Homosexuality

Sexual Orientation and Homosexuality

What Is Sexual Orientation?

Sexual orientation is an enduring emotional, romantic, sexual, or affectional attraction toward others. It is easily distinguished from other components of sexuality including biological sex, gender identity (the psychological sense of being male or female), and the social gender role (adherence to cultural norms for feminine and masculine behavior).

Sexual orientation exists along a continuum that ranges from exclusive heterosexuality to exclusive homosexuality and includes various forms of bisexuality. Bisexual persons can experience sexual, emotional, and affectional attraction to both their own sex and the opposite sex. Persons with a homosexual orientation are sometimes referred to as gay (both men and women) or as lesbian (women only).

Sexual orientation is different from sexual behavior because it refers to feelings and self-concept. Individuals may or may not express their sexual orientation in their behaviors.

What Causes a Person To Have a Particular Sexual Orientation?

There are numerous theories about the origins of a person's sexual orientation. Most scientists today agree that sexual orientation is most likely the result of a complex interaction of environmental, cognitive and biological factors. In most people, sexual orientation is shaped at an early age. There is also considerable recent evidence to suggest that biology, including genetic or inborn hormonal factors, play a significant role in a person's sexuality.

It's important to recognize that there are probably many reasons for a person's sexual orientation, and the reasons may be different for different people.

Is Sexual Orientation a Choice?

No, human beings cannot choose to be either gay or straight. For most people, sexual orientation emerges in early adolescence without any prior sexual experience. Although we can choose whether to act on our feelings, psychologists do not consider sexual orientation to be a conscious choice that can be voluntarily changed.

Can Therapy Change Sexual Orientation?

No; even though most homosexuals live successful, happy lives, some homosexual or bisexual people may seek to change their sexual orientation through therapy, often coerced by family members or religious groups to try and do so. The reality is that homosexuality is not an illness. It does not require treatment and is not changeable. However, not all gay, lesbian, and bisexual people who seek assistance from a mental health professional want to change their sexual orientation. Gay, lesbian, and bisexual people may seek psychological help with the coming out process or for strategies to deal with prejudice, but most go into therapy for the same reasons and life issues that bring straight people to mental health professionals.

What About So-Called "Conversion Therapies"?

Some therapists who undertake so-called conversion therapy report that they have been able to change their clients' sexual orientation from homosexual to heterosexual. Close scrutiny of these reports, however. show several factors that cast doubt on their claims. For example, many of these claims come from organizations with an ideological perspective that condemns homosexuality. Furthermore, their claims are poorly documented; for example, treatment outcome is not followed and reported over time, as would be the standard to test the validity of any mental health intervention.

The American Psychological Association is concerned about such therapies and their potential harm to patients. In 1997, the Association's Council of Representatives passed a resolution reaffirming psychology's opposition to homophobia in treatment and spelling out a client's right to unbiased treatment and self-determination. Any person who enters into therapy to deal with issues of sexual orientation has a right to expect that such therapy will take place in a professionally neutral environment, without any social bias.

Is Homosexuality a Mental Illness or Emotional Problem?

No. Psychologists, psychiatrists, and other mental health professionals agree that homosexuality is not an illness, a mental disorder, or an emotional problem. More than 35 years of objective, well-designed scientific research has shown that homosexuality, in and itself, is not associated with mental disorders or emotional or social problems. Homosexuality was once thought to be a mental illness because mental health professionals and society had biased information.

In the past, the studies of gay, lesbian, and bisexual people involved only those in therapy, thus biasing the resulting conclusions. When researchers examined data about such people who were not in therapy, the idea that homosexuality was a mental illness was quickly found to be untrue.

In 1973 the American Psychiatric Association confirmed the importance of the new, better-designed research and removed homosexuality from the official manual that lists mental and emotional disorders. Two years later, the American Psychological Association passed a resolution supporting this removal.

For more than 25 years, both associations have urged all mental health professionals to help dispel the stigma of mental illness that some people still associate with homosexual orientation.

Can Lesbians, Gay Men, and Bisexuals Be Good Parents?

Yes. Studies comparing groups of children raised by homosexual and by heterosexual parents find no developmental differences between the two groups of children in four critical areas: their intelligence, psychological adjustment, social adjustment, and popularity with friends. It is also important to realize that a parent's sexual orientation does not indicate their children's.

Another myth about homosexuality is the mistaken belief that gay men have more of a tendency than heterosexual men to sexually molest children. There is no evidence to suggest that homosexuals molest children.

Why Do Some Gay Men, Lesbians, and Bisexuals Tell People About Their Sexual Orientation?

Because sharing that aspect of themselves with others is important to their mental health. In fact, the process of identity development for lesbians, gay men and bisexuals called "coming out" has been found to be strongly related to psychological adjustment;the more positive the gay, lesbian, or bisexual identity, the better one's mental health and the higher one's self-esteem.

Why Is the "Coming Out" Process Difficult for Some Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual People?

For some gay and bisexual people the "coming out" process is difficult; for others it is not. Often lesbian, gay and bisexual people feel afraid, different, and alone when they first realize that their sexual orientation is different from the community norm. This is particularly true for people becoming aware of their gay, lesbian, or bisexual orientation in childhood or adolescence, which is not uncommon. And depending on their families and their communities, they may have to struggle against prejudice and misinformation about homosexuality.

Children and adolescents may be particularly vulnerable to the harmful effects of bias and stereotypes. They may also fear being rejected by family, friends, co-workers, and religious institutions. Some gay people have to worry about losing their jobs or being harassed at school if their sexual orientation became well known.

Unfortunately, gay, lesbian, and bisexual people are at a higher risk for physical assault and violence than are heterosexuals. Studies done in California in the mid-1990s showed that nearly one-fifth of all lesbians who took part in the study, and more than one-fourthof all gay men who participated, had been the victim of a hate crime based on their sexual orientation. In another California study of approximately 500 young adults, half of all the young men participating in the study admitted to some form of anti-gay aggression, ranging from name-calling to physical violence.

What Can Be Done to Overcome the Prejudice and Discrimination that Gay Men, Lesbians, and Bisexuals Experience?

Research has found that the people who have the most positive attitudes toward gay men, lesbians, and bisexuals are those who say they know one or more gay, lesbian or bisexual person well, often as a friend or co-worker. For this reason, psychologists believe that negative attitudes toward gay people as a group are prejudices that are not grounded in actual experience but are based on stereotypes and misinformation. Furthermore, protection against violence and discrimination are very important, just as they are for any other minority groups. Some states include violence against an individual on the basis of his or her sexual orientation as a "hate crime," and ten U.S. states have laws against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

Why Is it Important for Society to be Better Educated About Homosexuality?

Educating all people about sexual orientation and homosexuality is likely to diminish anti-gay prejudice. Accurate information about homosexuality is especially important to young people who are first discovering and seeking to understand their sexuality,whether homosexual, bisexual, or heterosexual. Fears that access to such information will make more people gay have no validity; information about homosexuality does not make someone gay or straight.

Are All Gay and Bisexual Men HIV Infected?

No. This is a common myth. In reality, the risk of exposure to HIV is related to a person's behavior, not their sexual orientation. What's important to remember about HIV/AIDS is that contracting the disease can be prevented by using safe sex practices and by not using drugs.

Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde

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Etymology of Homosexuality

The word “homosexual” is a Greek and Latin hybrid. The first part of the word, homo, is often mistaken as the Latin derivative for “man,” but actually goes back to the Greek word for “same.” This also explains why the term can be used to represent the entire range of same-sex relations and affections, including lesbianism. Contrary to popular opinion, the word “homosexual” was coined not by psychiatrists or scientists but by a person who was fighting for homosexual rights. It was first seen in public print in 1869 when it appeared in two anonymous German pamphlets. The term was used in the pamphlet alongside “normalsexual.” These pamphlets were published as a method of fighting against the criminalization of homosexual sex in the newly formed federation of the northern German states. Journalists in the first part of the twentieth century readily adopted the term and made it available for use in everyday language while psychiatric circles continued to use the term “sexual inversion.

