A Queer History of the United States (ReVisioning History Book 1)

by Michael Bronski

The dissemination of information about sexuality and reproduction, almost all of which was in a heterosexual context, was an important development in a culture in which sexuality had not been discussed openly. The emergence of a homosexual identity that increasingly refused criminalization and discrimination—what Prime-Stevenson called “any intelligent civilization’s disrespect”—related directly to the newly emerging reproductive rights movement. Both embodied a social ideal that reflected the integrity of the human body and the integral importance of sexuality to the citizen. Most important was the radical idea, literally embodied in homosexual activity, that sex and reproduction can be completely separate, that sex can be enjoyed without the fear of pregnancy. This distinction between sexual activity, pleasure, and reproduction threatened the social purity advocates, who prized motherhood and the family. Ironically, even those who advocated sexual freedom were often not immune to social purity ideology. Margaret Sanger, for instance, who was highly influential in forging a national movement for birth control and family planning, held racist, eugenicist views about nonwhite people. And while a firm believer in women controlling their bodies, she was not a sexual liberationist. She believed that “every normal man and woman has the power to control and direct his sexual impulse. Men and woman who have it in control and constantly use their brain cells thinking deeply, are n...