While people have been sexually intimate with others of the same sex since the beginning of time, the social construction of a gay identity is a new phenomenon. It was only through the development of capitalist industrialization and the accompanying emergence of large urban centers, and the transformative effect this process had on social life, that the material conditions for the development of an LGBTQ identity and community became possible.
The personal autonomy and privacy afforded by city life allowed for the exploration of non-heterosexual desires and greater gender expression, as well as the development of a community based on those shared interests in a way that was generally not possible under previous modes of production. [...]
On the other hand, American society was more concerned with homosexuality than ever before. This began in 1948 with the publication of Alfred Kinsey’s Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, which fundamentally transformed the way society understood sexuality and quickly became a media sensation. The Kinsey reports showed that homosexual acts were far more widespread among men than previously assumed and concluded that such behavior was perfectly normal and would be more openly practiced if it weren’t for societal restrictions and prejudice.
During the 1950s and early ’60s, there was an unparalleled outpouring of representation and discussion of gay people in literature and the media. Mainstream newspapers and magazines carried exposés on the underground gay world, and there was a proliferation of pulp novels with gay characters and themes. [...]
At the beginning of the decade, laws across the US were more repressive against homosexuals than any of the Soviet regimes the US criticized. A consenting adult who was caught having sex with another person of the same sex could face decades or even life in prison, or could be confined to an insane asylum and given electroshock therapy, castrated, or lobotomized. Adults who were charged with a sex offense could lose their professional license and were often terminated from their jobs and barred from future employment.
No comments:
Post a Comment