While the term “homosexual” was not created until the end of the nineteenth century, same-sex love has been practiced since the beginning of civilization. In ancient Greece and Rome the pairing of same sex partners during the act of lovemaking was not considered out of the ordinary. The disapproving connotations attached to homosexuality began to enter into the thought patterns of Roman society just prior to the emergence of Christianity. As Christianity flourished, the expression of sexuality for any reason other than procreation was considered very sinful, hence the initial persecution of homosexuals. In Justinian’s code from 529 AD, people who engaged in homosexual acts were executed, although anyone who repented was spared. Still, there is evidence of homophilic literature as late as the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and the persecution of homosexual sex didn’t become prevalent until the latter part of the twelfth century.

During the Middle Ages the term “sodomy” first came into use to describe homosexual love. It originated from Medieval Latin around 1180 as a designation for “crime against nature.” There were three methods by which this crime could be committed: first, by obtaining venereal pleasure with a member of the opposite sex, but “in the wrong manner;” second, by having sex with an individual of the same sex; and third, by having sex with an animal. The abstract noun sodomia (for the sin) originated from sodomita (for the sinner) which was first used with reference to an inhabitant of the city of Sodom. According to the Bible, Sodom was destroyed for the sexual depravity of its male population which had attempted to rape two angels. From Medieval Latin it passed into the languages of Western and Central Europe as the technical expression for a crime which was punishable by death until the second half of the eighteenth century. The terms “Sodomy” and “Sodomite” thus embrace more than just homosexual sex, although most of the prosecutions were for either male homosexuality or bestiality. During the last third of the nineteenth century, the term “Sodomy” usually denoted anal penetration, both homosexual and heterosexual. In England, specifically, it was considered a more sophisticated alternative to the term “bugger.” The term “buggery” had been used universally in English law since the early eighteenth-century to describe “criminally unnatural intercourse” under the same circumstances outlined for “Sodomy” above -- not including lesbian sex. Lesbianism was never criminalized in England. As Queen Victoria said, “women don’t do such things.”

The History of Sexuality

Main article: The History of Sexuality

Three volumes of The History of Sexuality were published before Foucault's death in 1984. The first and most referenced volume, The Will to Knowledge (previously known as An Introduction in English — Histoire de la sexualité, 1: la volonté de savoir in French) was published in France in 1976, and translated in 1977, focusing primarily on the last two centuries, and the functioning of sexuality as an analytics of power related to the emergence of a science of sexuality (scientia sexualis) and the emergence of biopower in the West. In this volume he attacks the "repressive hypothesis," the widespread belief that we have, particularly since the nineteenth century, "repressed" our natural sexual drives. He shows that what we think of as "repression" of sexuality actually constituted sexuality as a core feature of our identities, and produced a proliferation of discourse on the subject.

The second two volumes, The Use of Pleasure (Histoire de la sexualite, II: l'usage des plaisirs) and The Care of the Self (Histoire de la sexualité, III: le souci de soi) dealt with the role of sex in Greek and Roman antiquity. Both were published in 1984, the year of Foucault's death, with the second volume being translated in 1985, and the third in 1986. In his lecture series from 1979 to 1980 Foucault extended his analysis of government to its 'wider sense of techniques and procedures designed to direct the behaviour of men', which involved a new consideration of the 'examination of conscience' and confession in early Christian literature. These themes of early Christian literature seemed to dominate Foucault's work, alongside his study of Greek and Roman literature, until the end of his life. However, Foucault's death left the work incomplete, and the planned fourth volume of his History of Sexuality on Christianity was never published. The fourth volume was to be entitled Confessions of the Flesh (Les aveux de la chair). The volume was almost complete before Foucault's death and a copy of it is privately held in the Foucault archive. It cannot be published under the restrictions of Foucault's estate.^[6]

Pederasty in ancient Greece

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Pederastic courtship scene
Athenian black-figure amphora, 5th c. BC, Painter of Cambridge; Object currently in the collection of the Staatliche Antikensammlungen und Glyptothek, Munich, Germany.

The bearded man is depicted in a traditional pederastic courtship gesture known as the "up-and-down" gesture: one hand reaching to fondle the young man, the other grasping his chin so as to look him in the eye.^[1]

Greek pederasty, as idealised by the Greeks from Archaic times onward, was a relationship and bond between an adolescent boy and an adult man outside of his immediate family, and was constructed initially as an aristocratic moral and educational institution.^{[citation needed]} As such, it was seen by the Greeks as an essential element in their culture from the time of Homer onwards.^[2]

The term derives from the combination of pais (Greek for 'boy') with erastēs (Greek for 'lover'; cf. eros). In a wider sense it referred to erotic love between adolescents and adult men.^{[citation needed]} The Greeks considered it normal for any man to be drawn to the beauty of a boy—just as much if not more than to that of a woman.^[3] What they disagreed upon was whether and how to express that desire.

Pederasty is closely associated with the customs of athletic and artistic nudity in the gymnasia, delayed marriage for gentlemen, symposia and seclusion of women.^[4] It is also integral to Greek military training, and at times a factor in the deployment of troops.

Analogous relations between Greek women and adolescent girls have been reported by Plutarch, Xenophon and others. See Lesbian for details.

Contents [hide]    1 History    1.1 Possible beginnings    1.2 Alternative forms    1.3 Problematics    1.4 Evolution and extinction    2 Philosophical discourses    3 Social aspects    4 Synergy with sports    5 Educational and military aspects    5.1 Military function    6 Sexual aspects    7 Religious aspects    8 Political aspects    9 Regional characteristics    9.1 Athens    9.2 Chalkis    9.3 Crete    9.4 Ionia and Aeolia    9.5 Megara    9.6 Sparta    9.7 Thebes    10 Influence on literature and the arts    11 Ceremonies and proverbs    12 Modern scholarship    13 Notes    14 See also    15 References    16 External links

[edit] History

Pan teaching Daphnis to play the pipes
Copy of marble by Helidorus; ca. 100 BC Found in Pompeii; Naples Archeological Museum; Photo: A. Calimach

[edit] Possible beginnings

The ancient Greeks were the first to describe, study, systematize, and establish pederasty as an institution. The origin of that tradition has been variously explained. One school of thought, articulated by Bernard Sergent, holds that the Greek pederastic model evolved from far older Indo-European rites of passage, which were grounded in a shamanic tradition with roots in the Neolithic.

Another explanation, articulated by Anglophone scholars such as William Percy, holds that pederasty was formalized in ancient Crete around 630 BC as a means of population control, together with delayed age of marriage for men of thirty years.

This section may contain original research or unverified claims. Please help Wikipedia by adding references. See the talk page for details.(January 2008)

Yet another theory concerns the Greek masculine aristocracy's conception of gender in Greek society: They believed themselves as Greeks to be an 'enlightened' race but did not include Greek women in that definition. Therefore, if one were seeking a relationship among equals one must seek another enlightened male. This conception of an enlightened society relating only to the male members of the culture is not unique (see semitic and roman cultures for examples) but tolerance of the sexual expression of that concept is unique to the ancient Greeks in comparison to those 'contemporaries'.

The earliest Greek texts, specifically the works attributed to Homer, do not overtly document formal pederastic practices. A number of theories attempt to explain that lack. A largely held view is the Dorian hypothesis first established by K.O. Müller in the 1800s.^[5] According to this theory pederasty was brought in by the Dorian warrior tribes who conquered Greece around 1200 BC.^{[citation needed]} They settled most of the Peloponnese along with the islands Crete, Thera, and Rhodes. This forced the Ionian Greeks towards Asia Minor but left important cities in Attica and Euboea. Another explanation is that the epic style excluded discussion of certain topics, among them pederastic relations.^{[citation needed]} Nevertheless, Homer's works hint at homoerotic relationships obliquely, as in the mentions of the myth of Zeus and Ganymede in the Iliad and the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite.

