Marxism, Socialism, and the Politics of Gay and Lesbian Liberation

Bob Nowlan

Mark Wood

Revision History
• November 13-27, 1991	Newspaper: Funded by Syracuse University students.
The Alternative Orange: Vol. 1, No. 2 (pp. 9-10)
• August 26, 2000	Webpage: .
DocBook XML (DocBk XML V3.1.3) from original.

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Let us begin part two of this five part series by returning briefly to part one. Recall the definitions of heterosexism and homophobia we put forth at the beginning of part one:

Heterosexism refers to a nexus of interconnected social relations, practices, institutions, and discourses which work to establish and enforce heterosexuality as the single “normal,” “natural,” and “desireable” way in which human beings can engage in sexual relations with each other, while rendering homosexuality “abnormal,” “unnatural,” and “undesirable,” as well as, in many cases, “illegal,” “immoral,” “sinful,” “sick,” often “invisible,” and even “impossible.” Heterosexism sanctions homophobia. Homophobia refers to the fear and hatred of homosexuality and of homosexuals. Homophobia leads to restriction of, persecution of, and violence against homosexuals.

Second, let us recall that our purpose in part one was to begin to explain why it is that homosexual “difference” cannot be accepted and tolerated within capitalist society and why, in fact, the sheer visibility of this difference provokes extreme forms of violence and repression against homosexual men and women. At the conclusion of part one we advanced the following argument:

Compulsory heterosexuality is potentially the weakest link within the overall patriarchal system of gender difference and division. Homosexual men and homosexual women — and especially gay men and lesbian women, homosexual men and women who construct and develop an open, proud, and public social and political identity as well as a distinct culture and a genuine community rooted in and extended out from their homosexuality — represent the most serious threat to the reproduction of a seemingly fixed difference between the “proper” natures and behaviors of men and women. That is why gay men and lesbians are attacked as not “real men” and not “real women.” To an extent this is true: gay men and lesbians are courageous rebels against the restrictions and inequities of the male supremacist sexist sex-gender system who refuse to be only what “real” men and “real” women are taught to be. Gay men are not afraid to “be like women” and lesbian women are not afraid to “be like men”; in fact gay men and lesbians deliberately violate the most “sacred” of boundaries between the “properly” male and the “properly” female.

In this second part of our series, we would like to begin to explain this argument for the revolutionary potential of gay and lesbian liberation. This task requires that our objective in part two be to indicate: 1. how differences in gender and in sexual orientation are not natural, are not rooted and fixed in innate physiological and biochemical differences between men and women and between heterosexuals and homosexuals, but are instead historically and socially constructed; and 2. why rigid historical and social constructions of gender and sexual orientation prevail such that differences in gender and sexual orientation not only seem as if they are entirely natural, inevitable, and unalterable products of innate physiological and biochemical differences, but also in actual practice largely tend to prevent the development of a post- gender society in which all members of this society would enjoy and participate in a far freer and far more fluid range of possible social and sexual identities and relations. To explain these two points we need to show how the processes of construction of differences in gender and sexual orientation are in present society precisely linked to the needs and requirements of a patriarchal sexist sex-gender system in which men secure extensive economic, political, and cultural advantages and privileges over — and at the expense of — women.

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While nature produces human beings as biologically male and female, it is through our assimilation of and active participation within human culture, our “second nature,” that we become men and women, masculine and feminine. Through an acceptance of and conformity with the demands of gender difference, and through continuous and simultaneous ideological mystification of the source and function of this difference, the historically and socially developed difference between men and women is reenforced and reproduced. In patriarchal sexist societies, men and women enter into, accept and abide by the terms of a series of (explicit and implicit) social “contracts” which define and delimit what men can do and be as both different from and superior to what women can do and be. These contracts simultaneously privilege men and dis-privilege women in ways that define and delimit how, when, where, and for what men can and should relate both to other men and to women, and also how, when, where and for what women can and should relate both to other women and to men. Men thus acquire an objective interest in the maintenance and reproduction of patriarchal sexism, while women are both forced into and come to accept, in part willingly, positions where they either do not recognize the need — or are unable — to rebel against their oppression.

