3. Homosexuality and homophobia

The definition of homosexuality

The Essentialists vs the Constructivists.

There has been a debate raging on which I have known nothing about:

The Essentialists are the ones that argue, "Baby I was born this way". They believe same sex attraction could be due to biological forces or hormonal levels. Arguments for the essentialist viewpoint include anything to do with the "gay gene" (which I will do more research on in the future). I think most people in modern society believe this view is the most accurate.

The Constructivitists believe that who you are attracted to is a result of society. In fact, they argue that there is no such thing as sexuality. Instead,you have sexual desires and appetites which have been influenced by your interactions with other people. 

-> This does not mean that you can change your sexuality. 

-> This does not mean that saying homosexuality is wrong (or a sin) will result in less same gender attraction.

For example, Halperin asks us to compare three people.

1. A gay woman into S/M

2. A gay woman not into S/M

3. A straight woman into S/M

Would you say that the two gay people are more similar? Why? Does sexuality really determine what "type" of person we are?

"It is not sexuality which haunts society, but society which haunts the body's sexuality" 

- Maurice Godelier

"Just because my sexuality is an artefact of cultural processes doesn't mean I'm not stuck with it" 

- Halperin

"Most pre-modern cultures do not ascribe a person's sexual taste to some positive, structural or constitutive feature of his or her personality. Rather, they assumed had the same fundamental set of alimentary appetites, refusing to individuate human beings at the level of sexual preference." 

Most cultures, including the early church, held the constructivist viewpoint. They held people culpable for their own desires, rather than seeing it as a separate unchangeable identity.

I included the contention over the definition because people nowadays see people as "homosexual" rather than people who experience same sex attraction. If you believe that homosexuality is an identity, what Christians did was oppress a minority. If you believe that sexuality is one thing, then what Christians did was to condemn the expression of certain sexual desires.

Ancient Greece: 

In the fable by Aristophanes, there were three types of humans, male, female and androgynous. These humans had eight limbs, and two sets of genitalia. They basically rolled everywhere. Zeus cut them in half (male/male, female/female, male/female) to prevent them becoming more powerful, but this resulted in them eternally trying to find their other half. This portrays sexuality as one thing - humans trying to find their soulmate.

LINK: Aristophanes: the origins of sexuality

Everyone likes to talk about how homosexuality was accepted and widely practised in Greece, but it is actually more complicated than that.

Firstly, sex was asymmetrical. One person was "active" and the other was "passive". It was not a mutual interaction, but as something that one person does to another. A male citizen could only have sexual relations with someone who is inferior in social or political status. This means a woman, a younger boy or a slave. 

It was very common for an older man to have sexual relations with a pubescent boy, called Paiderasia. The older man was the mentor, expected to teach the younger boy about life and love. The mentor would eventually take a wife, and the younger boy would become the "mentor" to another youth.

Furthermore, not all forms of homosexual attraction were widely accepted. If a man was effeminate or enjoyed being the "receiver", he was regarded as a "malakos", which means they saw him as having some sort of moral weakness.

Ancient Rome:

Rome was another society where same sex attraction was celebrated. Latin poets wrote with the assumption that all men felt homosexual desire at some point. However, sexual acts were also dictated by power and status rather than love. Homosexual activity was only acceptable if it was a freeborn citizen with a slave. In fact, using prostitutes and slaves was viewed on favourably.

There was some evidence of lasting relationships between men, but having sex exclusively with men was viewed negatively. Like in Greece, effeminate men were scorned. They believe it demonstrated weakness, self-indulgence, vanity and unmanliness.

The Constructivist argument:

They argue that the ancient Greeks' practices demonstrate how sexuality can be influenced by society, as attraction was largely dictated by social and political status rather than innate preference. That is, men slept with other men because it was acceptable form of sexual expression in Greek society.

They are not saying that a society's hatred for a particular sexual lifestyle can change people's attraction. Their argument is that your interactions with the people around you affect your attraction, rather than the way people regard your sexual preferences.

Homophobia

"Few social groups have been free from the effects of prejudice, but most warring factions - men and women, Jews, Muslims and Christians, blacks and whites - have been united in one eternal hatred: detestation of a particular group whose presence is universal." 

- Byrne Fone

It has been argued that homophobia has been linked to sexism. That is, men oppress women, therefore, men oppress men that act like women. This can probably be seen from the Greek and Roman's hatred of effeminate men and the way that in general men that had homosexual desires were persecuted more than the women. 

Elisabeth Young Bruehl argued that all main prejudices (homophobia, racism, sexism, etc) can be categorised in these three ways:

• Obsessional: "You're secretly trying to kill me and overthrow my government!" The objects are omni-present conspirators, enemies set on one's destruction who must be eliminated
• Hysterical: "You're disgusting! You're dirty! You're beneath me!" Hysterical prejudice has a strong component of sexual repression, interpreting the hated individuals as "other", inferior and as sexually threatening. 
• Narcissistic: "Let's kill all gay people" They cannot tolerate that people exist who are not like them.