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Homosexuality can refer to both sexual behavior and sexual attraction between people of the same gender or to a sexual orientation. When describing a sexual orientation, it refers to enduring sexual and romantic attraction toward others of the same sex, but does not necessarily involve sexual behavior this.[1] Homosexual behavior includes any sexual activity between people of the same sex, regardless of sexual orientation.[2] Homosexuality is contrasted with heterosexuality, bisexuality, and pansexuality. While the term gay often refers to a homosexual man, it sometimes refers to homosexual people of either gender. Lesbian denotes a homosexual woman.
Homosexuality has been a feature of human culture since earliest history (see Homosexual relations through history below). In modern times it was not until the 19th century that such acts and relationships were seen as indicative of a type of person with a defined and relatively stable sexual orientation. Karl-Maria Kertbeny coined the term homosexual in 1869 in a pamphlet arguing against a Prussian anti-sodomy law.[3][4] Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing's 1886 book Psychopathia Sexualis popularized the concept.[4]
In the years since Krafft-Ebing, homosexuality has become a subject of considerable study and debate. Viewed by some as a pathology to be cured, it is now more often investigated as part of a larger project to understand the biology, psychology, politics, genetics, history and cultural variations of sexual practice and identity. The legal and social status of people who perform homosexual acts or identify as gay or lesbian varies enormously across the world and remains hotly contested.
Societal attitudes towards same-sex relationships vary over time and place, from expecting all males to engage in same-sex relationships, to casual integration, through acceptance, to seeing the practice as a minor sin, repressing it through law enforcement and judicial mechanisms, and to proscribing it under penalty of death.
Most nations do not impede consensual sex between unrelated individuals above the local age of consent. Some jurisdictions further recognize identical rights, protections, and privileges for the family structures of same-sex couples, including marriage. Some nations mandate that all individuals restrict themselves to heterosexual relationships — that is, in some jurisdictions homosexuality is illegal. Offenders face up to the death penalty in some fundamentalist Muslim areas such as Iran and parts of Nigeria. There are, however, often significant differences between official policy and real-world enforcement. See Violence against gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and the transgendered.
Many people who feel attracted to members of their own sex have a so-called coming out at some point in their lives. Generally, coming out is described in three phases. The first phase is the phase of "knowing oneself," and the realization or decision emerges that one is open to same-sex relations. This is often described as an internal coming out. The second phase involves one's decision to come out to others, e.g. family, friends, and/or colleagues. This occurs with many people as early as age 11, but others do not clarify their sexual orientation until age 40 or older. The third phase more generally involves living as an openly as an LGBT person.[5] In the United States today, people often come out during high school or college age. At this age, they may not trust or ask for help from others, especially when their orientation is not accepted in society. Sometimes their own parents are not even informed.
Outing is the practice of publicly revealing the sexual orientation of a closeted person.[6] Notable politicians, celebrities, military service people, and clergy members have been outed, with motives ranging from malice to political or moral beliefs. Many commentators oppose the practice altogether,[7] while some encourage outing public figures who use their positions of influence to harm other gay people.[8]
The record of same-sex love has been preserved is through literature and art. Male homoerotic sensibilities are visible in the foundations of art in the west, to the extent that those roots can be traced back to the ancient Greeks. Homer's Iliad is considered to have the love between two men as its central feature, a view held since antiquity. Plato's Symposium also gives readers commentary on the subject, at one point putting forth the claim that male homosexual love is superior to heterosexual love.
The European tradition of homoeroticism was continued throughout the ages in the works of Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. Since the Renaissance, both male and female homoeroticism has remained a common theme in the visual arts of the west.
In Islamic societies homoeroticism was present in the work of such writers as Abu Nuwas and Omar Khayyam. The Tale of Genji, called the "world's first real novel", fostered this tradition in Japan, as did the Chinese literary tradition in works such as Bian er Zhai and Jin Ping Mei. Today, the Japanese anime subgenre yaoi centers on gay men. Japan is unusual in that the culture's male homoerotic art has typically been the work of female artists, mirroring the case of lesbian eroticism in western art.
In the twentieth century, entertainers such as Noel Coward, Madonna, k.d. lang, and David Bowie have brought homoeroticism into the field of western popular music. It is through these and other modern songwriters and poets that art by lesbians, rather than erotic art by men with lesbian themes, has had its greatest cultural impact in the West since the ancient Greek poet Sappho.
In the 1990s, a number of American television comedies began to feature gay and lesbian characters. The 1997 coming-out of comedian Ellen DeGeneres on her show Ellen was front-page news in America and brought the show its highest ratings. However, public interest in the show swiftly declined after this, and the show was cancelled after one more season. Immediately afterward Will & Grace, which ran from 1998 to 2005 on NBC, became the most successful series to focus on gay men.