[edit] Alternative forms

Pederasty was constructed in various ways. In some areas, such as Boeotia, the man and boy were formally joined together and lived as a couple. In other areas, such as Elis, boys were persuaded by means of gifts, and in a few, such as Ionia,^[6] such relations were forbidden altogether. The Spartans however were said to practise chaste pederasty.^[7] Where allowed, a free man was usually entitled to fall in love with a boy, proclaim it publicly, and court him as long as the boy in question manifested the traits prerequisite to a pederastic relationship: he had to be kalos (καλός), "handsome" and agathos (ἀγαθός), good, brave, just, and modest. The boy was expected to be circumspect and not let himself be easily won. Generally, the role of the lover had many of the characteristics of that of legal guardian, similar to the role of male relatives of the boy.

Poets such as Theognis and Anacreon self-identify as pederasts, each thus presenting a persona embodying his own ideals for the tradition. In the case of Theognis, pederasty is political and pedagogical — the elite male's method of passing on his wisdom and loyalties to his beloved. Anacreon's values are erotic and Dionysiac, which is to say sensual and spiritual, and no less ideal than those of Theognis. Vase iconography of the period is consistent with this interpretation: the gifts offered, and the context of the gymnasium speak of pedagogic values, while the repeated inscriptions of "KALOS" idealize the beauty and physical attraction of the erōmenos (the beloved boy).^[8]

[edit] Problematics

Foucault declared that pederasty was "problematized" in Greek culture, that it was "the object of a special — and especially intense — moral preoccupation" focusing on concern with the chastity/moderation of the erōmenos (the term used for the "beloved" youth). Foucault's conclusions however are now thought to hold true only of Classical Athenian texts, while in Archaic Greece pederasty, rather than being problematized, was variously associated with the highest ideals.^[9]

A different perspective is offered by Jeremy Bentham, in an essay written in 1785, not published in his lifetime, and which only saw the light of day in 1978. According to Bentham, what was condemned by the Greeks was not the same-sex aspect of the relationship, but immoderation such as may also be implicated in relationships with women: "They might be ashamed of what they looked upon as an excess in it, or they might be ashamed of it as a weakness, as a propensity that had a tendency to distract men from more worthy and important occupations, just as a man with us might be ashamed of excess or weakness in his love for women."^[10]

The study of Greek pederasty is complicated by the fact that the pederastic record has been subject to systematic destruction since antiquity. Of all the Greek works dealing principally with love between people of the same sex, none has survived, suggesting to at least one historian that "queer works were deliberately suppressed and destroyed rather than merely lost during the passage of time,"^[11] though in general only a small percentage of ancient literature has been preserved. Nonetheless, there are some conspicuous exceptions to the general picture such as the Paidikē Mousa of Strato and the Erōtes of Pseudo-Lucian.

[edit] Evolution and extinction

Greek pederasty went through a series of changes over the millennium from its entry into the historical record and its final demise as an official institution. In some areas, such as Athens, the construction of the relationship seems to have gone from greater modesty in the early days to a freer physicality and lack of restraint in classical times, followed by a return to a more spiritual form in the early fifth century.^{[citation needed]} Its formal end resembled its beginning, in that it came by official decree – that of emperor Justinian, who also put an end to other institutions that sustained ancient culture, such as Plato's Academy and the Olympic Games.

[edit] Philosophical discourses

Main article: Philosophy of Greek pederasty

Tomb of the Diver

Socrates, Plato, Aeschines Socraticus, and Xenophon described the inspirational powers of love between men though decrying its physical expression. Upon the death of Plato the presidency of the Academy passed from lover to lover. Of the Stoics, Chrysippus, Cleanthes, and Zeno fell in love with young men. The topic of pederasty was the subject of extensive analysis. Some of the principal dilemmas discussed were:

   Which form should pederasty take, chaste or erotic?

   Is pederasty right or wrong?

   Is pederasty better or worse than the love of women?

Socrates, as represented in Plato's writings, appears to have favored chaste pederastic relationships, marked by a balance between desire and self-control. By setting aside the sexual consummation of the relationship, Socrates essentialized the friendship and love between the partners. He pointedly criticized purely physical infatuations, for example by mocking Critias' lust for Euthydemus by comparing his behavior towards the boy to that of "a piglet scratching itself against a rock".^[12] That, however, did not prevent him from frequenting the boy brothels, from which he bought and freed his future friend and student, Phaedo, nor from describing his erotic intoxication upon glimpsing the beautiful Charmides' naked body beneath his open tunic.^[13]

Socrates' love of Alcibiades, which was more than reciprocated, is held as an example of chaste pederasty. Plutarch and Xenophon, in their descriptions of Spartan pederasty, state that even though it is the beautiful boys who are sought above all others (contrary to the Cretan traditions), nevertheless the pederastic couple remains chaste.

Male relationships were represented in complex ways, some honorable and others dishonorable. But for the vast majority of ancient historians for a man to have not had a youth for a lover presented a deficiency in character. Plato, in his early works (the Symposium or in Phaedrus), does not question the principles of pederasty and states, referring to same-sex relationships:

   For I know not any greater blessing to a young man who is beginning in life than a virtuous lover, or to a lover than a beloved youth. For the principle, I say, neither kindred, nor honor, nor wealth, nor any motive is able to implant so well as love. Of what am I speaking? Of the sense of honor and dishonor, without which neither states nor individuals ever do any good or great work… And if there were only some way of contriving that a state or an army should be made up of lovers and their loves, they would be the very best governors of their own city, abstaining from all dishonor and emulating one another in honor; and it is scarcely an exaggeration to say that when fighting at each other’s side, although a mere handful, they would overcome the world.^[14]

Later, however, in his Laws, Plato spoke up against the decadence into which traditional Athenian pederasty was sinking, blamed pederasty for promoting civil strife and driving many to their wits' end, and recommended the prohibition of sexual intercourse with boys, laying out a path whereby this may be accomplished.^[15]

Other writers, often under the guise of "debates" between lovers of boys and lovers of women, have recorded other arguments used for and against pederasty. Some, like the charge that the practice was "unnatural" and not to be found among "the lions and the bears," applied to all relationships between men and youths. Others' charges do not involve traditional pederasty, but practices devised for the sexual satisfaction of the strong at the expense of the weak. Chief among these is denouncement of the castration of captive slave boys. As Lucian has it, "Effrontery and tyrannical violence have gone as far as to mutilate nature with a sacrilegious steel, finding, by ripping from males their very manhood, a way to prolong their use."^[16]"Erotes" text at Diotima

[edit] Social aspects

Image:Greek homosexual couple.jpg

Two lovers
Red-figure kylix by Peithinos (detail). Late sixth century BC. The border of the cup shows men courting youths and hetaerae (high-class prostitutes), who all put up varying degrees of resistance. Found in Vulci, Italy. Staatliche Museen, Berlin

The erastes-eromenos relationship was fundamental to the Classical Greek social and educational system, had its own complex social-sexual etiquette and was an important social institution among the upper class.^[17] Pederastic relationships were dyadic mentorships. These mentorships were sanctioned by the state, as evidenced by laws mandating and controlling such relationships. Likewise, they were consecrated by the religious establishment, as can be seen from the many myths describing such relationships between gods and heroes (Apollo and Hyacinth, Zeus and Ganymede, Heracles and Hylas, Pan and Daphnis) and between one hero and another (Achilles and Patroclus, Orestes and Pylades). (It is interesting to note that the Greeks tried to project a semblance of pederasty (read: propriety) onto these last two pairs, despite a great deal of evidence that the two myths were originally intended to symbolize egalitarian relationships.) In general, the pederasty described in the Greek literary sources is clearly an aristocratic institution.

