History of gay men
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The history of gay men is the history of sexual and romantic desire between men. Sexual relations between males have been documented in every society in modern history. Despite their ubiquity, homosexual men have been severely discriminated against, primarily as a result of Christianity and the spread of European belief systems through colonization.
World history[edit]
Some scholars argue that the terms "homosexual" and "gay" are problematic when applied to men in ancient cultures since, for example, neither the Greeks nor the Romans possessed a word that covered the same semantic range as the modern concept of "homosexuality".[1] In addition, there were various sexual practices that varied in acceptance according to time and place. Other scholars, however, maintain that there are significant similarities between ancient and modern male homosexuals.[2]
In cultures influenced by Abrahamic religions, the law and the church established sodomy as a transgression against divine law or a crime against nature. However, the condemnation of anal sex between men predates Christian belief.[3] Many historical figures, including Socrates, Lord Byron, Edward II, and Hadrian, have been described by contemporary historians as gay or bisexual. Some scholars, such as Michel Foucault, have argued that this risks the anachronistic introduction of a contemporary construction of sexuality to these time periods.[4]
Modern Western history[edit]
The use of gay to refer to a "homosexual" man was first used as an extension of its application to prostitution: a "gay boy" was a young man or adolescent who served male clients.[5] Similarly, a "gay cat" was a young apprentice to an older man who commonly traded sex and other services for protection and guardianship. The application to homosexuality was also an extension of the sexualized connotation of the word "uninhibited", implying a willingness to disregard conventional sexual mores. In court in 1889, male prostitute John Saul stated, "From time to time I do odd jobs for different homosexual people."[6]
Holocaust[edit]
Gay men were one of the main victims of the Nazi Holocaust. Historically, the first legal step towards Nazi persecution of male homosexuality was Paragraph 175 of 1871, a law passed after the unification of the German Empire. Paragraph 175 stated: "An unnatural sexual act committed between persons of the male sex ... is punishable by imprisonment; forfeiture of civil rights may also be imposed." The law was interpreted differently in Germany until April 23, 1880, when the Reichsgericht ruled that criminal homosexual acts involved anal, oral, or intercrural sex between two men. Anything less (such as kissing and hugging) was considered harmless play.[7]
Franz Gürtner, the Reich Minister of Justice amended paragraph 175 to address "loopholes" in the law after the Night of the Long Knives. The 1935 version of paragraph 175 declared "expressions" of homosexuality to be indictable offences. The most important change to the law was the change of definition of male homosexuality from "An unnatural sexual act committed between persons of the male sex" to "A man who commits a sexual offense with another man". "This broadened the scope of the law to persecute gay men as an ethnic group, rather than male homosexuality as a sexual act. Kissing, mutual masturbation, and love letters between men were now considered legitimate reasons for police to make arrests. The law never defined a "sexual crime", leaving it to interpretation.[7]
Between 1933 and 1945, an estimated 100,000 men were arrested as homosexuals under the Nazi regime, of whom some 50,000 were officially convicted. Most of these men served time in prison, while an estimated 5,000 to 15,000 were incarcerated in Nazi concentration camps. Rüdiger Lautmann argued that the death rate of gay men in concentration camps may have been as high as 60%. Gay men in the camps suffered an unusual degree of cruelty from their captors and were regularly used as subjects for Nazi medical experiments as scientists tried to find a "cure" for homosexuality.[8]
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ↑ Norton, Rictor (2016). Myth of the Modern Homosexual. Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN 9781474286923. Search this book on
The author has made adapted and expanded portions of this book available online as A Critique of Social Constructionism and Postmodern Queer Theory.
- ↑ Boswell, John (1989). "Revolutions, Universals, and Sexual Categories". In Duberman, Martin Bauml; Vicinus, Martha; Chauncey, Jr., George. Hidden From History: Reclaiming the Gay and Lesbian Past (PDF). Penguin Books. pp. 17–36. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2019-03-04. Unknown parameter
|s2cid=ignored (help) Search this book on
- ↑ Hubbard Thomas K (22 September 2003). "Review of David M. Halperin, How to Do the History of Homosexuality.". Bryn Mawr Classical Review.
- ↑ Foucault, Michel (1986). "Of Other Spaces". Diacritics. The Johns Hopkins University Press. 16 (1): 22–27. doi:10.2307/464648. JSTOR 464648. Retrieved April 30, 2021.
- ↑ Muzzy, Frank (2005). Gay and Lesbian Washington, D.C. Arcadia Publishing. p. 7. ISBN 978-0738517537. Search this book on
- ↑ Kaplan, Morris (1999). "Who's Afraid Of John Saul? Urban Culture and the Politics of Desire in Late Victorian London". GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies. 5 (3): 267–314. doi:10.1215/10642684-5-3-267. Archived from the original on 12 November 2015. Unknown parameter
|s2cid=ignored (help) - ↑ 7.0 7.1 Giles, Geoffrey J (2001). Social Outsiders in Nazi Germany. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. p. 240. Search this book on
- ↑ "Remembering LGBT people murdered in the Holocaust". Morning Star. 2020-01-27. Retrieved 2020-07-22.
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