Playwrights have penned such popular homoerotic works as Tennessee Williams's Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Tony Kushner's Angels In America. Homosexuality has also been a frequent theme in Broadway musicals, such as A Chorus Line and Rent. In 2005, the gay romantic film Brokeback Mountain was a financial and critical success internationally. Unlike most gay film characters, both the film's lovers were "butch." The movie's success was considered a milestone in the public acceptance of the American gay rights movement.
Many openly LGBT people are parents, often by way of adoption, donor insemination, foster parenting, or surrogacy. In the 2000 U.S. Census, 33 percent of female same-sex couple households and 22 percent of male same-sex couple households reported at least one child under the age of 18 living in the home.[9]
Gay and lesbian parenting enjoys broad support from medical experts, including the American Psychological Association, the Child Welfare League of America, the American Bar Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the National Association of Social Workers, the North American Council on Adoptable Children, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychoanalytic Association, and the American Academy of Family Physicians.[10]
The American Psychological Association states:<blockquote>there is no scientific evidence that parenting effectiveness is related to parental sexual orientation: lesbian and gay parents are as likely as heterosexual parents to provide supportive and healthy environments for their children," and that "research has shown that the adjustment, development, and psychological well-being of children is unrelated to parental sexual orientation and that the children of lesbian and gay parents are as likely as those of heterosexual parents to flourish."[9]</blockquote>
Nevertheless, LGBT parenting in general, and adoption by LGBT couples in particular, are controversial in many Western countries.
In some capitalist countries, large private sector firms often lead the way in the equal treatment of gay men and lesbians. For instance, as of June 2006, more than half of companies listed in the Fortune 500 offer domestic partner benefits and nine of the top ten companies include sexual orientation in their non-discrimination policies.[11]
Lesbian possibilities include tribadism, mutual masturbation, oral genital, and the use of sex toys for vaginal or oral penetration or clitoral stimulation. Gay men can engage in mutual masturbation, intercrural sex, oral sex and anal sex. As with any sexual relationship, people may begin with various forms of foreplay such as fondling, caressing, and kissing, and may eventually progress from there.
In the United States, the FBI reported that 15.6% of hate crimes reported to police in 2004 were based on perceived sexual orientation. 61% of these attacks were against gay men.[12] The 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard, a gay student, is the most famous incident in the United States.
Homosexuality is punishable by death in some present-day countries including Iran, Mauritania, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. Many historical nations have punished homosexuality by death, including the Roman Empire under Constantine, Nazi Germany, and Afghanistan under the Taliban (1996-2001).
Gay and lesbian youth bear an increased risk of suicide, substance abuse, school problems, and isolation because of a "hostile and condemning environment, verbal and physical abuse, rejection and isolation from family and peers."[13][14]
Crisis centers in larger cities and information sites on the Internet have arisen to help youth and adults[15] The Trevor Helpline, a suicide prevention helpline for gay youth, was established following the 1998 airing on HBO of the Academy Award winning short film Trevor.
Scholars who study the social construction of homosexuality, investigate the various forms that same-sex relationships have taken in different societies, and look for patterns as well as differences. Their work suggests that the concept of homosexuality would best be rendered as "homosexualities." Anthropologists group these socio-historical variations into three separate categories:[16][17]
Usually in any society one form of homosexuality predominates, though others are likely to co-exist. As historian Rictor Norton points out in his ''Intergenerational and Egalitarian Models,'' in Ancient Greece egalitarian relationships co-existed (albeit less privileged) with the institution of pederasty, and fascination with adolescents can also be found in modern sexuality, both heterosexual and homosexual. Egalitarian homosexuality is becoming the principal form practiced in the Western world, while age- and gender-structured homosexuality are becoming less common. As a byproduct of growing Western cultural dominance, this egalitarian homosexuality is spreading from western culture to non-Western societies, although there are still defined differences between the various cultures.
Measuring the prevalence homosexuality is difficult because there is a lack of reliable data:
Reliable data as to the size of the gay and lesbian population would be valuable by informing public policy.[18] For example, demographics would help in calculating the costs and benefits of domestic partnership benefits, of the impact of legalizing gay adoption, and of the impact of the military's Don't Ask Don't Tell policy.[18] Further, knowledge of the size of the "gay and lesbian population holds promise for helping social scientists understand a wide array of important questions—questions about the general nature of labor market choices, accumulation of human capital, specialization within households, discrimination, and decisions about geographic location."[18]
Estimates of the incidence of homosexuality range from 1% to 10% of the population, usually finding there are slightly more gay men than lesbians.