Historical as well as mythographical materials suggest that pederastic relationships required the consent of the boy's father. In Crete, in order for the suitor to carry out the ritual abduction, the father had to approve him as worthy of the honor. Among the Athenians, as Socrates claims in Xenophon's Symposium, "Nothing [of what concerns the boy] is kept hidden from the father, by an ideal^[18] lover."^[19] This is consistent with the paramount role of the Greek patriarch, who had the right of life and death over his children. It is also consistent with the importance that a son would have had for him. Besides the bond of love between them, a son was the only hope for the survival of a Greek man's name, fortune and glory. In order to protect their sons from inappropriate attempts at seduction, fathers appointed slaves named pedagogues to watch over their sons. However, according to Aeschines, Athenian fathers would pray that their sons would be handsome and attractive, with the full knowledge that they would then invariably attract the attention of men and "be the objects of fights because of erotic passions"^[20]

Boys entered into such relationships in their teens, around the same age that Greek girls were given in marriage – also to adult husbands many years their senior. There was a difference between the two types of bonding: boys usually had to be courted and were free to choose their mate. Girls, on the other hand, were used for economic and political advantage, their marriages contracted at the discretion of the father and the suitor.

The pattern was for the younger partners to remain in the relationship until reaching maturity: "Pederasty was widely accepted in Greece as part of a male's coming-of-age, even if its function is still widely debated."^[21][22]

The function of the relationship seems to have been the introduction of the young man into adult society and adult responsibilities. To that end the mentor was expected to teach the young man or to see to his education, and to give him certain appropriate ceremonial gifts. For example, in Crete, an ox, a suit of armor, and a chalice (from kylix, Greek for wine cup), signifying his empowerment in agriculture, war and religion; in Boeotia, the eromenos received a military outfit upon coming of age. The bond between the two participants seems to have been based in part on mutual love and desire – usually sexually expressed – and in part on the political interests of the two families. A great deal of importance was placed on the friendship between the two, as shown by a contemporary proverb, A lover is the best friend a boy will ever have.^[23] The relationships were open and public, and became part of the biography of the person. Thus when Spartan historians wrote about a personage they would usually indicate whom it was that he had heard or whom it was that he inspired.

For the youth – and his family – one important advantage of being mentored by an influential older man was an expanded social network. Thus, some considered it desirable to have had many older lovers / mentors in one’s younger years, both attesting to one's physical beauty and paving the way for attaining important positions in society. Typically, after their sexual relationship had ended and the young man had married, the older man and his protégé would remain on close terms throughout their life. For those lovers who continued their lovemaking after their beloveds had matured, the Greeks made allowances, saying, You can lift up a bull, if you carried the calf.^[24]

Pederasty was the idealized form of an age-structured homoeroticism that, like all social institutions, had other, less idyllic, manifestations, such as prostitution or the use of one’s slave boys. However, certain forms were prohibited, such as slaves making love to boys (though their access to women was unimpeded),^[25] or paying free boys or young men for sex. Free youths who did sell their favors were generally ridiculed and later in life were prohibited from performing certain official functions.

A prosecution by an Athenian politician, Aeschines, in 346 BC, Against Timarchus, is an example of how these regulations were used to political advantage. In his speech, Aeschines argues against further allowing Timarchus, an experienced middle-aged politician, his political rights, on account of his having spent his adolescence as the kept boy of a series of wealthy men. Aeschines won his case, and Timarchus was sentenced to atimia. But Aeschines is careful to acknowledge what seemingly all Athens knows: his own dalliances with beautiful boys, the erotic poems he dedicated to these youths, and the scrapes he has gotten into as a result of his affairs, none of which — he hastens to point out — were mediated by money.

Even when lawful, it was not uncommon for the relationship to fail, as it was said of many boys that they "hated no one as much as the man who had been their lover". See Death of King Philip II of Macedon Likewise, the Cretans required the boy to declare whether the relationship had been to his liking, thus giving him an opportunity to break it off if any violence had been done to him.

[edit] Synergy with sports

The institution of pederasty was inseparable from that of organized sports. The main venue for men and boys to meet and spend time together, and for the men to educate the boys in the arts of warfare, sports, and philosophy was the gymnasium, which was preeminently the training ground for these disciplines, and one of the principal venues for pederastic relationships. In particular, the practice of exercising nude was held to be of the utmost importance in the cult of beauty and eros which permeated pederastic societies. "The cities which have most to do with gymnastics", is the phrase which Plato uses to describe the states where Greek love flourished.^[26] "Gymnastics" in this instance conveys not only the sense of athletic discipline but also, from the Greek gymnos, "nude", the fact that all these exercises were taken by men and boys who were naked, and thus especially liable to be excited by physical beauty.

The beauty and erotic power of the naked body was highlighted by the custom of oiling one's body for exercise. The provision of oil for such decoration was the greatest expense of a gymnasium, and had to be heavily subsidized by the public coffers or private donors. The practice itself varied over time: in the early days it was said that modesty prevented the boys from drawing attention to their sexuality by oiling themselves below the waist. Such restraint was presumably cast by the wayside by Plato's time.

The relationship between a trainer and his athletes often had an erotic dimension, and the same place which served as training ground served equally for erotic dalliances, as can be seen from the many scenes of seduction and lovemaking depicting implements found at palaestras, such as sponges and strigils.

[edit] Educational and military aspects

Ancient writers, as well as modern historians such as Bruce Thornton, hold that the goal of paiderastia was pedagogical, the channeling of Eros into the creation of noble and good citizens. The various mythographical materials available suggest religious training (see story of Tantalus, Poseidon, and Pelops) as well as military training (Hercules and Hylas). The theme of learning to drive a war chariot occurs repeatedly (Poseidon and Pelops, Laius and Chrysippus). Apollo is said to have taught Orpheus, one of his beloveds, to play the harp. And Zeus had Ganymede serve nectar, a theme with religious connotations. It is thus plausible to assume that even as the loves of the gods paralleled and symbolized those of the mortals, their pedagogy pointed to aspects of the educational process that took place between a lover and his beloved.

In talking about the Cretan rite, the historian Ephorus informs us that the man (known as philetor, befriender) took the boy (known as kleinos, "glorious") into the wilderness, where they spent several months hunting and feasting with their friends. If the boy was satisfied with the conduct of his would-be comrade, he changed his title from kleinos to parastates (comrade and bystander in the ranks of battle and life), returned to the philetor and lived in close bonds of public intimacy with him. Ephorus' account does not discuss the educational aspects of the sojourn. However, this is clearly a coming-of-age rite culminating in a major ceremony upon the return of the pair from the mountains, and a process of acculturation into male society is implied.^[27] (See [4] for Athenian practices and philosophy)

[edit] Military function

Military training is inseparable from the other educational aspects of pederasty since the times of the Ancient Greeks were marked by continuous warfare, both internal and external. Martial prowess was held in the highest esteem, and one of the principal functions of pederastic relationships was the cultivation of bravery and fighting skills.

[edit] Sexual aspects

According to ancient sources, the sexual aspect of pederastic relationships varied greatly. At one extreme relationships were claimed to be loving but chaste, while at the other end of the spectrum we read about couples accused of engaging in anal sex and of switching roles.^[28] Cicero, describing Spartan customs, suggests that relations were expected to stop short of consummation, "The Lacedaemonians, while they permit all things except outrage [[hybris]] in the love of youths, certainly distinguish the forbidden by a thin wall of partition from the sanctioned, for they allow embraces and a common couch to lovers."^[29] On the other hand, one Athenian term for sodomy was "to do it the Lacedemonian way," thought today to have been an insult at the expense of the Spartans, traditional enemies of the Athenians. Literary sources are a lot more risqué, especially ancient comedy. For example, Aristophanes, in 'Peace', his parody of Ganymede riding on the back of Zeus in eagle form, has his character ride to Olympus on the back of a dung beetle, a scatological pun on anal sex. Some modern historians, such as Thornton, conclude that whether the relationship was consummated or not probably depended on the partners.

