# Another Gay thread - evidence of historical homosexuality **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 31, 2001, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-gay-thread-evidence-of-historical-homosexuality/74344 "2001-07-31T15:53:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![El\_Zagna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d2c977/32.png) [@El\_Zagna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Zagna)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2001, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-gay-thread-evidence-of-historical-homosexuality/74344/21 "2001-08-01T03:41:42Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by IzzyR \* > **His point was that the bible doesn’t actually say “sex” - it says “know”. The people who wrote your translation _interperated_ (correctly) the word “know” to be a euphamism for sex, hence the translation. But you can’t prove it from your translation.** You seem to be confusing the King James _translation_ of the Bible with “the” Bible. Unless you have special knowledge of the whereabouts of the original scrolls, and are an expert in the times and dialect in which they were written, you are relying on someone else’s translation of a less than original document. > [@](#): > > _Originally posted by waterj2_ > **Well, some scholars have argued that the interpretation of “have sex with” is not the correct interpretation of “know”, but they are in a small minority.** There is no end of biblical “scholars” torturing logic and language to fit their own preconceived notions of what the Bible should say. That doesn’t mean that we need to lend each one credibility. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2001, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-gay-thread-evidence-of-historical-homosexuality/74344/22 "2001-08-01T04:19:39Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by IzzyR \* > \*\*For this reason, I think you have to concentrate on societies in which homosexuality was **not** seen as a bad thing, and homosexual acts were widely performed. If, as I am suggesting, even in such societies, homosexual acts were not seen as the province of a special type of person, but rather as the type of thing that anyone might do if the mood struck him or circumstances were right, then it would seem that there was no special category of homosexuals. And that evidence of ancient people performing homosexual acts is not evidence of ancient homosexuality. > \*\* Oddly, I cannot think of a well-documented ancient society where homsoexual acts were widely accepted and performed that did not also have what I refered to earlier as some form of “compulsory heterosexuality”. The Ancient Greeks, for instance, favored arranged marriages. This would make it difficult in practice to be an exclusive homosexual, regardless of personal desire. I do not know if the Greeks recognized a category of exclusive homosexuals per se, but they do seem to have been aware that certain individuals prefered not to engage in heterosexual sex. Sappho aside, we have little record of female homosexual behavior in Ancient Greece _except_ for a few instances of women being criticized for acting too butch and only wanting to have sex with women. (The former appears to have been considered a worse offense than the latter, which is unsurprising considering the rigid gender roles of the time.) But I couldn’t say whether these women were considered to be part of a group or if they were thought of as individual deviants. ---
**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2001, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-gay-thread-evidence-of-historical-homosexuality/74344/23 "2001-08-01T04:39:18Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by IzzyR \* > **I agree that it is not logical to assume that human nature has changed. But it is possible that the “natural” state of affairs is the opposite, as I mentioned in my OP.** If homosexuality is a recent development, then it was a biological reaction to an environmental change. Doesn’t that make it natural? Also, it certainly is possible that things have changed, but it seems more likely that they haven’t. > [@](#): > > **So the question is how compelling the lack of evidence (if indeed there is one) is.** Wouldn’t a lack of evidence just be grounds to go with the most likely/simplistic explanation? \*\* > [@](#): > > I think we may have to disagree with regards to your statement that > > > [@](#): > > > > Why weren’t they aware of this? It’s a matter of conjecture, but I think that the main reason is that they just hadn’t found out yet. It’s not immediately obvious that there should be differences in sexual orientation (or even such a thing as sexual orientation) among humans. > > I think it is an extremely simple and obvious concept, and can’t fathom that anyone could miss it. \*\* Ah, the good old argument from incredulity. Sorry, but I don’t find this particularly compelling. The concept of sexual orientation is obvious to you, because it’s been drilled into your head quite a bit recently (and depending on how old you are, possibly for a significant part of your life). Suppose you had never met a person of a different religion, or even heard of such a thing. Even assuming that you conceived of such a thing as “other gods”, you would probably dismiss it as a lunatic fantasy. This would be more true in the somewhat-provincial atmosphere of the ancient (or even pre-industrial) world. I will bet you dollars or doughnuts that future generations will wonder how we ever missed out on something they consider obvious. In fact, I’d even go so far as to say that they will have something very much like this conversation. ---
**Author:** ![IzzyR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/2acd7d/32.png) [@IzzyR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IzzyR)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2001, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-gay-thread-evidence-of-historical-homosexuality/74344/24 "2001-08-01T13:38:55Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by bnorton \* > You seem to be confusing the King James _translation_ of the Bible with “the” Bible. Not exactly. I have never seen the KJV in my life. The translation that I provided was done directly from the original Hebrew. > [@](#): > > Unless you have special knowledge of the whereabouts of the original scrolls, and are an expert in the times and dialect in which they were written, you are relying on someone else’s translation of a less than original document. This is just silly. Unless you have some **basis** to claim that the original version of the