The Invention Of Heterosexual Culture

Author : Louis-Georges Tin
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262305011
Total Pages : 210 pages
Book Rating : 4.13/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Invention of Heterosexual Culture written by Louis-Georges Tin and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2012-08-17 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The rise of heterosexual culture and the resistance it met from feudal lords, church fathers, and the medical profession. Heterosexuality is celebrated—in film and television, in pop songs and opera, in literature and on greeting cards—and at the same time taken for granted. It is the cultural and sexual norm by default. And yet, as Louis-Georges Tin shows in The Invention of Heterosexual Culture, in premodern Europe heterosexuality was perceived as an alternative culture. The practice of heterosexuality may have been standard, but the symbolic primacy of the heterosexual couple was not. Tin maps the emergence of heterosexual culture in Western Europe and the significant resistance to it from feudal lords, church fathers, and the medical profession. Tin writes that before the phenomenon of "courtly love" in the early twelfth century, the man-woman pairing had not been deemed a subject worthy of more than passing interest. As heterosexuality became a recurrent theme in art and literature, the nobility came to view it as a disruption of the feudal chivalric ethos of virility and male bonding. If feudal lords objected to the "hetero" in heterosexuality and what they saw as the associated dangers of weakness and effeminacy, the church took issue with the “sexuality,” which threatened the Christian ethos of renunciation and divine love. Finally, the medical profession cast heterosexuality as pathology, warning of an epidemic of “lovesickness.” Noting that the discourse of heterosexuality does not belong to heterosexuals alone, Tin offers a groundbreaking history that reasserts the cultural identity of heterosexuality.

Author : Jonathan Ned Katz
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 022630762X
Total Pages : 303 pages
Book Rating : 4.26/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Invention of Heterosexuality written by Jonathan Ned Katz and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2014-12-10 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Heterosexuality,” assumed to denote a universal sexual and cultural norm, has been largely exempt from critical scrutiny. In this boldly original work, Jonathan Ned Katz challenges the common notion that the distinction between heterosexuality and homosexuality has been a timeless one. Building on the history of medical terminology, he reveals that as late as 1923, the term “heterosexuality” referred to a "morbid sexual passion," and that its current usage emerged to legitimate men and women having sex for pleasure. Drawing on the works of Sigmund Freud, James Baldwin, Betty Friedan, and Michel Foucault, The Invention of Heterosexuality considers the effects of heterosexuality’s recently forged primacy on both scientific literature and popular culture. “Lively and provocative.”—Carol Tavris, New York Times Book Review “A valuable primer . . . misses no significant twists in sexual politics.”—Gary Indiana, Village Voice Literary Supplement “One of the most important—if not outright subversive—works to emerge from gay and lesbian studies in years.”—Mark Thompson, The Advocate

Author : Hanne Blank
Publisher : Beacon Press
ISBN 13 : 080704444X
Total Pages : 208 pages
Book Rating : 4.45/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Straight written by Hanne Blank and published by Beacon Press. This book was released on 2012-01-31 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It's surprising that the term "heterosexuality" is less than 150 years old and that heterosexuality's history has never before been written, given how obsessed we are with it. In Straight, independent scholar Hanne Blank delves deep into the contemporary psyche as well as the historical record to chronicle the realm of heterosexual relations--a subject that is anything but straight and narrow. Consider how Catholic monasticism, the reading of novels, the abolition of slavery, leisure time, divorce, and constipation of the bowels have all at some time been labeled enemies of the heterosexual state. With an extensive historical scope and plenty of juicy details and examples, Straight provides a fascinating look at the vagaries, schisms, and contradictions of what has so often been perceived as an irreducible fact of nature.

