History of homosexuality
This article tries to introduce the history of homosexuality in the world from ancient to modern times. Please feel free to add anything you know to improve it.
When discussing the history of homosexuality, one must first understand that the term "homosexuality" and its associated meanings are a product of 19th century psychology as well as the years of post-Stonewall gay liberation. Although there has been same-sex sexuality, the concept of the homosexual as an identity category or a label or as a class of person did not appear until the 19th century. See the work of Michel Foucault for more about this.
Throughout most of written history, homosexual relations usually took the form of pederasty, that is, they were characterized by a marked age difference and the fixed assignment of sexual roles. Passive anal sex was thought of as unmanly, and adult men who enjoyed being penetrated were ridiculed. Another paradigm would be the two-spirits of America or the arivanna of the Indian sub-continent in which partners of the same biological sex but different social genders would be common.
The earliest documents concerning homosexual, pederastic relationships come from Ancient Greece. However, Kenneth J. Dover has claimed that such relationships did not replace marriage between man and woman, but occurred before and beside it. A mature man would never have a mature male mate, one notable exeption being Alexander the Great , but he would be the erastes (lover) to a young eromenos (loved one). In this relationship it was considered improper for the eromenos to feel desire, as that would not be masculine. Driven by desire and admiration, the erastes would devote himself unselfishly to providing all the education his eromenos required to thrive in society. In recent times, the research by Dover has been questioned in light of massive evidence of love poetry which suggests a more emotional connection than earlier researchers liked to acknowledge. Some research has shown that ancient Greeks believed semen, more specifically sperm, to be the source of knowledge, and that these relationships served to pass wisdom on from the erastes to the eromenos within society.
It is tempting to assign historical personalities like Alexander the Great, Plato, Hadrian, Virgil, Christopher Marlowe or Leonardo da Vinci to our modern-day sexual identity bins like homosexuality or bisexuality, however, this act of discovery of sexual identity was never much of an issue at the time, because only the sex acts were seen as being homosexual or heterosexual, but not the persons themselves. Accordingly, while some of the people mentioned above lived in all likelihood a life of sex with one gender exclusively, the nature of one's love interests, be they heterosexual or homosexual, were much less important than the sexual role one took in these encounters, namely active, passive, both or neither.
The stonewall riots were a series of violent conflicts between homosexuals and police officers in New York City. The riot began on Friday, June 27, 1969 outside the Stonewall Inn, a gay hangout in Greenwich Village. "Stonewall", as it is often called, is considered the start of the modern gay rights movement in the U.S and worldwide. It was the first time any significant body of gays resisted arrest. For many, this is the primal scene of the modern gay rights movement.Homosexuality in the West
Ancient Greece
the Middle Ages
Renaissance
Stonewall riot
Main article: stonewall riots
