The Oedipal 60's

Replying to Ahknaton's reply on "How the sexual revolution makes all male bonding and Friendship seem gay."

First, I wanted to respond positively to the thread title. But without allowisng it to be pinned on the 60's sexual revolution. This was a good thing, I think we are saying. New attitudes toward what it was all about merged with drugs, rock 'n roll and anti-war protest. All combined to form a milieu in which homosexuality, per se, was a distinctly secondary and minor issue. It was libido itself slipping out of Big Daddy's control that provoked Right Wing reaction in America, and I suppose everywhere. (Cohn Benditt in France.)

In addition to getting rocked and socked by the gone-wacky milieu, there was The Pill, loss of nuclear superiority, and demotion of Father to family adjunct. The
old social/cultural boundaries of masculinity itself were under assault. They have been trying to get them back ever since (still fighting off the Feminazis, girliemen, Democrats, Islamo-fascists jihadists and Arabs, the Sheikier the better). Remember Tucker Carlson's bow tie? The Reagan Republican faux malehood wave was a Triumphal Return for vengeance, on the wicked 60's. At the deep group Oedipal level, it has all been a reaction of the Older Psychoclass (heirs of the Patriarchy) against the advanced (hence, Liberal) Younger Psychoclass. There is a perpetual tension between them in all generations (psychologically defined through the 20-25 year war-as-cleansing-rebirth" cycles), but the "generation gap" between WWII Fathers (later immortalized) and their "baby boomer" brat children who grew up wanting to follow Charlie Manson, plus all the other assaults on traditional male perogatives mentioned, "warped out" this natural tension and transformed built-in sibling rivalry into a perpetual replay of Males Who Will Kick Ass for Daddy vs. other males, who are assumed by the former to be Males Who Luv Mommy, and whose ass they damn well intend to kick (draft, put in harms way, otherwise expose to intimidation and abuse, all to make 'em a better man, like naming a boy Sue). Unless you don't let them. When "them" has morphed into Bush Sharkstein.

I hold that this is all one continuous psychohistorical line, traceable through real-time sign-use -- "the Record", pared to its group-fantasy (unconscious imagination of what 'our' group is doing) pegs. (Reagan's reversal of the tone of 'liberalism', for instance -- agreeing with/insisting on your point about changing the reality by changing the words and pictures used for communicating about it.)
THE ENTIRE THING IS ABOUT MALE SEXUALITY AS BOUND UP WITH FATHER-SON RELATIONS ON DIFFERENT LEVELS distributed and ramified through all social relations. (I don't expect anyone to accept this, or care. At bottom, I doubt if there is much we disagree over, and am definitely not looking for it.) (Remember Freud said history is basically the story of brothers getting together to kill the father then sharing the blood guilt.)

I want to use this psychohistorical perspective to approach the question(s) of words and meanings. I have agreed with your major point, as I got it, that queer studies can queer relationships, just by existing. I always enjoyed being around men, from sweaty football locker rooms to hunting jackrabbits with 22's from car windows -- to teachers, as blessed with best was I -- homosexuality really never came up, and that was through the 50's, after which it came to mean the something, else, which changed over time, even after the 80's same thing. There was no natural speaking about sex in the classrooms (it took that snotty french looking philo prof to even get the requisite words out at Wisconsin mid-50's); and little of religion or politics actually happening. Part of the resentment I picked up, after going through the "who in hell cares anyway?" period, after the HIV advent brought by Reagan, was against the flouting. I admit to being deeply revolted by men kissing. I don't go nuts seeing it on occassion, but on a regular basis and shown as if hip to kids, nope. (I don't think I'm addressing anything you might hold Ahk.)

They started preying on the sexuality of kids in the South, taking advantage of their native idealism, will to please to bring, and community fun together singin' "old time religion". (Daddy sang bass, Momma sang tenor, ..) This was the male baby boomer generation trying to square themselves with their inner sense of sinning against the Father (going against the Father is provable the hardest psychological task there is, for males who complete the cycle of individualtion; but sometimes the old fucker is wrong, and will use your* desire to please the one in your head to gain benefits for himself. Which is why The Father has to be separated from The Male, archetypically -- neither Freid nor Jung completed their psychology of the father-son complex, as they got involved with each other over it as siblings competing for a NEW "HIMHOOD". That. also, is on-going.

It took Protestant aligned with Jew to cut that particular bond in the 60's (Between WWII Fathers and Baby Boomer sons). These combined essence-forces were later called "secularism" by the right-wing reaction. I called it New Americanism, post liberal-conservative. Still do. It demolished social and cultural constructions based on repressed sexuality. It is the ever-resuming challenge of those still capable of normal male sexual function to arrive at the advanced New Himhood without going over to Bush warriors. That is the cut off line between this, the OD forum and a few others and the Freepers, as I see it. (Then when '04 came around -- many held their ground, but right wing anti-Sheehan Contra women started posting up.)

I a very aware of many thing you brought up not touched on by this reply. I mainly wanted to clarify why I cannot go along with any return to an unreconstruted pre-60's position on male sexuality. So, allowing for these exceptions and clarifications, I continue to insist it was the right-wing anti-sexual bent, represented by the Older Psychoclass determined to pay Righteous Respect to the Father -- first in their heads, feeling sinful for their rebellious thoughts of the 60's, then for Everyone In the World to live up to, as 9/11/01 become a repeat* of 12/7/41. (The Jews switched sides and went with the R-W Catholics: "mugged by reality" that neocon Kristol punk
said. "Neo-liberals"? - no, didn't kow. Totally fits the pattern, doesn't it.)

Everything I am about traces just to this Oedipal matrix of the '60's, through wimpy Bush I, when Limbaugh rose to fight off the feminazis; to O.J., Black Knight, slitting the throat of Blonde whore ruler, somehow putting things right. ...