Rethinking the‘Star-Equilibrium’: The Utopian Vision and Sexuality in Women in Love

Abstract

This paper is an attempt to demonstrate that the‘star-equilibrium’, which has been interpreted as Birkin's utopian vision about man-woman relationships, can be potentially extended to same-sex ones.
Regarding the‘Excurse’chapter, in which Birkin and Ursula realize the ‘star-equilibrium’, ‘anal’approaches have been dominant among critics since the publication of G. W. Knight's pioneering thesis. The paper first reconsiders the scene in terms of‘degenitalization’, and then points out that not only the ‘Excurse’scene but also‘jiu-jitsu’which Birkin and Gerald try in another scene could be regarded as an instance of‘degenitalized’physical pleasure.
Referring to the social dimension of‘degenitalized’pleasure as well, the paper concludes that hetero/homosexual distinction is deconstructed in Birkin's utopian vision and that the principal objective of the‘star-equilibrium’is to realize a new relationship in the context-free world, ‘nowhere’, by deconstructing the‘heterosexual paradigm’.