Division of men and women into two essentially different kinds of beings and ascription of the differences between men and women to an unchanging and unchangeable biology provides the basis for a gendered division of labor. If men are trained to develop powers of rationality and the ability to assume positions of leadership, and women are not so trained, then it follows that tasks which require this capability, such as running a political organization, will be done by men. If women are trained to develop powers of emotional sensitivity and the ability to assume positions where they nurture and support, and men are not so trained, then it follows that tasks which require these capabilities, such as raising children, will be done by women.

Ideological reinforcement of a rigid division between the essential nature and proper behavior of men on the one hand and women on the other hand occurs in everything from beer commercials which represent women as sexual objects and as completely dependent upon and only concerned with serving men, to children‘s toy commercials which often divide the world of toys into those appropriate for little girls (e.g. miniature kitchenettes and baby dolls) and those appropriate for little boys (e.g. guns and construction tools). Through popular music, television, and magazines, men and women are constantly reminded of the radical differences that constitute the “two sexes,” thereby reinforcing the idea that the two shall always be radically different and that society will always need to be organized according to these differences.

The often complementary nature of the patriarchal sexist ideological representation of masculinity and femininity — in which men and women represent discrete halves of humanity that together constitute a whole — not only both reflects and legitimates this gendered division of labor, but also almost always perpetuates heterosexist ideas regarding what is normal human sexuality. Traditional practices of masculinity and femininity perpetuate the notion that “real men” and “real women” will normally — that is, if everything proceeds “naturally” — desire their “opposite” sex. A consequence of structuring sexuality in this way is that gays and lesbians are figured as social deviants who violate the supposed natural law of hetero-sexuality. Gay men and lesbian women are “queer” therefore because they refuse the categorical imperative to be either a man or a woman.

Instead of viewing “man” and “woman” as strict opposites, and instead of viewing “masculine” and “feminine” as likewise antithetical, distinct, and exclusive, we suggest that “man” and “woman” and “masculine” and “feminine” in actuality represent poles of two interlinked continua — a continuum between man and woman and a continuum between masculine and feminine. In other words, male and female do not naturally correspond to man and woman or to masculine and feminine. In fact, all male and female human beings partake in varying degrees of attributes socially defined as both masculine and feminine and all males and females behave in ways “proper” to both men and women. Of course, males tend to be more masculine and manly, and females more feminine and womanly, and yet this is not a manifestation of male and female biology: instead it reflects how men and women are socially produced to become men and women.

This process of en-gendering is not a process of simple subjection of males and females to prepared sets of respectively male and female roles and identities. Males and females actively—and always at least in part willingly—enter into, accept, abide by, and conform to the terms of contracts which prescribe models and patterns for “normal” and “proper” male and female behavior. They are materially rewarded for agreeing to abide by the terms of these contacts — and thus maintain a real objective interest in so doing (this is different of course for men and women: women are “rewarded” only by not having to give up the stability and security of subordination for the risk and uncertainty of rebellion, whereas men receive real privileges over and at the expense of women). Not only this, however, as males and females also continually rebel against, re-create, and transform the boundaries of normal and proper male and female behavior (even if they do so, for the most part, within boundaries necessary to maintain precise distinctions between what is “proper for real men” and what is “proper for real women”; homosexuals, and in particular gay and lesbian homosexuals are among the few who go beyond — to break and to defy — even these boundaries).

A similar account can be given of the social development of sexual orientation. Human beings are born without any innate sexual orientation — without any innate attraction to or desire for a particular half of the biological human species — but are born instead with the capacity for sexual attraction to and engagement with members of the same, of the opposite, and of both sexes. (And it is ultimately only very timid and tepid gay liberationists who argue otherwise, fearful that unless their sexual orientation is seen as a “condition” which they were born with — even a kind of “handicap” or “affliction” — which they “cannot help,” then they will be crushed by a straight society seeking to prevent itself from “contamination” by such a “contagion.” The celebration by gays and lesbians of pseudo-scientific studies which purport to prove that sexual orientation is rooted and fixed at birth in an individual‘s initial, innate physiological and biochemical composition, is a symptom of this not at all unreasonable fear. Yet gays and lesbians and their friends and supporters should recognize that such studies are conducted and their results made use of precisely to relegate homosexuals to a subordinate, second-class ghetto of irrelevant and unthreatening freaks.)

