As explained in the introduction to this pamphlet, sex, man/woman relations or what is now known as gender were a major concern for Le Fléau Social. As this is a subject for which I have always had a special interest, soon after I met Alain Fleig, it became obvious I would write in the magazine on feminism, or rather on sexual identities. Nearly all articles were signed under fanciful aliases, and I chose “Constance Chatterley”. In those carefree days, no man or woman in the small circle of friends around the magazine had any objection to a male impersonating a female, even for a critique of feminism. (Times have changed, I know…) 

I have kept an interest in the matter ever since 1974, but had never used that alias any more. Until 2015. When a friend wished to republish the 1974 article with an interview with the writer, we both thought the texts would have more impact if they came out of the past and out of the blue, so only “Constance Chatterley” was named as the author, and a hitherto unknown publishing house was created for the event.
We wished our 2015 pamphlet to first appear unrelated to anything (except of course the connection to the usually forgotten Fléau Social), and be judged on its merits, not on what the reader could know about the author’s other writings. The idea was not to mystify and play games as the Situationists sometimes did in the 70’s, so we did not wait long before making public the fact that I was “Constance”. The pamphlet came out in May, the author came out early August.

Gilles Dauvé, October 2018

Here is a short list of texts where I have dealt with the sex/gender issue, all readable on the troploin website:

In 1983, I contributed to “For a World without Moral Order” (an article in La Banquise magazine). Accessible here: https://troploin.fr/node/77

“Alice in Monsterland”, 2001 https://troploin.fr/node/4

“Moral Disorder & Sexual Identity”, 2003. https://troploin.fr/node/36

“Federici versus Marx”, 2015: https://troploin.fr/node/85

“On “the women question””, 2016: https: https://troploin.fr/node/88

From Crisis to Communisation, to be published by PM Press in 2018, chap. 6 and 10.

For those who read French, the DDT21 blog (https://ddt21.noblogs.org/) contains a series of articles on the critique of (homo)sexuality. An English version will be soon available on the troploin site.