Author : Jane Ward
Publisher : NYU Press
ISBN 13 : 1479804460
Total Pages : 215 pages
Book Rating : 4.67/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Tragedy of Heterosexuality written by Jane Ward and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2022-03 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The Tragedy of Heterosexuality is an exploration of the so-called 'straight culture.'"--

Author : James Joseph Dean
Publisher : NYU Press
ISBN 13 : 0814789412
Total Pages : 320 pages
Book Rating : 4.14/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Straights written by James Joseph Dean and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2014-08-01 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the Stonewall Riots in 1969, the politics of sexual identity in America have drastically transformed. It’s almost old news that recent generations of Americans have grown up in a culture more accepting of out lesbians and gay men, seen the proliferation of LGBTQ media representation, and witnessed the attainment of a range of legal rights for same-sex couples. But the changes wrought by a so-called “post-closeted culture” have not just affected the queer community—heterosexuals are also in the midst of a sea change in how their sexuality plays out in everyday life. In Straights, James Joseph Dean argues that heterosexuals can neither assume the invisibility of gays and lesbians, nor count on the assumption that their own heterosexuality will go unchallenged. The presumption that we are all heterosexual, or that there is such a thing as ‘compulsory heterosexuality,’ he claims, has vanished. Based on 60 in-depth interviews with a diverse group of straight men and women, Straights explores how straight Americans make sense of their sexual and gendered selves in this new landscape, particularly with an understanding of how race does and does not play a role in these conceptions. Dean provides a historical understanding of heterosexuality and how it was first established, then moves on to examine the changing nature of masculinity and femininity and, most importantly, the emergence of a new kind of heterosexuality—notably, for men, the metrosexual, and for women, the emergence of a more fluid sexuality. The book also documents the way heterosexuals interact and form relationships with their LGBTQ family members, friends, acquaintances, and coworkers. Although homophobia persists among straight individuals, Dean shows that being gay-friendly or against homophobic expressions is also increasingly common among straight Americans. A fascinating study, Straights provides an in-depth look at the changing nature of sexual expression in America. Instructors: PowerPoint slides for each chapter are available by clicking on the files below. Introduction Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6

Author : Siobhan B. Somerville
Publisher : Duke University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780822324430
Total Pages : 276 pages
Book Rating : 4.31/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Queering the Color Line written by Siobhan B. Somerville and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The interconnected constructions of race and sexuality at the turn of the century.

Author : Daniel Boyarin
Publisher : Univ of California Press
ISBN 13 : 0520210506
Total Pages : 420 pages
Book Rating : 4.09/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Unheroic Conduct written by Daniel Boyarin and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1997-06-13 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Western notion of the aggressive, sexually dominant male and the passive female, as Daniel Boyarin makes clear, is not universal. Analyzing ancient and modern texts, he recovers the studious and gentle rabbi as the male ideal and the prime object of the female desire in traditional Jewish society. Challenging those who view the "feminized Jew" as a pathological product of the Diaspora or a figment of anti-Semitic imagination, Boyarin finds the origins of the rabbinic model of masculinity in the Talmud. The book provides an unrelenting critique of the oppression of women in rabbinic society, while also arguing that later European bourgeois society disempowered women even further. Boyarin also analyzes the self-transformation of three iconic Viennese modern Jews: Sigmund Freud, Theodor Herzl, and Bertha Pappenheim (Anna O.). Pappenheim is Boyarin's hero: it is she who provides him with a model for a militant feminist, anti-homophobic transformation of Orthodox Jewish society today.

Author : Mary Louise Adams
Publisher : University of Toronto Press
ISBN 13 : 9780802080578
Total Pages : 256 pages
Book Rating : 4.7X/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Trouble with Normal written by Mary Louise Adams and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 1997-01-01 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the years after the Second World War, economic and social factors combined to produce an intense concern over the sexual development and behaviour of young people. In a context where heterosexuality and 'normality' were understood to be synonymous and assumed to be necessary for social and national stability, teenagers were the target of a range of materials and practices meant to turn young people into proper heterosexuals. In this study, Mary Louise Adams explores discourses about youth and their place in the production and reproduction of heterosexual norms. She examines debates over juvenile delinquency, indecent literature, and sex education to show not why heterosexuality became a peculiar obsession in English Canada following the Second World War as much as how it came to hold such sway. Drawing on feminist theory, cultural studies, and lesbian/gay studies, The Trouble with Normal is the first Canadian study of 'youth' as a sexual and moral category. Adams looks not only at sexual material aimed at teenagers but also at sexual discourses generally, for what they had to say about young people and for the ways in which 'youth,' as a concept, made those discourses work. She argues that postwar insecurities about young people narrowed the sexual possibilities of both young people and adults. While much of the recent history of sexuality examines sexuality 'from the margins,' The Trouble with Normal is firmly committed to examining the 'centre,' to unpacking normality itself. As the first book-length study of the history of sexuality in postwar Canada, it will make an important contribution to the growing international literature on sexual regulation.

