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Jonathan Katz

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The Invention of Heterosexuality Kindle Edition

by Jonathan Ned Katz (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.7 41 ratings

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“Heterosexuality,” assumed to denote a universal sexual and cultural norm, has been largely exempt from critical scrutiny. In this boldly original work, Jonathan Ned Katz challenges the common notion that the distinction between heterosexuality and homosexuality has been a timeless one. Building on the history of medical terminology, he reveals that as late as 1923, the term “heterosexuality” referred to a "morbid sexual passion," and that its current usage emerged to legitimate men and women having sex for pleasure. Drawing on the works of Sigmund Freud, James Baldwin, Betty Friedan, and Michel Foucault, The Invention of Heterosexuality considers the effects of heterosexuality’s recently forged primacy on both scientific literature and popular culture.

“Lively and provocative.”—Carol Tavris, New York Times Book Review

“A valuable primer . . . misses no significant twists in sexual politics.”—Gary Indiana, Village Voice Literary Supplement

“One of the most important—if not outright subversive—works to emerge from gay and lesbian studies in years.”—Mark Thompson, The Advocate

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Katz (Gay American History) argues that heterosexuality is a social construct rather than a natural, unambiguous given. He notes that the terms heterosexual and homosexual were coined in 1868 by German sex-law reformer Karl Maria Kertbeny and did not gain wide currency until the early 20th century. Katz contends that heterosexuality as a universal, presumed, normative ideal was invented by men, such as Kertbeny, Sigmund Freud and German psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing. Prior to the late 19th century, he maintains, the social universe was not polarized into "hetero" and "homo." The examples he cites in support of his thesis-ancient Greece, the new England colonies (1607-1740) and the U.S. between 1820 and 1850-do not substantiate Katz's claims. Nevertheless, this often provocative work challenges rigid notions of gender identity, building on the ideas of French historian Michel Foucault and on feminist critiques of heterosexuality by Betty Friedan, Kate Millett, Adrienne Rich and others.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Although we take for granted that heterosexuality is and has always been the sexual norm, historian Katz reexamines the constructions of sexual identity and postulates that heterosexuality has a history that has heretofore never been analyzed and that "such privileging of the norm accedes to its domination." Tracing the first appearance of the terms heterosexual and homosexual in 1868 in Germany, the author of Gay American History (LJ 12/15/76) analyzes the changes in usage in dictionaries, medical journals, and a wide variety of other published sources. Carefully building his argument using Richard von Krafft-Ebing's and Sigmund Freud's seminal theories in the creation of heterosexuality, he goes on to challenge such influential figures as Alfred Charles Kinsey, Betty Friedan, and Michel Foucault. This provocatively original research, recalling similar problematizations of race, gender, and other seemingly immutable, ahistorical constructs, is complemented by Gore Vidal's foreword and Lisa Duggan's afterword. For informed readers.
James E. Van Buskirk, San Francisco P.L.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Katz's thoughtful, scholarly book examines the words heterosexual and homosexual both of which are scarcely 100 years old--and presents heterosexuality as a historical social convention rather than as a natural, eternal given. In arguing that these categorical terms are historical and thus changeable, Katz reminds us that until very recently, sex was considered mostly functional, urgently needed for procreation in order to populate fledgling American settlements. He then scrutinizes Freud's influence as a sex theorist who changed the image of woman from her nineteenth-century idealization as the "angel in the house" to one in which lack of erotic response constituted mental illness. Moving beyond Freud, he takes us through the twentieth century, stressing the conservatism of the 1940s and 1950s before coming eventually to the churning 1990s, when a theatrical review titled Heterosexuals in Crisis summarizes the "general sense of a different-sex erotic emergency." Along the way, he cites such sex theorists as Kate Millett, Ti-Grace Atkinson, and Michel Foucault, weaving them into his controversial, readable discourse. Whitney Scott

Review

“Superb and iconoclastic critique of the history of heterosexuality.”

-- Richard Horton ― New York Review of Books

"A pioneer in gay history now breaks new ground in uncovering the origins of heterosexuality. Not for the faint-hearted, this book is funny, compassionate, and seemingly all-knowing. -- Edmund White

"A necessary, important, and brilliant work." -- Samuel R. Delaney

About the Author

Gore Vidal was born Eugene Luther Vidal in 1925, later adopting the surname of his grandfather, Senator Thomas Gore, as his first name. He is the author of numerous novels—the first, Williwaw, written when he was twenty-one—as well as scripts for film, television and the stage, including the extremely successful The Best Man and Visit to a Small Planet. He is perhaps best known for his historical novels, including Burr (1973), 1876 (1976), and Lincoln (1984). He won the National Book Award in 1993 for his book of essays, United States (1952-1992).

