Forwarded from Anthony (addendum on homosexuality)

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Lou:

Final reply to Yoshie's note

As a final postscript to my reply to Yoshie's remarks about the "who, what,
and how" of sexual repression, I want to reply to her last two points
against my speculations. She wrote,

"Lastly, to use the terms "homosexuality" & "heterosexuality" in reference
to same-sex activities before the nineteenth century is anachronistic.
These terms refer to sexual _identities_, not sexual _acts_."

Yoshie, please refer to a dictionary. Homosexuality and heterosexuality
refer to either acts or sexual identities. The words have more than one
nuance of meaning. I was using them in the sense of "homosexuality"
indicating same sex sexual activity, and "heterosexuality" meaning sex
between members of two or more different genders (although I realize on
this planet we have two or less different genders.)

Yoshie's final paragraph states,

"In societies before the rise of urban industrial capitalism of the
nineteenth century, those who engaged in same-sex activities tended not to
do so _exclusively_. While agriculture was the main occupation for the
majority in the world & each household a unit of production, there was no
material condition that would sustain a large number of men & women whose
object choices were exclusively members of their own sex."

This is factually wrong. In the ancient world that we were talking about
originally, the vast majority were engaged in agriculture and there
certainly were people who primarily and exclusively engaged in same sex sex.

And, you might take a look at Native American societies - agricultural and
nomadic. You will find the same was true there.

Anthony


Louis Proyect
Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org