A History of Gay Communism (feat. Josh Rivers)

What if it's actually your butthole that will lead the revolution?

This week, we're getting penetratingly political with writer and podcaster Josh Rivers (⁠Busy Being Black⁠), as we explore the radical legacy of Mario Mieli's ⁠Towards a Gay Communism⁠.

Here's the thing: Capitalism doesn't just steal your time and money—it also reinforces the gender binary, nuclear families, and heterosexual urges (which are totally normal to have!).

It turns out Capitalism is extremely tied up in our sex lives, because our sex lives have economic value.

And for that reason, The Big C is terrified of anything that rocks our sexy boats. According to Mieli, eros – ancient Greek for romantic-sexual desire – is a liberating force, which has the power to free us from the constrained categories of "homosexual" and "heterosexual." These "mutilations," as he calls them, only developed to reinforce the gender and sexual "norms" Capitalism needs to survive, the very same ones that keep us reproducing and addicted to respectability.

In this time of Globapocalypse, we're all looking for answers as to (a) what has led us here and (b) how we can move forward. It could be that part of the answer is in our pants, so join us this week as we discuss:

• Eros as substructure: how sex and desire determine with our society's economic logic

• The radical nature of anal sex (especially The Gay Version)

• The capitalist scam of the "nuclear" family

• Homo-normativity and the gay betrayal of queer radical Marxists

We also talk The Italian Job (what I call cruising in Rome), "educastration," "psychonazis," and the emotional dilemma of getting Obama’s inauguration date tattooed on one's arm (the solution is to get more tattoos of people doing sex on each other apparently).

Fabulous Books To Read:

• Towards a Gay Communism – Mario Mieli

• One-Dimensional Queer – Roderick Ferguson

• The Prophetic Imagination – Walter Brueggemann