Class Notes on Early American Sex: History and Culture

Interrogating Marriage Class Notes Godbeer • Views sex as an activity—contrast with Foucault, who views sex as an identity o There was sex, but not sexuality (as we now conceive of it) o Conceptions of sexuality and sexual acts change over time • Sodomy conceived as exploitive sex more than same-sex acts o But there is not a consistent definition • Puritan religious rhetoric sexualizes the divine and feminizes male Christians o Taylor’s poem “Huswifery” is an example o Fluidity of sex roles: there exists an idea of rigid gender categories, but “one-sex model” allows for flexibility in the spiritual realm o Remember that “separate spheres” is an upper-class 19th cen. Phenomenon • Sex in marriage o Puritans emphasize importance of sexual pleasure for both partners—if one partner is not “delighted,” this is grounds for divorce o Puritans had a different conception of privacy than exists today (evident in Lawrence v. Texas) o Frankness in sexual discussions ƒ Sexual relationships harder to keep secret in the 17th cen. ƒ Community members encouraged to spy on each other and report illicit sex ƒ The expectation was that sins would be confessed publicly • Ironic because there were rules regarding purity of language—by confessing publicly, people were forced to speak of impure occurrences o Puritans believe companionship/friendship/sexual fulfillment should be part of marriage ƒ Before this time, marriage functions as a property relation ƒ Puritan churches pressure people to marry even if they don’t own property because religious belief is a marriage with the divine • Religious people strive for emblematic marriages as one way in which to live out their spiritual relationships • Sexual relations between women o Challenging for the Puritans to prove as well as to conceive of ƒ Fixation on the penis=Sex between women is not really sex because it produces no tangible consequences (such as pregnancy) o Notion of privacy—perhaps women had more privacy together due to standards of purity and propriety o Godbeer cites incidences of sex between women, but notes that the acts are described in a vague manner (“unseemly practices”) and are not characterized as sodomy o He concludes that based on the lack of evidence, sex between women was either completely acceptable or completely challenging for Puritan society 1 • Presumes gender=sexed bodies o Dillon proposes a shift from one “multiply-sexed” body to the “two-sex” binary model of boy identity Lawrence v. Texas • Godbeer’s work is important here because before this decision, it was believed that legal decisions regarding same-sex sex stemmed from Puritan laws—untrue • Kennedy—there’s not a concrete problem with same-sex sexual acts o Similar to the marriage issue—what is it? How do we define it? • Rights o Sense of individual privacy is key—very different from the sense of privacy in the Puritan era ƒ Sharp divide between acceptable (sexual) behavior in public vs. private o Lawrence v. Texas addresses how rights to have sex with whom one chooses (and therefore rights to sexuality/sexual orientation) affect the rights of individuals generally o Our conception of sexuality places sexual orientation as fundamental to who an individual is as a person o Pre-Lawrence, if you participate in same-sex sexual acts, you are a criminal, therefore, identifying as queer automatically makes you a criminal o Sexual orientation was not believed to be someone’s master status in Puritan era o Kennedy—you have a right to an identity ƒ Scalia uses Judith Butler’s model to assert that same-sex acts are performance, not identity and the two should be separate—argues to uphold sodomy laws, but not discriminate against queer identity Marriage and Property • Marriage previously very much tied to property—could the current association of marriage and healthcare be analogous? • Sex as part of marriage makes it a different kind of contract • Marriage is difficult to define—we know what it entails approximately o Also difficult to define sex and the relationship between marriage and sex Poems • Use idiom/metaphor to illustrate relations between people and nations • Donne English living in England o Explicitly sexual, colonized America imagery—he wants to penetrate the virgin land • Bradstreet o English living in New England o Love seems more equal, friendship important in marriage o Colonial language references—“riches of the east” • Taylor 2 o Explicitly sexual, theologized o What is the speaker’s gender? o Is wedding’s knot a spiritual joining? Her vagina? 3