Re: John Mage on sodomy

[Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Xxxx:

>  > >The modernity of heterosexuality as a
>>  >compulsive institution is much easier to see when you look >at Japan
>>  >which has never had any anti-sodomy statutes but became >homophobic &
>  > >heterosexiat with capitalist modernization.
>
>Well, a society can still be homophobic/heterosexist without
>necessarily having
>anti-sodomy statutes. I am sure Japan was quite heterosexist before the modern
>period *too*. What evidence are you suggesting that it was not?

For the sake of convenience, I refer to the Meiji Restoration as the
beginning of capitalist modernity in Japan.  Pre-capitalist Japan
before the Meiji Restoration was _patriarchal without being
homophobic and heterosexist_.  I've already recommended to Lou & the
list _Nanshoku Okagami [The Great Mirror of Male Love]_ (1687) by
Ihara Saikaku (1642-1693), so you may see for yourself the
celebration of male-male love (mainly though not exclusively love of
older men for younger men & vice versa) & absence of homophobia &
heterosexism in pre-capitalist Japan.  Read the book, and tell us
what you think of it.

_Hidden from History: Reclaiming the Gay and Lesbian Past_, eds.
Martin Duberman, Martha Vicinus, and George Chauncey, Jr. (NY:
Meridian, 1989) should also help you to historicize "homosexuality" &
"heterosexuality."  The first three essays included here -- John
Boswell's "Revolutions, Universals, and Sexual Categories," David M.
Halperin's "Sex Before Sexuality: Pederasty, Politics, and Power in
Classical Athens," & Robert Padgug, "Sexual Matters: Rethinking
Sexuality in History" -- in addition to the "Introduction" to this
volume clarify the historiographic controversy: whether or not
historians can meaningfully use the terms "homosexuality" and
"heterosexuality" transhistorically, across social formations.
(You'd probably find yourself agreeing with John Boswell, while I
agree with David M. Halperin & Robert Padgug here.)  In the book,
there is also an essay by Paul Gordon Schalow which is relevant to
the topic at hand: "Male Love in Early Modern Japan: A Literary
Depiction of the 'Youth'."

After you finish reading the above two, I'll give you more
recommendations, if you are interested in the subject of
pre-capitalist Japanese attitudes to same-sex eroticism & activities.

According to Clellan S. Ford & Frank A. Beach's _Patterns of Sexual
Behavior_ (1951), roughly two-thirds of the societies for which
evidence existed had no prohibition of same-sex eroticism & sexual
activities.  So, Japan was not exceptional in this regard.

>But to suggest that
>there was no homosexual identity before the modern period and that the
>oppression of gays were simply functional to the development of capitalism is
>indeed to imply that homosexuality had to be wiped out and heterosexuality had
>to win. This is the closet anti-gay view I get out of John Mage's book,
>frankly.

To realize that the idea of "sexual identity" -- as well as
categories we use to understand them such as "homosexual,"
"bisexual," & "heterosexual" -- is a modern invention born of
urbanized industrial capitalism is not at all to subscribe to a
closet anti-gay view.  _There was no "heterosexual" identity before
capitalist modernity either_.  In fact, the work of historicizing
sexuality has been pioneered by mainly gay scholars such as Michel
Foucault, Jeffrey Weeks, John D'Emilio, Jonathan Ned Katz, etc.

>To my
>knowledge, Japan is a gender segregated society with heavy
>patriarchal norms and
>regulations that still continue today in *changing* forms, despite capitalist
>modernization. I suspect what Japan has today is  *capitalist patriarchy*, not
>the dissolution of patriarchy. As patriarchy takes a capitalist form, the
>heterosexual _basis_ of patriarchy goes with it.  To what extend, for example,
>does heterosexism exist in Japan (since you are making a distinction between
>_patriarchy_ and _heterosexism_)? Are heterosexual practices outside marriage
>allowed for women, let alone homosexuality? For instance, is fucking a man
>OK/easy thing for Japanese women ? Are women still expected to be
>virgins before
>marriage?  I am just wondering about the extend of heterosexual liberation in
>Japan and its relation to homosexuality.

