To hear some talk about it, you would think that the Judeo-Christian ethic was uniquely bigoted and intolerant in considering homosexuality abnormal or morally wrong; and that most other cultures tolerate or accomodate male-male sex. (I assume that most traditional cultures demanded women accomodate men for procreation.) Is this in fact so? Any hard facts available on how other cultures regard homosexuality?
Are you speaking in a strictly modern timeset, or including historical cultures? Homosexuality has been fairly widespread at certain points in history (but then again, so was paedophilia, rape, etc, so that isn’t saying anything in itself)
I am unfamiliar with any cultures outside the Judeo-Christian-Islamic sphere of influence that consider homosexuality to be morally wrong. In most cultures homosexuality is considered somewhat unusual, but as best as I can tell in many it isn’t considered any worse than having a shoe fetish or something. Not the sort of thing one discusses in polite society, and perhaps worth a laugh or two if the subject comes up, but nothing you’d throw rocks at someone over.
Here in Japan I get the feeling that homosexuals are considered pretty weird, but I haven’t picked up on any real hatred. Homosexuals generally seem to be thought of as funny rather than evil. I often hear people say that they’ve never met a gay person and that there were no gay people in Japan at all until fairly recently, but several women I know have said they’d like to meet some gay men and maybe make friends with them (I suspect they’ve all seen My Best Friend’s Wedding).
Of course, the lack of open homosexuality in Japan indicates that something’s keeping people in the closet, but fear of being seen as strange may be enough. Being laughed at is better than being beaten, but that doesn’t mean people want to be laughed at. There’s also the very traditional attitude towards marriage which must make it very difficult for people to opt-out of heterosexual relations altogether. Young people generally live with Mom & Dad until they get married, and Mom & Dad will likely try to arrange a marriage if one does not seem to be forthcoming.
I believe homosexual activity is still criminal in China, but this seems to be because it is considered dangerously nonconformist. I have a semi-relevant anecdote I’ll stick in here. A family friend happens to be a fairly prominent and well-connected Chinese intellectual, and a couple of years ago he was discussing the subject of homosexuality with his American-raised daughter. An idea struck him, and he fired off a letter to his friends in the Chinese government. Given that the Chinese government is keenly interested in population reduction and that many homosexuals must be marrying and having children in order to “keep up appearances”, he suggested that homosexuality not merely be legalized but that the government actively promote its widespread acceptance!
As far as Africa goes, it is mostly illegal or against social law, though there are some exceptions.
I suppose that this speaks also for the Middle East (not that there was much question).
Russia was relatively open to homosexuality before the Soviet Union, after which one expects and gets obvious curtailments of rights.
Latin America, of course, is largely Christian, though the natives at one time had traces of homosexual ritual acts, though it is not believed to be an open practice as far as sexual preference goes.
I’ve read of Native Americans both embracing and rejecting homosexuality, which isn’t surprising, given their diverse belief structures.
And, of course, we have Rome, which we are familiar with. Homosexuality was not quite “open”, but was rather practiced by the priviledged. Ancient Egypt seems to be one of the more open societies, where various sexual “diversities” that we would be shocked by, but as with all policies, these freedoms flunctuated wildly depending on who was in charge. With most ancient societies, what was “OK” was determined by the ruling class, and the commoners/slaves go along with it, whatever it says. Sound familiar?
Once we get into Asia, my knowledge fails.
YMMV
We consider homosexuality the love between two people of the same gender.
Nothing weird about that.
BTW, the historic record is largely silent on the subject of lesbianism…the same way it’s largely silent on any number of topics relating to women. Even cultures that openly condemn male homosexuality rarely have much to say on the subject of female homosexuality . This is likely because, in many past and present societies, a woman’s personal romantic/sexual preferences had little or nothing to do with her marital/maternal status. She generally had to get married to the man her family picked out for her and have kids with him whether she liked it or not.
