I don’t Great Debate much, but I’d like to see a discussion of the earliest demonization of homosexuality.
I only have anecdotal knowledge of the ancient Greeks, for example, who incorporated homosexuality in some sense into their culture. Undoubtedly there are many others for whom it was or is No Big Deal.
Was the Christian Church the first to really turn people against it? If so, why did they do it? And how was it regarded before that time?
My WAG is that the church needed its followers to reproduce massively, and specifically disallowed any tendencies that wouldn’t lead to procreation. Except why, then, are the priests supposed to be celibate?
So, to summarize, what circumstances led to homosexuality being regarded as any more strange than, say, being left-handed?
Way before the Christian church the Mosaic law of the Hebrews roundly condemned homosexuality, bestiality, incest, idolotry and a host of greater and lesser offenses. Many think it was partly in reaction to other surrounding cultures tolerating those things.
Also, other cultures might not actively “demonize” homosexuality, but I suspect (cites anyone?) that it is considered “queer” or “unmanly” in many. IIRC, in ancient Greece is was acceptable for two men to desire one another, but for them to romantically “love” each other was considered effeminate.
They incorporated it but they certainly had some bizarre rules about it. There are many insults referring to the passive act of homosexuality so there wasn’t exactly 100% acceptance.
Well the Christian Church didn’t really start cracking down on it until some time after 1000 AD. It was always a sin but it wasn’t always such a serious sin.
I think the Judeo Christian religions came from nomadic tribesman. I could see how heterosexuality would be promoted out of a desire to have many healthy children.
There is this strange misconception that polytheistic religions/cultures invariably tolerated or even celebrated homosexuality, until Christianity came along and spoiled the party for everyone.
Of course this is very far from reality. Sure, the Greeks thought some kinds of homosexual expression were wonderful, but it was a capital crime to the Romans, who thought the toleration of homosexuality by the Greeks was disgusting. And we can go to many other non-Christian parts of the world today and find out what they think of homosexuality. How is homosexuality viewed in non-Christian China? Sub-Saharan Africa? Hindu India?
I’d think the more relevant question would be who were the first not to? After all, it is odd. I’d guess the answer is lost in the mists of time. Humans were around quite a while before writing. How can we know if some cave man culture somewhere didn’t think it abnormal at all? My hunch is that in a number of early societies homosexuality wasn’t considered a big thing. They were more worried about just staying alive, and not so much what the cavemen Og and Zog did with each other’s genitals. Particularly if Og and Zog were great hunters and fighters.
In Sparta homosexual relationships were practically mandated for those in the military as it was thought that fostered a more cohesive and better fighting force (wonder what the Spartans would make of our “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy). This wasn’t entirely unique to Sparta either. Thebes had the “Sacred Band” which was a homosexual military group.
That said though I have had the sense that back then people were more likely to be bi-sexual. That is, the Spartans mentioned above might well have a wife and family but they engaged in homsexual activity in the belief it conferred some advantages when fighting. As such I am not sure you could call them homosexuals in a strict sense. So perhaps a man who was strictly homosexual may have been viewed differently (just making suppositions…I have no clue).
Right. They had two different meanings of the word “love” and really thought that since “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus”- men and women could never really understand each other, and thus not have the same depth of “love” that a man could with another man. They may have been on to something.
So, a man could be a masculine manly man, and still have a younger male lover- who he also loved- like a brother. But he was also expected to have a wife (whom he also loved, just in a different way) and father children. Men who only loved other men were thus thought to be somehow perverted. If you really need that next crop of sons for the next war- they may have had a point, I guess.
Likely Og was the first. Or maybe Zog the Shaman. Maybe even Ogette the Earth preistess, who knows? Certainly pre-history, anyway. Like I said- for a while, when a tribe really needed that next crop of kids- the taboo is perhaps understandable.
In animals, Homosexuality commonly appears when there is plenty of food/etc but limited room/space- thus my WAG is that Homosexuality wasn’t much of an issue until cities came along. I could be wrong, of course.
Lefthandedness has also been demonized and people were “trained out of their deviancy” within living memory. I think as a good general rule, anything that’s a trait of a minority of the population will have been mistreated for a large chunk of history.
For amusing trivia point: lefthanded redheads were considered under the protection of the god Set in ancient Egypt; Set is also the god of foreigners and is Himself bisexual.
Interesting! Rather begs the question: Just how many left-handed redheads would one expect to find in ancient Egypt, anyway? Sounds like a short list of traits that is sufficiently rare as to seem miraculous (I’m thinking of Quetzalcoatl supposedly being a blondie).
When speaking about Greek sexuality it’s important to remember that they weren’t a monolithic culture and they didn’t all think exactly alike. Although they all had some things in common the folks in Sparta lived quite differently then those hippie Athenians with their democracy and short hair!
There’s still some debate over the exact nature of the young Spartans relationship with the older Spartan though most agree there was some element of sexuality involved. The Athenians worried that the older male might take advantage of the younger and turn him into a sissy. So they took steps to ensure that the virtue of the younger would be protected.
It’s complicated but some of it had to do with the actual mechanics of sex which I don’t care to get into. Male love in the Greek world has been characterized by some as an exercise in power but I don’t think that’s quite true. It’s been characterized as the ultimate expression of their mysogynistic ways but that’s unfair I think since we find many examples of plays with men lusting for women.
Ultimately I’d have to argue that Greeks demonized homosexuals long before Christians were on the scene. Even though they did accept male/male love, hell, even Zeus picked up a boy because he was so beautiful and made him cupbearer to the Gods.
There is also no evidence of widespread acceptance of homosexuality outside of the cities we always hear thrown about - Athens, Thebes and Sparta. Even in those cities, it was constrained into very strict paradigms.
I think it is important to note that, even if there was such a thing as being ‘gay’ 2500 years ago (which is a big scholarly debate, Boswell vs. Halperin etc.), they certainly never thought of it in that way. The Greeks thought in terms of sexual acts and partners, rather than overarching sexualities.
In any case, while the Greeks had definite exceptions, I think you’d have to go further back than them.
You can also mention Native American tribes, though obviously it can become harder to track precise dates. Some were violently against homosexual expression, while others accepted it into roles within their societies.
I believe there’s some evidence that the Ramesseside Pharaohs were redheads; they certainly considered Set to be their family patron (“Seti” was the other common Pharaonic name in that Dynasty). I believe that redheadedness was certainly not unheard of, but also not common enough to get out of the natural domain of the God Of Abnormal Shit. (Isn’t there a north African nomadic tribe with a fairly high density of redheads? Or am I hallucinating?)
To get back in the vague direction of on-topic, there is some debate about the acceptability of homosexual relationships in Egypt; one of the Negative Confessions is commonly translated as being against it, but it may be better translated as a prohibition on paedophilia. I believe I read about some pharaohs having same-sex relationships “on the side” as it were, but don’t remember where. There is also the Tomb of the Two Brothers, in which two men (who are actually unrelated, despite having names devoted to the same god) are portrayed with each other as is commonly done with man-and-wife iconography. (Their respective wives are also buried there, IIRC, but have very little art time.) They’re awfully cute, IMO.
I think it can be said that the expectation to have a family and offspring was very strong in Egypt, as it was in most ancient societies, which makes it difficult to judge how people who would prefer to form relationships with members of their own sex fared. If there was the “being like a woman” stigma there, as there was in other cultures, I’m betting that was less severe, as the status of women in Egypt was, overall, pretty good for the ancient world.