passage said something other than what it says, or that the word “know” used to _mean_ “sex” (as opposed to being a euphemism for it) you can’t make any claims at all. Hey, maybe it originally said let’s share a pizza. Serious question: do you actually know anything about the Bible at all, or are you just winging it? **lamia** > [@](#): > > I do not know if the Greeks recognized a category of exclusive homosexuals per se, but they do seem to have been aware that certain individuals prefered not to engage in heterosexual sex. Sappho aside, we have little record of female homosexual behavior in Ancient Greece except for a few instances of women being criticized for acting too butch and only wanting to have sex with women. (The former appears to have been considered a worse offense than the latter, which is unsurprising considering the rigid gender roles of the time.) But I couldn’t say whether these women were considered to be part of a group or if they were thought of as individual deviants. It doesn’t make a difference to me whether the people were thought of as being part of a group or not. If they “seem to have been aware that certain individuals prefered not to engage in heterosexual sex”, that sounds like what I was looking for. Could you direct me to this info? **ultrafilter** > [@](#): > > If homosexuality is a recent development, then it was a biological reaction to an environmental change. Doesn’t that make it natural? What I suggested is that people are pressured by society to select an identity as either one or the other, and sometimes do this incorrectly. I did not mean to imply anything sinister with the word “natural”, merely to refer to the presence or abscence of complicating factors that don’t necessarily have to be present. > [@](#): > > Also, it certainly is possible that things have changed, but it seems more likely that they haven’t. True. > [@](#): > > Wouldn’t a lack of evidence just be grounds to go with the most likely/simplistic explanation? No, I meant that a lack of evidence that something existed would tend to suggest that it indeed did not. > [@](#): > > Suppose you had never met a person of a different religion, or even heard of such a thing. Even assuming that you conceived of such a thing as “other gods”, you would probably dismiss it as a lunatic fantasy. This is not a comparison. What you are comparing to is if I **did** meet a person with a different religion, and in fact there were numerous such people around, but that I still failed to grasp that there were people with different religions because the concept was so strange. I don’t think so. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2001, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-gay-thread-evidence-of-historical-homosexuality/74344/25 "2001-08-01T15:27:55Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by IzzyR \* > \*\*It doesn’t make a difference to me whether the people were thought of as being part of a group or not. If they “seem to have been aware that certain individuals prefered not to engage in heterosexual sex”, that sounds like what I was looking for. Could you direct me to this info? > \*\* This page: [http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr/1997/97.12.03.html](http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr/1997/97.12.03.html) deals with “tribads” in Ancient Greece. As you can tell from the article, this is a subject surrounded by much scholarly debate and is by no means clear. It doesn’t help that the Greeks viewed sexuality more in terms of one’s gender role rather than by the sex of one’s partner. It was socially unacceptable for a woman to take on a “masculine” (active) role, or for an adult man to take on a “feminine” (passive) role. However, if people prefered to have sex only with members of the same sex but still maintained their own socially acceptable gender role then this was apparently hardly worthy of mention. I would speculate that when it comes to human sexuality then there is a part that is innate, and a part that is shaped by personal experience and recognized social roles. But I don’t know if it’s possible to figure out exactly what is innate, since we can’t observe human sexual behavior in a social vacuum. ---
**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2001, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-gay-thread-evidence-of-historical-homosexuality/74344/26 "2001-08-01T15:41:33Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by IzzyR \* > \*\* > > > [@](#): > > > > Also, it certainly is possible that things have changed, but it seems more likely that they haven’t. > > True. > > > [@](#): > > > > Wouldn’t a lack of evidence just be grounds to go with the most likely/simplistic explanation? > > No, I meant that a lack of evidence that something existed would tend to suggest that it indeed did not. \*\* In the face of a lack of evidence for the existence of something, and a lack of evidence for a sudden change that brought that something about, and a plausible reason why that thing could have been unnoticed, I’m gonna say that the simplest explanation is that is was there, but people didn’t notice it. It seems the only part we disagree on is the plausibility of that reason. > [@](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > \*\*Suppose you had never met a person of a different religion, or even heard of such a thing. Even assuming that you conceived of such a thing as “other gods”, you would probably dismiss it as a lunatic fantasy. > > This is not a comparison. What you are comparing to is if I did meet a person with a different religion, and in fact there were numerous such people around, but that I still failed to grasp that there were people with different religions because the concept was so strange. I don’t think so. \*\* Sure, it’s a comparison. It’s just not a very good one, as you pointed out. It was late and I was tired, so grant me some leniency. Anyway, the debate seems to center around when the modern concept of sexual orientation (or a predecessor) was developed. Since this is a factual question, I started a [thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=80057) in GQ asking for information. It hasn’t gotten any replies yet, but I’m hoping that it will shed some light on the subject. ---
**Author:** ![redtail23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/3e96dc/32.png) [@redtail23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/redtail23)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2001, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-gay-thread-evidence-of-historical-homosexuality/74344/27 "2001-08-01T15:44:48Z")
**IzzyR** , I would tend to