On Excerpts from "History . . ." continued. 2/4 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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From "The History of Men" by Michael S. Kimmel (p. 195-6):

" Perhaps most significant to our modern sensibilities, the early 18th century witnessed the transformation of homosexuality from a set of behaviors to a type of individual. Prior to the 18th century, men could engage in homosexual acts, to be sure, but the larger culture did not view those as indicating a different adn deviant type of individual. The homosexual, one whose erotic desire was focused entirely on his or her own sex, was a relatively new phenomenon. The term "homosexual" was not used, of course, but the term seems to have changed its usage from an adjective, specific behaviors, to a noun, describing a type of individual.
In part, the origins of the specific homosexual identity, the sodomite, lay in the rise of individualism in early 18th-century England. The English revolutions of 1640 and 1688 proclaimed the sanctity of the individual citizen, and reframed the state as a contract among individuals. Puritanism and other reforming religious doctrines posited a primary relationship between the individual and God, unmediated by church or priest. The fragmentation of urban life wrenched people from their historical roots on the land, and provided a sphere of autonomous actions far greater than English men and women had ever experienced.
The rise of the individual and the shifts in gender identity already had profound implications for the development of a homosexual identity, as well as for the scripting of sexual desire. In the earlier model, as Trumbach notes, "the debauchee or libertine who denied the relegation of sexuality to marriage had been able to find, especially in cities, women and boys with whom he might indifferently, if sometimes dangerously, enact his desires" (Trumbach, 1985, p. 118). However, by the early 18th century, sexual desire had become firmly linked to gender identity; now:
most men conceived first of all that they were male, because
they felt attraction to women and to women alone. Gender
differences were presumed therefore to be found on an
ineradicable difference of experience: men did not know what it
was like to desire men, and women did not desire women, though
in the minds of men, and perhaps of women too, the latter was
less so. (Trumbach, 1985, p. 118)
In such a culture, the link between gender and sexuality became fixed, and "the sodomite became an individual interested exclusively in his own gender, and inveterately effeminate and passive" (Trumbach, 1985, p. 118; emphasis added)."

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So, what's interesting is the analysis on homosexuality. These is where I read with glee as no longer were bourgeois conceptions of the 'sexuality' propagated, but a great analysis of capitalism and its effects of individualism. It makes one wonder what are the prerequisites for capitalism, and whether 'individualism' be one. It also makes one shamed to not engage in homosexual acts as one's nature would demand--individuality affects all of us, and it seems we all now look to 'sexuality' as an identity rather than a series of acts. Maybe some day I'll engage in a 'homosexual' act and pride myself at dropping bourgeois brainwashing. Ah well.
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