Homosexual behavior does occur in the animal kingdom, especially in social species, particularly in marine birds and mammals, monkeys and the great apes. Homosexual behavior has been observed among 1,500 species, and in 500 of those it is well documented.[19] Georgetown University professor Janet Mann has specifically theorized that homosexual behavior, at least in dolphins, is an evolutionary advantage that minimizes intraspecies aggression, especially among males. Studies on the homosexual behavior of animals have had implications for the agenda of such Fundamentalist Christian advocacy groups such as Focus on the family, as in some cases they provide evidence to the contrary of the idea that homosexuality is a chosen lifestyle rather than a trait affected by genetics.[20]
In some cultures homosexuality is still considered "unnatural" and is outlawed. In some Muslim nations (such as Iran) and African countries it remains a capital crime. In a highly publicized case, two teenagers, Mahmoud Asgari and Ayaz Marhoni, were hanged in Iran in 2005 reportedly because they had been caught having sex with each other.[27]
Government recognition of same-sex marriage is presently available in six countries and one U.S. state. The Netherlands was the first country to allow same-sex marriage in 2001 and they are now also recognized in Belgium, Canada, South Africa, Spain, and the U.S. state of Massachusetts. Israel's High Court of Justice ruled to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other countries, although it is still illegal to perform them within the country.
Other countries, including the majority of European nations, have enacted laws allowing civil unions, designed to give gay couples similar rights as married couples concerning legal issues such as inheritance and immigration. Numerous Scandinavian countries have had domestic partnership laws on the books since the late 1980s.
Jurisdictions in the U.S. that offer civil unions or domestic partnerships granting nearly all of the state-recognized rights of marriage to same-sex couples include California (2000), Vermont (2000), Connecticut (2005), and New Jersey (2006). States in the U.S. with domestic partnerships or similar status granting some of the rights of marriage include Hawaii (1996), Maine (1999), Oregon (2007) [28], Washington (2007), as well as the District of Columbia (Washington, DC) (2001).
Although homosexual acts were decriminalized in some parts of the Western world, such as in Denmark in 1933, in Sweden in 1944, in the United Kingdom in 1967, and in Canada in 1969, it was not until the mid-1970s that the gay community first began to achieve actual, though limited, civil rights in some developed countries. A turning point was reached in 1973 when, in a vote decided by a plurality of the membership, the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, thus negating its previous definition of homosexuality as a clinical mental disorder. In 1977, Quebec became the first state-level jurisdiction in the world to prohibit discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation.
Since the 1960s, in part due to their history of shared oppression, many LGBT people in the West, particularly those in major metropolitan areas, have developed a so-called gay culture. To many, gay culture is exemplified by the gay pride movement, with annual parades and displays of rainbow flags. Yet not all LGBT people choose to participate in "queer culture," and many gay men and women specifically decline to do so. To some it seems to be a frivolous display, perpetuating gay stereotypes. To some others, the gay culture represents heterophobia and is scorned as widening the gulf between gay and straight people.
With the outbreak of AIDS in the early 1980s, many LGBT groups and individuals organized campaigns to promote efforts in AIDS education, prevention, research, and patient support, and community outreach, as well as to demand government support for these programs. Gay Men's Health Crisis, Project Inform, and ACT UP are some notable American examples of the LGBT community's response to the AIDS crisis.
The bewildering death toll wrought by AIDS epidemic at first seemed to slow the progress of the gay rights movement, but in time it galvanized some parts of the LGBT community into community service and political action, and challenged the heterosexual community to respond compassionately. Major American motion pictures from this period that dramatized the response of individuals and communities to the AIDS crisis include An Early Frost (1985), Longtime Companion (1990), And the Band Played On (1993), Philadelphia (1993), and Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt (1989), the last referring to the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt, last displayed in its entirety on the Mall in Washington, D.C., in 1996.
During the 1980s and 1990s, most developed countries enacted laws decriminalizing homosexual behavior and prohibiting discrimination against lesbians and gays in employment, housing, and services. Yet as LGBT people slowly gained legal protection and social acceptance, gay bashing and hate crimes also increased due to homophobia (See Violence against gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and the transgendered).
Publicly gay politicians have attained numerous government posts, even in countries that had sodomy laws or outright mass murder of gays in their recent past.
Gay British politicians include former UK Cabinet ministers Chris Smith (now Lord Smith of Finsbury who is also a rare example of an openly HIV positive statesman) and Nick Brown, and, most famously, Peter Mandelson, a European Commissioner and close friend of Tony Blair. Openly gay Per-Kristian Foss was the Norwegian minister of finance until September of 2005.