agree with you. (Take a deep breath, it will be all right. :p) I think that the vast majority of people are bisexual to some degree. Even our own beloved **Esprix** , The Gay Guy[sub]TM[/sub], admits to having at least _one_ heterosexual inclination. Many “totally straight” people have homoerotic fantasies. (There are studies on this, and by my recollection the number of straights who have had homosexual encounters and/or fantasies is a large majority of the total, but I don’t have numbers at hand and I’ve only got a moment to post this.) What modern culture has done is to allow those who are _almost_ exclusively homosexual (up to and including those who are truly exclusive - Kinsey Scale 6, for example) to follow their natural preferences rather than requiring them to conform to the societal mold. I think this is primarily due to the modern emphasis on individual and personal freedom and the de-emphasis of reproduction as a requirement of life. However, a large part of it also seems due to the overwhelming obsession with sex, gender, and sex and gender roles in Christianity and, consequently, in Western culture. This has led to the self-identification system that you mention, where people feel they must be _either_ gay _or_ straight. I agree that this is a relatively new phenomenon. I think that **ultrafilter** is saying much the same thing in a slightly different way - I’m not sure why y’all are arguing when you both basically agree that the modern _concept_ of homosexuality didn’t exist in the ancient world (which does not mean that _homosexuals_ have not existed throughout history). I don’t think you will find much evidence of a separate gay culture with exclusively homosexual members in European history, for the many reasons other posters have listed. There wasn’t really an opportunity for such a critter to exist. I believe there are/were some cultures (Asian, as I recall, but I don’t have specifics at hand) where bisexuality is much more accepted, much less noteworthy, and therefore much more common. I agree that in such a culture, there would probably be very few exclusively homosexual people. On the other hand, there’d probably not be too many exclusively hetero folks, either. However, in many cultures there is a separate but interwoven issue that also tends to suppress homosexuality as a “mainstream” option - namely gender stratification. When “woman = bad/inferior, man = good/superior”, there is some _serious_ cultural backlash for any male seen as adopting a “receptive” role in a homosexual relationship. (Please note that these sorts of roles are rarely true in modern gay relationships, contrary to much popular opinion.) Classical Greeks accepted and approved of an adult male “mentoring” an adolescent boy - it was considered good for both parties. However, the adult male was also _required_ to have a wife, in order to fulfill his societal obligations. And it was taboo for two adult males to have a relationship, because that would require one of them to ‘act like a woman’, which was completely and totally unacceptable. (You can still see this in action in modern culture, if you look to the popular myths, stereotypes, and insults referring to male homosexuals.) Thus, both the social obligation to reproduce, and the social taboo against “mixing up” gender roles would prohibit “exclusive homosexuality” as an option as well as preventing development of a “gay culture”. (Of course, lesbianism didn’t cause such the stir, since no one much cared what women did in their spare time, as long as they kept a clean house & made good babies…) On the other hand… There is some evidence that homosexual marriage was recognized in late Rome. It was not an “official” marriage, which was a political and social contract between patriarchal houses, but the word used for the union was the same as that used for marriages between slaves, who were also not allowed to contract formal marriage. (I guess I read that discussion in a different thread, now that I review this thread, but I don’t have time to go find it, so I’ll put it here anyway.) The other example I can think of off-hand were the Native American _berdache_. You might try a Websearch on that word & see what you find. This isn’t exactly what you’re looking for, but it is fairly close. Men who changed gender roles, living as women, up to and including marriage to other men. I don’t know how _common_ this was (i.e., what percentage of the population, etc.), but it was definitely an accepted part of many NA cultures. It’s also a bit better documented than homosexual culture in Europe. OK, I really, really have to get to work now. I shouldn’t have spent this much time, but this is an area that I find very interesting. Thanks for the thread, Izzy! ---
**Author:** ![El\_Zagna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d2c977/32.png) [@El\_Zagna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Zagna)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2001, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-gay-thread-evidence-of-historical-homosexuality/74344/28 "2001-08-01T16:47:43Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by IzzyR \*I have never seen the KJV in my life. Well, that’s hard to imagine. It’s everywhere. When people speak of the bible they are usually referring to KJV whether they are aware of it or not. The KJV is the one the Gideon’s put in your hotel rooms. > [@](#): > > _The translation that I provided was done directly from the original Hebrew._ As was the KJV. Actually the “original” manuscripts of the Old Testament were in Hebrew, but for the New Testament they were Greek. Even so the “originals” were probably not original but rather copies of some older document or oral history. In many cases it is apparent that more than one author was responsible for some of the books of the bible. > [@](#): > > This is just silly. Unless you have some **basis** to claim that the original version of the passage said something other than what it says, or that the word “know” used to _mean_ “sex” (as opposed to being a euphemism for it) you can’t make any claims at all. Doing translations is tricky business. To do it right you need to have a thorough understanding of the language and dialect you are translating from, the languages you are translating to, the subtleties of the place and time of both the source language, and the target language. Even so it is going to be imprecise. Ever hear the expression “it looses something in translation.” Now, I’m not going to spend my life studying all this so I can make my own translations, but others have and I’m happy to rely on their efforts. Go here [http://bible.gospelcom.net/bible](http://bible.gospelcom.net/bible) and look up Genesis 19:5 and see the various ways it has been translated and decide for yourself whether the men of Sodom wanted to get to “know” the angles or whether they wanted something else. > [@](#): > > \*Serious question: do you actually know anything about the Bible at all, or are you just winging it? \* Hey, I’m not the one claiming to have never laid eyes on a KJV. