as
analytically
a primematter or rawmaterial fortheworkofhistory."
10.Thisliterature is vastevenifconfined totheU.S. andtheU.K. See, amongmanyothers, Michele
Barrett, Women'sOppressionToday:Problemsin MarxistFeminist Analysis(London:Verso,1980);
RosalindCoward,PatriarchalPrecedents:Sexualityand Social Relations(London:Routledge&
KeganPaul, 1983); ZillahEisenstein, ed.,CapitalistPatriarchy and theCase forSocialistFeminism
(New York:MonthlyReviewPress,1979); NancyFraser,UnrulyPractices:Power,Discourseand
Gender in Contemporary Social Theory(Minneapolis:Univ. of MinnesotaPress, 1989); Nancy
Hartsock, Money,Sex and Power:Towarda FeministHistoricalMaterialism (New York:Longman,
1983); AnnetteKuhnand AnnMarieVolpe,eds.,Feminism and Materialism:Womenand Modes of
Production(London:Routledge& KeganPaul, 1978); Catherine A. MacKinnon, Towarda Feminist
Theoryof the State (Cambridge,MA: HarvardUniv. Press,1989); Sheila Rowbotham, Women,
Resistanceand Revolution(New York:Vintage,1974); LydiaSargent,ed., Womenand Revolution
(Boston: South End Press,1981);Lise Vogel, Marxism and the Oppression ofWomen: Towarda Unitary
Theory(New Brunswick, NJ:RutgersUniv.Press,1983); Eli Zaretsky, Capitalism,theFamily,and
PersonalLife(New York:Harper& Row,1976).
11. Eve KosofskySedgwick,BetweenMen: EnglishLiterature aund Male HomosocialDesire(New
York:ColumbiaUniv.Press,1985),12.
12. Anespeciallyegregiousinstance wouldbe Christine Di Stefano'sConfigurations ofMasculinity:
A FeministPerspectiveon ModernPoliticalTheory(Ithaca,NY: Comell Univ.Press,1991). After
notingthat"whatis missingin Marx'stheoryis, of course,an explicitreckoning withgender,"Di
Stefanoproceedsat lengthtocastigateMarxsolelyforhisinability torecognize"thelaboringmother"
(106, 122). As Judith Butlerexplains,to conflatein thisway thefeminine withthematemalis "to
reinforce preciselythe binary,heterosexist framework thatcarvesup gendersintomasculineand
feminine and foreclosesan adequatedescription ofthekindof subversive andparodicconvergences
thatcharacterize gayandlesbiancultures" (GenderTrouble:Feminism and theSubversion ofIdentity
[NewYork:Routledge,19901,66).
13. JohnD'Emilio,"Capitalismand Gay Identity," in AnnSnitow,Christine Stansell,and Sharon
Thompson, eds.,PowersofDesire:ThePoliticsofSexuality (NewYork:Monthly ReviewPress,1983),
100-13.
14. Weeks,Sexuality, 37.
15. Karl Marx,TheEighteenth BrumaireofLouis Bonaparte(New York:International Publishers,
1963),8. All further referenceswillappearinthetextabove.
16. Karl Marxand Friedrich Engels,The Communist Manifesto, ed. A. J. P. Taylor(New York:
Penguin,1967),82.
17. On theater as a generalized "parasite"seeJacquesDerrida,LinitedInc (Evanston, IL: Northwest-
em Univ.Press,1988).
18. PeterStallybrass, "Marxand Heterogeneity: Thinking theLumpenproletariat," Representations,
31 (Summer1990),87-88.
19.Revolution and Repetition: MarxIlugo/Balzac(Berkeley:Univ.ofCalifornia Press,1977),13.
20. MikkelBorch-Jacobsen, TheFreudianSubject,trans.Catherine Porter (Stanford: StanfordUniv.
Press,1988),44.
21. Citedin David Marshall,TheSurprising Effects ofSympathy (Chicago:Univ.ofChicagoPress,
1988),136.
22. See myRe-Marx:Deconstructive ReadingsinMarxistTheory andCriticism, (Madison:Univ.of
WisconsinPress,forthcoming).
23. "In termsof present-day values,EngelssubsidizedMarxand his familyto theextentof over
?100,000"(David McLellan,Friedrich Engels[NewYork:Penguin,19771,95). Inflation hasofcourse
sinceboostedthisfigure.
24. Saul K. Padover,ed.,TheLettersofKarlMarx(EnglewoodCliffs, NJ:Prentice-Hlall, 1979),107.
25. WayneKoestenbaum, Double Talk: The Eroticsof Male Literar,Collaboration(New York:
Routledge,1989),2. (AfterKoestenbaum, indeed,it's impossibleto readTerrellCarver'sMarxand
Engels: TheIntellectual Relationship without finding itstitlea taddefensive.) Another collaborative
projectwouldbe thechildwhosepatemity Marxand Engels"shared."Hlelen(Lenchen)Demuthwas
givenas a "gift"fromJenny's parents totheMarxfamily, forwhomshewouldworkfordecadesas a

