Historical Perspectives

1. Historical Perspectives • Two broad areas of theory and scholarly inquiry: a. Development of discourse about sexuality. b. Historical views of sexual identity.

2. Historical Perspectives • Development of discourse about sexuality Foucault-we see in historical writings “a history of categories or representations, a history of the different ways that different historical cultures have put sexuality into language.” “…an account of how various societies represent sexuality in their language—as if sexuality were some ubiquitous natural reality.”

3. Historical Perspectives • Development of discourse about sexuality Erotes-(early 4th Century A.D.) an example of “luxury literature” found cross culturally at that time. The text is a philosophical dialogue between two men over the relative merits of women and young males as vehicles of male sexual pleasure. In their view, “merely to have a fixed sexual object-choice of any kind is to be some sort of freak….”

4. Historical Perspectives Development of discourse about sexuality Today, we assume that our knowledge and experience of sexuality is universal, natural, and biological. Under the current regime, heterosexuality and homosexuality are central, organizing categories of thought, behavior, and erotic subjectivity. The prominence of these categories (hetero/homo) represents a relatively recent and culturally specific development.

5. Historical Perspectives Development of discourse about sexuality • Halperin (2002) • Are we mistaken if we describe sexual behaviors in ancient times using modern concepts? “sexual contact”—a behavioral term, which evokes the sexological and sociological language of the Kinsey reports. “sexual relations”—is a euphemism for intercourse drawn from the lexicon of the various forensic disciplines. “homoeroticism”—is a coinage of 19th century psychiatry.

6. Historical Perspectives Development of discourse about sexuality • Halperin (2002) • Did people in ancient times have a concept of sexual orientation and of homosexuality that lesbians and gay men today might recognize as our own?

7. Historical Perspectives Development of discourse about sexuality • Halperin discusses the origin of the term “Lesbian”. “From at least the 5th century, B.C., if not before, the sexual act associated with “lesbianism” in antiquity was fellatio.” • Tribade (An ancient Greek word, appears in Latin during the first century A.D.) - She who rubs. - A phallic woman. - A hypermasculine or butch women. - A woman who sought pleasure by rubbing her genitals against those of another woman.

8. Historical Perspectives Development of discourse about sexuality • Halperin (2002) • What we see in the ancient writings is an association between female same-sex behavior and gender deviance. “It is not exactly the ‘homosexuality’ of the ‘women like that in Lesbos’ that attracts particular comment, then, but their striking departure from a whole set of social norms governing feminine comportment--norms that conflate gender identity, self-presentation, personal style, erotic inclination, and sexual practice. • Sometime between 1923 and the present, the word “lesbian” came to mean one thing and one thing only, a female homosexual.

9. Historical Perspectives Development of discourse about sexuality • Halperin (2002) • Roman-period writers presented as normative those sexual relations that represent a human social hierarchy. • Every sexual pairing included one active and one passive partner, regardless of gender. • The active/passive category was more fundamental than gender.

10. Historical Perspectives Development of discourse about sexuality • Halperin (2002) • The ancients ‘evaluated sexual acts according to the degree to which such acts either violated or conformed to norms of conduct deemed appropriate to individual sexual actors by reason of their gender, age, and social status’ and that those norms presupposed a strict correlation of superordinate and subordinate social status with ‘active’ and ‘passive’ sexual roles. • Not anatomical sexes (male vs. female), not gender (man vs. woman), but power (superordinate vs. subordinate social identity).

11. Historical Perspectives Development of discourse about sexuality. Foucault-Homosexual behavior may have existed through the ages, but the identity or category “homosexual” has not. “Homosexuality” is a relatively recent development. Homosexuality was created or constructed within a regulatory regime that assigns meaning to sexuality (as opposed to status and power, superordinate/subordinate). The “homosexual” is an invention of western societies to police and contain desire.

12. Historical Perspectives Development of discourse about sexuality. Modern ideas about homosexuality were first conceptualized in the late 19th century. The phenomenon that is today named “homosexuality” did not have a name until it was coined by K.M. Benkert in 1869. What had been a behavior (sin, crime) becomes an internal medical condition.

