Well…
There still is a stigma attached to being a catcher with some. Some gay men perversely believe a top is superior or more valuable than a bottom.
Prior to Stonewall? 
Two things are going on here. The use of the word “gay” to mean exclusive homosexuality, and the concept that exclusive homosexuality as an identity didn’t exist until very recently.
First, the use of the word “gay.” The earliest recorded use of the word “gay” in English that I know of is from the 1930s. Cecil has a a good article on it, though somewhat out of date. “Gay” had sexual connotations, at least, since the Middle Ages.
And Stonewall wasn’t even the beginning of the gay liberation movement in the US. And in Canada, the movement had gotten legalization before Stonewall. and it was certainly using the word “gay.”
As for an identity, while it’s generally true there was no identity built around homosexuality in classical times, there were occasional exceptions. The Greeks knew about people who had no interest in the opposite sex, or no interest in the same sex, as evinced by The Symposium – there, Aristophanes (in discussion about the origins of sexuality) separates everyone into categories on the basis of their “other half” (their one true love), and Aristophanes mentions men who have no interest in women, and those who have no interest in men.
There’s also The Erotes (sometimes translated, inexplicably, as Affairs of the Heart)-- dating from the 3rd or 4th centuries, about two men arguing whether heterosexuality or homosexuality is better. Both are exclusive. The dispute is moderated by a bisexual, and reported to an asexual.
The concept of inborn homosexuality existed (Aristotle had some weird theories about congenital blockages of semen).
But the reason there was no “gay identity,” Harvard Classics professor John Boswell notes, is the same reason there is no brunette or blond identities – these categories tend to be a response to social persecution. It mean that the things in question didn’t exist. Some people had darker skin long before racist systems of classification in the USA and South Africa had to construct elaborate systems to measure ancestry.
By the Middle Ages, there were people arguing they were “born that way” – Byrne Fone notes one example, at least, in a church trial in Homophobia: A History. Persecution seems to have forged an identity, but of course that same persecution means we know very little about it.
To me, following Michel Foucault and saying that “homosexuality was a species” only after the word was coined in the 19th Century is a bit disingenuous. There were always a group of people who described themselves as exclusively interested in their own sex, regardless of terminology.
Exactly.
Part of the problem is that some people (a small, privileged group in major cities) have declared the war won, and announced that it’s time for the assimilation to begin, while others in smaller cities, and in rural areas are just struggling to start a movement. It’s harder to organize out there. Even without the extra prejudice, the smaller numbers would still make it more difficult.
This is the uneven development of queer politics, and it means that the antigay crowd generally have a solid rural base from which to launch their attacks.
People forget that the reason persecution forges identities is because identities is because identities are very useful for combatting persecution. Priviliged queer professors at universities can wax philosophic about identities creating “minoritizing views,” but an identity means social institutions and organized politics and political change.
“Gay” can’t go back to being a minor idiosyncratic trait like left-handedness until the prejudice has been wiped out completely. Even then, some separation from larger society is useful, since even in a world without prejudice, our experiences would be somewhat different, the need to reflect those experiences in art would be there, and queer organization helps people to meet each other, something that’s not always easy surrounded by straight people.
Maybe you guys need to start adding somehting so we know who’s posting. Something like, “I’m Hamish, and I approve this post.”
Either that, or have your accounts merged into one, and we can call you mattnham.
Back to the OP, on Kaworu.
dotchan’s pronouncement: ambiguous.
The Japanese are much less shy about portraying sexuality, especially in a very non-PC way. I have no doubt that Kaworu loves Shinji, but I’m not entirely sure there was physical attraction going on.
(However, there is definite implied Kaworu x Shinji on various levels of explicitness in the official artwork and spin-off games.)
As for taking a bath together, that happens all the time in public baths. Really good friends even wash each other’s backs.
Incidentally, Kaworu’s voice actor, Ishida Akira, plays a lot of other characters who are ambiguous or gay. (Including my favorite anime character of all time, Xelloss of the Slayers series.)
As for historically gay characters, I tend to doubt both the “Just Friends” camp and the “Flaming Homer” camp, since both sides are equally guilty of reading into things that simply aren’t there. (And it’s weird to imagine Jesus as having a really, really close bosom buddy - I’ll bet he was ragged on that by his mom, too. :D)
I recall reading that she had very special feelings for a male State Trooper who was assigned to her guard detail at Hyde Park. He taught her to ride horses and things. They supposedly spent quality time together when FDR was up at Albany.
Dammit, there’s a discussion on Greek homosexuality and I miss it?
Just to add my (belated) two cents (as the discussion wrapped itself up nicely), such a thing was an insult not because of the same-sex relationship, but that such a man would allow himself to accept the role of a woman, therefore unmanning himself. It was not a condemnation of male/male eroticism. In fact, insults based on ‘being penetrated’ continued on well into Roman times.
Do they hold hands and protest their love for one another?