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00TB4Z08I
Publisher ‏ : ‎ University of Chicago Press (December 10, 2014)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ December 10, 2014
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 1259 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 304 pages
Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 0226426017

Best Sellers Rank: #805,092 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #214 in Gay Studies
- #767 in History of LGBTQ+ & Gender Studies
- #858 in Medical Psychology of Sexuality

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K. Clarke

Stunning

Reviewed in the United States on October 30, 2013

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It's a stunning study - and very often shocking. For me, it was one of the most eye-opening books I've read in a long while. The account of how the heterosexual world formed itself as an opposite to the homosexual one, and what that meant thoughout the decades, is mind blowing. Well written, and easy to understand, it's really one of the best books on the emergence of "homosexuality" that I've come across sofar. And the detailled account of how societies in the past, such as the early settlers in the US, treated people who didn't conform to their rules - set up mainly to increase the population - is frightening. It's all about power and control, sadly, it still often is.

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oldarmydog

So you think you're straight?

Reviewed in the United States on March 3, 2018

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I knew the history, recent actually, of the two words, Heterosexual and Homosexual. Just had a lot more detail info about them and great insight to how both words have been turned around from their original meaning and clinical use. If you hate labels,.., this IS THE READ you need to get!

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Phred

Can there be Heterosexual without Homosexual, or are either words that important?

Reviewed in the United States on April 2, 2022

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If you are considering Jonathan Ned Katz’s The Invention of Heterosexuality (Paperback) there are several minds sets that will keep you from understanding what this is about. Think of it as willful suspension of disbelief, or being open minded. After you read it, you may resume what for you was ‘normal’ thinking or you may realize that the topic is more nuanced than binary. I do not agree with all that he has written, but I believe I have more understanding than I would have had without it.

First, there is very little about the biological requirement that a man and a woman have sex in order to maintain the specie called humans. Much of what is said about procreation is almost dismissive of the process and as we shall see, it is thought of as being a matter of technology rather than evolutionary pressure. Katz implies that the effects of X and Y chromosome combinations are no more important than the existence of the genes that yield blue eyes or left handedness. Possession of particular genitalia is not destiny. Most certainly not when human engage in sex for pleasure or comfort.

The Invention of Heterosexuality is a meta-analysis of the literature that created the presumed social norm of heterosexuality and later, more broadly critiques the notion of sexuality as a cultural artifact. Sex as a biological activity is not the topic. Only sexuality as an expression of the desires and need of the individual. Lastly this is almost entirely about the American scholarship on this topic. Almost no effort is made to address this topic across cultures and other parts of the planet.

This leads to my first criticism. The entire book can be dismissed as “First world problems”. America, much of Europe and the more well to do parts of Asia has reached, if only for a moment a time when being LGBTQ can be a matter of being respected, or at least politely ignorance in interpersonal relations, job opportunities and the like. There remain large areas and some areas of push back, where open self-identification as being in any of these categories is an existential risk, and a life-threatening secret.

Emphasizing this weakness is the repeated suggestion that sex for making babies is an outmoded activity. Children can be made via a variety of technical applications such that sex for procreation is at best quaint. For many people and large part of the world, these various, chic methods of making a family are expensive if even available. Again, the book can be shrugged off as “First World Problems”.

The book begins with the notion that the term heterosexuality was originally invented, about 100 to 200 years ago. It was intended to mark out as perverted any desire to have sex for pleasure. That is anything a person did that was intended to be sexually pleasurable was perverse. It went against the will of God and was a threat to the productivity, moral strength and future of any society who tolerated these activities. Anything included masturbation, prostitution or sodomy. Sodomy being a way to hint at what later came to be called homosexuality, without giving it a specific name. In this same time, any notion that a women’s sexual identity could be or needed to be addressed, was at minimum, impolite, and in general, ignored.

The term shifted to mean what men do for fun is said to have happened as contraception became more reliable and available among the middle class. It was at this point that it became useful to have terms in general use that differentiated ‘us’ from ‘them’. That is our culture, for reasons assumed rather than described, needs to have us and them. We, the majority are normal and normal is heterosexual, and the statistical minority must be by definition, abnormal and therefore perverse. For males, being homosexual was a matter of being at best, a social outcast, at worst the victims of the violence too often visited to any person deemed to be ‘The Other”.