Author : Gregory Woods
Publisher : Yale University Press
ISBN 13 : 0300219563
Total Pages : 455 pages
Book Rating : 4.62/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Homintern written by Gregory Woods and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2016-05-03 with total page 455 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a hugely ambitious study which crosses continents, languages, and almost a century, Gregory Woods identifies the ways in which homosexuality has helped shape Western culture. Extending from the trials of Oscar Wilde to the gay liberation era, this book examines a period in which increased visibility made acceptance of homosexuality one of the measures of modernity. Woods shines a revealing light on the diverse, informal networks of gay people in the arts and other creative fields. Uneasily called “the Homintern” (an echo of Lenin’s “Comintern”) by those suspicious of an international homosexual conspiracy, such networks connected gay writers, actors, artists, musicians, dancers, filmmakers, politicians, and spies. While providing some defense against dominant heterosexual exclusion, the grouping brought solidarity, celebrated talent, and, in doing so, invigorated the majority culture. Woods introduces an enormous cast of gifted and extraordinary characters, most of them operating with surprising openness; but also explores such issues as artistic influence, the coping strategies of minorities, the hypocrisies of conservatism, and the effects of positive and negative discrimination. Traveling from Harlem in the 1910s to 1920s Paris, 1930s Berlin, 1950s New York and beyond, this sharply observed, warm-spirited book presents a surpassing portrait of twentieth-century gay culture and the men and women who both redefined themselves and changed history.

Author : Jane Ward
Publisher : NYU Press
ISBN 13 : 1479825174
Total Pages : 251 pages
Book Rating : 4.72/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Not Gay written by Jane Ward and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2015-07-31 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A different look at heterosexuality in the twenty-first century A straight white girl can kiss a girl, like it, and still call herself straight—her boyfriend may even encourage her. But can straight white guys experience the same easy sexual fluidity, or would kissing a guy just mean that they are really gay? Not Gay thrusts deep into a world where straight guy-on-guy action is not a myth but a reality: there’s fraternity and military hazing rituals, where new recruits are made to grab each other’s penises and stick fingers up their fellow members’ anuses; online personal ads, where straight men seek other straight men to masturbate with; and, last but not least, the long and clandestine history of straight men frequenting public restrooms for sexual encounters with other men. For Jane Ward, these sexual practices reveal a unique social space where straight white men can—and do—have sex with other straight white men; in fact, she argues, to do so reaffirms rather than challenges their gender and racial identity. Ward illustrates that sex between straight white men allows them to leverage whiteness and masculinity to authenticate their heterosexuality in the context of sex with men. By understanding their same-sex sexual practice as meaningless, accidental, or even necessary, straight white men can perform homosexual contact in heterosexual ways. These sex acts are not slippages into a queer way of being or expressions of a desired but unarticulated gay identity. Instead, Ward argues, they reveal the fluidity and complexity that characterizes all human sexual desire. In the end, Ward’s analysis offers a new way to think about heterosexuality—not as the opposite or absence of homosexuality, but as its own unique mode of engaging in homosexual sex, a mode characterized by pretense, dis-identification and racial and heterosexual privilege. Daring, insightful, and brimming with wit, Not Gay is a fascinating new take on the complexities of heterosexuality in the modern era.