Considering that lesbian sex never results in pregnancy, and the opinion popular even in the modern West that lesbian sex somehow isn’t “real sex” (a sentiment I’ve seen expressed on the SDMB more than once!), and you’ve got an issue many people in many cultures would consider so unimportant that it’s worth neither condemnation nor acceptance.
According to this link, it would seem that legal restrictions are different for men and women, at least in Africa. I would suppose this derives from the fact that men carry the seed, and that they see men as the key in getting children (even though you can’t children without both parts, very well).
Which does bring me to another thought I had lately, that homosexuality gets less accepted the poorer a country is. I have nothing to back this up with, but I can imagine that in a culture where you constantly live on the bare minimum, being gay could be concidered as very “egoistical”, as it does not contribute to the growth of the family.
For an example, homosexuality is now finally getting legalized in eastern Europe (Bulgaria legalized homosexuality two years ago, I believe), which can be seen as a try to reach towards the richer western Europe and the EU.
Most civilizations were open to homosexuality or held no opinion on the matter. Homosexuality being viewed as a sin and a crime didn’t really pick up until about the 400s coincidentatly or because of the rise of Christianity. I have seen a fair amount of evidence that suggests that Christianity is the reason for the majority of the homophobia that we have in the majority of countries today, but other people, notably John Boswell have argued that it is to be blamed on other things. (although he doesn’t say what it is to be blamed on.)
Christianity seems to have picked up its anti-homosexual bias from the Jews.
Although Japan and China now have a negative view of homosexuality, that didn’t use to be the case. Homosexual love was celebrated in ancient Japan and China. There are many famous stories and poems from both countries.
I haven’t read Passions of the Cut Sleeve by Bret Hinsch myself, most of my information on Chinese homosexuality comes from general overviews, but it is the one most often cited by other authors I do like.
Male Colors by Gary P. Leuppis an excellent book if you are interested in learning more about homosexuality within Japan during the Tokugawa period.
Islam was actually much more open to homosexuality than Christianity was in the beginning and there are many poems and stories which exist today which celebrate male/male love. [Islamic Homosexualities by Stephen O Murray[/ur] contains more details.
Africa also was open to homosexuality as shown in [url=“http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/031221216X/qid=1079944581/sr=8-4/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i4_xgl14/104-8477229-4477555?v=glance&s=books&n=507846”]another book by Stephen O Murray.](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0814774687/ref=pd_sim_books_3/104-8477229-4477555?v=glance&s=books)
Several native American societies also were open to homosexualities. Again, I don’t know of a particular book that details them. There was an excellent website with a very good over view, but it is down now. 
There was this huge book I read on these people who lived in islands near (I think) New Zealand or something like that where not only was homosexuality practiced, but all males had to have homosexual contact with another male before they were considered men. I wish I could remember either the name of the book or that society. @.@
I’ve only read of only one other ancient culture that prescribed the death penelty for gays and that would be the Aztecs. It is worth noting that other indian societies in South America such as the Mayans had a tolerant view towards homosexuality. The reason one author gave for the Aztecs being so anti-gay, was that homosexuals were often spiritual leaders or advisers to other tribes and the Aztecs were a warrior people.
I’ve also heard conflicting reports on the Germanic tribes that existed in moderm day Europe. Passive partners were looked down upon in some of them, but to what extent, I don’t think we will ever know.
W. Michael Gear & Kathleen O’Neal Gear, in their series of books called The First North Americans (about ancient Native American peoples), there were many references to men who were born with a woman’s spirit. The authors used the word “berdache” to designate them. These men openly had male lovers. Interestingly, these berdache were usually considered to be magical, or spiritual in one way or another.
On the other hand, in some of the books, the featured tribe sometimes had anti-homosexual feelings. In one book, the chief of the tribe practiced homosexual rape, and was censured (and eventually killed). However, the objection may have been related more to the rape part than the homosexual part. But if I remember correctly, that book had no “berdache” characters.
The stories in the books are fiction, and take place several thousand years ago. However, the authors are both anthropologists who deeply research their topics. So I assume they have some factual basis for including the topic in their novels.