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2001, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-gay-thread-evidence-of-historical-homosexuality/74344/29 "2001-08-01T16:58:57Z")
Thanks Redtail…I’m reading “The Man Who Fell In Love With the Moon” right now - and interesting read to say the least, but filled with references to the berdache (completely fictional of course). IIRC, there is a similar tradition among the Hindu - though I believe there the men are frequently eunichs and may more properly be classed in our culture as transexual rather than homosexual. Oh, and for the bible, there are a couple of “homosexual” relationships that are implied - if the interpretation leaves something to be desired in being completely convincing. I like the homosexual interpretation of David and Jonathan myself - which I think (with that reading) makes it one of the most romantic stories in the Bible. As long as we are there, the men of Sodom were supposedly going to rape the angels (or Lots daughters) and, as we all know, rape is about power, not sex. They could have been as hetero as they come in their day to day lives. If I were God, I’d be condemning the whole rape thing and not as worried about the gender of the perps or victims. ---
**Author:** ![IzzyR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/2acd7d/32.png) [@IzzyR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IzzyR)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2001, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-gay-thread-evidence-of-historical-homosexuality/74344/30 "2001-08-01T17:10:40Z")
**redtail** > [@](#): > > I think that **ultrafilter** is saying much the same thing in a slightly different way - I’m not sure why y’all are arguing when you both basically agree that the modern _concept_ of homosexuality didn’t exist in the ancient world (which does not mean that _homosexuals_ have not existed throughout history). I’ll try to clarify. My position (suggestion, really) is that the fact that people tend to identify as either straight or gay might in turn cause people to channel there desires in the direction of their perceived identity. So that in addition to the people who actually are bisexual, there are many who are _inherently_ bisexual, but have channeled their desires and thoughts in only one direction. If this pressure would not be there, many more people would actually _be_ bisexual as a practical matter then actually are. My suggestion was that if indeed there was a dearth of evidence of outright homosexuality in ancient cultures it may be due to the fact that there actually was less of it. That had an ancient Kinsey done a survey, he would have found fewer 0s and fewer 6s and more 3s and 4s then one might find today. IOW that the distribution was more of a continuum then is to be found today. And for this reason, homosexuality was not as much of a separate category of people as it is today. By contrast, **ultrafilter** , if I understand him/her correctly is saying that the distribution in ancient times would be more or less similar to the distribution today. And that if today there is more evidence of separate categories of people based on sexual orientation than there is from ancient times, it is due to the fact that the ancients failed to recognize that these categories existed, although they were actually there much as they are today. I glanced around a bit for this berdache stuff. It seemed to be more about gender roles than about sexual relationships or identity. Is this incorrect? **lamia** , thanks for the link. Interesting stuff. **bnorton** , believe or don’t believe, it’s fine with me. The KJV is a Christian Bible, Jews don’t use it. Orthodox Jews (e.g. IzzyR) tend to use the original. While translations can be tricky, there are some things that are blindingly obvious. E.g. this one. It is incredible that you would bother arguing in favor of a position about which you do not claim to know anything, and are not even claiming that anyone else has ever supported. What is the basis for your statements? Am I missing something? ---
**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2001, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-gay-thread-evidence-of-historical-homosexuality/74344/31 "2001-08-01T17:28:34Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by IzzyR \* > **My suggestion was that if indeed there was a dearth of evidence of outright homosexuality in ancient cultures it may be due to the fact that there actually was less of it. That had an ancient Kinsey done a survey, he would have found fewer 0s and fewer 6s and more 3s and 4s then one might find today. IOW that the distribution was more of a continuum then is to be found today. And for this reason, homosexuality was not as much of a separate category of people as it is today.** You probably wouldn’t have anything approaching a uniform distribution, as there’s a definite survival advantage to having most of your population be heterosexual. If anything, the distribution of sexual orientations would be more skewed (mode near 0, I just can’t remember whether to call that left-skewed or right-skewed) in the past than today. > [@](#): > > **By contrast, ultrafilter, if I understand him/her correctly is saying that the distribution in ancient times would be more or less similar to the distribution today. And that if today there is more evidence of separate categories of people based on sexual orientation than there is from ancient times, it is due to the fact that the ancients failed to recognize that these categories existed, although they were actually there much as they are today.