Psychoanalytic Culture and Sexual Revolution in Comic Books in the USA in the 1970s

Abstract

This paper uses the concept of psychoanalytic culture, outlined by psychoanalyst Sérvulo Figueira, in order to discuss the construction of subjectivities in the United States in the 1970s. This concept refers to the assimilation of psychoanalytic ideas into artistic, advertising and media spheres, among others, and how they influenced and were influenced by the cultures that appropriated them. This enabled the design of scientific and popular methods of interpreting suffering and the construction of subjectivities. This paper focuses on the work of American artist Aline Kominsky (1948-2022), published amidst the sexual revolution debates of the 1970s. Kominsky was part of the counterculture generation that produced and distributed comics that challenged established social norms and the patriarchal nuclear family model and demanded the relaxation of sexual norms. The analysis of her work reveals how the artist sought in psychoanalytic ideas the ideal tools to contest social institutions and propose new and less oppressive civilizational models based on the reframing of sexuality.