Ceramic paintings of pederastic courtship depict the older partner supplicating the younger, in a variation of the Greek gesture for pleading. Normally the supplicant embraced the knees of the person whose favor he sought, while grasping the man's chin so as to look into his eyes. The painted vases show the man standing, grasping the boy's chin with one hand and reaching to fondle his genitals with the other. The boys are shown in varying degrees of rejecting or accepting the man's attentions. When sexual relations are shown, it is intercrural intercourse, known as diamerizein (to do it between the thighs), that is depicted. The partners are shown standing face to face. The erastes embraces the youth, his head resting on the boy’s shoulder, while his penis is thrust between the clasped thighs of the eromenos.

Only very rarely is anal sex suggested or shown, and then it is depicted as eliciting surprise from the bystanders. A number of other sources also suggest it was seen as shameful. Among these is a fable attributed to Aesop which tells that Aeschyne (Shame) consented to enter the human body from behind only as long as Eros did not follow the same path, and would fly away right off if he did.^[30] Other literary and epigraphic indications, such as the Theran graffiti suggest it was more common.^[31]

K. J. Dover states that the eromenos was not "supposed" to feel desire for the erastes, as that would be unmanly.^[32] More recent evidence suggests that in actual practice (as opposed to theory) there was, in fact, reciprocation of desire. As Thomas Hubbard points out in a critique of David Halperin's contention that boys were not aroused, some vases do show boys as being sexually responsive, and "Fondling a boy's organ (cf. Aristophanes, Birds 142) was one of the most commonly represented courtship gestures on the vases. What can the point of this act have been unless lovers in fact derived some pleasure from feeling and watching the boy's developing organ wake up and respond to their manual stimulation?"^[33]

The theme of mutuality of desire was a topic of discussion in ancient times as well. While the passive role was seen as problematic, to be attracted to men was often taken as a sign of masculinity, and it was thought that the boys who most sought the company and affections of men were the most likely to be successful in life.

[edit] Religious aspects

Ganymede rolling a hoop and bearing aloft a cockerel - a love gift from Zeus (in pursuit, on obverse of vase).
Attic red-figure crater, 500-490 BC; Painter of Berlin; Louvre, Paris)

Myths provide more than fifty examples of young men who were the lovers of gods.^[34] Poets and traditions ascribe Zeus, Poseidon, Apollo, Orpheus, Hercules, Dionysus, Hermes, and Pan to such love. All the main gods of the pantheon except Ares had these relationships.

Mythographic material suggests that the initiate experienced ecstatic states of spirit journey leading to mystic death and transfiguration, analogous to practices still reported today in shamanic work. If so, by the fifth century the Greeks had forgotten the connection. In 476 BC, the poet Pindar, in his Olympian Ode I, claims to be horrified by suggestions that the gods would eat human flesh – in this context, an obvious shamanic metaphor. An opposite theory (discussed by Murray in his Homosexualities) gives credence to the texts that credit (or blame) the Cretans with its origination (Aristotle et al.) and notes the anomaly of an apparent path of diffusion radiating from Crete, while the areas (in the north of Greece) closest to the Indo-European sources are not known to have institutionalized the practice.

Myths also were a vehicle for conveying a set of moral standards for such relationship. In the myth of Zeus and Ganymede, when Zeus sends gifts and assurances to Tros, king of Troy and father of Ganymede, the ancients were reminded that even the king of Heaven must show consideration to the father of the eromenos. Many of the other pederastic myths likewise incorporate the presence of the father, suggesting an essential role for the father in these relationships. The myths also spoke directly to the youths, as is shown by a recently discovered version of the Narcissus myth. This, a more archaic version than the one related by Ovid in his Metamorphoses, is a moral tale in which the proud and unfeeling Narcissus is punished by the gods for having spurned all his male suitors.^[35]

[edit] Political aspects

The state benefitted from these relationships, according to the statements of ancient writers. The friendship functioned as a restraint on the youth, since if he committed a crime it was not he but his lover who was punished. In the military the lovers fought side by side, with each vying to shine before the other. Thus, it was said that an army of lovers would be invincible, as was the case until the battle of Chaeronea with the Sacred Band of Thebes, a battalion of one hundred and fifty warriors pairs, each lover fighting beside his beloved.

Pederastic couples were also said to be fundamental to democracy and feared by tyrants, because the bond between the friends was stronger than that of obedience to a tyrannical ruler. Athenaeus states that "Hieronymus the Aristotelian says that love with boys was fashionable because several tyrannies had been overturned by young men in their prime, joined together as comrades in mutual sympathy." He gives as examples of such pederastic couples the Athenians Harmodius and Aristogeiton, who were credited (perhaps symbolically) with the overthrow of the tyrant Hippias and the establishment of the democracy, and also Chariton and Melanippus. Others, such as Aristotle, claimed that some states encouraged pederasty as a means of population control, by directing love and sexual desire into non-procreative channels, a feature of pederasty also employed by other cultures.^[36]

Political leaders Solon, Peisistratus, Hippias, Hipparchus, Themistocles, Aristides, Critias, Demosthenes, and Aeschines of Athens; Pausanias, Lysander, and Agesilaus of Sparta; Polycrates of Samos; Hieron and Agathocles of Syracuse; Epaminondas and Pelopidas of Thebes; and Archelaus, Philip II, and Alexander of Macedon were recorded to have had same-sex relationships.

[edit] Regional characteristics

Narcissus
A Boeotian hero whose archaic myth was a cautionary tale warning boys against being cruel to their lovers.

The structure of pederastic practices varied from one polis to another, differences that often became the basis of competition or denigration between the cities. For example, the character of Pausanias in Plato's Symposium unfavorably compares regions such as Elis and Boeotia, where men are "unskilled in speech" and boys are permitted to yield uncritically, or Ionia, where boys are forbidden to yield, to the superior pederasty of Athens and Sparta, where men are well versed in the art of rhetoric and boys relate critically to their suitors, choosing only the most persuasive.

[edit] Athens

Main article: Athenian pederasty

The first legislator of the pederastic tradition in Athens is said to be the lawgiver Solon, who also composed poetry praising the love of boys.^[37] The lover was known as the erastes, and his young partner as the eromenos or paidika.. High society generally encouraged the erastes to pursue a boy to love. At the same time, the boy and his family were expected to be selective and not yield too easily.

Pederastic affairs were the butt of jokes for the commoners. Athenian philosophers, around the end of the fifth century, prompted by a discomfort with the lack of self-restraint and crude sexuality of some pederastic relationships, elaborated a philosophy of pederasty that valorized chaste pederastic relations.

[edit] Chalkis

Chalkis was also known in Greece as one of the centers of pederasty, leading the Athenians to jocularly use the verb chalkidizein for "sodomize". In talking about the origin of the Ganymede myth, Athenaeus claims that "the Chalcidians assert that Ganymede was carried off by Zeus in their own country, and they point out the place, calling it Harpagion." Initially the Chalcidians were said to have frowned on pederasty. However, being in military straits in a war against the Eretrians, they called for the aid of a warrior named Cleomachus. Cleomachus brought his eromenos along. In sight of the boy he displayed great bravery, leading the Chalcidian charge against the Eretians, bringing victory to the Chalcidians at the cost of his own life. The Chalcidians erected a tomb for him in their marketplace and from that time on began to honor pederasty. Aristotle attributed a popular local song to the event:

Ye lads of grace and sprung from worthy stock
Grudge not to bravemen converse with your beauty
In cities of Chalcis, Love, looser of limbs
Thrives side by side with courage.

[edit] Crete

Main article: Cretan pederasty

The Cretans, a Dorian people described by Plutarch as renowned for their moderation and conservative ways, practiced an archaic form of pederasty in which the man enacted a ritual kidnapping of a boy of his choosing, with the consent of the boy's father.

Aristotle states that it was king Minos who established pederasty as a means of population control on the island community. This custom was highly regarded, and it was considered shameful for a youth to not acquire a male lover. These same Cretans were credited with introducing the myth of Zeus kidnapping Ganymede to be his lover in Olympus – though even the king of the gods had to make amends to the father.

