It is important to acknowledge that in the recent past, this taboo against homosexuality has caused great suffering and oppression of those who engaged in this practice or lived this life. This can lead to the conclusion that this would return unless full equality, a virtual gender blindness including in marriage is achieved. If this were the case it would be a strong argument for legalizing same sex marriage, but I do not see this as a possibility.
Karl Mannheim, the eminent sociologist philosopher, explored the subject of mass movements extensively in 1930s Germany, later translated into his opus "Ideology and Utopia." In a nutshell, his major conclusion can be squeezed onto a bumper sticker proclaiming, "Where you stand depends on where you sit." Those of us who took seriously those courses in logic, philosophy and epistemology may need an interpretation of the bumper sticker summary. It boils down to his argument that a logic, or a jurisprudence, that is posited on an exalted set of enduring values is actually an epiphenomenon of group dynamics; that where the one sits, his or her group association at various levels, will whether consciously or not, determine where he stands on issues.
Mannheim worked in a different era, where his ideas were lauded for their intrinsic truth by those from Marxist Herbert Marcuse to the ideological forebear of American Neo-Conservatism, Leo Strauss. I'm going to apply his principles to make a serious observation based on a critical analysis of a humorous essay. It's this 2006 N.Y Times OpEd on the film "Brokeback Mountrain by the co-creator and principle writer of the situation comedy, "Seinfeld," Larry David.
In his piece, under protection of the ancient flag of the jester, Mr. David commented on male sexual dynamics that I contend are the root of antipathy towards same sex marriage and paradoxically, also of its advocacy. Let's start by dispelling the illusion that questions of gay rights are the same whether among male or females. While this alliance is politically advantageous, for mammalian males with few exceptions-humans not being one of them, sexual dominance is a vital imperative. This article is about male homosexuality only, as is Mr. Davids OpEd.
Let's start where Mr. David describes his group identity, that is, where he sits:
And I love gay people. Hey, I've got gay acquaintances. Good acquaintances, who know they can call me anytime if they had my phone number. I'm for gay marriage, gay divorce, gay this and gay that. I just don't want to watch two straight men, alone on the prairie, fall in love and kiss and hug and hold hands and whatnot. That's all.
He proclaims that in spite of what he will acknowledge, he is not among that group that would do harm to gays by denying them equality of marriage. Yet, those who oppose same sex marriage, by large majorities of both sides of the political divide, are perfectly willing to provide same sex civil unions that includes everything but the word, marriage. Proposition 8 in California is acknowledged as doing exactly this. David uses the essence of humor- paradox, conflict, hidden motivations that have no sanctioned social expression-until the perfect release of laughter.
But I don't trust him (myself). If two cowboys, male icons who are 100 percent all-man, can succumb, what chance to do I have, half- to a quarter of a man, depending on whom I'm with at the time? I'm a very susceptible person, easily influenced, a natural-born follower with no sales-resistance.
He follows with a self effacing riff to show that he is talking about his own idiosyncratic weaknesses, and not in anyway making a larger issue. And he substitutes ambivalent potential attraction to men with sales resistance, that he is a dunce (who just happens to have identified the greatest mass market in television history) And then he talks about the appeal of the gay life:
And gay guys always seem like they're having a great time. At the Christmas party I went to, they were the only ones who sang. Boy that looked like fun. I would love to sing, but this weighty, self-conscious heterosexuality I'm saddled with won't permit it.
I just know if I saw that movie, the voice inside my head that delights in torturing me would have a field day. "You like those cowboys, don't you? They're kind of cute. Go ahead, admit it, they're cute. You can't fool me, gay man. Go ahead, stop fighting it. You're gay! You're gay!"
Larry David, in the tradition of all important humorists, has touched on some profound truths. First, the meaning of homosexuality is quite different for men and women, while gay rights advocates have conflated both to the detriment of useful discussion. Straight women can sing show tunes with joyful abandonment, while men do so at a certain risk. David, because of his being one of the preeminent humorists of our era, can use these observations as grist for humor, while others have a more limited defense to the stresses that he has converted into satire.
Let's consider the possibility that the movement for gay rights is something else, the displaced dissatisfaction with a gender identity that causes Larry David, and perhaps the bulk of the American male population to be reluctant to learn, feel and then express with lyrical joyful emotion the songs of American Musical Theater. As with all brilliant synedoches, the trivial singing a song represents the profound, the free expression of joy.
While only Mr. David can write of this reluctance; others, like the millions who regularly watched Jerry Seinfeld and his buddies who traverse the land-mines of masculinity, are forced into another option. They are subtly pressured to maintain a Seinfeld like parody of masculinity, epitomized on the show by a trivializing relationship to women.
While if not living the overt anti-masculinity of stereotypical gays, they feel a part of it by endorsing the proposal for absolute equality. They won't sing the songs, but they, unlike those others, identify with those who do. In other social strata maintaining this masculine image takes other forms, more violent, more costly to the man and those with whom he comes in contact.
My conclusion is that the growing acceptance of same sex marriage among educated secular Americans is a response to the seismic change in the deepest attitudes of gender identification that have been in transition for the last half century. The headline making legal-political issues are an epi-phenomenon that do not address the intra psychic dimension of these changes. The most profound of these changes is the assumption, as reflected in this recent N.Y.Times survey, that adults who are living together are “partners” in a sexual relationship. Thus, one adverse consequence of the success of the gay marriage movement is on the status of committed non sexual same gender friendships-Platonic relationships. It is not only denigration, it is a denial that such friendships even exist, as shown by this N.Y. Times review of a Spanish Film El Bola that made the unsupportable leap that because the child's Godfather died of AIDs he must have been homosexual.
The accident of configuration of X and Y chromosome finds expression in our physical emotional makeup that is reflected in our legal cultural norms. But nothing in genes limit the pleasure of singing a show tune, or enjoying the full range of human emotion. enjoying same gender affection of non sexual friendship being one of them. The movement for Marriage Equality is a proxy for the kind of change in expression of sexuality and interpersonal relationships that must be an ongoing project of any evolving society. It is inherently a great challenge, as the sexual imperative is vital and will not be denied, but only directed into culturally, or sub-culturally, defined channels.
When we accept this greater challenge, when we separate the evolving meaning of sexual identity from this single issue of same sex marriage, which it is only one aspect of, we have a chance of actually dealing with this question, while not exacerbating the political social divide that now more than ever threatens to destroy our society.
This is a discussion that we have not even begun to have.
This is a discussion that we have not even begun to have.
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