** Him, FYI. And that is a pretty accurate statement of my viewpoint. ---
**Author:** ![IzzyR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/2acd7d/32.png) [@IzzyR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IzzyR)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2001, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-gay-thread-evidence-of-historical-homosexuality/74344/32 "2001-08-01T17:33:40Z")
**bnorton** After my last post, it occurred to me that perhaps you are actually confused with regards to what this discussion is, so I’ll try to clarify that if possible. The word that appears in the Hebrew original is _neda_. This is a form of the word _yoda_ with an “n” prefix indicating “we will”. This word appears hundreds, perhaps thousands of times in the Bible, and means “know”. It is absolutely inconceivable that it could mean “sex”, and no Biblical scholar would or could ever suggest such a thing. There is nothing tricky about it at all. However, in some circumstances, it is used as a _euphemism_ for sex (there is actually some disagreement whether Biblical Hebrew even contains a word that literally means “sex”). Therefore, it is translated as sex in these instances. But these translations do not imply that the translator believes that the literal meaning of the word is “sex” - merely that he is translating the intention of the phrase rather than the literal meaning. Now, I absolutely agree that the word is in this instance intended as a euphemism for “sex”, as noted in my previous posts on this subject. I am merely pointing out that you cannot prove this (as you tried to do) by pointing to a translation which translates it as “sex” - this translation is based on the translator’s interpretation of the phrase - to the extent that you dispute the meaning you will also dispute the translation. I hope this clears it up for you. **ultrafilter** , yeah I agree that it wouldn’t be uniform. I do think it would be more continuous. ---
**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2001, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-gay-thread-evidence-of-historical-homosexuality/74344/33 "2001-08-01T17:56:05Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by IzzyR \* > \*\*ultrafilter, yeah I agree that it wouldn’t be uniform. I do think it would be more continuous. \*\* I thought you were suggesting a continuous uniform distribution. The model that I seem to recall having heard (don’t have a cite, sorry) is a chi-square distribution. IIRC, Richard Dawkins discussed the possible survival benefits of homosexuality in _The Selfish Gene_. If you haven’t read that, you ought to. ---
**Author:** ![irishgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/8edcca/32.png) [@irishgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/irishgirl)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2001, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-gay-thread-evidence-of-historical-homosexuality/74344/34 "2001-08-01T18:26:34Z")
which is a joke about the idiomatic/literal translation of “know”, if you don’t speak french; it’s like baby jesus in velvet trousers…it’s fabulous. i had a thought. in samoa, i believe there are men who are raised as women (fa’ fafine) which is a cultural phenomenon to allow the household to run effectively if too few daughters were produced. these people looked after children, cooked, cleaned etc. however, only in the last 150 years or so have they started to have sex with men. many samoans still do not regard fa’fafine as gay. fa’fafine themselves would not have sex with each other, or with women, they see themselves as a 3rd gender. i believe the practice originated because the south pacific islanders regard sexuality and gender role as community defined rather than personal. so if it suits you to have “daughter” that is what you raise. now, my info is fairly sketchy here, but i think i got the basics. i’m sure someone else will know more about this. i can’t say how this fits into your theory. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Zagna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d2c977/32.png) [@El\_Zagna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Zagna)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2001, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-gay-thread-evidence-of-historical-homosexuality/74344/35 "2001-08-01T19:47:51Z")
Actually the discussion is about the historical context of homosexuality (it’s your OP). I got involved when you claimed that the story of Sodom suggested that the men of Sodom were “clearly” not gay. From there this part of the thread has been about translations of the bible - not about the historical context of homosexuality. If you want to continue the bible translation issue perhaps we should start a new thread. ---
**Author:** ![redtail23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/3e96dc/32.png) [@redtail23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/redtail23)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2001, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-gay-thread-evidence-of-historical-homosexuality/74344/36 "2001-08-01T20:17:59Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by IzzyR \* > I’ll try to clarify. My position (suggestion, really) is that the fact that people tend to identify as either straight or gay might in turn cause people to channel there desires in the direction of their perceived identity. So that in addition to the people who actually are bisexual, there are many who are _inherently_ bisexual, but have channeled their desires and thoughts in only one direction. If this pressure would not be there, many more people would actually _be_ bisexual as a practical matter then actually are. OK, I agree with your general premise: if our culture was more accepting of flexibility in gender roles, sexual roles and sexual orientations, I think that most people would be happily bisexual. That does not mean that they would necessarily have equal interest in partners of both genders nor have equal numbers of homo- and hetero-sexual encounters (although some might). I think that our cultural obsession with these issues causes people to move to the extremes in their self-identity. I think that many people in modern Western culture channel their desires exclusively into either heterosexual or homosexual outlets (rather than both), _partly_ due to this self identification. I can tell you from personal experience that there are many other factors involved and your basic premise is rather oversimplified. I think you’re also getting into that very gray area of sexual preference vs. sexual identity vs. sexual orientation vs. gender orientation vs. self-identity, and et cetera. I’ve seen these (and the differences between them) discussed a few times, but it is still a bit murky to me. However, I have a feeling that you’re creating circular arguments by defining your terms in such a way that they are both premise and conclusion. Is someone who spends their whole life sexually and emotionally attracted solely to persons of the same gender, but never _acts_ on that attraction, homosexual or heterosexual? What if they _act_ in the only socially acceptable (and in fact, socially REQUIRED) manner (heterosexual), even though they find it repellent? What if they self-identify