Homosexuality has at times been used as a scapegoat by governments facing problems. For example, during the early 14th century, accusations of homosexual behavior were instrumental in disbanding the Knights Templar under Philip IV of France, who profited greatly from confiscating the Templars' wealth. In the 20th century, Nazi Germany's persecution of homosexual people was based on the proposition that they posed a threat to "normal" masculinity as well as a risk of contamination to the "Aryan race".
In the 1950s, at the height of the red scare in the United States, hundreds of federal and state employees were fired because of their homosexuality in the so-called lavender scare. (Ironically, politicians opposed to the scare tactics of McCarthyism tried to discredit Senator Joseph McCarthy by hinting during a televised Congressional committee meeting that McCarthy's top aide, Roy Cohn, was homosexual, as he in fact was.)
A recent instance of scapegoating is the burning of 6,000 books of homoerotic poetry of 8th c. Persian-Arab poet Abu Nuwas by the Egyptian Ministry of Culture in January 2001, to placate Islamic fundamentalists.[40][41]
Some ancient societies, such as Greece and Japan, fostered erotic love bonds between experienced warriors and their apprentices. It was believed that a man and youth who were in love with each other would fight harder and with greater morale. A classic example of a military force built upon this belief is the Sacred Band of Thebes.
The adoption of Christianity by the Roman Emperor Constantine in the fourth century and subsequent predominance of Christianity led to a diminished emphasis on erotic love among military forces. By the time of the Crusades, the military of Europe had largely switched gears, asserting that carnal relations between males were sinful and therefore had no place in an army that served their perception of God's will. The Knights Templar, a prominent military order, was destroyed by accusations (probably fabricated) of sodomy.
The Arab world and Asia, by contrast, did not adopt such strict views. A classic work of Middle Eastern literature known as The Book of One Thousand and One Nights (or Arabian Nights) documents several accounts of intimate relationships between men and boys. Artwork that has survived from this period documents such relationships in both cultures.
The modern world has brought about a fundamental shift in the acceptance of gay men and lesbians. Europe and North America have seen growing acceptance as a result of modern liberalism and the Gay Liberation movement. By contrast, many Middle Eastern and Central Asian countries have gone from tolerance to outright hostility. The only nation in the region with significantly different policies is Israel.
The United Kingdom and the Netherlands admit openly gay service members, and others — like the United States, and many nations in South America and the Caribbean — either quiet or discharge gay people. The United States is known for its 1993 "don't ask, don't tell" policy. The traditional justification for excluding openly gay service members is that it may lead to "harassment, discord, blackmail, bullying or an erosion of unit cohesion or military effectiveness."[42] The British military, which removed their restriction against gay service members in 2000, has not experienced any of these feared results.[42]
Most nations that adhere to the strict interpretation of Sharia (Islamic law) remove individuals from their armed forces who are believed to be gay, and may have them punished, tortured, or executed.
The relationship between religion and homosexuality varies greatly across time and place, within and between different religions and sects, and regarding different forms of homosexuality and bisexuality. Currently, bodies and doctrines of the Abrahamic religions generally view homosexuality negatively, from quietly discouraging homosexual activity, to explicitly forbidding same-sex sexual practices among adherents and actively opposing social acceptance of homosexuality. Some teach that homosexual orientation itself is sinful, while most assert that only homosexual behavior is a sin. Some have claimed that gay men and lesbians can change their sexual orientations through religious faith and practice. Exodus International is the largest ex-gay group. Groups not influenced by the Abrahamic religions have sometimes regarded homosexuality as sacred. In the wake of colonialism and imperialism undertaken by countries of the Abrahamic faiths some cultures have adopted new attitudes antagonistic towards homosexuality.
The overall trend of greater acceptance of gay men and women in the latter part of the 20th century was not limited to secular institutions; it was also seen in some religious institutions. Reform Judaism, the largest branch of Judaism outside Israel has begun to facilitate religious weddings for gay adherents in their synagogues. Jewish Theological Seminary, considered to be the flagship institution of Conservative Judaism, decided in March 2007 to begin accepting gay and lesbian applicants, after scholars who guide the movement lifted the ban on gay ordination.[43]
In 2005, the United Church of Christ became the largest Christian denomination in the United States to formally endorse same-sex marriage.
On the other hand, the Anglican Communion encountered discord that caused a rift between the African (except Southern Africa) and Asian Anglican churches on the one hand and North American churches on the other when American and Canadian churches openly ordained gay clergy and began blessing same-sex unions. Other Churches such as the Methodist Church had experienced trials of gay clergy who some claimed were a violation of religious principles resulting in mixed verdicts dependent on geography. Most Abrahamic religions retain the viewpoint that homosexual behavior is a sin.
