"En kold og bitter affære": Negative intimiteter i Tomas Lagermand Lundmes Forhud

In this article, I analyze and discuss the potentials of what I call negative intimacies in Tomas Lagermand Lundmes debut novel Forhud (1998) through the lens of antisocial queer theory. Through Berlants concept of intimacy as inherently threatened by an internal failure, I identify three types of negative intimacies in the novel: 1) Incestuous intimacy, in which the narrator denies the incest taboo and the Oedipus complex as foundation of heteronormative sociality through a perversion of the father figure. 2) Masochistic intimacy, in which the symbolic function of the father as authority is negated through contractual submission. And, lastly, 3) impersonal intimacy, which I argue is the overall mode of intimacy that the novel explores both in its content and as a gesture toward its reader. Impersonal intimacy offers an ethical alternative to heteronormative identity- and relation-based intimacy. In the impersonal intimacy I find what Tim Dean has called an “ethics of alterity”, that is, a radical openness to otherness. In Forhud only strangers can be lovers, which is precisely the queer potential of the novel. I argue that these queer intimacies do not lend themselves to any kind of positive promise of a queer world, but rather a negative critique of heteronormative sexuality. Though Forhud does not express any optimistic hope for another world, it nevertheless stresses the pleasure of being intimate with the stranger.