In D'Emilio's article about sexual deviancy, he describes much of how people dealt with it in uncomfortable detail. The basic idea of their control was that of punishment. Those who violated rules were generally forgiven if they accepted their punishment. This is not to say that some punishments were not severe. D’Emilio describes some situations where people were executed for the sexual crimes. In cases of bestiality, he even describes the executions of animals, as well as people.
Young people we often exposed to these punishments, so there views tended to be towards marriage, family, and sex only for procreation as opposed to sex for “carnal pleasure”. In addition, the article describes situations where children were often put in the position of hearing or seeing adults in sexual situations due to lack of space in farming communities. From this, to the teachings of the church, young people were exposed to sexual behaviors all the time. With so much control, society could maintain the system of marital and reproductive sexual behaviors easier.

D’Emilio’s second article is interesting in that it brings up capitalism, family, and a gay identity and ties them all together in a way that I never would have thought to do. The point that less children are needed to maintain a family economically and the need for a nuclear family to exist to function economically is something I have given thought to before. What I did not do was tie the shrinking need for more children to the rise in more people having a “gay identity”. Identity, D’emilio points out, is not to confused with desire. He is not claiming that homosexuality did not exist in the 17th and 18th centuries, only that because capitalism and the family have a contradictory relationship. When one thrives, the other falters (or changes)