HIST 3212

Midterm Paper
Sexuality and Progress in the United States

While contemporary liberal thought tends to describe history of sexuality as a narrative of

progress, critical historians have tried to question and challenge such view. According to
Halperin, (2000) although old debates whether sexuality is a social construction or biologically
determined persists in various forms, the narrative of progress and history of (homo)sexuality
remains largely unquestioned. Inevitably, evaluation of what kind of history sexuality has, or
whether such history can exist at all, will depend on our contemporary ideas about what
constitutes ‘liberated’ or unrepressed sexuality and whether we agree that such binary is
productive in the first place. For some, gay marriage would be ultimate expression of progress,
while for others that might signify complete normalization and the victory of conservative
ideology1. Gayle Rubin (1984) states that “sex is always political” (4). “Sexuality” does not exist
as a static, unchanging essence of humans, but is historically contingent and dependent on
various economic, political, social and cultural developments, as well as intersections of class,
race, gender and other markers of identity. In this essay I will argue that linear progress of
sexuality is an overstatement. Although there are various intersections and continuities, the
variety of non-normative, time and context specific sexual desires and practices cannot be seen
as part of unitary narrative of history and progress from “repressed” to “liberated.”

At the time of establishing colonies and settling in the United States, Europeans encountered
various Native societies. According to Jacobs and Thomas (1999) enormous diversity of gender
and sexuality expressions existed in the Native societies at the time of encounter with Europeans.
There is also evidence that non-marital and same-sex relationships were a prevalent
phenomenon. However, European influence and outright pressure of various actors, such as
missionaries and colonial administrations, were able to change attitudes and dismantle various
gender and sexuality regimes to fit European model of heterosexual nuclear family, as well as
institute and internalize homophobia in many communities. The positive and somewhat
romanticized version of unrestrained and fluid gender and sexual norms in Native societies was
challenged by scholars such as Trexler (2002), who has argued that non-normative gender and
sexuality was a functional invention to meet community’s needs and equalize gender imbalances,
rather than as freely taken on identities. The level of agency in sexual and gender identity
formation might be important to consider, but overall it is evident that the narrative of progress
cannot be applied to the Native communities. The encounter with Europeans brought not only
enormous life losses but also transformations of existing social institutions, including those
around gender and sexuality. The example is rather obvious instance to counter the discourse of
“progress,” unless one fails to account Native American history as American.

Godbeer, for example, paints complex picture of colonial New England and its discourses of
sodomy. The simplistic popular representation that New England was extremely puritanical in its
gender and sexuality expressions does not stand up to historical records, which Godbeer reveals
in his essay. Although the legal and theological discourses condemned sodomy, the social
practices and popular perceptions do not reflect any uniformity concerning the issue. While legal
and theological condemnations called for punishment of same-sex acts, New Englanders, to
various degrees, accepted members of their communities who engaged in such acts. Godbeer
states that although some people perceived those engaging in sodomy as resembling modern
homosexual identity, there was no clear articulation of homosexual identity as such. Relatively
high degree of acceptance was common, especially when it came to community members who
had certain status and wealth advantage. Godbeer states that “intercourse, hierarchy, and power
were closely intertwined” (274). Their contribution to community life and good citizenship was
acknowledged and valued more than individual “diversions” from the sexual norms unless they
became too threatening to a social order. The analysis of New England’s norms in the 17th
century similarly challenges the narrative of progress in terms of sexuality. It needs to be seen as
situated in particular cultural context where legal and religious laws intersect with class and
gender of individuals and their desires. It could be argued that the blurry boundary between acts,
identity, and community acceptance for certain individuals might have been more liberating in
that particular context than policed, defined, and categorized “permissible” identity in the more
modern times.

Interracial sex is also one of the relationships, especially when it comes to white women and
black men, that is commonly perceived as historically non-existent and extremely punishable,
especially in the antebellum South. Hodes (2001) argues that not only white women and black
men had sex, but that it was also relatively common occurrence. Sometimes women raised
racially mixed children and the divorce initiated by husbands was not automatically granted.
Gender roles and “proper” sexual behaviors were clearly defined, but often not conformed to and
constantly transgressed by everyone – black and white, women and men. The hesitancy of courts
to permit divorce was rooted in the economic and social system of the day, which stressed the
importance of maintaining white family for social coherence. Hodes states that, surprisingly, the
black men were rarely punished for having sex with white woman and that courts rationalized
affairs in this way - “the gravity of breaking up a white family through divorce could outweigh
the gravity of illicit sex between a white woman and a black man” (146). In Hodes’ account
narrative of progress gets contested in terms of gender, race, and sexuality. The gender
expressions and sexual practices needs to be situated within the economic and social system of
the slavery period in the South. Sexual transgressions happened and often were tolerated as long
as they did not significantly interfere with the economic system and white supremacist status
quo. The antebellum South’s interracial sex, apparently, was not most repressed, contrary to
popular belief.