The next important change in how we are asked to consider the topic arises with the advent of the radical lesbians. Their scholars proposed that at least for women, the fundamental issue is choice. That is for women the absence of a language for lesbian sexuality, had the effect of closing off women from having the idea that they could turn to each other for comfort or pleasure. Women are/were so completely dominated by the patrimony that lesbian sex could not be imagined. The term was not in common use, but an implication of this argument is that many if not all people are gender fluid; if given freedom to choose. At different times or days anyone might turn to the same sex or the other either to express who they are in that moment, or with whom they need to be in a given intimate moment.

In concluding his analysis draws on this implication to suggest that from the perspective of sex as a personal experience of pleasure or need for comfort: What we think of as the homosexual/heterosexual exclusive, and biologically determined duality is a false narrative. Our cultural teaches this as fact. He is of the opinion that humans chose their identity and can change it as they feel the need. This is a very politically significant argument. For years the argument for equal rights across sexual identities is that they are biologically determined. Gays and Straights are what they are and need to respect each other as living out their sexual lives driven by their particular genetic combinations. If the author is correct, we have no fixed thing as a sexual identity and choose, based on the exigencies of the moment.

Having sexuality as a preference rather than a pre-determined identity should be a matter of no social importance. What consenting adults do should not be a matter of public policy. That is only one possible opinion.
If sexuality is a choice, what do we make of conversion therapy? A person is gay or straight and thinking it is a choice seeks to be converted. Or parent thinking they know better for their children, force them into conversion therapy.

What of those who sincerely believe that having chosen any of the LGBTQ life styles, that person is threat to the good people and by corrupting example to the children. In this case being LGBQT are rightfully, indeed righteously the targets of legal and social ostracism. A person chooses to be a thief, they go to jail, how much more reasonable is it to punish those who choose to be LGBQT?

Having finished The Invention of Sexuality, every reader is free to conclude as they will. By this I look to those who are most likely to: object to, reject the thinking in , or simply not read this book. Your opinion is your own, the question to you is: How informed is your opinion?

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Kevin

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on December 10, 2015

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Love Katz arguments and utilize his text in my courses now. A great read!

Reviewed in the United States on August 11, 2016

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Excellent condition, great price!

Reviewed in the United States on April 28, 2013

[...]
(This image is the newest edition, I read the 1995 first edition)

Fantastic read for those who find themselves answering questions like: How many gay people are there? (My favorite response: Well how many people are there total? How many of them are straight - then subtract. ☺). To say that sexuality or gender are socially constructed variables that change over time is a simplified statement of many, many complex dissertations. This is a true statement - AND - I want to know where, why, how, when, kind of answers. I want to be able to converse with someone asking unanswerable questions. This read is a GREAT start. Instead of dissecting and deconstructing homosexuality and the gay and lesbian experience, why not take a moment, as Katz so artfully has, and review the creation of heterosexuality, heteronormativity, and the primarily western expectation to live and be straight and breed more straight people. Moreover, how does the expectation of heterosexuality inform the gender roles and binary gendered expressions? Brilliant!

"The idea of true men and true women was closely linked to another term, "true love," used repeatedly in this era (early nineteenth century western Europe). Holding strictly to true love was an important way in which the middle class distinguished itself from the allegedly promiscuous upper class and animalistic lower class... True love was a hierarchical system, topped by an intense spiritual feeling powerful enough to justify marriage, reproduction, and an otherwise unhallowed sensuality".

"In 1923 heterosexuality appeared in Webster meaning 'morbid sexual passion for one of the opposite sex' evolving to how we use the term today first in 1934 - 'normal sexuality.' In 1909 Webster, homosexuality was defined as a 'morbid sexual passion for one of the same sex' and evolved to simply 'eroticism for one of the same sex' in the same 1934 edition."
Katz goes on to incorporate race, age, religion, geography, and politics in his review bringing the conversation through the Feminist movement and beyond. This is a must read for Allies, Advocates, Safe Zone Curriculum Trainers and Developers.

Jessica Pettitt is the "diversity educator" your family warned you about. Through teaching, writing, and facilitating tough conversations, she has figured out how to BE the change she wants to BE. Now it is your turn!
As she travels around the country, you can catch up with Jessica on: 

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Rebecca Young

Rare, Critical Look at "Normal"

Reviewed in the United States on August 10, 2001

Jonathan Katz is a scrupulous, witty historian who gets better with every book. In "The Invention of Heterosexuality," Katz takes up one of the most neglected tasks in scholarship on sexuality, which is to look directly at what is considered 'normal', how it got to be considered normal, and how that norm has changed over time. This book is deceptively easy to read, given how challenging it is to dominant assumptions about sexuality. I recommend it highly!

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