A Queer Supplement: Reading Spinoza after Grosz Author(s): Catherine Mary Dale Source: Hypatia, Vol. 14, No.

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A QueerSupplement: afterGrosz Reading Spinoza

CATHERINEMARY DALE

that This articlecritiques Grosz'sunderstanding queertheoryis unElizabeth as identities gayandlesbian.Reconsiderthe productive insofar it disrupts specific of that ingideasaboutdesire,thebody,andidentity GrosztakesfromGillesDeleuze's her and workon Friedrich Nietzsche Baruch Spinoza,thisessayarguesthat,despite and "reactive" in productive forces, reworking homophobia termsof "active" of on evaluation Grosz'sapplication Spinozais onlypartial.Focusing Spinoza's of of desireand obto Grosz's approach experimental bodies, the essay both critiques in servesSpinozist body.It conpreoccupations orderto talkabouttheexperimental to cludesthat if Grosz were to attendmoreseriouslyto the Spinozistimperative a bodyin termsof its capabilities-thatis, its powerto be affected-the analyze to basis wouldchange.It wouldbe difficult dismiss epistemological of herargument theplurality sensibility a queerbodyor its challenge lesbian gay as the and to and of sourceof a primary identity.

ElizabethGroszbegins "Experimental Desire"(1993) by definingthe main featuresthat constitute oppressionin orderto point out the peculiaroppression of homophobia. In orderto talk about homophobia, Grosz turns to the seventeenth century rationalist philosopher Baruch Spinoza and his most ambivalentfan, FriedrichNietzsche.1Briefly,Spinoza and Nietzsche are both concerned with a certain philosophical incomprehension of the body. They offer an alternative to viewing bodies (social and individual) as fixed identities. Through the models they enable, Grosz analyzes the operations of homophobia and the modes by which it judges the homosexual and the lesbian body. Spinoza analyzesthe affectivity of a body, while Nietzsche thinks of the body in termsof its forces. Spinozaand Nietzsche provideGroszwith a way of reevaluatingthe values of bodies and their relationsby breakingbodies down
Hypatia vol. 14, no. 1 (Winter 1999) ? by Catherine MaryDale

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into joyful and sad affects, and dominant and dominated forces. This means that Groszcan discusshomophobia in such a way that the details of its force While followingNietzsche's and its affecthighlight its slavishor weakcharacter. Grosz'sessaycuriouslymakesonly a partialreadingof Spinoza.She trajectory, focuses on Nietzschean forces and neglects Spinozistaffects.The significance of this move is that an advancednotion of queer is ultimately dismissed.The question to be addressedtherefore is: What implications would a fuller reading of Spinoza offer in terms of a theory of queer?
FORCES

Unlike other kinds of oppressionthat do not separatea body and its actions, Grosz suggeststhat homophobia is precisely the oppressionthat does: it separateswhat a body is from what it can do, thus marking a difference "betweenan ontology and a pragmatics.. " (Grosz1995, 214). Gays and lesbians are "not just distinguished by sex, race, and class characteristics,but also by sexual desiresand practices"(1995, 214). In orderto appraisethe conflicting relationsoperatingwithin the oppressionof homosexuality,Groszuses Nietzsche'snoble and slavishdynamicforces,discussingthem, followingGilles relationship Deleuze, as active and reactive forces (see Deleuze 1983). "Every of forces constitutes a body-whether it is chemical, biological, social or political. Any two forces, being unequal constitute a body as soon as they enter into a relationship.And this relationshipis the fruitof chance, and for Nietzsche it appearsas the most 'astonishing' thing, much more astonishing, in fact, than consciousness and spirit"(Grosz 1995, 215). active forcesare innocent, open, and aggressive,while reactive Summarily, forcesare cunning and obedient. An active force "movesin its direction without regardfor anything other than its own free expansion, mindlessof others" (1995, 215). Reactive forces, on the other hand, live "in modes of sensibility and sentiment";they restrictchance and appearmost significantlyin religion, morality,and law (1995, 215). It must be rememberedthat a reactive force is also related to power, but its power can only be graspedin its relation-its reaction-to superioror active forces. Reactive forces are separatefrom what they can do, "they separate a force from its effects through the relation of myth, symbolism, fantasy, and falsification"(1995, 215). For example, the oppression of homophobia separates the homosexual body from its effects because it is what the homosexual body does, and not what it is, that is consideredobjectionable. Groszthen addsa Spinozistformula:what is done is infromthe being of the body that does it.2The combination of Spinoza separable and Nietzsche demonstrateshow the reactive forces of homophobia convert the expansive and active forces of a homosexual body into an identity, reducing that body to what it is and separatingit fromwhat it can do.

