Sex, or the Unbearable

In this slim yet extraordinarily dense volume, Berlant (Cruel Optimism) and Edelman (L'impossible Homosexuel) present a series of dialogues regarding the dichotomy and contradictions of sex as a pleasurable act that is simultaneously fraught with many unbearable aspects and consequences. As they discuss how these factors relate on social, cultural and emotional levels, among others, they likewise touch upon relationality, sovereignty, negativity, and optimism. The authors, both professors of English, offer up their findings in turgid academic language that is so roundabout and obscure that it is often hard to engage. In the preface, the authors are at their most readable when they state that "We approach sex here as a site, therefore, at which relationality is invested with hopes, expectations, and anxieties that are often experienced as unbearable. Sex, though subject to the pressures of legal sanction, social judgment, unconscious drives, and contradictory desires, holds out the prospect of discovering new ways of being and of being in the world. But it also raises the possibility of confronting our limit in ourselves or in another, of being inundated psychically or emotionally." Casual readers be forewarned: this is the sort of book only academics could love. (Jan.)