Some religious groups promote boycotts of corporations whose policies support the LGBT community. In spring of 2005, the "American Family Association" threatened a boycott of Ford products to protest Ford's perceived support of "the homosexual agenda and homosexual marriage."[44] After meeting with representatives of the group, Ford announced it was curtailing ads in a number of major gay publications (thus depriving them of a major source of income), an action it claimed to be determined not by cultural but by "cost-cutting" factors. That statement was contradicted by the AFA, which claimed it had a "good faith agreement" that Ford would cease such ads. Soon afterwards, as a result of a strong outcry from the gay community, Ford backtracked and announced it would continue ads in gay publications, in response to which the AFA denounced Ford for "violating" the agreement, and renewed threats of a boycott.[45]
The American Academy of Pediatrics has stated "Sexual orientation probably is not determined by any one factor but by a combination of genetic, hormonal, and environmental influences."[46]
In 1993, Dean Hamer found the genetic marker Xq28 on the X chromosome. Hamer's study found a link between the Xq28 marker and male homosexuality[47], but the original study's results have been disputed[48]. Flies bearing mutant alleles of the fruitless gene, causes male flies to court and attempt to mate exclusively with other males.
Twin studies give indications that male homosexuality is genetically mediated. One common type of twin study compares the monozygotic (or identical) twins of people possessing a particular trait to the dizygotic (non-identical, or fraternal) twins of people possessing the trait. Bailey and Pillard (1991) in a study of gay twins found that 52% of monozygotic brothers and 22% of the dizygotic twins were concordant for homosexuality.[49] Bailey, Dunne and Martin (2000) used the Australian twin registry to obtain a sample of 4,901 twins.[50]
Simon LeVay explains the basics of this theory: "In experimental animals it’s been well established that the sexual differentiation of the body and brain results primarily from the influence of sex hormones secreted by the testes or ovaries (Arnold 2002). Males have high levels of testosterone in fetal life (after functional development of the testes) and around the time of birth, as well as at and after puberty. Females have low levels of all sex hormones in fetal life, and high levels of estrogens and progestagens starting at puberty. High prenatal testosterone levels organize the brain in a male-specific fashion; low levels testosterone permits it to organize in a female-specific fashion. Hormones at puberty activate the circuits laid down in prenatal life but do not fundamentally change them. Thus, the range of sexual behaviors that adult animals can show is determined in large part by their prenatal/perinatal hormone exposure—manipulating these hormone levels can lead to atypical sex behavior or preference for same-sex sex partners as well as a range of other gender-atypical characteristics."[51]
Recent studies have found notable differences between the physiology of gay people and straight people. There is evidence that:
Likewise, recent studies have found notable differences between the cognitive features of gay people and straight people. There is evidence that:
There is evidence from numerous studies that gay men tend to have more older brothers than do straight men.[77] One reported that each older brother increases the odds of being gay by 33%. [78]
To explain this finding, it has been proposed that male fetuses provoke a maternal immune reaction that becomes stronger with each successive male fetus.[77] Male fetuses produce H-Y antigens which are "almost certainly" involved in the sexual differentiation of vertebrates.[77] It is this antigen which maternal H-Y antibodies are proposed to both react to and 'remember.' Successive male fetuses are then attacked by H-Y antibodies which somehow decrease the ability of H-Y antigens to perform their usual function in brain masculinization. This is now known as the fraternal birth order effect. There is a link to homosexuality only if the older brothers were biologically related and even when they were not raised together.[79] Interestingly, this relation seems to hold only for right-handed males.[80] There has been no observed equivalent for women.
There is some evidence that gay men report having had less loving and more rejecting fathers, and closer relationships with their mothers, than straight men.[81] Whether this phenomena is a cause of homosexuality, or whether parents behave this way in response to gender-variant traits in a child, is unclear.[82][83]
One researcher's Exotic Becomes Erotic theory theorizes that some children will prefer activities that are typical of the other gender and that this will make a gender-conforming child feel different from opposite-gender children, while gender-nonconforming children will feel different from children of their own gender, which may evoke physiological arousal when the child is near members of the gender which it considers as being 'different', which will later be transformed into sexual arousal.
Innate bisexuality (or predisposition to bisexuality) is a term introduced by Sigmund Freud (based on work by his associate Wilhelm Fliess), that expounds all humans are born bisexual but through psychological development (which includes both external and internal factors) become monosexual while the bisexuality remains in a latent state.