[edit] Ionia and Aeolia

Most of the early pederastic elegiac poets, with the exception of Theognis and Tyrtaeus, were of Aeolian and Ionian descent. Unlike the warlike mainland Greeks, these were sailors and merchants. They seem to have transformed the compulsory Doric pederasty of martial apprenticeship into an elective, intellectual undertaking, and indulged in it extensively.

Their tradition featured poets such as Anacreon, and Alcaeus, a man also reputed for his bravery and political skills, who composed many of the sympotic skolia that were to become later part of the mainland tradition. Unlike the Dorians, where a lover would usually have only one eromenos, in the east a man might have several eromenoi over the course of his life. From the poems of Alcaeus we learn that the lover would customarily invite his eromenos to dine with him.^[38] However, once Ionia was annexed by the Persians, the practice was outlawed. This was regarded as reflecting moral weakness. On one hand it revealed the rulers' greed for power - thus their suppression of customs likely to lead to strong friendships and inquisitive minds, the product of love. On the other, it revealed the cowardice of the subjects.^[39]

[edit] Megara

A lover and a beloved kiss
Tondo from an Attic kylix, 5th c. BC by the Briseis painter. Louvre

One of the first cities after Sparta to be associated with the custom of athletic nudity, Megara was home to the runner Orsippus who was famed as the first to run the footrace naked at the Olympic games and "first of all Greeks to be crowned victor naked."^[40][41]

Megara was also the home of the poet Theognis, among whose works are many pederastic compositions, often addressed to his beloved Cyrnus. In his work he associates naked athletics with pederasty:

Happy is the lover who works out naked
And then goes home to sleep all day with a beautiful boy.^[42]

Many critics hold that his is not the work of a single poet but represents "several generations of wisdom poetry." The poems are "social, political, or ethical precepts transmitted to Cyrnus as part of his formation into an adult Megarian aristocrat in Theognis' own image."^[43]

It has been noted that in the seventh century, when pederasty is postulated to have first been formalized in Dorian cities, Megara cultivated good relations with Sparta, and may have been culturally attracted to emulate Spartan practices.^[44]

Another poet, Theocritus, describes a local kissing contest for boys:

And ye Megarians, at Nesaea dwelling,
Expert at rowing, mariners excelling,
Be happy ever! for with honors due
Th' Athenian Diocles, to friendship true
Ye celebrate. With the first blush of spring
The youth surround his tomb: there who shall bring
The sweetest kiss. whose lip is Purest found,

Back to his mother goes with garlands crowned.
Nice touch the arbiter must have indeed,
And must, methinks, the blue-eyed Ganymede
Invoke with many prayers—a mouth to own
True to the touch of lips, as Lydian stone
To proof of gold—which test will instant show
The pure or base, as money changers know.^[45]

[edit] Sparta

Main article: Spartan pederasty

Sparta, another Dorian polis, is thought to be the first city to practice athletic nudity, and one of the first to formalize pederasty.^[46] The Spartans believed that the love of an older, accomplished aristocrat for an adolescent was essential to his formation as a free citizen. The agoge, the education of the ruling class, was thus founded on pederastic relationships required of each citizen.^[47]

Many ancient writers held that Spartan pederasty was chaste, though still erotic.^[48] Plutarch also describes the relationships as chaste, and states that it was as unthinkable for a lover to sexually consummate a relationship with his beloved as for a father to do so with his own son.^[49] Aelian goes even farther, stating that if any couple succumbed to temptation and indulged in carnal relations, they would have to redeem the affront to the honor of Sparta by either going into exile or taking their own lives.^[50]

The lover was responsible for the boy's training. Pederasty and military training were intimately connected in Sparta, as in many other cities. The Spartans, claims Athenaeus^[51] sacrificed to Eros before every battle.

[edit] Thebes

Main article: Theban pederasty

In Thebes, the main polis in Boeotia, renowned for its practice of pederasty, the tradition was enshrined in the founding myth of the city. In this instance the story was meant to teach by counterexample: it depicts Laius, one of the mythical ancestors of the Thebans, in the role of a lover who betrays the father and rapes the son. Another Boeotian pederastic myth is the story of Narcissus.

Theban pederasty, was instituted as an educational device for boys, in order to "soften, while they were young, their natural fierceness", and to "temper the manners and characters of the youth".^[52] The Sacred Band of Thebes, a battalion made up of 150 pairs of lovers, was unbeatable until its final battle against Philip II at Chaeronea in 338 BC.

[edit] Influence on literature and the arts

Vase with courtship scene
Detail from an Attic black-figure cup, ca. 530 BC–520 BCE.

Poets write of pederasty from the earliest eras to the end of the Hellenistic era. Five philosophical dialogues debate its ethical implications. Notable scholars and writers such as Plato, Xenophon, Plutarch, and pseudo-Lucian would discuss the topic. Tragedies on the theme became very popular. Aristophanes made comical theater about sexual relationships between men and youths.

The famous poets Alcaeus, Ibycus, Anacreon, Theognis, Pindar and of course Sappho all wrote of pederastic love. Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides made plays on the subject.

Vases portray numerous homoerotic depictions with hundreds of inscriptions celebrating the love of youths. Famous politicians, warriors, artists, and writers would enjoy these relationships. Such idealized relationships held an honored place in their culture from at least 600 BC to 400 AD. (Dialogues)

The sculptor Phidias even memorialized his lover Pantarces in marble by inscribing his name on the finger of a colossal statue of Zeus. During the Hellenistic era (332 BC – 400 AD) Plutarch, Athenaeus, and Aelian traced the history of Greek homosexuality to its beginning.

[edit] Ceremonies and proverbs

   Oath of loyalty at the tomb of Iolaus in Thebes; rite undertaken by lovers to consecrate the relationship.^[53]

  The Iolaeia, a yearly athletic festival in Thebes, consisting of musical, gymnastic and equestrian events (agones). It was held in the gymnasium of Iolaus in honor of Heracles, and lasted several days. The winners were awarded brass tripods.^[54]

  The Hyacinthia festival in Sparta, honoring Hyacinth, the mythical young prince of Sparta and beloved of Apollo. The festivities continued for three days, with the first mourning the death of Hyacinthus and the last two celebrating his rebirth. It has been suggested that the cycle symbolizes the development of a youth in such relationships, in which he dies as a child in order to be reborn as an adult.

  Gymnopaedia; Spartan dances by naked boys, attendance restricted to married men.

  The Diocleia festival at Megara in honour of Diocles, lover of Philolaus; A kissing contest was held in which the boys would kiss a male judge, with a wreath awarded to the one with the best kiss.^[55]

  A lover is the best friend a boy will ever have.^[56]

  You can carry a bull, if you carried the calf. Also in Ancient Rome, as Taurum tollet, qui vitulum sustulerit. Said to excuse men's relations with "boys" who were no longer adolescents.^[57]

[edit] Modern scholarship

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The ethical views held in those societies (such as Athens, Thebes, Crete, Sparta, Elis, and others) on the practice of pederasty have been explored by scholars only since the end of the nineteenth century. One of the first to do so was John Addington Symonds, who wrote his seminal work A Problem in Greek Ethics in 1873, but had to wait twenty eight years to be able to publish it (in revised form) in 1901 [5]. Edward Carpenter expanded the scope of the study, with his 1914 work, Intermediate Types among Primitive Folk. The text examines homoerotic practices of all types, not only pederastic ones, and ranges over cultures spanning the whole globe[6]. In Germany the work was continued by classicist Paul Brand writing under the pseudonym Hans Licht, who published his Sexual Life in Ancient Greece in 1932.