Catherine MaryDale

Grosz suggeststhat resistant and outlawed sexualities such as gay and lesbian are most often regardedas reactive forces because they struggleagainst normalization,while heterosexuality is commonly viewed as an active force with the powerto commandand oppress.Effectivelyreversingthese opinions, Grosz names homophobia and heterosexism reactive forces "which function in part to prevent alternatives, to negate them and to ruminate on how to destroy them; [while] gay and lesbian sexualities and lifestyles can be seen as innovative, inventive, productive,and thus active insofaras they aim at their own pleasures,their own distributions,their own free expansion"(1995, 216). But as Groszobserves,the situation is morecomplicated:gay and lesbian identities can also be straightin the sense of maintainingthe fixed and traditional status quo, for example, homosexual marriagesand the setting up of nuclear families where nothing is new except the facts of gender. Similarly,heterosexual lives can aboundin transgressions, defyingthe framesof the celebrated and the expectation of procreation.Within the compositeindividual, "couple" it becomes more complex again. "In each of us there are elements and impulses that strive for conformity and elements which seek instability and the change"(1995, 216). Despiteramifying sexualpossibilitiesof identification, Grosz'sargumentstill tends towardthe maintenance of a strict binaryfoundation. Ultimately, Grosz'sproject is more interested in gay and lesbian identities than in the notion of a multiple ordersuch as queer.
QUEERDISCRIMINATIONS

Forthe purposesof this essay,queer is understoodas a fluctuatingand fluid arenaratherthan a cohesive and fixed community.In this sense, solid identities such as gay and lesbian are seen as regimenting the sexual diversity and singularrelations that characterizequeer. The power relations between gay and lesbian and queer are complicated throughthe introductionof active and reactive forces.The heterosexualpower relations that structurelesbian and gay as deviations from a moral and legal path are paralleledby a lesbian and gay structuringof queer in much the same way. In this sense, queer is a crowded and clamorousforce disrupting Grosz'ssystemof gay and lesbian bodies, just as the latter continues its legacy of disruptingheterosexuality.Groszpoints out that change, in the formof gay and lesbian identities, is dangerousto reactive forces. But if, as this essaywill suggest, Grosz'sown resistance to queer is reactive, this is because queer is dangeroustwice: first,to gay and lesbian identities;second, to normativeheterosexuality.Grosz'sargumentis reactive and in a certain sense reactionary because it aims to maintain the separateidentities of gay and lesbian,which it regardsas providing a cohesive and socially intelligible order unlike queer, whose very pluralitydetermines its failureas a singularobject of study.

