On Sat, 18 Mar 2000, Doug Henwood wrote:
> What is it about the Cold Warrior's paranoid equivalence of Red and
> queer? Has that ever been explored in depth?
Oh my yes. The most straightforward approach to this question is Barbara Ehrenreich's in _The Hearts of Men_. Her answer in a nutshell is that Gay liberation changed common sense. We now commonly think that some men are gay and some aren't. But before Stonewall, the common understanding was that every man was in danger of becoming gay if he didn't watch out. Insufficient exercise of aggression, insufficient self-discipline, in a word, insufficient machismo (aka weakness, softness, effeminateness) invited the danger of homosexuality on a personal level and takeover by the commies on a societal level. Consequently it wasn't an accident that the anti-war movement was tied up with an androgynous drift: they were two sides of the same revolt, at least as the system was experienced.
I think her book is underrated myself. It reads so smoothly (like a long and amusing magazine article) that most people never notice that it's dense with interesting ideas.
Michael
__________________________________________________________________________ Michael Pollak................New York City..............mpollak at panix.com