tops and bottoms

[Laurence Horn]

>In a message dated 12/19/05 11:46:21 AM, laurence.horn at YALE.EDU writes:
>
>
>>
>>  Besides Ron's observations, there's the issue of whether pigeonholing
>>  individuals according to the sex of the partners they considered
>>  desirable or acceptable was really a valid scheme of classification
>>  for the pre-"homosexual" era; instead, if you were a male who
>>  confined your activities to those of a penetrator rather than a
>>  penetratee, your tastes were normal, regardless of whether you sought
>>  your targets among females, males, or presumably pigeonholes.  And if
>>  you were a female and were interested in same-sex relations, big deal.
>>
>The fundamental division into tops and bottoms rather than [+penis] versus
>[-penis] still persists in American prison, and was long held to be
>an important
>factor in Latin American view of sexuality. What I have read of hobo
>literature suggests that was the essential folk view well into the
>20th century.

leading no doubt to righteous condemnation on the part of those
practicing right-wing Christian hobophobia

>
>I haven't seem the cowboy movie that seems to have created so much
>controversy (it is called something like "Bareback Mountain")

heh heh.  "Brokeback Mountain" actually.  But I'm sure your version
will be in wide circulation.  (It's set in the pre-AIDS era, so no
ethical issues are involved in any barebacking practiced therein.)

>but it will be interesting
>to see what sort of view of psychology is projected onto those cowboys.