This paper explores the ways in which economic forces have contributed to the social construction of sexuality in the 19th-20th-century United States. It centers on the institution of the sexual division of labor, which is shown to construct both heterosexual marriage, as well as homosexual relations of differing types. The breakdown of the sexual division of labor in the 20th-century is shown to be related to the rise of the lesbian/gay liberation and feminist movements.
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