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The
strategy of the forces of heterosexualisation, strengthened immensely
through the ages because of the society's obsession with procreation, has
been the following since the beginning:
(i) Obliteration of masculine male spaces to bond sexually with other men
from the society. This includes customs, institutions, relations and
anything else that gives a space or recognition to the existence of
masculine male sexual need for men. This also includes denying a voice to
masculine male sexual need for men. The idea is to make masculine male need
for men sound non-existent.
(ii) Making sex with women (in modern society 'bonds' with women, in fact
the sexual desire for women itself) a requisite quality for social manhood.
The idea is to make heterosexuality sound naturally synonymous with manhood.
(iii) Denying social space to feminine male's sexual need for women. Not
even acknowledging its existence. This was important in order to preserve
the notion that heterosexuality and masculinity are one and the same thing.
Even the name chosen for the heterosexual identity 'straight' denotes
'masculine' behaviour.
(iv) Characterising same-sex male needs as part of the 'third gender'. The
third gender has been for long a denigrated space for people who were
considered 'neither male nor female'. This last strategy was especially
problematic and as long as the male spaces were strong they prevented the
heterosexualisation forces from thus isolating masculine men. Once the
society was heterosexualised this was easily achieved.
Phases in which this immense social power shifted gradually to the forces of
heterosexualisation
The power was shifted into the vested
interest group of the forces of heterosexualisation in the following stages:
Traditional society
Stage 1. Empowerment of reproduction
Stage 2: Empowerment of married status
Stage 3: Empowerment of sexual act of copulating with woman
Modern West:
Stage 4: Empowerment of love and emotional bonds between man and woman
Stage 5: Empowerment of sexual desire for women
This empowerment of sexual desire for women has been formally translated
into a 'heterosexual' identity with the help of the weapon of âsexual
orientationâ.
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