I also meant to add that in the books, the “berdache” characters typically wore women’s clothes, and performed women’s work. They did not participate in hunting parties or war parties.
To give another example (probably touched on by one of Ava’s links) take Feudal Japan.
The term for a homosexual simply did not exist, even though it was common for Samurai to have intimate relationships with other Samurai.
many cultures allow a man to ‘be a woman’ by some method or the other way around, ours is one such. and this is very very diffrent than a man loveing a man. indians (both india and american) have concepts of people becomeing offically another gender, or being born with a diffrent gender than biological ones. be liveing a certain way or doing a ritual you can offically be another gender in the eyes of everyone. so that to a native american its still a woman and a man in love, but the ‘woman’ just happens to be the wrong body.
america allows a ritual to be preformed where someone switches gender as well, it includes a great deal of surgery, and for legal things once you look enough like you have switched, its binding and you can marry.
No one has yet mentioned the Greeks, who were supposedly very accepting of homosexuality (at least between a man and a boy) according to sites like this and this. National Geographic covered this subject in a story on Greece two or three years ago.
I also learned the source of the name lesbian from link
Almost all open Japanese homosexuals are okama, effeminate manners and androgynous dress. There are a number of okama TV personalities, and their homosexuality seems to be understood without open acknowledgement. So called okama bars are really more hostess clubs with transvestites, and tend to be frequented more often by straights but there is a well-known section of Tokyo with gay bars.
In my 14 years here, I have rarely seen openly gay couples, mostly foreigners, and the only openly lesbian couple was a Westerner and a Japanese.
Paper marriages for mutual convenience between gays and women who also don’t want to be married, but want to get their parents off their backs, is a recognized custom, and called camouflage from the English word.
Here’s the link for Boy Wives and Female Husbands. It’s a great book, and a great antidote to long-held myth that homosexuality was somehow imported, or every society on the continent was always homophobic.
My favourite anecdote in it comes from an anthropologist named Brian MacDermot, who was studying the Nuer people in the 1960’s, in Ethiopia. The Nuer had always punished homosexuality with death – they were very clear on this, whenever the subject came up.
So MacDermot was very surprised to hear a story from one of his informants, about the Nuer in neighbouring Sudan. This informant told him about a man there who wore women’s clothing, did women’s work, and had a husband. The informant had asked about this unusual man, and he was told that that wasn’t man, that was a woman. Sure, she had a man’s body, but when her attraction to men became obvious, someone had visited a prophet, who consulted the spirits, who informed them that, yes, she was a woman.
This illustrates a common problem when trying to do research on homosexuality in other civilizations. Homosexual desire and homosex exist in all cultures, but are understood in such different terms that researchers often miss it.
It does seem to be taken for granted that gay men “have the character of a woman” (as one of my coworkers put it). I don’t know if there is any popular concept of a masculine gay man, although to be honest much the same could be said of American culture.
To call my Japanese minimal would be an overstatement, but I get the impression that there is no direct translation for “homosexual”. Common terms like okama all seem to have a much more specific connotation than merely “attracted to members of the same sex”. I have met Japanese English-speakers who seemed confused as to whether women could be homosexual as well as men, or what the difference was between homosexuals and “men who become like women”. I myself was unclear as to whether this last one referred to transsexuals, drag queens, or just effeminate men.
And this is confusion arising between people from two different modern, industrialized cultures! Goodness knows how much more difficult it would be for an American to try to get a reading on attitudes towards homosexuality in other places.
I remember reading a piece by a gay rights activist in Japan who was annoyed that there really wasn’t a word for him, which made discussion difficult.
Okama is an insult. It implies effeminate. Gai and gei are both borrowings – they imply that homosexuality itself is a foreign import. Geiboi means a male prostitute, and it’s another borrowing. I kind of like nanshoku, but it’s archaic, and it’s spelt with the same two Chinese characters as okama (one uses the Japanese pronounciations, the other a Japanisized version of the Chinese pronounciation), so it could be easily confused with okama.