Alfred Kinsey's studies, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male[84] and Sexual Behavior in the Human Female[85], found that the majority of humans have had homosexual experiences or sensations and are bisexual. The Kinsey Reports found that approximately four percent of adult Americans were predominately gay or lesbian for their entire lives, and approximately 10 percent were predominately gay or lesbian for some portion of their lives.
Some studies have disputed Kinsey's methodology and have suggested that these reports overstated the occurrence of bisexuality and homosexuality in human populations. "His figures were undermined when it was revealed that he had disproportionately interviewed homosexuals and prisoners (many sex offenders)."[86][87][88][89]
Homosexuality is no longer regarded as a mental illness by the scientific community. In 1973 the American Psychiatric Association (APA) removed homosexuality as a disorder from the Sexual Deviancy section of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the DSM-II.[90] The World Health Organization's ICD-9 (1977) listed homosexuality as a mental illness, and in 1990, a resolution was adopted to remove it in the ICD-10 (1993).[91] The ICD-10 added ego-dystonic sexual orientation to the list, which refers to people who want to change their gender identities or sexual orientation because of a psychological or behavioral disorder.(ICD-10 ) Some organizations, including the United States Department of Defense[92] and reparative therapy groups do not accept the mainstream medical position.
In 1985, Fritz Klein argued that sexual orientation may change over time and is composed of various elements, both sexual and non-sexual.[93] Lisa Diamond measured changes in sexual attractions among white, highly educated lesbians and bisexual women over a two-year period and found that changes in sexual attraction were generally small (moreso in lesbians), but that their self-identification of their sexualities and their sexual behavior were more variable.[94]
The American Psychological Association (APA) states that homosexuality "is not changeable."[95] More generally, the APA states, "psychologists do not consider sexual orientation to be a conscious choice that can be voluntarily changed,"[95] and in 2001 United States Surgeon General David Satcher issued a report maintaining that "there is no valid scientific evidence that sexual orientation can be changed."[96]
The adjective homosexual describes behavior, relationships, people, etc. The adjectival form literally means “same sex”, being a hybrid formed from the Greek prefix homo – ("same"), and the Latin root sex – . Modern style guides recommend against using homosexual as a noun, instead using gay man or lesbian.[97] Similarly, they recommend completely avoiding usage of homosexual as having a negative and discredited clinical history and because the word only refers to one's sexual behavior, and not to romantic feelings.[97] Gay and lesbian are the most common alternatives. The first letters are frequently combined to create the acronym LGBT (sometimes written as GLBT), in which B and T refer to bisexuals and transgender people.
The first known appearance of homosexual in print is found in an 1869 German pamphlet by the Austrian-born novelist Karl-Maria Kertbeny, published anonymously.[98] The prevalence of the concept owes much to the work of the German psychiatrist Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing and his 1886 work Psychopathia Sexualis.[99] As such, the current use of the term has its roots in the broader 19th century tradition of personality taxonomy. These continue to influence the development of the modern concept of sexual orientation, gaining associations with romantic love and identity in addition to its original, exclusively sexual meaning.
Although early writers also used the adjective homosexual to refer to any single-gender context (such as an all-girls' school), today the term is used exclusively in reference to sexual attraction and activity. The term homosocial is now used to describe single-sex contexts that are not specifically sexual. There is also a word referring to same-sex love, homophilia.
Other terms include men who have sex with men or MSM (used in the medical community when specifically discussing sexual activity), homoerotic (referring to works of art), heteroflexible (referring to a person who identifies as heterosexual, but occasionally engages in same-sex sexual activities), and metrosexual (referring to a straight man with stereotypically gay tastes in food, fashion, and design).
Pejorative terms include faggot, queer, fairy, poof, and homo. Many of these have been "reclaimed" as positive words by gay men and lesbians.
Modern Western gay culture, largely a product of 19th century psychology as well as the years of post-Stonewall Gay Liberation, is a relatively recent manifestation of same-sex desire. It is generally not applicable as a standard when investigating same-gender sex and historical opinions and beliefs held by other people.
It is generally accepted that the lives of historical figures such as Socrates, Lord Byron, Edward II, Hadrian, Julius Caesar, Michelangelo, Donatello and Christopher Marlowe included or were centered upon love and sexual relationships with people of their own gender. Terms such as gay or bisexual have been applied to them, but many, such as Michel Foucault, regard this as risking the anachronistic introduction of a contemporary construction of sexuality foreign to their times.
