the idea that you are either straight OR gay and that there's a solid line
> between those identities emerged and was normalized with the rise of
> capitalism.
>
An idea I've seen in a few places, and which corresponds with my own understanding of history, is that the notion of a uniquely "gay" identity arose with Oscar Wilde's three trials (the first as a plaintiff for libel, the second two as a defendant for gross indecency) in 1895, abetted by extensive and hysterical tabloid coverage. For our modern purposes, Wilde seems to have been the first "flamer" - at least, I am unaware of any preceding him. (Of course, it helped the undergraduate paper I wrote on the topic tremendously that Wilde was an aristocrat and a patron of proletarian male prostitutes, set upon by a baying pack of bourgeois do-gooders.)
-- "Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen lytlað."