To begin, D’Emilio lays the groundwork for the development of the homosexual identity as one linked partially to an economically oriented cultural shift in America from the familial structure to capitalism. D’Emilio argues that during colonial America, the importance to procreate dominated the American social frontier, with the organization and attitudes towards sexuality mainly centered on the economics of sex and children. In other words, family units were what sustained life at the time, and the more children one had, the more workers one had. From a statistical perspective, the importance society placed on procreation at the time can be said to be supported by the abnormally high birth rates. At the time, it could be said that issues like sexuality, like heterosexuality was undefined because at the time, it was the only way of life due to the importance of self-sustenance. Note that it has nothing to do with a “natural law”, rather directly link to the economics of survival at the time.
So where does the social emphasis of the time leave “homosexuality”? Historical records of random and sporadic homoerotic behavior at the time exist, but there is no historical evidence that men nor women at the time considered themselves “homosexual”. Here, D’Emilio begins to elude to the fact that at the time, homoerotic behavior was seen as an act, not necessarily an all-encompassing identity that a person would ascribe themselves to being.
It was during the second half of the 19th century, with the shift towards industrial capitalism that the social forefront for most Americans began to change and created an environment conducive to the creation of the “homosexual” identity. To begin, the fairly abrupt move to the free market labor system and capitalism in America pulled both men and women from the independent household units straight into the working marketplace. Suddenly, families were no longer the self-sustenance economic units, but rather an entity meant to raise, nurture and promote happiness among its members. Birth rates declined, people began the move to urbanize, cities sprang up, and people began socializing outside of the household, which led to the development of the autonomous personal life.
The development of the personal life included sexuality moving to the realm of personal choice that was disconnected with the societal organization of basic survival. Now, people had individual lives that no longer depended on the society’s previously held conception of the family functioning as an entity assisting in basic “survival” needs. This major change in circumstances allowed men and women who had strong erotic attractions to homoerotic behavior to fashion out their own personal identity and ways of life that were separate from the heteronormative. In American cities, people that recognized their own personal sexual desires began distinguishing themselves from the majority and began finding comfort in their “own”. Soon, an entire subculture of gay men and women emerged that also differentiated itself amongst “types,” “specialties,” social backgrounds and styles. In urban areas, entire city blocks and certain areas were camped out. Both men and women began to identify with this collective sense of consciousness, where homosexuality was no longer just seen as “homoerotic” behavior, but rather and identity category in and of itself.
Although, this new subculture of the gay man and woman was not completely independent of the heterodominant society of its time in any way. To a large extent, even today, aspects of the Judeo-Christian religious tradition has had a monumentally jaded impact on the homosexual identity through its influence in the developed and executed ways of the heteronormative that extends itself through religion, to law, to science and western medicine.
The idea of the heteronormative, and influences from Judeo-Christian thought has been so ingrained in American social thought for ages, that few are even able to recognize that heterosexuality not an absolute truth, the only “option,” or even the “natural” thing. Gay men and women faced discrimination and brutality both from Judeo-Christian religion, which considered it a sin, to laws still filtered on those thoughts, that defined sodomy as a heinous, unnatural sex act, to medicine and science considered it unnatural due to ideas of “biology is destiny”.
D’Emilio’s analysis of the early development of the homosexual identity is important to consider in the debate today over issues of sexuality because it is removing the discussion out of the realm of Judeo-Christian thought and its perversion of religion, medicine, and law into the area of economics. D’Emilio’s analysis of the social economics of family, sex and marriage are compelling because it hints to the very basis that many hold true, that homosexuality is unnatural, has nothing to do with “truth”, but rather a cultural form of relativism.
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