As they learn to become men and women, males and females also learn what kinds of relations are proper for men and for women in relation to the same and to the opposite sex, and their sexual attraction and desire for other human beings is shaped and formed as a result of the concrete history of what they learn and experience. In heterosexist culture, males are directed to desire females as sexual partners and females are directed to desire males — and this desire is also directed to follow a limited range of precise forms and to involve a limited range of precise kinds of roles and positions for men and for women in their sexual and non-sexual interactions — and transactions — with each other. The social contracts which men and women enter into, accept, abide by, and conform to in heterosexist society include contracts which prescribe heterosexuality and proscribe homosexuality.

Sexual development is a site of conflict and struggle that depends upon the active engagement of human beings in both reproducing and transforming the nature and conditions of their own sexual attraction and desire. This active engagement includes varying degrees and possibilities of resistance, rebellion, and revolt against dominant sexual roles and identities and against dominant directions and forms of sexual orientation. Heterosexist restriction of sexual orientation depends upon maintaining strict kinds of limits upon relations between members of both the same and of the opposite sex. Associations, in heterosexist culture, of men with men and of women with women as well as of men with women are all effected, in both form and content, by strict limits and strict taboos (which define “breach” of contract) upon when, where, how and how far, to whom, for what and why it is “normal,” acceptable, and “proper” for men and women to express affection, to act upon attraction, and to satisfy desire in relation to other men or women and in relation to the opposite sex.

Homosexuals rebel against oppressive social definitions and delimitations not only of what kind of relations members of the same sex are supposed to be able to have with each other, of how loving and affectionate men are supposed to be towards men and women towards women, but also of what kinds of roles, identities, and behaviors are acceptable and even possible for men and for women. In patriarchal societies, males are trained to become masculine men and females are trained to become feminine women such that men can dominate over women. In patriarchal society be-coming a man offers a male substantial material advantages over — and at the direct expense of — females who must become women.

We suggest that “homosexual” and “heterosexual” as well as “gay” and “straight” should not be understood as strict antitheses but, rather, once again, as poles on two of three interconnected continua across which all human beings move (in greater or lesser degrees) throughout their lives: a continuum between homosociality and homosexuality, a continuum between heterosociality and heterosexuality, and a continuum between straight and gay.

Social contracts limit movement across these continua and upon when, where, how, and how far it is possible acceptably to engage in this movement. These limits lead to the sublimation of sexual attraction between members of the same sex and to its conversion into the homoerotic. These contracts also tend to prescribe limits upon acceptable and possible kinds of friend-ships and other non-sexual relationships between members of the opposite sex and upon how, when, and where it is proper and acceptable for men and women to engage in not only sexual but also non-sexual social relations of friendship, collegiality, and camaraderie with each other. And yet, not only do “gay” men and women frequently engage in “straight sex,” and not only do “straight” men and women frequently engage in “gay sex” (some studies estimate that up to 30% to 40% or more of the American population, both male and female, will experience orgasm through sexual interaction with at least one member of the same sex in the course of their lives), but also, in all societies where heterosexuality is supposedly “normal” and homosexuality is not, vast numbers of men and men and women and women develop and maintain relationships of affection towards, attraction to, friendship with, and erotic desire for each other.

Heterosexist social contracts prevent sexuality from developing in connection with and as extension of relationships of friendship, and these contracts also prevent men and women from readily and easily pursuing sexual relations both outside and inside of relations involving romance and love. These contracts prevent everyday, “normal” social interaction among members of the same sex — homosociality — from “naturally” including homosexuality, and prevent men from treating and relating to women as their equals. Heterosexism also prevents men, in particular, (although at times women as well) from treating each other with the same degree of respect, caring, and affection that they show women (or men).

Even in patriarchal sexist and heterosexist society, there is no perfectly exact correspondence between male and man or female and woman, and this is not only because “acceptable” traits for men overlap with “acceptable” traits for women: all actually existing human males and females are combinations of traits “proper” to both “man” and “woman.” Real human beings are active combinations of “man” and “woman” who work continually to redefine what man and woman can and cannot be. We all move across continua of “man”-”woman” and of “homosexual”-”heterosexual,” although some of us do so much more freely and flexibly (and progressively) than others.