The invention of Heterosexuality

Jonathan Ned Katz reiterates an article that we read earlier Transgender Liberation by Leslie Feinberg. Feinberg argues the importance and glorification of transgendered people in history and how the script was progressively shifted. The natural became unnatural. Katz brings up the same issue,"By not studying the heterosexual idea in history, analysts of sex, gay and straight have continued to privilege the 'normal' and 'natural' at the expense of the 'abnormal' and 'unnatural'."(Katz 231) In the article he raises questions about the assumptions we have of the naming and organizing of bodies, lusts and intercourse of the sexes. Similar to Feinberg's article, Katz moves through history pinpointing different timeframes that shifted the general view of sexuality. "The human body was thought of as a means towards procreation and reproduction, not of pleasure."(Katz 233) From the Late Victorian Sex-Love (1860s to 90s) There was a transformation of the family unit from producers to consumers. Instead of being viewed as instruments of work, they became integrated into the economy thus becoming units of consumption and pleasure. Katz also delves into the medical field. He mentions the effect that Doctors had on the perception of sexuality. "Doctors who had earlier named and judged the sex-enjoying woman a 'nymphomaniac,' now began to label women's lack of sexual pleasure a mental disturbance, speaking critically, for example, of female 'frigidity' and 'anesthesia'."(Katz 233)
Despite the fact that the article has been well researched and published, I found it hard to believe. It felt very far fetched, almost like a conspiracy theory. I thought it was interesting that i felt that way because I didn't feel that way about Feinberg's article.
The part of the article that I mostly believed and related with was the Heterosexual Hegemony, Post WW2. "The 'cult of domesticity' following WW2- the reassociation of women with the home, motherhood, and child-care; men with fatherhood and wage work outside the home-was a period in which the predominance of heteronym went almost unchallenged.."(Katz 236)
Maybe it's because I've read about that period of time and I'm slightly familiar with it, or know enough about it to point out that there was a very propagated message of the family as a unit with fixed and established gender roles. All the same Katz brings up interesting points to think about and research.