Nick's Place

My October 9, 1999 email to my freshman Culture Society in the West discussion list, could be considered a rehashing of Professor Kaplan's September 8, 1999 discussion and lecture on Plato's Symposium. What both my email and Professor Kaplan failed to address was why upon discovering the Greek erastes/eromenos system of sexuality many American question whether the Greeks were gay or not.

Many people do not realize that the sexual world in which they live is a construct, that continues to renew itself. Heterosexuality exists in all western cultures. It is undeniably recreated every generation by

The adolescent male sex drive, which, as both young women and men are taught, once triggered cannot take responsibility for itself or take no for an answer, becomes ... the norm and rationale for adult male sexual behavior: a condition of arrested sexual development. women learn to accept the inevitability of this "drive" because they receive it as dogma. (Rich 237)

The system of male homosexuality exists within the system of heterosexuality. While it is a change of which gender is desired in a mate, in many ways heterosexuality is retained in gay male's relationship through the hunt of other males, much like the adolescent male sex drive Rich describes.

What makes heterosexuality ingrained quality less obvious than other ideologies, such as capitalism or expansionism is that it in put into play even before birth. When a sonogram is used to determine sex the technician looks for the qualifier of maleness, the penis. This is repeated often, and is most evident in gay male pornography where models are pictured "...each with naked, erect, and prominently displayed cock and balls" (Garber 323). Homosexuality is unexpected and scary for some because it uproots ingrained cultural ideology, and places males in a different possible sexual role, than they are accustomed to.

Garber, Marjorie. "Spare Parts: The surgical Construction of Gender." The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader. Ed. Henry Abelove et al. New York: Routledge, 1993. 321-336.
Rich, Adrienne. "Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence." The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader. Ed. Henry Abelove et al. New York: Routledge, 1993. 227-254.