International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest

Extract

While there is a proliferation of research on the gender politics of revolution, less systematic attention has been paid to the relationship between revolution and sexuality. Yet most of the major political revolutions from the late eighteenth century through the end of the twentieth century have been informed by a set of ideas about sexuality and have also been accompanied by changes in sexual behavior and values. Moreover, on the level of discourse, sexual metaphors are often used to legitimate revolutionary movements and governments and to repudiate enemy regimes or classes. A notable feature of many revolutions is the tension between the opportunities for new forms of sexual identity and activity offered by times of social and political upheaval, on the one hand, and attempts of revolutionary regimes, once in power, to impose order and discipline through an emphasis on morality and legal controls of sexuality, on the other. Appeals to sexual respectability typically weigh most heavily on women of the dominant class, while accusations of immorality associated with anti-revolutionary behavior are directed at enemy classes and marginalized sexual and racial communities. Clare A. Lyons summarizes this tension with reference to the contradictory influences of the American Revolution of 1776 on Philadelphia society: “The Revolution both instigated a con servative reaction to the ... log in or subscribe to read full text