/lit/ - Literature

>>19328970
You made a valiant effort to disagree (which I appreciate) but I think we're on the same page. The feminist upsurge preceded the gay in questioning social norms, their battle is the same battle between gay and queer, queer and trans that I described -- the battle for narrative control. No substantive change occurs.

A person's biology can define them -- if it's allowed to. There's the rub, as you point out there's no such thing as a person independent of social circumstances. Sex is a social act. Other "sexual" behaviors exist, but comparing the two is like comparing masturbation with fertilization, they're in completely different leagues. I would never consider equating masturbators with sex havers on any sort of continuum. This is my point about sexuality advocacy. If you take out the essentialism, all you have is a bunch of masturbators who fight and repress their biological urge to breed because it's inconvenient to their chosen lifestyle.

Regarding the lifelong homosexual I refer you to my "mindbreak" illustration. Some people's homo or heterosexuality is buried under years of habituation and/or completely feared and unwanted. Such people will live all their lives with the appearance of "natural" orientation one way or another. However the fact is, from a purely sexual standpoint it's possible to make that person feel pleasure, and imprint the experience of pleasure upon things outside their "natural" proclivity. Moreover, sexual essentialism if it existed would need a source, and as we know there isn't a definitive one thanks to society's influence on the finished human product.

>I don't at all know what you mean by "the gay revolution" saying that "marriage and love" are social constructs though, especially since the gays, who were marginal figures in the culture war for a long time, only really became relevant on a broad scale when they deradicalised and started advocating for integration + marriage rights (which entails an implicit recognition and endorsement of the value of bourgeois monogamous marriage, contra queer radicals and feminists).
I guess I deserve this for speaking in broad terms, but I don't consider the 1980s to be a time of gay deradicalization even if they hit on a less radical form of queer theory. "Revolution" refers to their meteoric rise in relevance and political volume. I don't consider the equation of gay and straight relationships to be a less radical form of thinking gays are totally deviant to straights, nor do I fully understand your point here.
>Regarding the idea of a genuine purpose of the human sex drive, it's worth keeping in mind that evolution has tacked on lots of secondary functions to sexuality.
even you call them secondary functions... that's all I'm asking for. Separate the social from the obviously biological. Your points about pederasty and the existence of trannies in other forms do not clearly conflict with anything I've said.