| Description |
xi, 291 pages ; 23 cm |
| Contents |
Foreword / Gore Vidal -- 1. The Genealogy of a Sex Concept: From Homosexual History to Heterosexual History -- 2. The Debut of the Heterosexual: Richard von Krafft-Ebing and the Mind Doctors -- 3. Before Heterosexuality: Looking Backward -- 4. Making the Heterosexual Mystique: Sigmund Freud's Seminal Conceptions -- 5. The Heterosexual Comes Out: From Doctor Discourse to the Mass Media -- 6. Questioning the Heterosexual Mystique: Some Liberal Feminist and Radical Feminist Verdicts -- 7. The Lesbian Menace Strikes Back: Some Lavender Feminist Critiques -- 8. Toward a New Pleasure System: Looking Forward --Afterword / Lisa Duggan |
| Summary |
This boldly original work reexamines our society's basic heterosexual/homosexual distinction - focusing on the evolution of the term heterosexual, which, as this study demonstrates, only entered our language a little more than a hundred years ago, ushering in a new way of dividing up and judging sexuality and people |
|
Exploring the startling history of the heterosexual concept, Jonathan Ned Katz reveals that as late as the 1920s, heterosexuality was still defined in a major American dictionary as "morbid sexual passion for one of the opposite sex." It was only through a slow process that heterosexuality became this society's dominant norm. Analyzing the work of such pioneering students of sexuality as Sigmund Freud and Richard von Krafft-Ebing, Katz considers the effects of their ideas about the sacred primacy of heterosexuality on both scientific literature and popular culture. He also examines the varied commentaries on heterosexuality by such contemporary writers as James Baldwin, Betty Friedan, Adrienne Rich, Kate Millett, and Michel Foucault |
| Notes |
Reprint. First published in 1995 by Dutton |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages [247]-281) and index |
| Notes |
Description based on print version record |
| Subject |
Sex -- History.
|
|
Heterosexuality -- History.
|
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Homosexuality -- History.
|
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Heterosexuality -- Psychological aspects.
|
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Homosexuality -- Psychological aspects.
|
| Genre/Form |
History.
|
| LC no. |
94032650 |
| ISBN |
0525938451 acid-free paper |
|
0452275423 paperback |
|