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characIn contrastto her singularcaution about queer'susefulness,Grosz's terizationsof queer are far less succinct, referring,as she does, to a numberof lesbiansand otherqueers" conflictingdefinitions.Forexample,she writes,"gays, (1995, 216), which implies that queer is both a parallel construction to gay and lesbian and a nonexclusive alternative. Conversely, Grosz's"queersof whatever type"suggeststhat queer is a term all inclusive of gays, lesbians,and significantothers (1995, 216). This ambivalencetowardthe meaning or posiwhere Grosz declares tion of queer is developed in a section on "Pleasures," that in terms of sexual specificity and sexual difference she "can no longer affordto generalizeabout 'queemess':this term covers a vast range of sexual practices, partners,aims, and objects (heterosexual as well as homosexual). The term 'queer'as it is currentlyused is basicallya reactive categorythat sees itself in opposition to a straightnorm.... These others-deviant sexual practices of whatever kind-may find that they share very little in common with each other (indeed they may be the site of profoundtension and contradiction)" (1995, 219). Grosz'scriticism separatesthe internal from the external: queeris too broadlydefinedto maintain a cohesive political agendaboth with outside groupsand within its own group. Indeed, Groszeven uses queer as a multifariouslever of opposition againstwhich she raisesher analysesof single sexual desires. According to Grosz,the vastnessof queermeans that it cannot avoid makThis view ing sweeping claims about categoriesor typologies of oppressions.3 wants to analyzespecific sexualities. "Ifind it less useful emergeswhen Grosz to talk about queerness or even gayness when theorising sexed bodies and their sexual relations than specifyingat least broadlythe kinds of bodies and desiresin question"(1995, 219). In critiquingqueer'slack of specificity,Grosz remainscommitted to locating both sexual differenceand the sex of the love object as factorsthat cruciallyunderpinlesbian and gay political projects.But these factorsbecome a problemwhen demandsfor the right to same-sex relations, which do not arise from strictly gay or lesbian identities, for example, sadomasochistrelations, are susceptible to charges of political illegitimacy. When Grosztalks about "[t]heproliferationof sexualities beyond the notion of two" she exclaims parenthetically,"the assertion of two [gay and lesbian] has been difficult enough" (1995, 250 n.1), implying that an unfolding of it something queer will be too hard and more than enough. In summary, appearsthat Groszassumesthat queer identity requiresthe same treatment and operatesby the same political and social methods as gay and lesbian. Hence her ideas about the failureof queer emergefrom a principle of dualismrather than multiplicity. But there is an alternative view of queer as a term productive of positive difference.A positive expressionof differenceis a differencethat is not structuredby negation. This pure differenceexpressesthe immanence of the mul-

Catherine MaryDale

tiple and the one, ratherthan the eminence of this over that, of one or many, of identity or chaos. Puredifference is the positive play of all events (effects) and their productions. There is no essential identity nor loss or lack, only affirmation.Thus queer denotes the inclusion of its own difference. For example, queer includes gay and lesbian at the same time as it distinguishes them from each other and from itself. As a multiplicity queer is equatedwith an indeterminate number of bodies or groups at any given time, and these appearas aleatoryand undeterminedpotential.4In acknowledgingits difference from itself, queer upsets the usual mechanismsof social recognition: social identity implies the division of potential social relations into designated sets and individuals. In short, queer can violently deny identity simply because it is without the position or mode of being that normallycharacterizes things in general, structural,and analogousterms. In Spinoza'sEthics,distinctions between bodies are not hierarchical because the judgmentof bodies is no longer based on a moralityof superiorand inferiorspecies or genus;instead,two bodies mayhave something else in common. Consequently,differenceis not basedon negation (a lesbian is not queer because she is inextricably lesbian), nor analogy (a lesbian is queer because she is like a gay man or a transsexualin this or that characteristic,for example, in her sexual deviance), nor transcendence(a lesbian is not God (Nature) but representssomething of God'sSubstance). Queer does not elide gay and lesbian in favor of liberating an open door policy that would destroyall definition. Rather,it apprehendsnew alliances and irreconcilabledifferences and treatsthem as no less than productive.The structureof queeris indeed "a site of profoundtension and contradiction"(Grosz 1995, 219), but it is more inclined towardthe difficulttask of relinquishingthe expectation of community-the expectation that any group that shares the same name must also acknowledge the same interests and an overt sense of commonality.For example, feminist concerns often clash with queer agendas;certain sectors of feminism criticizequeerfor not only overlooking the specific issuesof women (gender), but of destroyingthem in favor of relations (sexuality). The multiplicity of a queer body raisesthe question of legitimacy and political loyalty because it struggleswith the exclusive and unifyingaspectsof identifyingwith any single group. Now, when Groszdeclares that there "is both power and dangerposed by lesbian and gay sexual relations: that what one does, how one does it, with whom and with what effects are ontologically open questions, that sexuality in and for all of us is fundamentallyprovisional,tenuous, mobile... " (1995, 227), she could as easily be talking about queer.The descriptionof a sexuality that challenges the normative and the complacent by maintaining a positive ambiguityand an unstableidentity easily appliesto queer,even moreso. Simian larly,when Groszcharacterizes active force as proceeding"withoutregard

