Brain Sex, Cyberpunk Cinema, Feminism, and the Dis/Location of Heterosexuality

Cyberpunk cinema's fantasy of freeing the mind from the mortal body appears at odds with the conservatism of brain sex science seeking biological proof of why men and women should adhere to traditional gender roles. But an analysis of some of the genre's films shows that cyberpunk cinema is also conservative, particularly in its anxious reassertion of "obligatory heterosexuality." Cyberpunk cinema and brain sex intersect on conservative grounds out of anxiety over the shift from the industrial to the information age with its lure of disembodied experience. The potential for the dislocation of the body causes panic in brain sex studies and cyberpunk cinema, foreclosing innovative thought, despite their claims of forging new ground. By contrast, the groundbreaking research of feminists like Donna Haraway and Judith Butler offers new ways to think about bodies, minds, and knowledge precisely because it puts the location of sex and gender into question.