Somerville Chapter 1: Scientific Racism

I think that Somerville's main point in the article was to show readers how past writers and researches have thought of sexuality and how they went about studying it. I think that knowing how it was studied in the past is important because it gives readers a first hand on how the subject was thought of differently at the time. The author talked a lot about how it was thought that people that were homosexual or even a different race than the white race (which defined "normal" at the time) were studied to try and distinguish what was different about their bodies that could be causing a medical or criminal difference. Criminal approach was refferred to as a disease whereas the medical apporach was an abnormality. The article cites many famous researches at the time that had diffrent opinions and approaches on how to research the subject at hand. I found the word "mulatto" to be interesting because I have never heard it before. That is interesting to me because a "mulatto" according to the article is a person of mixed race, that has a different apperance than that of someone who is pure blooded and if you think about it we have a lot of "mulatto's" today and it seems normal. I also found other parts of the article to be informative and interest me mainly because today all of the behaviors and observations being made in this article that are "abnormal" or are considered to be makings of the devil are so common and dont seem to be on the top of the list to be researched. What would those researches think today? If it was wrong to sit next to another girl and give them a certain gaze now I dont even want to imagine what the past researchers would say about how the world is today. I thought that the article was full of information so at times it was hard to read because it was technical and a lot to think about. I also felt that the article, being so informative was good and got the point across that I thought the author was trying to make. Somerville says in the title of the book "Invention of the Homosexual body" I think by this he means that just because someone has different feelings doesnt necessarily mean that they are any different or have a mental illness or bone structure than someone who doesnt have those thoughts. In my opinion we try to find an answer to everything that doesnt follow the norm of our society and in doing such we come up with false accusations pertaining to a certain race, gender or class all based on ones beliefs.