discuss how capitalism and gay identity are related. Discuss the history and use of the term “queer” and how it is part of gay identity. Lastly, how do the readings support this week’s film.
Cite specific quotes and scenes from the resources and as your peers add their own comments, make sure you respond to their points with points of your own.
Your original post should be 250+ words.
https://youtu.be/mBVBipOl76Q
Queer Theory
Queerness
The roots of the word “queer”- as slang for homosexual, to mean “weird, different, or strange”, often used as abuse or insult- intended to hurt someone.
Used as umbrella term for LGBTQ+
Reclaimed by scholars
Judith Butler cautions against normalizing the term
Why?
Queer Theory
An academic, theoretical model that grows out of a member or other theoretical perspectives, including feminism, lesbian and gay studies, and postmodernism.
Postmodern thinkers frequently describe knowledge claims and value systems as contingent or socially-conditioned, framing them as products of political, historical, or cultural discourses and hierarchies. These thinkers often view personal and spiritual needs as being best fulfilled by improving social conditions and adopting more fluid discourses.
So basically… nothing means anything!
Jagose and Queer Theory
“While there is a certain population of men and women who may be described more or less unproblematically as homosexual, a number of ambiguous circumstances cast doubt on the precise delimitations of homosexuality as a descriptive category.”
For example, is the man who lives with his wife and children, but from time to time has casual or anonymous sex with other men, homosexual?
For many men interviewed in this or similar situations, the act of homosexual sex did not equate to homosexuality
Does the ‘paederast, the classical Greek adult, married male who periodically enjoys sexually penetrating a male adolescent share the same sexuality with the ‘berdache, the Native American (Indian) adult male who from childhood has taken on many aspects of a woman and is regularly penetrated by the adult male to whom he has been married in a public and socially sanctioned ceremony? Does the latter share the same sexuality with the New Guinea tribesman and warrior who from the ages of eight to fifteen has been orally inseminated on a daily basis by older youths and who, after years of orally inseminating his juniors, will be married to an adult woman and have children of his own?
Do any of these people share the same identity as our society’s homosexual?
Jagose and Queer Theory
To a certain extent, debates about what constitutes homosexuality can be understood in terms of the negotiation between so-called essentialist and constructionist positions.
Essentialists regard identity as natural, fixed and innate,
Constructionists assume identity is fluid, the effect of social conditioning
While essentialism and constructionism are most frequently understood as oppositional categories, it is important to remember that they have a more complicated relation to each other than this suggests.
It is often assumed that essentialist understandings of homo- sexuality are conservative, if not reactionary, in their consequences, whereas constructionist understandings of homosexuality lend themselves to progressive or even radical strategies.
In fact, combinations of the two can be used by both activists and homophobic entities.
For Foucault (and similar theorists), we constructed the category of homosexuality because there simply was nothing else to call it before that.
Sexuality Timeline
1950
The Mattachine Society, a “homophile” organization aimed at promoting tolerance of homosexuality, is founded in Los Angeles by Harry Hay.
1953
President Dwight D. Eisenhower issues Executive Order #10450, banning the employment of homosexuals by the federal government. Many state and local governments soon adopted similar policies.
1955
Del Martin, Phyllis Lyon, and six other women found Daughters of Bilitis, the first national lesbian rights group, in San Francisco.
Sexuality Timeline
1962
Illinois becomes first state to decriminalize homosexual contact between consenting adults.
1969
The Stonewall Riots
1973
The APA declares homosexuality is not a psychiatric disorder
Sexuality Timeline
1981
First cases of AIDS identified
1996
Defense of Marriage Act
2015
Same Sex marriage effectively “legalized”
Capitalism and Gay Identity
For gay men and lesbians, the 1970s were years of significant achievement. Gay liberation and women’s liberation changed the sexual landscape of the nation.
Hundreds of thousands of gay women and men came out and openly affirmed same-sex eroticism.
We won repeal of sodomy laws in half the states, a partial lifting of the exclusion of lesbians and gay men from federal employment, civil rights protection in a few dozen cities, the inclusion of gay rights in the platform of the Democratic Party, and the elimination of homosexuality from the psychiatric profession’s list of mental illnesses.
The gay male subculture expanded and became increasingly visible in large cities, and lesbian feminists pioneered in building alternative institutions and an alternative culture that attempted to embody a liberatory vision of the future.
Capitalism and Gay Identity
The myth of the “Eternal Homosexual”
The argument runs something like this: gay men and lesbians always were and always will be. We are everywhere; not just now, but throughout history, in all societies and all periods. This myth served a positive political function in the first years of gay liberation.
D’Emilio argues against this and claims homosexuality is a by product of the free labor system found in capitalism.
In essence, if not for capitalism, you would not have the “freedom” for homosexuality.
The expansion of capital and the spread of wage labor profoundly changed the nuclear family
Once the family is no longer and independent unit of production (i.e. child labor, renewable resource), then this allows for freedom of choice.
As wage labor spread and production became socialized, then it was possible to free sexuality from the “imperative” to procreate.
Capitalism and Gay Identity
D’Emilio acknowledges that homosexual behavior existed, but differentiates this from homosexual identity
In colonial New England there was no “social space” to be gay
Only when individuals began to make their living through wage labor, instead of as parts of an independent family unit, was it possible for homosexuality to coalesce into a personal identity
What can we do to take this theory further?
Individualism plagues our society more and more each day. What does this mean for our sexual identities?
Ideally, capitalism drives people into heterosexuality
Materially, capitalism weakens the bonds that once kept families together
D’Emilio identifies anyone outside the heterosexual family unit as a “scapegoat” of why these bonds have weakened
So, while it allows for homosexual identity, it continues to push heterosexual ideals