as gay, but just don’t tell anyone? What if they self-identify as straight, because they’ve never heard of such a thing as “gay”? (This may seem impossible in today’s culture, but if you talk to people of the previous generation or so, it wasn’t uncommon for people to have **no idea** that such a thing as “homosexuality” existed.) > [@](#): > > My suggestion was that if indeed there was a dearth of evidence of outright homosexuality in ancient cultures it may be due to the fact that there actually was less of it. That had an ancient Kinsey done a survey, he would have found fewer 0s and fewer 6s and more 3s and 4s then one might find today. IOW that the distribution was more of a continuum then is to be found today. And for this reason, homosexuality was not as much of a separate category of people as it is today. Well, I’ve already agreed that there was not a separate “gay” category in the same way that there is today nor were there as many exclusively homo/hetero-sexual individuals as we have today, because _we live in a different culture today_. But that’s as far as I can get. What do you mean by “outright homosexuality”? Are you equating that to “modern gay culture”? Yes, I absolutely agree that there was nothing resembling modern gay culture in ancient times\*. Are you equating it to “open homosexual behavior”? Well, that depends on which culture and which timeframe. There is a great deal of evidence that many cultures in many times had a great deal of open homosexual behavior. Is there more open homosexual behavior today than there was 100 years ago in the USA? Yes, of course. A century ago in most places in the US, you almost absolutely would lose all social standing, social contacts, ability to support yourself and/or your family, so on and so forth, not to mention most likely end up in jail or dead, if you had chosen to engage in the type of “open homosexual behavior” that many people do today. All of that still happens to many, many (TOO MANY!) gays, but it is not the certainty that it once was. Are you equating it to “persons with only homosexual sexual contacts”? Again, I would agree that this is more common than ever before, but there are so many factors involved (and that have been already mentioned) that to try to find a sole causal link is foolish. IIRC, the Kinsey Scale was based on individual responses to a number of questions, not on self-identity. One of the “shocking revelations” of the Kinsey surveys was that such a large portion of the population had homosexual and homoerotic tendencies _ **despite the fact that they self-identified as absolutely and totally straight** _. Ancient cultures had a very different world view from ours in a number of respects. I don’t think that they would have understood the point of your Kinsey survey, much less found it meaningful in their lives. But I also don’t think that the distributions would have been much different - the Kinsey scale data for today, as far as I know, reflects the fact that most people are bisexual to some degree, with only a few clustered at the extremes. The distribution _on a scale of self-identification_ would undoubtedly have been very different, for many reasons, a number of which have been brought up repeatedly and have to do with cultural and social concepts rather than individual behavior. > [@](#): > > By contrast, **ultrafilter** , if I understand him/her correctly is saying that the distribution in ancient times would be more or less similar to the distribution today. And that if today there is more evidence of separate categories of people based on sexual orientation than there is from ancient times, it is due to the fact that the ancients failed to recognize that these categories existed, although they were actually there much as they are today. OK, I admit it. I’M SO CONFUSED!?!! There is a difference between the distribution of homosexual behavior/desire/whatever (e.g., Kinsey scale) and the distribution of gay/straight self-identification, and there is most definitely a difference between Kinsey scale distribution and the concept of separate socio-cultural categories for gays and straights. These ideas are NOT mutually exclusive because they address different points. IOW, I think you’re both right, and you’re arguing right past each other because you’re talking about different things. RE: berdache Yes, it is primarily about gender roles. My point was that there were NA cultures which accepted openly homosexual behavior (including gay marriage) and that had “special categories” for these people. No, they did not identify them as “gay”, they identified them as “berdache” (or actually, as whatever word they used in their own language ;)) because social and cultural concepts were different, but these are people whom WE would identify as gay if they behaved this way in our modern culture. In addition, as I’ve already said, the areas of gender roles and sexual relationships are inextricably intertwined in most cultures, which has a lot to do with the view that you have of homosexuality in ancient times as compared to modern. Let me think for just a minute…your references (“Bible and Talmud and related material”) are from a culture that considered homosexual acts to be abominations, that considered homosexuality as taboo because of the similarity to heathen practices, that enforced fairly strict gender and social roles, and that pronounced some pretty serious penalties (up to and including death, IIRC) for stepping out of line on these issues…and you consider a lack of evidence of homosexuality _in these same sources_ to be indicative that it didn’t exist at all, anywhere? I take it that you also believe that no homosexuals lived in the US (and certainly none were allowed into Hollywood) until the last couple of decades, since all the available evidence (film and television) lacks obvious homosexual content? \*There was also nothing resembling modern feminism, modern political structure, modern economic and fiscal structure, modern philosophy, modern notions of universal human rights, modern concepts of civil rights … should I go on? False dichotomy isn’t the right word here, but I can’t think of what I mean. You are trying to equate apples and oranges, and you’re creating a false sense that sexual behavior and concepts are somehow isolate from the socio-cultural context. ---
**Author:** ![andygirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a9adbd/32.png) [@andygirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andygirl)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2001, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-gay-thread-evidence-of-historical-homosexuality/74344/37 "2001-08-01T20:22:38Z")
I think homosexual people today exclusively have relationships with the same sex because they can afford that luxery. At many points in history homosexuality was punishable by death (still is, in some countries) and beards were extremely common. A lot of lesbians my grandmother’s age simply got married and had children because they had little choice in the matter. The problem with sexual orientation is that it isn’t an absolute- people who believe themselves to be homosexual don’t always have open relationships with the opposite gender because of the repercussions of doing so. There are people who identify as gay who come out in their 60s and 70s after being married for years. I will agree that the modern construct of “homosexual identity” is exactly that, but in terms of technicals, there’s no reason to think that the population of gays and lesbians hasn’t remained the same. It’s just been a visibility issue. For the record, many Native American tribes had people who lived as a member of the opposite gender and took same-gender partners. ---
**Author:** ![IzzyR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/2acd7d/32.png) [@IzzyR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IzzyR)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2001, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-gay-thread-evidence-of-historical-homosexuality/74344/38 "2001-08-01T20:51:07Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by bnorton \* > I got involved when you claimed that the story of Sodom suggested that the men of Sodom were “clearly” not gay. No, that part died out. The discussion I refer to began with your criticism of **waterj2** ’s post and my response to that point. > [@](#): > > If you want to continue the bible translation issue perhaps we should start a new thread. No, I think my point is made. **redtail23** > [@](#): > > Is someone who spends their whole life sexually and emotionally attracted solely to persons of the same gender, but never acts on that attraction, homosexual or heterosexual? What if they act in the only socially acceptable (and in fact, socially REQUIRED) manner (heterosexual), even though they find it repellent? What if they self-identify as gay, but just don’t tell anyone? The definition I would use is what their true feelings are. > [@](#): > > What do you mean by “outright homosexuality”? People who are defined as a “homosexual” type of person, who is inherently attracted to members of the same sex, as opposed to a “regular” person who commits homosexual acts. > [@](#): > > There is a difference between the distribution of homosexual behavior/desire/whatever (e.g., Kinsey scale) and the distribution of gay/straight self-identification, and there is most definitely a difference between Kinsey scale distribution and the concept of separate socio-cultural categories for gays and straights. I think we are both talking about “the distribution of homosexual behavior/desire/whatever”. > [@](#): > > your references (“Bible and Talmud and related material”) are from a culture that considered homosexual acts to be abominations, that considered homosexuality as taboo because of the similarity to heathen practices, that enforced fairly strict gender and social roles, and that pronounced some pretty serious penalties (up to and including death, IIRC) for stepping out of line on these issues…and you consider a lack of evidence of homosexuality in these same sources to be indicative that it didn’t exist at all, anywhere? I take it that you also believe that no homosexuals lived in the US (and certainly none were allowed into Hollywood) until the last couple of decades, since all the available evidence (film and television) lacks obvious homosexual content? It would appear that you are unfamiliar with the Talmud and related material 😉 The Talmud did not ignore parts of life that were considered objectionable. There are innumerable references to forbidden practices, both as practiced by sinning Jews, and as practiced by surrounding cultures that accepted these practices. (Your comparison to Hollywood is therefore invalid.) > [@](#): > > There was also nothing resembling modern feminism, modern political structure, modern economic and fiscal structure, modern philosophy, modern notions of universal human rights, modern concepts of civil rights … should I go on? This appears to be in agreement with **ultrafilter’s** point. I would suggest that all your examples are _ideas_ which are not comparable to inherent human desires > [@](#): > > False dichotomy isn’t the right word here, but I can’t think of what I mean. You are trying to equate apples and oranges, and you’re creating a false sense that sexual behavior and concepts are somehow isolate from the socio-cultural context. No, I’m saying that perhaps sexual _psychology_ is also not isolate from socio-cultural _influence_, whether ancient time’s or our own’s. ---
**Author:** ![redtail23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/3e96dc/32.png) [@redtail23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/redtail23)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2001, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-gay-thread-evidence-of-historical-homosexuality/74344/39 "2001-08-01T23:26:22Z")
OK, you say “The definition I would use is what their true feelings are”, or IOW, the definition of a ‘homosexual person’ is a person who has homosexual feelings. Right? Then you say that ‘outright homosexuality’ (which is what you’re looking for in the past) means “People who are defined as a “homosexual” type of person, who is inherently attracted to members of the same sex, as opposed to a “regular” person who commits homosexual acts.”. I will use the term ‘abnormal straight’ to capture that second group (“regular person + homosexual acts”). Please note that I’ve assumed you _don’t_ mean to include bisexuals in the ‘outright homosexual’ group, since that would pretty much reverse your entire line of reasoning so far. However, you also can not include bisexuals in the ‘regular people’ group since bisexuals, by definition, are inherently attracted to members of the same sex. As usual, we’re left out in the cold. _sigh_. And here we also see that you, yourself, are a victim of your culture’s sexual dichotomy. 