Reviews and Comments

Sexual Hegemony was a pretty interesting read. I read it with friends as a part of a reading group following Caliban and the Witch by Silvia Federici, both sharing a similar timeline where their historical analysis focuses and teases out ideas around sexuality and/or gender and the construction and repression of these ideas in the formation of Capitalist world systems.

I found Chitty's approach interesting by telling a working-class, queer history which draws on sources from court records and documents. His sources combine with his narrative to describe in detail the persecution of men for violating sodomy laws and paint us a picture of life and desire among young men in the cities whose way of life and desire are made by the world around them.

The most interesting points I got from this book were chitty pushing back on the cultural roots of modern homosexuality being so heavily influenced by bourgeois gay men in literature whose experiences of the closet, duel lives, respectability, and privacy fly counter to the tales of desire on the streets, alley ways, and ships of the cities Chitty explores. Further to that point chitty argues that there is so many ways of life that have involved homosexuality and a certain antagonism tied into the spaces men meet, and that today the Gay Rights movements fights for a sterile, clean, and private equality which has become the standard which the world sees as sexual liberation.

The book was challenging to read, thank god I had friends to read it with. I would recommend it. Part 1 was interesting and informative but most relevant as a conversation among gay historians. Part 2 and specifically the final chapter felt like the consolidation of his thoughts and ideas which felt the most challenging and dangerous and therefore the most exciting part to read.