Abstract

Drawing insights from queer theory, this essay argues for making sex a more central category in political theorists’ interpretations of Diderot’s Supplement, and also of his contributions to History of the Two Indies. The Supplement has sometimes been considered a “libertine” text for depicting Tahiti as a society where sex is open, and indeed where foreign guests are treated to sexual hospitality. This essay reconstructs how and why Diderot’s Tahitians make promiscuity public policy and why Diderot makes miscegenation central to his views on how to improve colonialism morally and politically. In the end, though, the Supplement is beset by asymmetric sexual logics that erode its apparent affirmation of egalitarianism, consent, hospitality, and non-egocentric interest. Although the presentation of sexual hospitality serves to critique French imperialism, its heterosexuality is compulsory and patriarchal. Nevertheless the text unwittingly offers a glimpse of a more radical, queer model of sociability.