M A K I N G SE X P U B L I C AND OTHER CINEMATIC FANTASIES THEORY Q A series edited by Lauren Berlant and Lee Edelman M A K I N G SE X P U B L I C AND OTHER CINEMATIC FANTASIES DAMON R. YOUNG DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS DURHAM & LONDON 2018 © 2018 Duke University Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of Amer i ca on acid- free paper ∞ Cover designed by Heather Hensley; Interior designed by Adrianna Sutton Typeset in Arno Pro and Meta by Westchester Publishing Services Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Names: Young, Damon R., [date] author. Title: Making sex public and other cinematic fantasies / Damon R. Young. Description: Durham : Duke University Press, 2018. | Series: Theory Q | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: lccn 2018012344 (print) | lccn 2018015606 (ebook) isbn 9781478002765 (ebook) isbn 9781478001331 (hardcover : alk. paper) isbn 9781478001676 (pbk. : alk. paper) Subjects: lcsh: Sex in motion pictures. | Motion pictures— United States— History—20th  century. | Motion pictures— France— History—20th  century. Classification: lcc pn1995.9.S45 (ebook) | lcc pn1995.9.S45 y68 2018 (print) | ddc 791.43/6538— dc23 lc rec ord available at https:// lccn . loc . gov / 2018012344 Duke University Press gratefully acknowledges the American Comparative Lit er a ture Association Helen Tartar First Book Subvention Award, which provided funds toward the publication of this book. Cover art: Illustration by Silvia Prada. For Laurie Young This page intentionally left blank CONTENTS Acknowl edgments ix INTRODUCTION MAKING SEX PUBLIC 1 PART I W OMEN 1 AUTONOMOUS PLEASURES Bardot, Barbarella, and the Liberal Sexual Subject 21 2 FACING THE BODY IN 1975 Catherine Breillat and the Antinomies of Sex 54 PART II CRIMINALS 3 THE FORM OF THE SOCIAL Heterosexuality and Homo- aesthetics in Plein soleil 95 4 CRUISING AND THE FRATERNAL SOCIAL CONTRACT 122 PART III CITIZENS 5 WORD IS OUT, OR QUEER PRIVACY 159 6 SEX IN PUBLIC Through the Win dow from Psycho to Shortbus 187 EPILOGUE POSTCINEMATIC SEXUALITY 215 Notes 239 Bibliography 279 Index 295 This page intentionally left blank ACKNOWLE DGMENTS This book is the product of a long labor. During the writing I took conso- lation from a comment Debussy once made while composing a sonata: he had “spent a week deciding on one chord rather than another.” Robert Bres- son, citing this statement in his Notes on Cinematography, adds about his own practice: “ These horrible days—w hen shooting film disgusts me, when I am exhausted, powerless in the face of so many obstacles—a re part of my method of work.” Alas, Making Sex Public is not a Bresson film or a Debussy sonata. But in writing it, I at least could humor myself by considering that in the most torturous aspects of my method, I was suffering in good com pany. Imaginary com pany can be sustaining, but my debts are to the real friends who trained kind, overtaxed eyes on drafts of chapters that transformed under their scrutiny. Scott Richmond appeared suddenly one summer and has been my most cherished interlocutor since. Recent collaborations with Genevieve Yue and Nico Baumbach have renewed my faith in the acade my’s ability to give shape to a conversation that is not merely professional—w hich is to say, that is human and intellectual. Ramzi Fawaz is the best friend any book writer could have. David Caron and Jennifer Nelson put their genius for prose at the ser vice of mine, improving my thinking at the level of the clause. Katie Brewer Ball was (along with Dan Dinero and Sujay Pandit) one of this work’s earli- est and best readers. Debarati Sanyal, Kris Fallon, Michelle Wang, Jennifer Row, Amber Musser, Kadji Amin, John David Rhodes, Elena Gorfinkel, Nilo Couret, Johanna Gosse, Jessica Davies, Gay Hawkins, and Gilbert Caluya all gave rigorous attention to drafts that I was then inspired to make worthy of it. Tavia Nyong’o is a theory geek/dreamboat whose conversation opens lines of flight and saves thought from death by repetition. For vari ous forms of moral and intellectual support, I have depended on colleagues and friends old and new, including Jennifer Bajorek, Stephen Best, Venus Bivar, Natalia Brizuela, Robert Chang (the tomato King), Zahid Chaudhary, Kris Cohen, Églantine Colon, Alex Dubilet, Lisa Duggan, Aglaya Glebova, Christopher Goetz, Su- zanne Guerlac, Jack Halberstam, Michael Iarocci, Julia Jarcho, Satyel Larson, Michael Lucey, Kristen Loutensock, Julie Napolin, Nguyen Tan Hoang, Ara Osterweil, Ariel Osterweis, Jasbir Puar, Pooja Rangan, Poulomi Saha,