While some pre-modern societies did not employ categories fully comparable to the modern homosexual or heterosexual dichotomy, this does not demonstrate that the polarity is not applicable to those societies. A common thread of constructionist argument is that no one in antiquity or the Middle Ages experienced homosexuality as an exclusive, permanent, or defining mode of sexuality. John Boswell has criticized this argument by citing ancient Greek writings by Plato,[100] which he says indicate knowledge of exclusive homosexuality.
Though often denied or ignored by European explorers, homosexual expression in native Africa was also present and took a variety of forms.
In North American Native society, the most common form of same-sex sexuality seems to center around the figure of the Two-Spirit individual. Such people seem to have been recognized by the majority of tribes, each of which had its particular term for the role. Typically the two-spirit individual was recognized early in life, was given a choice by the parents to follow the path, and if the child accepted the role then the child was raised in the appropriate manner, learning the customs of the gender it had chosen. Two-spirit individuals were commonly shamans and were revered as having powers beyond those of ordinary shamans. Their sexual life would be with the ordinary tribe members of the opposite gender. Male two-spirit people were prized as wives because of their greater strength and ability to work.
In East Asia same-sex love has been referred to since the earliest recorded history. Early European travelers were taken aback by its widespread acceptance and open display. None of the East Asian countries today have specific legal prohibitions against homosexuality or homosexual behavior.
Homosexuality in China, known as the pleasures of the bitten peach, the cut sleeve, or the southern custom, has been recorded since approximately 600 BCE. These euphemistic terms were used to describe behaviors, but not identities (recently the Chinese society adapted the term "brokeback", 斷背 duanbei, due to the success of Chinese director Ang Lee's film Brokeback Mountain.). The relationships were marked by differences in age and social position. However, the instances of same-sex affection and sexual interactions described in the Hong Lou Meng (Dream of the Red Chamber, or Story of the Stone) seem as familiar to observers in the present as do equivalent stories of romances between heterosexuals during the same period.
Homosexuality in Japan, variously known as shudo or nanshoku, terms influenced by Chinese literature, has been documented for over one thousand years and was an integral part of Buddhist monastic life and the samurai tradition. This same-sex love culture gave rise to strong traditions of painting and literature documenting and celebrating such relationships.
Similarly, in Thailand, Kathoey, or "ladyboys," have been a feature of Thai society for many centuries, and Thai kings had male as well as female lovers. While Kathoey may encompass simple effeminacy or transvestism, it most commonly is treated in Thai culture as a third gender. They are generally accepted by society, and Thailand has never had legal prohibitions against homosexuality or homosexual behavior. The teachings of Buddhism, dominant in Thai society, were accepting of a third gender designation.
The earliest western documents (in the form of literary works, art objects, as well as mythographic materials) concerning same-sex relationships are derived from ancient Greece. They depict a world in which relationships with women and relationships with youths were the essential foundation of a normal man's love life. Same-sex relationships were a social institution variously constructed over time and from one city to another. The practice, a system of relationships between an adult male and an adolescent coming of age, was often valued for its pedagogic benefits and as a means of population control, and occasionally blamed for causing disorder. Plato praised its benefits in his early writings, but in his late works proposed its prohibition.
In Rome, the pagan emperor Hadrian allegedly practiced homosexuality himself, but the Christian emperor Theodosius I decreed a law, on August 6th, 390, condemning passive homosexual people to be burned at the stake. Justinian, towards the end of his reign, expanded the proscription to the active partner as well (in 558) warning that such conduct can lead to the destruction of cities through the "wrath of God." Notwithstanding these regulations, taxes on brothels of boys available for homosexual sex continued to be collected until the end of the reign of Anastasius I in 518.
During the Renaissance, rich cities in northern Italy, Florence and Venice in particular, were renowned for their widespread practice of same-sex love, engaged in by a considerable part of the male population and constructed along the classical pattern of Greece and Rome.[101][102] But even as the majority of the male population was engaging in same-sex relationships, the authorities, under the aegis of the Officers of the Night court, were prosecuting, fining, and imprisoning a good portion of that population. The eclipse of this period of relative artistic and erotic freedom was precipitated by the rise to power of the moralizing monk Girolamo Savonarola. In northern Europe the artistic discourse on sodomy was turned against its proponents by artists such as Rembrandt, who in his "Rape of Ganymede" no longer depicted Ganymede as a willing youth, but as a squalling baby attacked by a rapacious bird of prey.
The relationships of socially prominent figures, such as King James I and the Duke of Buckingham, served to highlight the issue, including in anonymously authored street pamphlets: "The world is chang'd I know not how, For men Kiss Men, not Women now;...Of J. the First and Buckingham: He, true it is, his Wives Embraces fled, To slabber his lov'd Ganimede;" (Mundus Foppensis, or The Fop Display'd, 1691.)
