January 2000 Cover
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What do we mean when we say that someone is gay or that someone is straight?
The popular model of sexuality contends that sexuality is A) generally binary (either one is straight or gay, with few truly indeterminate "bisexuals"), B) determined early
in life (perhaps even genetically coded), and C) immutable. Most modern scientists, jurists, and even philosophers embrace a view of sexuality wherein the population can
be divided into heterosexuals and homosexuals (and a very few bisexuals). While the relative sizes of these categories might be debated, the prevailing model holds that
individuals end up either gay or straight because of a particular turn at a key fork in the path of their sexual development. And be it a difference in genes or prenatal hormones or some
early childhood experiences, the popular conception of sexuality contends that once a person's sexual "identity" has been established, it cannot be substantially altered.
The trouble is, such a model doesn't fit the facts.
Consider that the majority of preadolescent boys engage in genital sex play, and most of such sexual activity is with other boys. Such homosexual activity only stops
when adolescence's rabidly homophobic socialization targets "queer stuff" for ridicule and beating. And straight men in the military or prison return to homosexuality with a gusto
that often doesn't even pretend to need the excuse that exclusive heterosexuality on board ship or behind bars would mean celibacy.
A better model of sexual develo pment understands that homosexuality is the foundation of
all sexuality. Infants and young children discovering the pleasures of
masturbation do not fantasize about sex with anyone: they are learning to enjoy their own-- same-sex, of course-- bodies. Masturbation, nearly universally practiced, is intrinsically
a homosexual act. And fully enjoying sex with other people means enjoying your own body-- again, a decidedly homosexual appreciation.
Furthermore, rigid categories of gay and straight are products of society. Instead of seeing homosexually active men in the military or prison acting gay only because
their preferred sex objects are absent (the prevailing view), it is more accurate to observe that once they are not compelled to deny their homosexual desires, men will revert to
their essential gay selves. Enforcing exclusive heterosexuality requires tauntings, beatings, excommunications, financial bribery, legal punishments, and executions of those
expressing homosexuality (when heterosexuality is an option)
precisely because homosexuality is so natural and pleasurable. Such elaborate defense of exclusive heterosexuality would
not be required unless homosexuality were a potential of many supposedly "immutably" straight people. (And, ironically, the homophobic notion that if a spark of
heterosexuality exists within a person, it must be nurtured to the exclusion of one's gay side leads some gay people to deny any heterosexual interest.)
Once we realize that all sexuality is predicated on a homosexual foundation (since it is with our own bodies we enjoy sex), and that exclusive heterosexuality is a
coerced social construct and not a natural kind, we are led to a clearer agenda for gay liberation. Our goal is not to become a separate category of junior straight people wherein we
adopt straight institutions and patterns, changing only the sex of of our partners. Nor is it to convert anyone away from heterosexuality. Instead, we must understand that our struggle
is to free everyone from the fear that keeps them from expressing and enjoying their true, natural, and
fundamental gay selves. **
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