Yoshie wrote:
> Hence his inability to distinguish homosexuality
> analytically from the (often violent) repression/sublimation of
> homoerotic possibilities in homosociality (and such
> repression/sublimation of same-sex eroticism in homosociality is
> dependent upon the exclusion/repression of homosexuals). Adorno's
> homophobia lies in his conflation of the two (homosexuality and
> homosociality), which results in his inability to see the
> fundamentally anti-homosexual ideology and practice of National
> Socialism and also in his blaming 'the violent, patriarchal
> militarization of sexual identity' not on homophobic heterosexuals
> but on homosexuals.
It's certainly possible to read "Tough Baby" in _Minima Moralia_ that
way, but what then to make of the essay "Sexual Taboos and Law Today"
in _Critical Models_, where Adorno attacks the German law against
homosexuality:
The abominable paragraph on the law books against homosexuals
managed to find safe passage into postwar liberated Germany. The
mitigation that permits at least culprits of minor age to go
unpunished can easily become an invitation to blackmail. Actually,
there is no need to bring forth arguments against this paragraph:
it suffices merely to recall its disgraceful character. Let me
indicate just one, often overlooked aspect of the ostracism of
homosexuals, who of course are perceived as the portent of a
sexuality alientated from its proper purpose. [editorial aside from
Curtiss: before jumping on that quip, understand that this comes
from an essay whose thesis is that the genital sexuality has been
integrated into capitalism and that the destruction of non-genital
sexuality or "partial drives" is the form that sexual repression
takes today] Some people say that so long as they do not abuse
minors or dependents, in praxi homosexuals are far less harried
nowadays that they were earlier. But it is absurd that a law is
justified with the explanation that it will not be applied, or only
sparingly so. It is not necessary to spell out what such
conceptual schemas imply for protection under the law and the real
relation of people to the legal order. Even if homosexuals were
finally left more or less in peace, the atmosphere of persistent
legal discrimination would necessarily subject them to unremitting
anxiety.
Furthermore, this passage is introduced by a consideration that the
militaristic homosexual character types (a reference to the SA? I
don't know very much German history, I'm embarassed to admit) are
created by societal taboos against homosexuals. Doesn't this lay
blame for the militarization for sexual identity at the feet of a
homophobic, heterosexist capitalist order?
--
Curtiss