Miles Jackson wrote:
>
> ravi wrote:
> > This seems to beg the question. Either every category is historically
> > produced and hence we either stop talking of them or we talk about them
> > in the same way. Is it the point then that neither homosexuality nor
> > heterosexuality are exclusively present in the historical record?
> Well, it depends on what you mean by the terms "homosexuality" and
> "heterosexuality". If you just mean that same-sex sexual activity
> occurs, then I agree that homosexuality exists in most known societies.
> If you mean that people have an exclusive, stable sexual identity
> based on their sexual desires and activity ("I'm gay", "I'm straight"),
> then homosexuality (and heterosexuality!) is far from universal.
There may be a 'deeper' premise operating in ravi's argument: the assumption that concern over one's identity is universal rather than emergent from developed capitalism. Such a concern is faintly visible in the 17th/18th century but it is only in the 19th century that one's identity becomes the over-riding concern that it now appears to be. "Appears" is deliberate in the preceding sentence. I am skeptical that even today most people are as concerned with the question of "Who am I" as theorticians of culture, society, or psychology assume to be the case. I suspect, in fact, that the majority of practicing gays don't, day in and day out, think of themselves as having a "gay" identity.
Carrol