At the turn of the 20th century New York City, rapid urbanization, industrialization, and large
populations of immigrants also evoked racialized social control mechanisms. One of the
populations that got increasingly policed was Chinese laborers. The restrictions significantly
increased to a panic level after the murder of a young white women by the name of Elsie Sigel,
allegedly murdered by her Chinese lover Leon Ling. Lui (2005) states that “surprising
revelations emerging from the murder investigation and the actions of the people being policed
continued to challenge the contemporary racial and gender ideologies upon which these
boundaries were erected” (5). It became evident that puritan notions about white female
missionary workers were largely a fiction and that interracial sex and romance was a common
occurrence. No matter what dominant discourse and ideology is in place in particular moment,
often it does not capture concrete realities and various sexual practices and gender
configurations. The case of Sigel also challenges common knowledge about tolerant North as
opposed to racialized and repressive South, since Northern racism was just as prevalent - or even
more so - than in the South. The urban vibrant environment was indeed an opening for
proliferation of sexual practices and transgression of gender norms, but it did not guarantee a
liberated environment for them to thrive, as the case of Sigel and Ling’s story illustrates. Specific
ideologies of gendered separate spheres, urban segregation, class, shifts in economy and
immigration laws played important roles in gender and sexual reconfigurations, but not
necessarily in a linear progressive manner.

As various examples above demonstrate, sexuality cannot be understood in isolation from

various other markers of identity and larger structural forces, such as economy, in place.
Godbeer states that “sexual categories have no unifying signification; they are cultural products,
emerging from and contingent on their specific contexts” (261). Race in the US has played an
extremely significant role in shaping social, political, and economic landscape of the country.
Somerville (1994) argues that there is a connection between scientific racism and the emergence
of the category “homosexual.” She doubts that the emergence of clearly defined categories of
“white” and “black,” “homosexual” and “heterosexual” has been accidental (245). Various
scientific developments of the late 19th century attempted to classify nature and human life into
neat and explanatory categories, at least in part, inspired by the Darwin’s theory of evolution.
Somerville suggests that “bifurcation of categories of race and sexuality were not only
historically coincident but in fact structurally interdependent and perhaps mutually productive”
(246). As a consequence, scientific discourse provided new impetus for pathologizing and
policing of deviant bodies, as well as reinforced gender and race ideologies and hierarchies, in
which heterosexual white man occupied the top of the pyramid. While science is typically
associated with “progress” and “reason” it can be argued that it was serious regression in terms
of legitimacy of non-normative sexual practices.

However, as Foucault2 points out, power is not only repressive and negative, but also productive.
By attempting to “know the body,” scientific and legal discourses produced unintended
consequences. As Duggan (1993) points out, various representations of non-normative sexual
relationships in the popular press fueled interest and allowed for emergence of modern
homosexual identity. She states that “lesbianism in particular emerged as an issue in debates
about female sexuality, aggression, economic independence, education, reform efforts, and
feminism” (794). Duggan argues that before lesbian identity was commonly understood as a
category, same-sex relationships existed and where relatively acceptable depending on one’s
class and status, as long as it did not challenge certain norms, for example, by cross-dressing.
Although the emergence of a “lesbian” identity might seem like evidence of progress it needs to
be situated within a particular class and race location and in relation to legal and scientific
developments, rather than as a universal category. Certainly, the emergence of New Women and
lesbian identity challenged the gender and sexual norms. These women demonstrated agency and
active resistance to prescribed femininity and heteronormativity. However, history shows that
various openings and advancements are often followed by repression and new ways of
controlling and policing bodies. Bodies and identities are always situated in particular contexts
and depend on intersections of race, class, gender, sexuality and various other markers.

Instead of thinking of history of sexuality as a narrative of progress it is more productive to think

about various sexual desires and practices as contextual and historically contingent. Even if some
of them might be sharing similar patterns it is important not to make quick generalizations
informed by today’s discourses. As Rubin (1984) points out, sexuality “is organized into systems
of power, which reward and encourage some individuals while, punishing and suppressing
others” (34). What gets repressed and rewarded is dependent on variety of factors and particular
historical developments, especially in times of “moral panic.” However, “moral panic” is also
often tied to real or perceived anxieties about the material, economic and social stability. It is
important to remain cautious about narratives of progress, because they are inevitably tied to
power and the status quo which attempts to portray progress in order to legitimize itself and
conceal its own exclusions.

1 For example, Michael Warner (1999) advances such argument in his book The Trouble with
Normal: Sex, Politics and the Ethics of Queer Life.

2 Discussed in Rubin (1984), pg.10.