Empirical studies of sexism & heterosexism in Japan, sexual
liberation in Japan, women's movements in Japan, etc. cannot be
summarized in this short post.  It would take many volumes to do
justice to the subjects.  I'd refer you to Ueno Chizuko, Kakefuda
Hiroko, Ochiai Emiko, Ehara Yumiko, etc.

Now, onto the theoretical issue.  Yes, I make a distinction between
patriarchy and sexism/heterosexism.  I have already posted on the
subject of the difference between patriarchy and sexism/heterosexism
several times on different e-lists, so allow me to reproduce one of
them here:

++++++++++   Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2000 03:12:40 -0500
To: pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
From: Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1@xxxxxxx>
Subject: [PEN-L:3769] From Patriarchy to Sexism (was Re: incomplete
abstraction vs. empiricism)

Colin wrote:

>   >While Marx, etc. spoke of capitalism revolutionizing the means
>   >of production, I haven't heard any feminist argue that
>   >patriarchy revolutionizes the means of reproduction or
>   >anything else for that matter.  :)
>
>If you look at '70s-vintage radical feminism you'll find almost
>precisely that argument (though usually without the ":)") -- I'm
>thinking in particular of Mary Daly (who is still theorizing boldly) --
>look at _Gyn/Ecology_,  her classic.  This theory applies to
>reproduction in both the biological and material senses.
>
>   >Patriarchy ain't the dynamic social relations in a way
>   >that capitalist class relations are.
>
>It's not clear that we should think of "patriarchy" as a single thing.
>There are many different kinship systems and ideologies of gender.  And
>I see no reason to deny such systems the capacity for dynamism.
>Feminist analysis has tended to move beyond seeing patriarchy as a
>single world-historical force with a beginning middle and end.  The
>anthro literature has been particularly useful here.

In my opinion, the term patriarchy is best reserved [in England] for
the days before Robert Filmer (1588-1653), the author of
_Patriarcha_: "as the father over one family so the king, as the
father over many families, extends his care to preserve, feed,
clothe, instruct and defend the whole commonwealth" -- literally &
metaphorically, the last words on patriarchy.  In the patriarchal
world before capitalism, as Filmer's words sum up nicely,
subordination was universal, a duty of both men & women (and in this
world, women were considered lesser men, & children lesser adults --
not different _kinds_ of being as in modern thought).  Defiance of
the rule of gender subordination was then a sedition, a
[metaphorical] crime against the state:

*****   Creon:  How can I, if I nurse sedition in my house,
not foster it outside?
No, if a man can keep his home in hand,
he proves his competence to keep the state.
(Sophocles, _Antigone_)   *****

The rise of capitalism then began to revolutionize the mode of
reproduction (the "family" gradually lost its function as the
production unit through the process of the separation of direct
producers -- peasants -- from the means of production & became a
sphere of consumption & reproduction organized in separation from
sites of wage labor).  Therefore, thoughts on gender, too, had to
change in response to the changing social relations: John Locke
(1632-1704), Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), & other social
contract theorists created the foundations of modern sexism: the idea
of opposite sexes with separate spheres (men = public, women =
private; or men in the civil society, women in the family; or men in
_bellum omnium contra omnes_, women in _the haven in the heartless
world_), justified by appeal to nature & science, rather than to
custom & religion.  Modern republicans made war on the ideology of
general subordination -- patriarchy -- like Filmer's, by arguing that
private & public powers & authorities were not analogous.  Hence the
birth of sexism (whose general character is outlined above) -- an
ideology born to justify a _special case_ of unfreedom & inequality
_in the face of the revolutionary bourgeois theory of political
liberty & equality for all_.  (Recall that the most famous early
feminist Mary Wollstonecraft [1759-1851] battled against Rousseau,
not Filmer.)

Since the emergence of capitalism has been a _gradual, uneven, &
combined_ development, even in our days, we hear echoes of modernized
patriarchy (reactionary in the true sense of the word, a modern
reaction against modernity) here and there (e.g., religious
fundamentalism in a theocratic state).

In short, the historical transition from patriarchy (an ideology of
general subordination) to sexism (an ideology of exceptional
subordination -- an exception to liberal & republican principles)
cannot be well understood without a causal explanation that analyzes
ideological changes as being _in the last instance_ determined by
changes in class relations (the emergence of capitalist class
relations in this case).

Yoshie   ++++++++++

Yoshie