Guest post: The trajectory of “radical sexualities”
Guest post by Josh Spokes.
The gay community’s historical project of sexual liberation was something very different than what I thought it was when I was a young man coming into that world in the late 80s and early 90s. I see now, of course, that it was an almost entirely male “community.”
The pleas for acceptance for “radical sexualities” that seemed so innocent to me, so reasonable, then—-these were just the seeds that have bloomed into today’s lesbian-bashing, misogyny, pedophilic interest in children’s bodies, and much worse.
I struggle with this. Many of us chafed against the “respectable” gays that wanted us to tone it down so they could present in their sweaters and khakis as just another suburban couple who wanted to start a family. I resent that excessive assimilation, too, especially when it’s based on a patriarchal fantasy.
But we let perverts have too big a voice. There are, in fact, larger consequences down the line for arguing that walking your “sub” on a leash at outdoor parades is a symbol of freedom and love.
It is not the exclusive purview of Christianity or repressive religion to recognize that sexuality is a distinct thing that should not be treated like a marketable commodity. There are good reasons why we delineate the public and private sphere. There are good reasons to treat sex and intimacy with care, and not to contribute to an ever more violent (metaphorical and physical) expression of sexuality as a zero sum commodity.
Glamorizing a sexual ‘tradition’ that was formed from furtive, secret, depersonalized, and often commercial sex, can’t really lead to any erotic utopia.
Victorian-era ‘rough trade’ was a hot-house concoction, not a pattern for free people. Any more than forced marriage and obsessive honor policing are templates for monogamous heterosexuality.
All agreed, but I have to wonder if the people pushing the perversion envelope haven’t made the moderately transgressive crowd – the ones after inclusion and respect on terms short of some same-sex “Leave It to Beaver” family model – much more easily swallowed by a relatively conservative straight culture. Think of it as the Malcolm X versus Martin Luther King Jr. model of activism, or good cop/bad cop.
It’s still entirely open to suppose that the bad cop goes too far, or that there’s some price to be paid for that brand of activism, worth it or not.
Sounds like the beginnings of a decent, thought-provoking essay.
The real counter-culture these days us coming more from Conservatives and Libertarians than from anyone else.
_Gay Pride_ has been subsumed by capitalism; it’s but a vehicle for marketing and sales…boring as hell.
And that happened YEARS ago.
Yeah, sure, John. Right. Reactionary right wing posturing is now counter-culture. That’s what a lot of conservative and libertarian types promote (loudly) on Fox News, though not using that term, but they are still the establishment.
Reactionary right wing posturing is now counter-culture.
In America, Gay Pride prevents Jewish lesbians from flying their colours and in the UK it chastises ex-Muslim queers for denouncing Islam’s stance on homosexuality.
You live, like most ‘progressives’, firmly in the past.