Reddit Reddit reviews Straight: The Surprisingly Short History of Heterosexuality

We found 4 Reddit comments about Straight: The Surprisingly Short History of Heterosexuality. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.

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Straight: The Surprisingly Short History of Heterosexuality
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4 Reddit comments about Straight: The Surprisingly Short History of Heterosexuality:

u/choux-fleurs · 3 pointsr/FeMRADebates

This is an interview with the author of Straight: The Surprisingly Short History of Sexuality. She has quite a few things to say about labeling which I find interesting (see my flair). Excerpted below, questions are in italics, responses in quoted text:

In his book “Gay New York,” George Chauncey writes about the flip side of this, how previous to the invention of “homosexuality,” men’s sexualities were much more fluid. Do you think that’s the case?

> Oh, absolutely. When you start operating on the principle that you indeed can divide people into sheep and goats, then there’s also the idea that you must divide people into sheep and goats and there are certain boundaries that cannot be crossed without reclassifying.

Over the last decade, there’s been a lot of science arguing that there are physical differences between gay people and straight people, in their brains and even the direction of their hair whirls. You’re skeptical of this research. Why?

> I question their validity primarily because nobody has established or in fact attempted to establish that there is a canonical straight body. And if you don’t have characterized control, you can bet your bottom dollar I am not going to believe your hypothesis. It’s really that simple.

> All of this research that is purporting to look for physiological material differences between gay bodies and straight bodies: What are they comparing it to? Their assumption that they know magically what a heterosexual body is? When no one has actually established what that is. That’s bad science.

But these categories have also been very practical. Gay rights wouldn’t be imaginable without them.

> Well, you know, minority politics has been a lot easier to sell than to just say, “Being human ought to get you human dignity,” full stop. If you can pin down the difference, if you can make the difference the salient issue, it somehow makes it easier for people to stomach the fact that they can’t go out and just beat people over the head. I don’t know why that is. I find it intensely frustrating.

(Edit: formatting)

u/Georgy_K_Zhukov · 3 pointsr/AskHistorians

/u/cephalopodie might feel differently about what your best source to seek out is, but I would at least point you in the direction of "Straight: The Surprisingly Short History of Heterosexuality", which is a pretty short read, and looks how our modern (Western) conception of sexual orientation developed in the mid-to-late 19th century. It is certainly intended for a general audience, not an academic one, but it is entertaining, and from what I have seen, generally well reviewed.

u/eventhorizongeek · 2 pointsr/Equality

You might find the book Straight: The Surprisingly Short History of Hetrosexuality an interesting read, it covers a lot of the history of marriage in it's discussion of heterosexuality (as you might expect). Or you can read an abbreviated discussion over at the Week: How marriage has changed over centuries. If I remember correctly, the general timeframe is around the 16th century, maybe a little before, when it turned from making-babies-fulfilling-societal-roles to i-love-you.

u/mwobuddy · 1 pointr/MensRights

Before we can talk about this anymore, why not go through some research on the individual person experience.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Duvert

>n 1974, Duvert expounded his ideology at length in Le Bon Sexe Illustré (Good Sex Illustrated) in which he sharply criticised sex education and the modern western family. Critics praised its humor and his ability to observe the false pretenses of bourgeois society.

>ony Duvert was born on 2 July 1945 in Villeneuve-le-Roi, Val-de-Marne. As a child he was shy and withdrawn, but was later to write that his sex life began when he was eight.[1] Expelled from school at twelve for homosexuality, he was sent by his parents to a psychiatrist for treatment: the methods used he described as brutal and humiliating.[2] He ran away from home and attempted suicide.[3]

>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_Morality_and_the_Law

>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Foucault

>http://www.amazon.com/The-History-Sexuality-Vol-Introduction/dp/0679724699

>http://www.amazon.com/Straight-Surprisingly-Short-History-Heterosexuality/dp/0807044598/ref=pd_sim_14_11?ie=UTF8&dpID=51R6rejmmuL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR107%2C160_&refRID=0P8PRERB2HA1G3VNK09D

>http://www.amazon.com/Three-Essays-Theory-Sexuality-Sigmund/dp/1614270538/ref=pd_sim_14_22?ie=UTF8&dpID=41AZy24jzDL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR107%2C160_&refRID=0P8PRERB2HA1G3VNK09D