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AndrewParker 45

servant.Demuthbecamepregnant almostimmediately uponherarrivalin June1851 (thegestation

wouldincludetheperiodwhenMarxwrotetheBrumaire). Thechild'sfather waslongpresumed to be
Engels,butnowit is generally acceptedthattheboyinfactwas Marx's.Christened HenryFrederick
Demuth,his firstnamehonoredMarx'sfather, his secondnameEngels.(Cf.theconclusionof Bram
Stoker'sDracula, wherethechild's"bundleof nameslinksall ourlittlebandof mentogether.") In
Jerrold Seigel's account:"WhenEngelswas neardeathin 1895,however,and had notmentioned
FrederickDemuthin his will,he let his friendand housekeeper Louise Freyberger (Karl Kautsky's
ex-wife)knowthetruth lesthe be thought ofdisowning his ownson.Louise Freyberger toldEleanor
Marxwho,disbelieving, made Engelstellher,too" (Marx'sFate: The Shape of a Life [Princeton:
Princeton Univ.Press,1978],275). A tighter fitthanthisforGayleRubin'straffic-in-women template
wouldbe difficult toimagine, butit'sjustas difficult tofathom, inlightofthishistory, whyMarxwould
attackBonapartein theBrumaire forhavingoutlawedresearch intopaternity (124).
26. Sedgwick,Epistemology oftheCloset,184-185.
27. DavidMarshall,TheFigureofTheater:Shaftesbury, Defoe,AdamSmith, and GeorgeEliot(New
York:ColumbiaUniv.Press,1986),1.
28. See HubertKennedy,Ulrichs(Boston:AlysonPublications,1988), whichexplainswhy,in
Ulrichs'view,any"lovethatis directed towarda manis necessarily a woman'slove"(50). "Thatsexual
object-choicemightbe whollyindependent of such 'secondary'characteristics as masculinity or
femininity neverseemsto haveentered anyone'shead"untilHavelockEllisandFreud(Halperin,One
HundredYearsofHomosexuality, 16). FreudattacksUlrichsbynameinhisThreeEssayson theTheory
ofSexuality, trans.anded. JamesStrachey(New York:Basic Books,1962),8.
29. See JamesSteakley,TheHomosexualEmancipation Movement in Germany (New York:Amo
Press,1975).
30. Citedin David Footman, FerdinandLasalle: RomanticRevolutionary (New Haven:Yale Univ.
Press,1947),181-182.FormoreonSchweitzer see RogerMorgan,TheGermanSocial Democratsand
theFirstInternational, 1864-1872(Cambridge: Cambridge Univ.Press,1965).
31. Frederick Engels,The OriginoftheFamily,PrivateProperty and theState,ed. EleanorBurke
Leacock(New York:International Publishers, 1972),128.
32. KarlMarxand Frederick Engels,CollectedWorks(New York:International Publishers,1988),
vol. 43, 295-296.All further references willbe citedbyvolumeandpage inthetextabove.
33. CitedinMcLellan,FriedrichEngels,92. McLellandescribesEngelsas a "semi-bachelor" on 94.
34. Citedin Kennedy, Ulrichs,135.
35. ThatStrohn's"bloodrelapse"calledUlrichstomindis another signthatMarxhadreadhiswork:
"Ulrichswonderedin writing ifthetransfusion ofthebloodofan Umingintoa Dioningwouldturn
himintoan Uming"(Kennedy, Ulrichs,77).
36. CitedinStallybrass, "Marxand Heterogeneity," 72.
37. KarlMarx,TheEconomicand PhilosophicManuscripts of1844,ed. DirkJ.Struik(New York:
Intemational Publishers, 1964),113.
38. HannahArendt, TheHumanCondition (Chicago:Univ.ofChicagoPress,1958),106.
39. KarlMarx,EconomicandPhilosophicManuscripts, 113,andCapital,ed. Frederick Engels(New
York:International Publishers,1967),1: 81,43.
40. Citedin Kennedy, Ulrichs,146,133.
41. "The realityofthevalueofcommodities differs inthisrespectfromDame Quickly,thatwe don't
know'whereto haveit"' (Capital1:47).
42. DominickLaCapra,Re-Thinking IntellectualHistory(Ithaca:Comnell Univ.Press,1983),287.
43. WalterBenjamin,or Towardsa Revolutionary Criticism(London: Verso, 1981), 167. Cf.
Eagleton's"Nationalism: IronyandCommitment," in SeamusDeane,ed.,Nationalism, Colonialism,
and Literature (Minneapolis:Univ.of MinnesotaPress,1990),31: "As OscarWildewellunderstood,
socialismis essentialforgenuineindividualism; and ifWilde'sownoutrageous individualism prefig-
ures thatin one sense, it also testifiesin its veryflamboyant artificeto the way in whichany
individualism ofthepresent is boundto be a strained, fictive,parodictravesty oftherealthing."
44. Scott,Genderand thePoliticsofHistory, 74.
45. Citedin YvonneKapp,EleanorMarx(New York:Pantheon, 1972), 1:193.S. S. Prawerfurther
recalls"thattheMarxhouseholdinLondonwas fullofthesoundofpoetry beingdeclaimed,ornovels
andplaysbeingreadaloud;andthatMarxhimself lovedthesonorities ofFaustso muchthathe tended
to overdohis declamations" (Karl Marxand WorldLiterature [New York:OxfordUniversity Press,
19781,207).
46. CitationsarefromSeigel,Marx'sFate,282-284.

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