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for anything other than its own free expansion, mindless of others" (1995, 215), does this not also describequeer?To readqueeras simplyreactive means to overlook its incessant and self-proliferating productionof desire. Although Groszdoes affirmthat dispersedpolysexualityfrees identity from its fixed position, she is still more concerned about the misuse of the term queer.As a rapidlyexpanding domain Groszfearsthat queer'slack of specific categorieswill be exploited by "extremeformsof heterosexualand patriarchal power games"(1995, 249-50 n.1). These powers will manipulate the terms to underwhich queeroperates,allowing certain "undesirables" share the banner of oppressionunder which gays and lesbians are organized. Grosz'sfears have a paranoidquality most evident in her own manipulation of sexual categories. In an extended footnote on "queertheory,"Grosz points out that "[h]eterosexualsadists, pederasts, fetishists, pornographers, pimps,voyeursall sufferfromsocial sanctions"(1995, 249-50 n. 1). Separately she discusses her concerns over the inclusion of "bisexuality,heterosexual and sado-masochisticheterosexuality"(1995, transvesticism,transsexualism, 249-50 n.1). These points were included as both a list of sexual minorities and a list of purportedlyignoble impostorsin Grosz'sconference paper.Ironically, Grosz'scategories display the very lack of discriminationshe is waryof in queer.A curiousaspect of her two classificationsis that pederasts,fetishists, pornographers,pimps, and voyeurs are viewed as exclusively sexual, albeit disgraceful,identities; alternative concretions are overlooked. These "types" are also expressionsof commercialismand criminality,and the quotidian actualizationof a way of life. On the other hand, bisexual, heterosexual transvestitism, transsexualism,and sadomasochisticheterosexualityare activities of usuallyassociatedwith variationson the crisscrossing sexual identities, but of life. The argumentagainst sex criminalsand entreprethese are also ways neurs is directed at their ability to claim identities as members of the oppressed,while the trans-sexgroupis listed in orderto demonstratethe confused blurringof sexual identity perpetuatedby queer. And yet, although the first groupappearsmost obviously sinister,in termsof Grosz'soverall argument,it is not necessarilythe most dangerousof the two lists. Given the second group's proximity to a critique of queer, Grosz seems more concerned to reveal and emphasizetheir inimical power.After all, it is the trans-sexgroupthat is more likely to contaminate the propertiesof gay and lesbian via its putative imitathe for tion and disregard their respectivedemarcations.Groszalreadyregards commercialand criminalseriesas distant fromgay and lesbian, and as appearing to serve not so much as a threat to gay and lesbian but as useful in providing the block of reasoningupon which to lay suspicion against the trans-sex of series. In discussingthe appropriation the label of oppression,Grosz'sargument implies the existence of authentic and inauthentic claims to oppression, an argumentwhich is prevalent in identity politics. In this logic, the more

Catherine MaryDale

ambiguous or fluid a group-for example, sadomasochists who identify as sadomasochistsand not as lesbian, gay, or heterosexual-the less legitimate its identity.
DETAIL

