queer masculinities

Richard Godbeer: America 193
ular and early American culture in general. 5 More recent essays have
built upon that foundation, examining sodomy both as a sexual category
and as a social issue in early New England. 6 The study of same-sex
intimacy in early America is now reaching forward into the eighteenth
century and the revolutionary period. 7 Yet largely missing from the
scholarship to date is an examination of emotional and romantic ties
between men, a topic with profound implications for our understanding
of manhood and social identity in early America.
A recent history of sexuality in North America declares that Puritan
leaders in early New England condemned sodomy because it ‘so
clearly defied the norm of reproductive sexuality.’ 8 This was certainly
one of the reasons for official disapproval of same-sex intimacy, but
Puritan theologians did not see reproduction as the sole or even
primary goal of sex. They taught that marriage was intended first and
foremost to foster spiritual endeavor and obedience to God’s law
through loving support and mutual stewardship. Marital sex was
ordained by God as an expression of love and fellowship between
husband and wife; all other sex was sinful and disorderly. Official condemnation
of non-marital sex in general and sodomy in particular
was bound up with a clear conception of the body’s role in the drama
of redemption. The physical body, ministers taught, could serve both
virtuous and sinful purposes. Sermons often referred to the body as a
temple for the soul that should be consecrated to God and kept safe
from the pollution of sin.When Puritans referred to illicit sex as
‘unclean,’ ‘filthy,’ ‘defiling,’ and ‘polluting,’ they framed the subject
in terms of their duty to protect their bodies from contamination for
the sake of their souls. 9
That incorporation of sex and the body into a larger moral drama
conditioned the ways in which New England ministers explained
sexual urges. They evoked neither sexuality as an independent force
that gave rise to erotic desire nor sexual orientation as a determinant of
who was attracted to whom. They explained masturbation, sex
between an unmarried couple, adultery, sodomy, and bestiality just as
they did any other sin, such as drunkenness or falling asleep during a
sermon: they were all driven by the innate corruption of fallen humanity
and all embodied disobedience to God’s will. Official teaching did
not, then, conceive of sodomy as fundamentally distinct from any
other manifestation of human sin. Nor did it see particular men or
women as constitutionally inclined or limited to any one form of
sexual offense. The basic issue at stake was moral rather than sexual
orientation. Sexual sins could be traced to a particular frame of mind,