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• Affect Theory and Homophobia by John R. Crary, 5/27/98
  
  

I, too, read those passages in the book you mention, and found them somewhat confusing. Every page of my book was read by Tomkins long before it was submitted as a final manuscript, and he had no objection to either statement. (Silvan had no reticence about explaining to his close colleagues where they had misunderstood his theories.) Your questions make me wonder whether you have read my 1992 book "Shane and Pride," or have merely accepted as reasonable the strange extirpation from context represented in the work cited. Tomkins was actually quite respectful of the new theories for sexuality I introduced in "Shame and Pride," saying "I looked more than 30 years for a theory of sexuality that fit with affect theory, but it looks like you found it." If Tomkins thought that my understanding of sexuality contained a conflation of drive and affect, he sure made a big mistake in failing to point it out to me.

Maybe you can help me here. If you have read my actual work, rather than these two passages, please then tell me how you believe I have erred in conflating drive and affect. If you are speaking as a representative of a population you feel I have maligned or insulted, I would like to know your relation to this population and how you have come to speak for it as a group rather than for yourself as an individual. Furthermore, if you have indeed read my book, I would like you to explain your apparent claim that I have failed to affirm the affects of the gay and lesbian population. Finally, I hope you will explain what you mean by "therapeutically responsive to the gay and lesbian population." As a psychiatrist, I have never tried to treat any individual who had not contracted with me for therapy, and I sure don't know how to behave therapeutically in any other context.

• Shame in the Cybernetic Fold by John R. Crary, 6/9/98