Mainstream Ancient Greek studies however had historically omitted references of the widespread practice of homosexuality. In 1910 a book called Maurice by E. M. Forster made reference to this "code of silence" by having a Cambridge professor employing “Omit: a reference to the unspeakable vice of the Greeks.” Four decades later in the 1940s: “This aspect of Greek morals is an extraordinary one, into which, for the sake of our equanimity, it is unprofitable to pry too closely”, by H. Michell. It would not be until 1978 when an English book on this topic, titled Greek Homosexuality, was published by K. J. Dover.

Dover's work triggered a number of debates which still continue. At the most basic level, there is strong resistance among modern Greeks to the portrait of ancient Greece painted by modern scholarship – that of a culture which integrated and valorized some aspects of same sex love for a period lasting close to one thousand years. See discussion of controversy.

A modern line of thought leading from Dover to Foucault to Halperin holds that the eromenos did not reciprocate the love and desire of the erastes, and that the relationship was factored on a sexual domination of the younger by the older, a politics of penetration held to be true of all adult male Athenians' relations with their social inferiors – boys, women and slaves – a theory propounded also by Eva Keuls.^[58] From this perspective, the relationships are characterized and factored on a power differential between the participants, and as essentially asymmetrical.

Other scholars point to artwork on vases, poetry and philosophical works such as the Platonic discussion of anteros, "love returned," all of which show tenderness and desire and love on the part of the eromenos matching and responding to that of the erastes. Critics of Dover and his followers also point out that they ignore all material which argued against their "overly theoretical" interpretation of a human and emotional relationship^[59] and counter that "Clearly, a mutual, consensual bond was formed,"^[60] and that it is "a modern fairy tale that the younger eromenos was never aroused."^[61]

Halperin's position has been criticized as a "persistently negative and judgmental rhetoric implying exploitation and domination as the fundamental characteristics of pre-modern sexual models" and challenged as a polemic of "mainstream assimilationist gay apologists" and an attempt to "demonize and purge from the movement" all non-orthodox male sexualities, especially that involving adults and adolescents.^[62]

