Deviation, Capitalism & Homosexuality

Colonial America was very dependent on the labor of children, both in the fields and in the household. Children learned about sexuality primary through observation within the family and moral instruction from parent and church. Only a small number of individuals had access to medical advice literature published in London and reprinted in America during the eighteenth century. Due to the small size of the dwellings, children were able to see and hear sexual activities among adults. Individuals in that time period only regarded that sex as a means to reproduce, not to enjoy.

Depending on the race of the offenders, their treatments may be different. The two main goals of regulating deviance are to help enforce the system of marital reproductive sexuality and to maintain white dominance over blacks. However, there were selective enforcements, which led to more women being punished than men. There was a clear message made to the public, which was: the family provided the only acceptable outlet for sex, with the primary goal of producing legitimate children.

D’Emilio suggested that two relationships between capitalism and the family. First, capitalism continually weakens the foundation of family, making it possible for individuals to live outside the family and for a lesbian and gay male identity to develop. Secondly, it needs to push men and women into families, at least long enough to reproduce the next generation of workers. In the seventeenth-century New England, the family was truly an independent unit of production. They were self-sufficient. However, capitalism began when merchant capitalists began investing through trade in the production of goods and wage labor became more common. As time progresses, wage labor made it possible for individuals to pursue their homosexual desire to coalesce into a personal identity.

I agree with D’Emilio’s suggestions. The previous article mentioned that agricultural production and household work depended on a great amount of child labor. Since capitalism made wage labor more common, then the child labor is no longer the main reason to reproduce. People are free to pursue their sexual identities. I believe that not everyone is homosexual and there are those who are born homosexual, because doctors describe homosexuality to be inherent in a person, a part of his or her nature. Therefore, there will be enough male and female to reproduce for the next generation.