Like Deleuze, Grosz begins using Nietzschean forces by first invoking of Spinoza's"declaration ignorance,"aboutwhat a body is capableof (Deleuze 1988, 18). Again, like Deleuze, she considersbodies as consisting of multifaceted and complex series of power,which in turn consist of irreducibleactive and reactive forces. However, Grosz fails to further an affirmationof queer when she leaves asideher initial argumentabout "whata body can do,"failing to extend it into an investigation of Spinozist affectivity.Affectivity refersto a Spinozist method of defining a body by its power to affect and be affected. Incidentally, at the level of analysis, a body can be anything, "it can be an animal, a body of sounds, a mind or an idea; it can be a linguistic corpus, a social body, a collectivity" (Deleuze 1988, 127). Spinoza cites two kinds of affects (the modificationsor changes made through the encounter with another body): actions, where a body is its own cause of action generatedfrom internal affects;and passions,where a body is acted upon by external bodies and where actions or effects are producedthroughthe relationsbetween bodies. Passions are the most common kind of affects. They arise through the parallel mind's and body's inadequate knowledge and are also comprisedof two kinds: sad and joyful. When a body enters into good relations with our body,that is, when relationswith another body increaseour powersof acting, Spinoza calls this passion joyful. Alternatively, when we encounter a body that decomposesus, diminishingour powerof acting, he calls this passionsad. Summarily,it is through relations with other bodies that our power becomes addedor subtracted. analyzingagreeableand disagreeable relationsbetween By bodies, Spinoza'smethod invents a new ontology for the body and, thus, for identity. The practice of viewing a body by breaking it down or dissembling it in orderto appraiseits ability to act makesit impossibleto maintain the domination and authorityof single primaryidentities. MoiraGatens's"Power, Ethics and Sexual Imaginaries," (1996) offers a corrective to Grosz'sinattention to Spinozist detail. Gatens analyzessexual difference using the complexity of a Spinozist classification of bodies in order to distinguish between profitable and damagingsexual relations.As Gatens explains, this materialisttaxonomy need not refersolely to biology:a person'scapacity is determinedby the body, "but also by everything which makes up the context in which that body is acted upon and acts" (1996, 131).5 Gatens'sSpinozist readingrearranges the differences between the sexes. She demonstratesthat when individuals are

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judgedby their affective context and composition the idea that to be means to be sexed disappears. Sexual reductionism"belongsto a systemof classifications (genus, species, kind) that is quite foreign to Spinoza'sthought" (1996, 131). For example, in a Spinozist system, a man and woman may have more in common depending on context, than two men and two women.6As noted earlier,Spinoza'staxonomies are relevant to minority groups,where an individual will align itself with a particulargroup,for example, where lesbian, gay or straights/m practitioners choose to identifyprimarily and with s/m, rather as than with lesbian, homosexual, or heterosexual.As a result, political solidarity is called into questioning the structuresthat frame it as a group. Spinoza'sactions and passionsare practicaladditions to Grosz'sargument; his practicalphilosophy is suited to the politics of the social body, in particubecause lar to Grosz's discussionof gay and lesbian identities. This is primarily materialphilosophymakesprovisionfor a local politics, while NietzSpinoza's sche's forces are too easily co-opted as universal representationsof types of identities. If Grosz were to adopt Spinoza'spractical theories, the epistemological basis of her argumentwould change. Her omission of Spinoza'saffects becomes especiallyproblematicwhen she wants to talk about the social body and its agency ratherthan about large bodies of desire. In fact, it is precisely when Grosz introduces a specific lesbian desire and specific lesbian bodies that her argumentwould benefit most from the detailing of a Spinozist methodology.The missedquestionhere is:What would a comprehensiveSpinozian model do to lesbian or any other specific desire? On active and reactive forces, Deleuze writes "whateverthe ambivalence of sense and values we cannot conclude that a reactive force becomes active by going to the limit of what it can do ... when a reactive force drives to its ultimate consequence it does this in relation to negation, to the will to nothingness which serves as its motive force. Becoming active, on the contrary, the (1983, 68). Unlike reactive presupposes affinityof action and affirmation" forces, however, there is a potential for Spinoza'spassions to go to the limit of their joyfulness and, in turn, experience something of active affections.7 To increaseone's powerof acting means to preserveand accumulatethe affections of joyful passions. This entails that a body become affected in as many ways as possible. "Whatsoeverdisposes the human body that it can be affected in a great many ways, or rendersit capable of affecting external bodies in a great many ways, is useful to man ... " (Spinoza 1994, 221). A Spinozist practice of joy presents the opportunityto be more specific about any body of affections because of the complexity of the passions and the way external relations affect them. When the body is affected with joy it "strivesto imagine only those things which posit its power of acting" (Spinoza 1994, 184-85). The practicalprocessof formingactive affectionsis bridgedby what Spinoza calls "commonnotions." Briefly,this processbegins with the least generalno-

