The Invention of Heterosexuality“Heterosexuality,” assumed to denote a universal sexual and cultural norm, has been largely exempt from critical scrutiny. In this boldly original work, Jonathan Ned Katz challenges the common notion that the distinction between heterosexuality and homosexuality has been a timeless one. Building on the history of medical terminology, he reveals that as late as 1923, the term “heterosexuality” referred to a "morbid sexual passion," and that its current usage emerged to legitimate men and women having sex for pleasure. Drawing on the works of Sigmund Freud, James Baldwin, Betty Friedan, and Michel Foucault, The Invention of Heterosexuality considers the effects of heterosexuality’s recently forged primacy on both scientific literature and popular culture. “Lively and provocative.”—Carol Tavris, New York Times Book Review “A valuable primer . . . misses no significant twists in sexual politics.”—Gary Indiana, Village Voice Literary Supplement “One of the most important—if not outright subversive—works to emerge from gay and lesbian studies in years.”—Mark Thompson, The Advocate |
From inside the book
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... different-sex erotic.” In the early twentieth century, I explain, the word “heterosexual” and the associated idea were appropriated by medical professionals to newly and publicly legitimate the previously existing, non-reproductive, ...
... different-sex erotic ideal we know today. Pursuing the making of homosexuality over time, I had stumbled, unexpectedly, upon another primal scene, a previously unremarked seminal event, the occasion on which heterosexuality was ...
... sex difference, and sexual pleasure have been produced and combined in different ... erotic ideal—a heterosexual ethic—is not ancient at all, but a modern ... sex still represents to most of us a timeless, living 14 the INVENTION of ...
... different” and “other,” “minority” cultures has seemingly held much greater charm. Yet the deep desire possessing some of us to dress in the clothes of our own sex ... erotic history will reveal about the cultural creation of heterosexual ...
... different-sex pleasure ethic. According to that radically new standard, the “sexual instinct” referred to men's and women's erotic ... sex, but with perversion—a definitional tradition that lasted in middle-class culture into 2. The Debut of ...
Contents
1 | |
19 | |
3 Before Heterosexuality
| 33 |
4 Making the Heterosexual Mystique
| 57 |
5 The Heterosexual Comes Out
| 83 |
6 Questioning the Heterosexual Mystique
| 113 |
7 The Lesbian Menace Strikes Back
| 139 |
8 Toward a New Pleasure System
| 167 |
Afterword
| 193 |
Acknowledgements
| 197 |
Notes
| 201 |
Bibliography
| 247 |
Index
| 283 |