Why is the gay community so phallic
Radiant Eros: Keith Haring and Sexuality
“In the world of Oedipal sexuality there is no more wandering around freely and uniting amongst the organs, no interrelation of immediate pleasure. Now there is only one organ, one single sexual organ which stands in the center of the triangular Oedipal relationship as the One which assigns the three elements of the triangle their place. It is this One which accounts for the lack, which determines the despotic signifier (signifiant despotique, Deleuze and Guattari), through which various situations of the overall person expand. It is that end and isolated object which plays the same role in the sexuality of our society as capital plays in a capitalist economy: that of the fetish and the truly universal point of reference of all trade, in the one case economic and in the other of desire (…). “Sex” is, above all, a word for describing the phallus.”1
I do not recognize whether Keith Haring ever read Guy Hocquenghem’s essay Homosexual Desire from which this quotation is taken, or whether he knew of Deleuze and Guattari’s Anti-Oedipus to which the essay referred. In addition, I doubt that the Americ
Utopia and Castration: How to Read the History of Homosexuality
[1] For more than twenty years now, as I’m sure you realize, scholars, theorists, and historians of sexuality have been engaged in a heated debate over the partnership between homosexuality, history, and society. Commonly referred to as the essentialist/constructionist debate, the controversy has centered around whether modern conceptions of homosexual “identity” are, among other things, universal or historical, natural or cultural, innate or invented. Those in the first camp are the essentialists; those in the second, the social constructionists: whereas the former see such identities as the intrinsic properties of individuals, the latter see in them all the hallmarks of historical and cultural relativity (see Stein, 325-53).
[2] I bring this rather weary debate to your attention yet again, not to take sides in it, nor to offer some new synthesis, but to interrogate it at a more fundamental level. I want to ask, in particular, what it is that motivates and sustains this debate. Most critics today, if asked this question, would say something about politics—that essentialism supports a conservative political agenda
A Brief LGBTQ History of Lesbian, Lgbtq+, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer People
The Adv Evidence of Homosexuality
Contrary to some views, homosexuality is not a recent phenomenon—but a part of human culture for thousands of years. From prehistoric cave art to ancient texts, the narrative of same-sex relationships runs deep in our history, speaking volumes about human sexuality's diverse nature.
The first recorded depiction of homosexual partners can be traced back to the Mesolithic rock art in Sicily, Italy, around 9600 BCE. The ancient drawings discovered by historians paint a profound picture of phallic male figures in pairs, engaged in what appears to be intimate behavior.
This illustration moves us beyond the presumption that heterosexuality was the norm during prehistoric times. It suggests that queer relationships existed, even then and might have been acknowledged or acknowledged in prehistoric societies.
The evidence of homosexuality extends to about 8000 BCE in Zimbabwe. The cave artwork from this African region reveals a similar narrative. A cursory look at the drawings cones you with scenes of homosexual intercourse and partnerships. These pictorial
The Phallic Road to Socialism
The following piece first appeared in print in Salvage #8: Comrades, This is Madness, our latest issue. Issue 8 is available to offer individually here. Our poetry, fiction and art remains exclusive to the print edition, and our subscribers have exclusive access to some online content, including all audio content. Novel subscriptions can be taken out here, and start with the next issue (issue 9).
In an era characterised by petty and provincial ambitions, the boredom and routine of activism, working lives for academic scholars so crammed with bureaucratic obligations that even serious reading – let alone research and writing – only occur in stolen, illicit time, the existence and œuvre of Daniel Guérin inspires enormous admiration and not a minuscule envy[1]. In the wonderful documentary Daniel Guérin (1904–1988) – Combats dans le siècle, available on YouTube, his daughter Anne calls him ‘effervescent’. So accustomed are we to the replies ‘I don’t have time’, or ‘Sorry, I’m completely swamped’, that we cannot lose to be astounded by the sheer number of activities – intellectual, esthetic, political, sexual – Guérin engaged in throughout hi
Introduction
In terms of gender culture and masculine expression, the eighteenth century was an important time of transition. While in 1700, there was a certain amount of tolerance for effeminacy, and for bisexuality, by 1800 the understanding of what it meant to be a man was considerably more rigid, closely policed, and what we might call ‘heteronormative’ – treating heterosexual desire, and the presentation of that desire, as the default mode of being. What I want to exhibit you here is a selection of objects in our collection which represent the modifying attitude towards male sexuality throughout the eighteenth century, taking a roughly chronological view of the most important shifts and themes. Using these objects as a starting point, I’m going to give you an overview of how male homosexuality, effeminacy and so-called sexual deviancy were practiced and perceived in this period. In this first blog post, we’ll look broadly at male sexuality in the context of popular culture, particularly fashion and the theatre. This will be followed by a second announce which looks more closely at the relationship between homoeroticism, fine art and connoisseurship in the eightee