Catherine MaryDale

tions that two or more bodies share. This entails questioning the structureof a body by observing its relations with other bodies in orderto ascertainwhat is common between them and thereby to enable their production of joyful affects. These affects are not passions but rather "active joys thatjoin thefirst and pas-sions thentaketheir place"(Deleuze 1988, 56; emphasisadded). Spinoza says that common notions are able to form even with bodies that do not agree in nature. In terms of the disparatenature of queer,the theory of common notions transforms queer as an identity into queer as a relation.
RELATIONS

As a relation, queer is also a practice, a way or a manner of being. A manner of being is better expressedas a becoming ratherthan a being if we mean by the latter an unvarying identity. Where we have been using queer as a noun designatingan identity,albeit an irregular one, using queeras an adverb transformsit into a practice. In addition, queer is sometimes used as a verb, albeit absurdly, example,"toqueerthe humanrace,"or "queering town." for the As an adverband a verb queerbecomes active explicitly. It underscoreswhat a body can do ratherthan what a body is. Admittedly Grosz'spurposeis to single out the oppressionof gay men and lesbiansby analyzingthe forces that separatethem fromtheir power.But "gay and lesbian"unavoidablyassumesexualityas identity ratherthan as the practice of bodies and their affects. It is in the area of relations between bodies that Spinoza provides the opportunityto theorize a queer body as a multiple open system. He provides a method for investigating a body as if it were an with the potential of queer. experiment.This experimentalbody is synonymous Due to Spinoza'sattention to detail, however,queerresistsbecoming a partof what Grosz'sargument regardsas a lazy all-inclusive queer umbrella. Grosz suggeststhat the pluralityof queerhas become an obstacle to sexual identity, yet surely it is sexual difference that is the obstacle to the pluralityof queer (Dale 1997, 155). Through the practical and detailed addition of Spinoza's the affections, passions and actions enter the social body reconfiguring sexes, sexual relations into supraliminalsexual relations, and affirming transforming that queer'sopenness is precisely its strength. Queer, like Spinoza'sunknown body, involves an indefinite and unknowablesystem of distinctions of power. Moreover,because it is an indefinite system,it is continuouslyable to increase its relations with bodies, its joyfulpassions,and therefore,its powerof acting. If it is true that as a fluctuatingand fluid system queer lacks discernment, this is not necessarilya defect. Queer is like a crowd:it remainsopen to speculation and in this sense it is futuristic,unpredictable,and full of the potential for unknown transformations. this sense, the more solid identities, such as In gay and lesbian, regiment the sexual diversityand singularrelations that both transcendand characterizequeer.The identificationof sexed bodies and their