Queer Theory

What does the word "queer" make you think of? Let's start by listing some free associations on the board.
The word "queer" in queer theory has some of these connotations, particularly its alignment with ideas about homosexuality. Queer theory is a brand-new branch of study or theoretical speculation; it has only been named as an area since about 1991. It grew out of gay/lesbian studies, a discipline which itself is very new, existing in any kind of organized form only since about the mid-1980s. Gay/lesbian studies, in turn, grew out of feminist studies and feminist theory. Let me tell you a little about this history. (It's interesting in its own right, because it is literally happening under our noses, in our classrooms, at this moment; it's also interesting as a way of seeing how theoretical movements or schools grow out of other schools, as we've already seen with the bricolage that emerges from Saussure to Derrida to Lacan to Cixous and Irigaray).
Feminist theory, in the mid- to late 1970s, looked at gender as a system of signs, or signifiers, assigned to sexually dimorphic bodies, which served to differentiate the social roles and meanings those bodies could have. Feminist theory thus argued that gender was a social construct, something designed and implemented and perpetuated by social organizations and structures, rather than something merely "true," something innate to the ways bodies worked on a biological level. In so doing, feminist theory made two very important contributions. The first is that feminist theory separated the social from the biological, insisting that we see a difference between what is the product of human ideas, hence something mutable and changeable, and what is the product of biology, hence something (relatively) stable and unchangeable. The second contribution is related to the first: by separating the social and the biological, the constructed and the innate, feminist theory insisted that gender was not something "essential" to an individual's identity.
This word "essential" will appear a lot in the second half of this semester, as we focus on theories which tell us about how individual identities are constructed within social organizations. The humanist idea of identity, or self, focuses on the notion that your identity is unique to you, that who you are is the product of some core self, some unchangeable aspects or markers that are at the heart and center of "you." These aspects usually include sex (I am male or female), gender (I am masculine or feminine), sexuality (I am heterosexual or homosexual), religious beliefs (I am Christian, Jewish, Buddhist), and nationality (I am American, Russian, Vietnamese)--in fact, any statement you make that starts with "I am" and is followed by a noun without an article (I am ______; not I am a _________) is probably a statement about your core sense of identity. Within humanist thought, these core aspects of identity are considered to be "essences," things that are unchangeable and unchanging, things that make you who you are under all circumstances, no matter what happens to you. This concept of an essential self separates "self" from everything outside of self--not just "other," but also all historical events, all things that do change and shift. You might think of the humanist notion of essential selfhood in survivalist terms: the self exists inside an armored shelter, where nothing that happens in the outside world can touch it. Oh, the self might feel jarred or shaken by explosions in the outside world, which rattle the doors of the shelter, but it cannot be substantially changed by what happens outside. (It can, however, be destroyed. But those are the only options--the essential self can exist in an unchanging state or be wiped out, but nothing in between).
Feminist theory, by challenging the idea that gender was part of this essential self, caused a "rupture," a break, that revealed the constructedness of this supposedly natural self. (Feminist theory wasn't alone in causing this rupture; we'll be looking at other theories which contributed to the "deconstruction" of the idea of the essential self throughout the second half of the semester). From this rupture came the poststructuralist idea of selfhood as a constructed idea, something not "naturally" produced by bodies or by birth. Selfhood, in poststructuralist theory, becomes "subjecthood" or "subjectivity." The switch in terms is a recognition that, first of all, human identity is shaped by language, by becoming a subject in language (as we saw with Lacan, et al.). The shift from "self" to "subject" also marks the idea that subjects are the product of signs, or signifiers, which make up our ideas of identity. Selves are stable and essential; subjects are constructed, hence provisional, shifting, changing, always able to be redefined or reconstructed. Selves, in this sense, are like signifiers within a rigid system, whose meanings are fixed; subjects, by contrast, are like signifiers in a system with more play, more multiplicity of meaning.
Once feminist theory had helped to rupture the humanist idea of stable or essential selfhood, and specifically the idea of stable or essential gender identity, and replaced it with the poststructuralist idea of gender identity as a set of shifting signifiers, other forms of theory began to question other "essentialist" notions of identity. As we will see, ideas of race as innate, essential, or biological came under scrutiny (particularly within feminism, as the idea of the female subject posited in feminist theory in the 1970s was uniformly white and middle-class). Similarly, ideas about sexuality as an innate or essentialist category also became open to reformulation. This is where gay/lesbian studies, as a discipline and as the academic arm of a political movement, began, in the early to mid 1980s. (For a working definition of "politics," look again at the lecture on feminism).
It is, perhaps, more difficult than with gender to see sexuality as socially constructed, rather than as biological. When we look around, we see "gender bending" happening in lots of arenas--Michael Jackson, Boy George, RuPaul, and Dennis Rodman, to name only a few examples, bend the idea of gender roles as essential, and as determined by sex (males are masculine, females are feminine) through their unique combinations of what used to be called masculine and feminine styles. (We'll talk more specifically about the gender-bending that happens when men dress as women, or dress in "drag," when we get to postmodernism). In fact, we can see gender roles and gender signifiers shifting daily: how many women, ten years ago, had visible tattoos, for instance, and how many men would sport visible piercings, in ears or other body parts? Thinking of these changes (and you can come up with your own examples of flexible or shifting gender constructs), it's relatively easy to see gender as a system of signifiers.
Sexuality is harder, though, in part because of the way our culture has always taught us to think about sexuality. While gender may be a matter of style of dress, sexuality seems to be about biology, about how bodies operate on a basic level. This idea came up the other day when we were talking about gender, and someone asked about animals, whose sexual behavior seems to be strongly linked to the instinct for reproduction. Our culture tends to define sexuality in two ways: in terms of animal instincts, of behaviors programmed by hormones or by seasonal cycles, over which our free will has no control, and in terms of moral and ethical choices, of behaviors that are coded as either good or evil, moral or immoral, and over which we are supposed to have complete (or almost complete) rigid control. In the first way of thinking about sexuality, sexual responses are almost purely biological: we respond sexually to what is coded in our genes and hormones, and this is almost always defined in terms of reproductive behavior. (This viewpoint comes from evolutionary thought, where it is the duty of each member of the species to try to preserve and pass on her or his particular genetic makeup). This is the view says we can understand human sexual behavior by understanding animal sexual behavior.
The problem with this first view is that human sexuality doesn't work like animal sexuality. If it did, all the females would come into heat at certain cycles, and all the males would frantically try to hump them during these cycles; all sexual activity would be geared toward reproduction, and sexual activity in both sexes would occur only during these periods of heat. Obviously, human sexuality works differently. In fact, human sexuality looks very little like animal sexuality in any regard. We are (I think, and correct me if I'm wrong) the only species that can copulate more or less at will, without regard to fertility or hormonal cycles, and that alone separates sexual behavior from reproduction for human beings. We also have an enormous repertoire of sexual behaviors and activities, only some of which are linked to reproduction, which further separates the two categories. And--most importantly--human sexual behavior is about pleasure, and about pleasure mediated by all kinds of cultural categories.
Yes, we could argue about forms of animal sexuality and how they do or do not model human sexuality--my anecdotes about my dog humping my leg certainly raise questions about animal sexual behavior as not being linked solely to reproduction--but the point is that linking human sexuality to animal sexuality serves to construct sexuality in particular ways. If you see humans largely as animals, then you also see human sexuality as largely reproductive in nature, in essence--and thus any behavior not linked to reproduction becomes "unnatural." Which leads us to the second way our culture defines sexuality: in terms of morality, in terms of right and wrong behaviors.
Western cultural ideas about sexuality come from lots of places--from science (and particularly from the evolutionary view of sexuality as an animalistic instinctive behavior), from religion, from politics, and from economics, for example. [A side note: these categories of sexual codification are investigated by Michel Foucault in his series entitled The History of Sexuality. Examples of sexuality being defined by politics and economics occur when nations or other social organizations worry about population control, and urge people not to reproduce--or even require abortions or birth control or sterilization to ensure that; a counterexample of sexuality defined by politics and economics would be in countries or subgroups who urge members to produce lots of children, so that that group will have a greater population than some other group].
These ideas about sexuality often take the form of moral statements about what forms of sexuality are right, or good, or moral, and which are wrong, bad, and immoral. These categories have shifted over time, which is another way of arguing that definitions of sexuality are not "essential" or timeless or innate, but rather are social constructs, things that can change and be manipulated. Certainly we've seen such changes in the past ten years, not just in relation to homosexuality and heterosexuality, but in relation to ideas of safe sex and the prevention of sexually transmitted disease: in today's culture, (in some circles) an immoral sex act might be one that doesn't include a condom or other form of barrier, rather than one that merely isn't involved in a reproductive activity.
In previous generations, as in current times, these ways of defining sexuality (through biology, religion, politics, and economics) have produced clear-cut categories of what is right and wrong, usually categories linked to ideas about reproduction and family life. This is what Gayle Rubin's article is discussing, in the diagrams she presents on pp. 13 and 14. She shows ideas about sexuality as structured in--you guessed it-- binary oppositions, where one side of the pair is positive, good, moral, right, and the other side is negative, bad, immoral, and wrong.
Rubin is arguing for the deconstruction of all these binary oppositions; she is, in fact, arguing for the complete separation of all forms of sexual behavior from any kind of moral judgment. And this is where lots of people have a hard time agreeing with her (or with other sexuality radicals). Doesn't it seem that some kinds of sexual behavior SHOULD be wrong? What about sex that hurts someone else, sex that is not consensual, sex between someone with lots of power and someone with no power? These objections show two things: one is that sexual behavior, in human culture, is almost always about something more than just pleasure and/or reproduction: it's often (like my dog humping my leg) about forms of power and dominance. The other thing these objections show is how powerful the links are between sexual activities and notions of morality. And the link comes, in part, from defining sexuality as part of IDENTITY, rather than just as an activity which one might engage in. Hence, if you have genital sexual contact with someone of the same sex, you are not just having homosexual sex, you ARE a homosexual. And that identity then is linked to a moral judgment about both homosexual acts and homosexual identities. [For more on this distinction, between sexual acts and sexual identities, see Foucault's History of Sexuality.
Gay/lesbian studies--which is in part where Gayle Rubin's article comes from--looks at the kinds of social structures and social constructs which define our ideas about sexuality as act and sexuality as identity. As an academic field, gay/lesbian studies look at how notions of homosexuality have historically been defined--and of course, in doing so, look also at how its binary opposite, heterosexuality, has been defined. Gay/lesbian studies also looks at how various cultures, or various time periods, have enforced ideas about what kinds of sexuality are normal and which are abnormal, which are moral and which are immoral. Watkins' article, on how homosexual bodies get depicted in the age of AIDS, is centered in this kind of theory, in looking at how ideas of norms and deviations from the norm are created and then shifted, and what cultural function such ideas and images serve.
Watkins' article, in looking at the meanings of images of gay men with AIDS and how those images work to reinforce ideas about homosexuality as an abnormal, deviant, and bad category might be claimed as part of gay/lesbian literary criticism. Gay/lesbian literary criticism, a subset of gay/lesbian studies, looks at images of sexuality, and ideas of normative and deviant behavior, in a number of ways: by finding gay/lesbian authors whose sexuality has been masked or erased in history and biography; by looking at texts by gay/lesbian authors to discover particular literary themes, techniques, and perspectives which come from being a homosexual in a heterosexual world; by looking at texts--by gay or straight authors--which depict homosexuality and heterosexuality, or which focus on sexuality as a constructed (rather than essential) concept; and by looking at how literary texts (by gay or straight authors) operate in conjunction with non-literary texts to provide a culture with ways to think about sexuality.
Gay/lesbian studies, as a political form of academics, also challenges the notion of normative sexualities. As Rubin's article suggests, once you set up a category labeled "normal," you automatically set up its opposite, a category labeled "deviant," and the specific acts or identities which fill those categories then get linked to other forms of social practices and methods of social control. When you do something your culture labels deviant, you are liable to be punished for it: by being arrested, by being shamed, made to feel dirty, by losing your job, your license, your loved ones, your self-respect, your health insurance. Gay/lesbian studies, like feminist studies, works to understand how these categories of normal and deviant are constructed, how they operate, how they are enforced, in order to intervene into changing or ending them.
Which brings me--finally--to queer theory. Queer theory emerges from gay/lesbian studies' attention to the social construction of categories of normative and deviant sexual behavior. But while gay/lesbian studies, as the name implies, focused largely on questions of homosexuality, queer theory expands its realm of investigation. Queer theory looks at, and studies, and has a political critique of, anything that falls into normative and deviant categories, particularly sexual activities and identities. The word "queer", as it appears in the dictionary, has a primary meaning of "odd," "peculiar," "out of the ordinary." Queer theory concerns itself with any and all forms of sexuality that are "queer" in this sense--and then, by extension, with the normative behaviors and identities which define what is "queer" (by being their binary opposites). Thus queer theory expands the scope of its analysis to all kinds of behaviors, including those which are gender-bending as well as those which involve "queer" non-normative forms of sexuality. Queer theory insists that all sexual behaviors, all concepts linking sexual behaviors to sexual identities, and all categories of normative and deviant sexualities, are social constructs, sets of signifiers which create certain types of social meaning. Queer theory follows feminist theory and gay/lesbian studies in rejecting the idea that sexuality is an essentialist category, something determined by biology or judged by eternal standards of morality and truth. For queer theorists, sexuality is a complex array of social codes and forces, forms of individual activity and institutional power, which interact to shape the ideas of what is normative and what is deviant at any particular moment, and which then operate under the rubric of what is "natural," "essential," "biological," or "god-given."
This idea, that things (like gender or sexuality) which are socially constructed, which are mutable and shifting, can appear to be eternal, essential, and unshakably true, is explained by what we'll turn to next week: theories of ideology, of the social construction of belief systems, and of subject positions within those belief systems.

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Last revision: October 29, 1997
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