13. Historical Perspectives Development of discourse about sexuality Queer theory focuses on how people and desires come to be separated into two camps—of homosexual and heterosexual. The underpinnings of these separations are linguistic binaries: Homosexual/Heterosexual Male/Female Black/White Spirit/Body Valued Classes/Devalued Classes

14. Historical Perspectives Historical Views of Sexual Identity: Constructionism Peter Brooks (2005) “Troubling confessions: Speaking guilt in law and literature” Traces the development of the concept of the self over the centuries and the role that the act of confession has played in the formation of the self. The modern self has its roots in the Forth Lateran Council of the Roman Catholic Church in 1215. Made annual confession obligatory.

15. Historical Perspectives Historical Views of Sexual Identity: Constructionism Peter Brooks “Troubling confessions: Speaking guilt in law and literature” Long before Freud, the Catholic Church created the earliest model of the self: The evil part (Id) and unknown, secrete parts created by passion and shame (Unconscious) The confessant is free to choose between revelation or concealment (Ego) Forgiving father confessor or fire and steel inquisitor (Superego) `

16. Historical Perspectives Historical Views of Sexual Identity: Constructionism Foucault-Knowledge about sexuality is used by power structures to control human behavior. The Church required self-examination to gain the truth of one’s personal identity. Subsequent confession, renunciation of the “deviant other” within the self brings redemption.

17. Historical Perspectives Historical Views of Sexual Identity: Schuyf (2000) Homosexuality as a concept presupposed a personal identity and that sexuality has a gender. We see in historical writings a shift in the organization in sexuality from hierarchical (status/power) to gender based.

18. Historical Perspectives Historical Views of Sexual Identity: Constructionism. Schuyf (2000) During the 18th and 19th centuries conceptualizations of homosexuality become based upon gender. Inversion Theory becomes influential.

19. Historical Perspectives Historical Views of Sexual Identity: Essentialism. Schuyf (2000) Historians such as Boswell insist that there was “something like a gay consciousness in ancient Rome”

20. Historical Perspectives Historical Views of Sexual Identity: Essentialism. Berman (2003) Four types of homosexuality found in behavioral norms in ancient civilization. 1. The Penetrators 2. The passive homosexuals 3. Military Homosexuality 4. Man-boy love

21. Historical Perspectives Historical Views of Sexual Identity: Essentialism. Berman (2003) This chapter provides evidence of the “widespread incidence of gender-discordant adult male groups in traditional societies throughout the world leaves no room for doubt that inherent in the human species is the tendency for a minority of boys to gravitate toward the female role...”

22. Historical Perspectives A Short History of the Gay Rights Movement 1860’s Paragraph 175 Criminalize same- sex behavior. 1861 Enlightened England reduces penalty for sodomy from death to imprisonment. 1869 Term “homosexuality” coined by K.M. Benkert to describe an “illness” 1897 Magnus Hirshfeld M.D. & Karl Ulrichs (Lawyer) founded the first social organization to advocate civil rights for homosexuals. (Germany) “The Scientific Humanitarian Committee”

23. Historical Perspectives A Short History of the Gay Rights Movement 1897 “The Scientific Humanitarian Committee” Motto “Justice Through Science” Research-1903 one of the first sex surveys (6,000) questionnaires find that 2.2% of the population is gay. Publications-”Yearbook for Intermediate Sexual Types” and Leaflet for the public “What You Should Know About the Third Sex” Film- “Different From Other People”

24. Historical Perspectives A Short History of the Gay Rights Movement 1914 Edward Carpenter & Havelock Ellis found “The British School for the Study of Sex Psychology” 1924 First organization in U.S. founded by Henry Gerber. Aim: “to promote and protect the interests of people who by reasons of mental and psychic abnormality are abused and hindered in the legal pursuit of happiness guaranteed to them by the Declaration of Independence. 1928 Radclyffe Hall “The Well of Loneliness”

25. Historical Perspectives A Short History of the Gay Rights Movement 1950’ McCarthy era in U.S. Communists and homosexuals are threat to security. 1951 Mattachine Society Founded 1955 Daughters of Bilitis Founded 1957 Frank Kameny dismissed from Harvard for being a known homosexual. 1967 Stonewall Riots 1973 Removal of Homosexuality from DSM