Somerville - Scientific Racism and the Invention of the Homosexual Body

1) Somerville is arguing that people have tried to identify homosexuality with the identity of races.
2) Somerville begins the argument by talking about how people first believed that sexuality was a medical issue and that people were originally born to be homosexual rather than choosing to be homosexual. The author described this medical reasoning as being “the model of a female soul in a male body” (pg 18). The writing then goes on to explain how tests were done in order to try to find a connection between different races and homosexuality. Somerville then talks about how the different races evolved differently which lead to the differences in sexuality. Somerville mentions that the anatomy of different races shows how each race evolved differently than the other races. The author talks about how African American women and Caucasian American women were compared to see if there was a difference in their sexuality based on their organs. This scientific test showed how their was a difference in the organs which ended up leading to the white Americans being the better species of human because their organs less noticeable and accessible compared to the black Americas. The author also talks about how scientific tests were run in order to figure out the differences between the races, and between the sexuality of people.
3) If we all evolved from the same people, Adam and Eve, then what makes us differently from each other? Why are white females viewed as not being more evolved than black males?
4) I believe that people try to find a reason behind everything that is occurring in a person’s life. People want to know why someone is a certain way compared to them. The easiest way for people to discover differences is to run tests of subjects. The scientific tests that were run occurred because people wanted to be able to explain the unexplainable. No one knew why people became homosexual, but people wanted to know so that they would better know if they would possibly end up being homosexual. I believe that because races are anatomically different does not make one race better than another. Each race may be better at certain activities because of their anatomy, but that does not mean that they are better than all other races. I think that the races were always compared to the European “white” races because they were the ones running the tests, and that people always believed that the white males were the superior race.