I think there is a lot going on in the United States leading to these debates and a lot of the confusion. We definitely cannot discount industrial endocrine disruptors, nor obesity (when I was severely overweight I looked much more like my mother than I did my father, and much of my gender dysphoria was linked to being obese).
I think there is a lot going on in the United States leading to these debates and a lot of the confusion. We definitely cannot discount industrial endocrine disruptors, nor obesity (when I was severely overweight I looked much more like my mother than I did my father, and much of my gender dysphoria was linked to being obese).
But also, yes, US hatred of the body, and also shame and embarrassment about the body. Being in Europe was really eye-opening on this. Especially Germans and other related peoples are a lot more accepting of nude bodies in general and a lot less hung up on them.
On the Chomsky matter, I am pretty reluctant to ever make statements about what is inherent or isn't, though his general theory is sound. What is more interesting to me--and I think more important--is that the very problem of sex and sexuality should never have been an ideological one in the first place. It is only ideological because we have let the political invade every part of human existence, so that who you have sex with or how you manifest your desire is a matter of ideological concern that needs some sort of framework or justification, rather than just *is.*
Even the idea of there being a sort of man that is gay--rather than men who have sex with men--is a problem that arose from this politicization. Napoleon was a bit of an ass in general, but he essentially made same-sex acts legal by not including sodomy prohibitions in his legal code. That is, he de-politicized same-sex relations, and this was a lot better of a route than defining people who have such relations as a special or different class of people (which led to later the "gay identity.")
I think there is a lot going on in the United States leading to these debates and a lot of the confusion. We definitely cannot discount industrial endocrine disruptors, nor obesity (when I was severely overweight I looked much more like my mother than I did my father, and much of my gender dysphoria was linked to being obese).
But also, yes, US hatred of the body, and also shame and embarrassment about the body. Being in Europe was really eye-opening on this. Especially Germans and other related peoples are a lot more accepting of nude bodies in general and a lot less hung up on them.
On the Chomsky matter, I am pretty reluctant to ever make statements about what is inherent or isn't, though his general theory is sound. What is more interesting to me--and I think more important--is that the very problem of sex and sexuality should never have been an ideological one in the first place. It is only ideological because we have let the political invade every part of human existence, so that who you have sex with or how you manifest your desire is a matter of ideological concern that needs some sort of framework or justification, rather than just *is.*
Even the idea of there being a sort of man that is gay--rather than men who have sex with men--is a problem that arose from this politicization. Napoleon was a bit of an ass in general, but he essentially made same-sex acts legal by not including sodomy prohibitions in his legal code. That is, he de-politicized same-sex relations, and this was a lot better of a route than defining people who have such relations as a special or different class of people (which led to later the "gay identity.")