>It may be my residual International Socialism (i.e. vulgar Marxism)
>but I attribute that to the retreat of the working class following
>the collapse of the Long Economic Boom. For me the movements of the
>60s were all related in an admittedly subtle way to the decline of
>work discipline and general fear of the boss caused by the collapse
>in unemployment.
>
>When the working class once more went under the lash then it seems
>to me that the courage and daring also went out of the gay movement,
>the black movement and the women's movement.
Nicely put.
>Having said all that and admitting that there is much I admire and
>agree with in both your and Phil's posts, I am tempted to think that
>there is there is something intrinsically radical about being a
>*gay* male even in contemporary society. Even if it only means that
>we constitute some kind of challenge to the dynamics of social
>reproduction.
Since the production of labor-power can never be fully commodified & therefore capitalism depends upon the non-capitalist reproduction of labor-power (with women serving as breeders, who are denied the full control over our reproductive capacity), sex, gender, sexuality, & reproduction continue to be an important terrain of the struggle. Gay men & lesbians perhaps stand as (literal & metaphoric) reminders of pleasures un-subordinated to procreation & reproduction of labor-power -- therefore a (material & ideological) challenge both to capitalism & organicist socialism (which treats socialist citizens as disposable "members" of an "organic body politic"). While certain privileged gay men & lesbians may prosper under capitalism, capitalism cannot allow the dissolution of the strait & narrow categories of "homosexual" & "heterosexual," much less emancipate bodies & pleasures from the chains of M-C-M'.
from thorns to rosebuds,
Yoshie