Zeitgeist

Zeitgeist refers to the ethos of a selected group of people, and since in this course we are studying the socio-cultural history of a selected group of people (LGBT community) I find it important, at this time to delve a little more into how each of the characters in Duberman’s “Stonewall” relate to and/or reflect the Zeitgeist of the 1960s.

First of all, I think it is perfectly all right, when studying one thing in such depth, to be somewhat general when refering to the context. Because we are so tuned in to the LGBT issues in the 1960s, it is acceptable for some generalizations to be made regarding race issues, politics, etc. Not that these are less important, merely that they are not what we’re immediately concerned with. I feel that this sensitivity to temporary classification is distracting some class discussions from focusing on specific LGBT histories. These generalizations can be clumped, to some extent, into the 1960s’ Zeitgeist. This is probably the most important reason I have for including Zeitgeist in my personal ramblings regarding Duberman’s narrative.

From class I took that 1960s Zeitgeist was primarilly made up of Revolutionary counter-culture and the struggle for civil rights. While there are many parrallels that can be drawn between the fight for LGBT rights and the civil rights struggle, the one I find to be the most interesting and causal is the infectious impatience. It’s the domino affect of one person’s disruptive behavior giving others the encouragement to act out. But instead, it’s as if to say: “It’s ok to act now, it’s ok to be impatient, in fact, it’s the only way this will ever get done.” None of these were new ideas; they just required the catalysis of impatience in order to actually happen.

When we look at history, we see what was accomplished and we see what hardships people went through in order to attain said accomplishments. But what we don’t see are the smaller obstacles that these “revolutionaries” ran into every day, every month, or even every year. Each of Duberman’s characters have some nuance to their life or upbringing that sets them apart from how these “types of people” are remembered in history. Perhaps I can elucidate: Hippies/Yippies, definitely part of the 1960s Zeitgeist, but apparently homophobic. Craig and Foster, same common cause, but intellectually differed substantially.

Duberman’s narrative gives dimension to Zeitgeist ideals. It wasn’t just about angry people rising up against the Man; there were thousands of positions people took on a spectrum, each in it for different reasons and each facing their own specific obstacles.

And now for something random yet relative....



Karen

Symposium

There was something in D'Emilio's first chapter of "Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities" that reminded me of a reading done at my cousin's wedding in San Francisco last month. The reading was from Plato's Symposium, which I had never heard of at the time. I looked in vain to identify the exact passage they used, but failed to find words that were familiar. It was the blatant acceptance of members of the same sex loving each other that I found so stimulating. Being read at a wedding between a ma and a woman seemed to be saying "We recognize it is unfair that we can marry and others can not, but at least we care." Now realizing that Plato's Symposium is where the term "Uranian" came from, I deamed it absolutely necessary to find this passage and complete the connection.

Here is the closest I could find to what was used in the wedding:

Each of us when separated, having one side only, like a flat fish, is but the indenture of a man, and he is always looking for his other half. Men who are a section of that double nature which was once called Androgynous are lovers of women; adulterers are generally of this breed, and also adulterous women who lust after men: the women who are a section of the woman do not care for men, but have female attachments; the female companions are of this sort. But they who are a section of the male follow the male...
And when one of them meets with his other half, the actual half of himself, whether he be a lover of youth or a lover of another sort, the pair are lost in an amazement of love and friendship and intimacy, and one will not be out of the other’s sight, as I may say, even for a moment: these are the people who pass their whole lives together; yet they could not explain what they desire of one another.

Identity makes Sex about Love

It seems to be that there were two large steps from colonial America and the complete absence of gay and lesbian identity, to the second half of the 20th century when pretty much everyone knew what a gay person was, and generally had an opinion about it.

The first step was individual awareness. As capitalism drew men and women out of the home and into the marketplace at the end of the 19th century there was a general chaos of activity, allowing those with “abnormal” attractions to fly under the radar and have some mobility and freedom to explore those attractions. In other words, it was the first opportunity for people to be aware of and act upon attraction to those of the same sex.

The second step would be the medicalization of homosexuality, bringing it into the daylight for everyone to see and criticize and say “oh, that’s what’s been going on.” We all know how therapeutic naming our fears can be. Heteronormative society had been fearing the myth of the homosexual and persecuting those accused of buggery for decades, so it must have come as somewhat of a relief to be able to put this heinous monster in a box that could be classified. While it is ironic that it was this trauma and persecution that helped develop gay and lesbian identity by making gay people visible to eachother, I very much agree that this “baptism by fire” is somewhat necessary for new identities to emerge. It doesn’t just happen overnight and it’s never going to be easy.

So far I’ve said nothing new. What I’m interested in is when it became about love. Identity makes sex about love, love for partners as well as love for those in the community you identify with. Edward Carpenter believed that Uranians greatest service in society would be in “solving the problems of affection and of the heart,” and that “Love is at last to take its rightful place as the binding directing force of society.” I am not asserting that all gays and lesbians equate their sexual encounters with love, we are all human afterall. However, the sacrifice they made in their lives for love was indeed greater than had been generally seen before. Literature and film can’t get enough of “love’s sacrifice,” but those scenarios are never realistic and rarely can a large group of people identify with the plight. This was different. Everyone who embraced their gay or lesbian identity in order to be with the people they loved sacrificed standing or safety in society. Thus, to some extent, to identify was to say: love is important to me.

Purpose?

While the purpose of this blog is for the class WGST 111, American "Queer", I feel somewhat of a need to explain my reasons for taking this class and (more importantly) choosing the blog option. I assistant directed a Mindy Garner's acting comps show last Winter; Jane Chambers' "Last Summer at Bluefish Cove," or as most Carleton students remember it as, "that lesbian play." This was the first thing to spark my academic interest in gay and lesbian issues. While many study history to better understand the present (or not repeat the mistakes of our past), I find my fascination with the content of this course is more centered on history for history's sake, seen in the time it took place and not immediately transposed and compared to the present. This class and my blog is somewhat of an homage to what I learned from doing that play and how it has inspired me to take a more active role in my own life via intellectual discovery and not so much of the "I feel, I think, I want..." side of queer issues. Hence, getting this out of the way beforehand so that I can move beyond Bluefish.

A Taste of Bluefish

Just to get a feel for what this show I keep talking about was about....
Also, see if you can spot me!