I forgot doseiaisha, which comes to “same-sex-love-person.” It’s the equivalent of “homosexual.” But, like “homosexual,” it sounds clinical.
Also, according to a wikipedia article on homosexuality in Japan, nanshoku were associated with China. In other words, it still looks foreign. In other words, Japanese gays can’t win
Actually, a great many of these societies had a term for what we know call “gay” and “homosexual.” Most people in the society who did things with members of the same sex did so for convenience or a temporary fling. However, there were certain members of the society who were known for only loving those of the same sex and some even built up communities and areas where like-minded people could hang out.
Wakashudo, or ‘the way of the youth’ was what homosexuality was referred to in Japan. The ideal Japanese relationship consisted of a master samurai teaching his pupil how to be a man. However, several of these relationships existed for both of the lover’s lives. The ‘youth,’ who could, in fact, be older, always kept certain things about him which suggested his ‘youthfulness.’
Homosexual men in this period were referred to or referred to themselves using various terms. ‘Onna-girai’ or ‘women haters,’ was one of them. And various poems and stories tell of such people hanging out together in areas or belonging to a special class of people who defined themselves by their love.
After Christianity came, homosexuality was something that was pushed back in the closet. Men loving other men and having sexual relations with them was not considered a bad thing, however, marriage and family came first and gay men were often forced to marry and produce children while visiting certain districts to fullfill their needs. As the society has less pressure to marry, gays are now being more open in Japan. Such people are now referred to as ‘gei’ as Tokyo_Mann noted or ‘homo.’ There is even ‘kamingu auto’ (coming out… my spelling might be off.)
How a homosexual relationship was organized and deemed ‘good’ for society depended on the overall rules for relationships in that society. For example, right now we in the U.S. are moving towards more egalitarian relationships, but there is still a lot of preference and pressure for an older, masculine male to partner with a younger, feminine female. For much of American society, that was to be expected and even today, males that stay at home and take care of children while their wives work are the brunt of jokes.
Since most societies have preferences for how relationships are organized, all societies that were tolerant of homosexual relations had ‘rules’ for the homosexual relations just as they did for the heterosexual relationships. However, some societies were more lax with ‘rules’ and others were stricter. As to be expected, people do not like rules imposed upon them in their relationships and you can always find people in that society who do not fit into the societies’ ‘ideals.’ That’s why you can find men (and women) openly declaring their love for other men (and women) during times or in areas where to say such things meant you risked execution.
As Hamish noted, some societies conviently change gay relationships to heterosexual. However, if you read accounts of the anthropologists who stayed with such couples, often they report that although one partner did female work and wore female clothing, he often had many masculine things about him.
Societies also go through waves of acceptance and change their ideals about what makes the perfect relationship. Depending on the time zone, you can find the same society defining the perfect male/male relationship as being one of equals and later on or earlier saying that it is best between and older man and a younger boy.
It is also interesting to note that some hyper-masculine societies praise homosexuality while others do not. There is so much variety in societies and the way relationships and sexuality are viewed in those societies, that it is nearly impossible to pick one defining thing about the way all relationships are viewed. But there is one thing - in every society that I have had the chance to study in depth enough to learn about its views on sexuality, I have found people within that society who preferred to be with same-sex partners. In the majority of ancient societies, such people were treated with respect and tolerance. Even if they were forced to take on other identities.
I don’t think it’s fair to blame Christianity for this. I can believe that attitudes towards homosexuality may have changed in an effort to Westernize, or at least to not seem too weird to Westerners, but I doubt the average Japanese was ever even aware that Christianity condemns (or is often interpreted as condemning) homosexuality. Japanese culture places a high value on family, marriage, and children, and this has nothing to do with the influence of Christianity…which has been minimal. Despite the best efforts of missionaries over the centuries, Christianity has yet to make much impact on Japan. Today, only about 2% of the Japanese population identifies as Christian, and this is probably a higher percentage than a century ago. It has been my experience that the majority of Japanese people know fairly little about Christianity and are about as interested in the subject as the majority of Americans are in Shinto. That is to say, not at all.