BECOMING LAVENDER (HUMAN SEXUALITY).
Item
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Title
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BECOMING LAVENDER (HUMAN SEXUALITY).
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Identifier
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AAI8023743
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identifier
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8023743
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Creator
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ABRAMS, MONA.
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Date
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1980
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Sociology, Individual and Family Studies
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Abstract
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Contrasting our current levels of consciousness with a higher level of consciousness, represented here by "species-consciousness," this dissertation is a critique of conventional ways of thinking and acting with regard to human sexuality. The focus of my study was a bisexual women's consciousness-raising group and a political organization called Lesbian Feminist Liberation (LFL). I was a participant observer from April 1973 through December 1978, in New York City.;Chapter 1 is an introduction to the concepts gender neutrality (from Geiler, 1979) and species-consciousness; Chapter 2 describes sexual conversion, a change in beliefs regarding one's sexual preference (e.g., going from heterosexual to bisexual to lesbian); Chapter 3, "Coming Out Biographies," examines the implications of the concept coming out and contrasts it with the concept sexual conversion; Chapter 4 centers around the verbal activity of consciousness-raising and the social integration of group members into the world of Lesbian Feminist Liberation; and Chapter 5 is an analysis of the latter organization and a comparison with Centers for Change, a 1960s mixed (female, male) radical organization also trying to raise consciouness. Chapter 6, "Lavender Graffiti," is a concluding dialogue.;It is my position that sexual preference, whether homosexuality, bisexuality, asexuality or heterosexuality, is learned, and fluid rather than fixed. The direction(s) this sexuality originally/finally/sometimes/once takes depend(s) in part on group consciousness learned through "socialization," whether primary or secondary.;Gender roles are learned, too, and vary from place to place, class to class, and at different times. Gender roles are sex-specific and relative.....We should abolish gender roles completely: people would be neither feminine nor masculine. Species-consciousness presupposes gender neutrality.;Species-consciousness would abolish divisions according to sex, gender and sexual preference; it presupposes a society in which we enjoy sexual and emotional and other relations with each other qua human beings. In such a society, there would be no such thing as same-sex relationships (homosexuality), opposite-sex relationships (heterosexuality) or both-sex relationships (bisexuality). In a species-conscious society, the individual intellect, spirit, actions and perceptions would develop to the benefit of the individual, the species and other species.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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Sociology
