The Puritan approach to sexual desire is one that admonished lust and sexual activity out of wedlock. Despite this ideal of remaining faithful to your spouse and shunning any woman who births a 'bastard child', the article presented Colonial America in a much more sexually perverse light than I would have ever expected of the sexually refined and religious society normally presented. It mentioned such acts as beastiality and crude terms to label permiscious women, as well as infidelity and rape issues between different racial and social classes. Despite these realities, the ideal still remained, with sex viewed as a means of reproduction rather than physical pleasure, and large families with lots of children was expected. Children learned sexuality from their parents as well as clergymen, as much of the sexual ideal was rooted in religion. Colonial society dealt with sexual deviance by instituting harsh punishments on those caught. These punishments were dealt to women and men, and included fines, whippings, and even hanging. The two main goals of regulating sexual deviance were to enforce the system of marital and reproductive sexuality as well as to uphold racial divides and maintain white dominance over blacks.
D’Emilio argues that the relationship between capitalism and the family is contradictory in that while capitalism frees us to sell our labor in a positive way, is also eliminates any other alternative. Throughout history, there has been little room in the capitalist system of production for men or women to be gay as economic survival was centered around participation in the nuclear family. The ideology of a capitalish society also proves contradictory, as it esteems privatized family as the source of love, emotional security and stability. Thus, while it enables individuals to live outside of the family, it simultaneously depends on pushing men and women into families in order to produce the next generation of workers. He argues that only once individuals, rather than family units, began to make their living through wage labor, could a homosexual identity develop. I agree with this argument, but also think that a political and ideological change must take place in order to bolster the gay identity that is being facilitated by the individualistic component of today's capitalism. Gays must be given legal societal rights and not be viewed with negativity as a minority group in order to fully develop their identity.