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relations amounts to a kind of crowdcontrol. Forexample, the names lesbian and gay rise up out of the crowd to identify themselves, but this attempt to speak above the noise of the raucouscrowd seems to silence the irritatingbut perhaps also profitablenoise of confusion. One of the problems associated with thinking about queer is this tension between the multiplicity of sexual relations and individual names but also between queer'sown clamor and its use as designatingan identity. Queer is an aesthetics of relations intent on securinggood encounters by capitalizingon joyful passions.If queer is an embodiment of the future,it still remains to be seen whether queer has a future or is the future. In another sense, the future of queer is already the present because it is being debated now. One of the things to come from this debate is the proposalthat sexual identificationis incompatiblewith an ideal model of queer.Queer'sown proper object is its movement and undetectable change, and identity breaksthis up. As Identity segments the undetectable continuity of queer'stransformations. queer'svirtualfeaturethe continuity of change is most accuratelydescribedas queer'saestheticism. Grosz declares the importance of "the desire to enjoy, to experience, to make pleasurefor its own sake"(1995, 227) ratherthan for a greaterpolitical reason, but she stops short of the extremismof such a stand by claiming it as "one but not the only trajectoryor direction in the lives of sexed bodies" (Grosz 1995, 227). If it is importantto make pleasurefor its own sake-pleasure signifying the augmentation of one's power to act-then the Spinozist accumulation of joyful passions and their conversion through common notions to active affects and adequateknowledge offers a practical and ethical definition of queer.The ethics of queer emphasizesthe idea that ethics is not a stand but a way of life. Through his reading of Spinoza, Deleuze poses the ultimate ethical question: "How does one arriveat a maximumof joyful passions?"(Deleuze 1988, 28). Spinoza'sEthicsis in manywaysa practicalmanual offering a method for generating new ways of life. Queer advocates the creative action of desireadvancingthe notion of pleasurefor its own sake.8Reading Spinoza beyond Grosz'slimited use of his work provides a frameworkfor queer relations in their ardent quest for what a body is capable of. Spinozism enables a coherent theorizationof queeras an inclusive, but not bland, system practicedby the differentialconstitution of a body,not as a fixed unit, but as, in, and with, a relation.

NOTES Thank you to Annamarie Jagose. 1. This essay primarilyreads Spinoza'sEthics(in 1994). The central secondary text is Spinoza:Practical (Deleuze 1988). Groszfollows Deleuze'scombinaPhilosophy

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11

tion of Spinoza and Nietzsche in this volume. This study of Spinoza concentrates on his emphasis on communal social relations, and I develop this emphasis for its relevance to relations between various sexual identities and identity politics generally. Deleuze'slargerstudyof Spinoza, Expressionism Philosophy: in Spinoza(1992) is consequently less relevant. 2. Indeed, for Spinoza, the mind is a thinking thing, while the body is an extending thing of the one reality or Substance. Unlike Descartes'sdualism of mind and body, Spinoza is a monist. In his schema, there is only one substance.This substance has infinite attributesalthough we only know two: thought and extension. Attributes, in turn, have modes. The mind is a mode of thought, while matter or the body is a mode of extension. 3. See David Halperin, Saint Foucault:Towards Gay Hagiography a (1995, 62-6, 112-13), Teresade Lauretis,"QueerTheory: Lesbianand Gay Sexualities, An Introduction" (1991, iii), and Shelia Jeffreys,The LesbianHeresy(1993, 113-14). 4. The synthesis of the multiple and the one is something that concerns both Spinozaand Deleuze'sreadingsof Spinoza.Deleuzepositions SpinozaagainstDescartes, whose dialecticalreasoninglimitsdifferenceto a seriesof dualisticantagonisms whereby difference is born by recognition, analogy,and identification of the same, of the one. In his introduction to Deleuze'sSpinoza:Practical Robert Hurley writes of Philosophy, Spinoza that "the historical problemwas what to make of limited composites such as human beings, in their involvement with perfect, i.e., infinite, forces that make up the form known as God" (Deleuze 1988, i). 5. This is still inadequateknowledge for Spinoza,but he does not want to ignore ignorance because it is a part of human intelligibility. 6. Like Gatens, Genevieve Lloyd uses Spinoza to discusssex differencesas manifestations of power.She writes, "Spinozisticminds... are multi-faceted,reflectingthe complexity of the bodies of which they are ideas"(1989, 21). Further,Lloyd says that although sex differencesapplyto minds no less than bodies for Spinoza, this "doesnot involve the affirmationof any male or female content, existing independently of operations of power"(1989, 21). The importantthing is that Groszstill wants to judge a body by its gay-nessor lesbian-ness. 7. Spinoza'sactions and passions are not completely transferableas Nietzschean active and reactive forces, but the aspect of the passions that separatea body from its power to act do sharewith reactive forces the activity of separatinga body from what it can do. 8. This is also one of the criticismsdirected at queer,its hedonism, and therefore, its supposedapoliticality. See, for example, Halperin (1995, 62-66, 112-13).

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