1723 in England saw publication of Love Letters Between a Certain Late Nobleman and the famous Mr Wilson., which some modern scholars presume to be a novel. The 1749 edition of John Cleland's popular novel Fanny Hill includes a homosexual scene, but this was removed in its 1750 edition. Also in 1749 the earliest extended and serious defense of homosexuality in English Ancient and Modern Pederasty Investigated and Exemplified, written by Thomas Cannon, was published, but was suppressed almost immediately. It includes the passage: ""Unnatural Desire is a Contradiction in Terms; downright Nonsense. Desire is an amatory Impulse of the inmost human Parts."[103] Around 1785 Jeremy Bentham wrote another defense, but this was not published until 1978.[104]Executions for sodomy continued in the Netherlands until 1803, and in England until 1835.
Between 1864 and 1880 Karl Heinrich Ulrichs published a series of twelve tracts, which he collectively titled Research on the Riddle of Man-Manly Love. In 1867 he became the first self-proclaimed homosexual person to speak out publicly in defense of homosexuality when he pleaded at the Congress of German Jurists in Munich for a resolution urging the repeal of anti-homosexual laws.
Sir Richard Francis Burton's Terminal Essay, Part IV/D appendix in his translation of The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night (1885-6) provided an effusive overview of homosexuality in the middle east and tropics. Sexual Inversion by Havelock Ellis, published in 1896 challenged theories that homosexuality was abnormal, as well as stereotypes, and insisted on the ubiquity of homosexuality and its association with intellectual and artistic achievement. Appendix A included A Problem in Greek Ethics by John Addington Symonds, which had been privately distributed in 1883. Beginning in 1894 with Homogenic Love, Socialist activist and poet Edward Carpenter wrote a string of pro-homosexual articles and pamphlets, and 'came out' in 1916 in his book My Days and Dreams.
In 1900, Elisar von Kupffer published an anthology of homosexual literature from antiquity to his own time, Lieblingminne und Freundesliebe in der Weltliteratur. His aim was to broaden the public perspective of homosexuality beyond it being viewed simply as a medical or biological issue, but also as an ethical and cultural one.
Among many Middle-Eastern Muslim cultures, homosexual practices were widespread and public. Persian poets, such as Attar (d. 1220), Rumi (d. 1273), Sa’di (d. 1291), Hafez (d. 1389), and Jami (d. 1492), wrote poems replete with homoerotic allusions. Recent work in queer studies suggests that while the visibility of such relationships has been much reduced, their frequency has not. The two most commonly documented forms were commercial sex with transgender males or males enacting transgender roles exemplified by the köçeks and the bacchás, and Sufi spiritual practices in which the practitioner crossed over from the idealized chaste form of the practice to one in which the desire is consummated.
In Persia homosexuality and homoerotic expressions were tolerated in numerous public places, from monasteries and seminaries to taverns, military camps, bathhouses, and coffee houses. In the early Safavid era (1501-1723), male houses of prostitution (amrad khane) were legally recognized and paid taxes.
A tradition of art and literature sprang up constructing Middle Eastern homosexuality. Muslim — often Sufi — poets in medieval Arab lands and in Persia wrote odes to the beautiful wine boys who, they wrote, served them in the taverns. In many areas the practice survived into modern times, as documented by Richard Francis Burton, André Gide, and others.
In the Turkic-speaking areas, one manifestation of this same-sex love was the bacchá, adolescent or adolescent-seeming male entertainers and sex workers.
In other areas male love continues to surface despite efforts to keep it quiet. After the American invasion of Afghanistan, Central Asian same-sex love customs in which adult men take on adolescent lovers were widely reported.
Sexual relations between older and younger boys are said to be frequent in the Middle East as well as in the Maghreb.
The prevailing pattern of same-sex relationships in the temperate and sub-tropical zone stretching from Northern India to the Western Sahara is one in which the relationships were — and are — either gender-structured or age-structured or both. In recent years, egalitarian relationships modeled on the western pattern have become more frequent, though they remain rare.
In many societies of Melanesia same-sex relationships are an integral part of the culture. Traditional Melanesian insemination rituals also existed where a boy, upon reaching a certain age would be paired with an older adolescent who would become his mentor and whom he would ritually fellate over a number of years in order to develop his own masculinity. In certain tribes of Papua New Guinea, for example, it is considered a normal ritual responsibility for a boy to have a relationship in order to accomplish his ascent into manhood. Many Melanesian societies, however, have become hostile towards same-sex relationships since the introduction of Christianity by European missionaries.
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