I haven't read the LM article, but I totally agree with what you're arguing. The important thing urbanization did for homosexuality, women etc. was undermine the importance of the nuclear family as an economic unit. That having been done a century ago, there's no going back (right-wing attempts to do so through state coercion, especially for poor people, notwithstanding). More technology, more capitalism, more urbanization is totally irrelevant to homophobia.
Liza
rc&am wrote:
>
> hi liza,
>
> i agree, there has been very good work done to show the deep mysticism
> of perspectives like 'the lesbian continuum' etc, which makes each and
> every case of same sex boffing acroos the ages, well, the same. but,
> claiming that homosexuality is a creation of urbanisation, as the
> article did, is not the same as being historically specific. and, i
> think in the case of the article, it was more important for the author
> to give this requirement for historical specificity the big city spin
> inasmuch as the progressivity of capitalism and the need to boost the
> forces of prodn is a strong article of faith in 'living marxism', so
> strong that it has actually become a one-sided celebration of
> technology.
>
> the very idea od sexuality as a specific set of categorisable
> practices is no doubt particularly 'modern'. but, the implication of
> the modernism of 'lm' is that anti-gay bigotry will disappear with
> more 'modernisation'. i don't consider homophobia (call it anti-gay
> bigotry if you must), or racism or sexism to be pre-modern
> inclinations.
>
> cheers,
>
> angela