😉 Please explain: How would a ‘homosexual person’ (by your definition above) who lives in a gay-killing society (I believe the Torah mandates death for men who lie with men, although as I remember it, it doesn’t really mention lesbianism) make the move to ‘outright homosexuality’ without dying? And considering the consequences, why would they ever make the attempt? Please explain: In a culture that **does not have the concept** of ‘outright homosexuality’ (as defined above), how would a person who was solely same-sex-oriented self-identify or be identified? As ‘outright homosexual’? Or as ‘abnormal straight’? Please explain: Without a fairly significant number of people who self-identify or are externally identified as ‘outright homosexual’, whence would come the separate social category for ‘homosexuals’? Do you see where I’m having some problems with your arguments? You are using modern terms and concepts, applying them to ancient cultures, and then saying “look, these behaviors didn’t exist!”. No, the behaviors may well have existed, they just didn’t name them, or named/grouped them differently, or any number of things along those lines. In a culture such as ours, that tends to follow the rule of ‘in for a penny, in for a pound’ (i.e., if you have any homosexual encounters, you are gay), won’t you tend to have far more people who believe they are gay then in a culture who simply accepts that ‘regular people can commit homosexual acts’ without categorizing and stigmatizing them? (I say this because the concept of ‘bisexual’ is _really_ new in our cultural terms. You’ll have to trust me on this, but as recently as twenty years ago many people insisted that I was gay because I had same-sex relationships, despite the fact that I also consecutively and concurrently had straight relationships. The gay community (for the most part) denied the existence of bisexuality, claiming that we were just not all the way out of the closet yet. [The straights, at least where I lived, were busy pretending they had no idea that _any_ of us queers existed. ;)]) You are correct, I am not a scholar of the Talmud. But I believe that the Torah does reference homosexuality, both as a sin for Jews and/or as an idolotrous practice (last I knew there was some debate about that last bit, or that may be _why_ it was a sin, or some such). Evidently it did exist. Do you mean to say that there is no reference whatsoever to homosexuality in the Talmud and concomitant references? Oh wait, you mentioned in the OP that there were _many_ references to homosexual activities. So evidently homosexuals (using our modern definition of ‘people who have sex with people of the same sex’) were around and enough of a problem to require discussion in “many places” in your references. > [@](#): > > . I would suggest that all your examples are ideas which are not comparable to inherent human desires. Exactly. As I said before: “There is a difference between the distribution of homosexual behavior/desire/whatever (e.g., Kinsey scale) … and the concept of separate socio-cultural categories for gays and straights.” Inherent human homosexual desires != socio-cultural community. A particular society can have just as many gays/bisexuals/straights (by distribution of desire) without having the idea of “gay community vs straight community”. YOU are the one who is trying to equate those two completely separate things. If the culture **does not recognize** a concept, then there will be no evidence of such a concept in that culture, neh? That says nothing whatsoever about the number of gays in the society. > [@](#): > > No, I’m saying that perhaps sexual psychology is also not isolate from socio-cultural influence, whether ancient time’s or our own’s. Absolutely. ======================================= There is little or no “historical evidence of homosexuality _as it is exists today_, i.e. a separate category of people who have exclusive attraction to members of the same gender”, as everyone here (including **underfilter** , I think) has agreed. That is because ancient cultures were DIFFERENT than our modern culture. Your idea that “most hetero and homosexuals are really bi-sexuals” in terms of internal feelings & desires is spot on for our culture, as supported by research I believe. Chances are good that the same is true of ancient cultures, in as much as human sexuality doesn’t appear to have changed much in the past few thousand years. The above has _nothing to do_ with how people in either culture self-identify (or are externally identified) into sexually-related categories. Ancient cultures didn’t think of themselves as bisexual any more than they thought of themselves as homosexual or heterosexual. Unfortunately, I can’t find an etymology on the word, but the concept of “bisexual” as a personal identity is much newer than even the concept of “homosexual” that you’re having so many problems with. Explicit and inflexible gender roles, on the other hand, have a great deal to do with how people self-identify/are identified in many cultures. This identification is often very similar to your concept of ‘homosexuality as a separate category’ and could basically be substituted in quite a few cultures. Look at Leviticus again - how did they describe homosexuals there? It is probable that “in other eras the percentage of people who had sexual relationships exclusively with people of their own gender may have been considerably smaller”. Again, I think everyone here has agreed with this. That difference is due to a number of socio-cultural factors that have been previously discussed. It is possible (I would say probable) that our cultural dichotomy between ‘gay’ and ‘straight’ causes an increase in exclusive sexuality of both types. There is _not_, however, any evidence whatsoever of a sole causal link between the two. You can not exclude the other cultural factors. It seems like we’re in agreement, so I’m not really sure what we’re arguing about any more. 🙂 But I’m having fun, nonetheless. Except for the fact that I’ve gotten no work done and I’m gonna be in deep huhu soon. Gotta go! ---
**Author:** ![redtail23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/3e96dc/32.png) [@redtail23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/redtail23)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2001, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-gay-thread-evidence-of-historical-homosexuality/74344/40 "2001-08-01T23:33:17Z")
Yikes! That was the wrong button! Please make that: You are using modern terms and concepts, applying them to ancient cultures, failing to find matching terms and concepts, and then saying “look, these behaviors didn’t exist!”. Thank you. I’m sure there are a couple of others (at least!), but I guess I’ll have to let 'em stand. At least I didn’t make any egregious coding errors. 😃 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-gay-thread-evidence-of-historical-homosexuality/74344.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-gay-thread-evidence-of-historical-homosexuality/74344.md?page=3)