Hannah Arendt and Sigmund Freud on Sexual Identity in 2020

While more and more scholars are turning to the respective works of Hannah Arendt and Sigmund Freud to explain phenomena unknown to their times, such as the impact of the internet, few are using a synthesis of their ideas in political theory and psychoanalysis to understand modern topics. Even rarer is the inclination to draw parallels between the two thinkers on the question of sexual identity. In this article, I use Hannah Arendt and Sigmund Freud to discuss major features of modern sexuality: the experience of coming out, the identification as straight, gay visibility online, and the struggle for gay rights. I show that a knowledge of Arendtian and Freudian concepts, and particularly a marriage between them, is essential to investigate recent trends, topics and controversies related to sexual identity.