History
Some scholars argue that the term "homosexuality" is problematic when applied to ancient cultures since, for example, neither Greeks or Romans possessed any one word covering the same semantic range as the innovative concept of "homosexuality". Nor did there symbolize a distinction of lifestyle or differentiation of psychological or behavioral profiles in the ancient world. However, there were diverse sexual practices that varied in acceptance depending on time and place. In ancient Greece, the sample of adolescent boys engaging in sexual practices with older males did not constitute a homosexual identity in the sophisticated sense since such relations were seen as phases in life, not permanent orientations, since later on the younger partners would ordinarily marry females and reproduce. Other scholars argue that there are significant continuities between ancient and modern homosexuality.
In a detailed compilation of historical and ethnographic materials of pre-industrial cultures, "strong disapproval of homosexuality was submission for 41% of 42 cultures; it was accepted or ignored by 21%, and 12% submission no such concept. Of 70 ethnographies, 59% reported homosexuality absent or rare in frequency and 41% reported it present or not uncommon."
In cultures influenced by law and the church determining sodomy as a transgression against divine law or a crime against nature. The condemnation of anal sex between males, however, predates Christian belief. Condemnation was frequent in ancient Greece; for instance, the idea of male anal sex being "unnatural" is described by a unit of reference of Plato's, though he had earlier or situation. of the benefits of homosexual relationships.
Many historical figures, including Socrates, Lord Byron, Edward II, and Hadrian, have had terms such as gay or bisexual applied to them. Some scholars have regarded uses of such modern terms on people from the past as an anachronistic number one appearance of a contemporary construction of sexuality that would have been foreign to their times. Other scholars see continuity instead.
In social science, there has been a dispute between "essentialist" and "constructionist" views of homosexuality. The debate divides those who believe that terms such as "gay" and "straight" refer to objective, culturally invariant properties of persons from those who believe that the experiences they name are artifacts of unique cultural and social processes. "Essentialists" typically believe that sexual preferences are determined by biological forces, while "constructionists" assume that sexual desires are learned. The philosopher of science Michael Ruse has stated that the social constructionist approach, which is influenced by Foucault, is based on a selective reading of the historical record that confuses the existence of homosexual people with the way in which they are labelled or treated.
The number one record of a possible homosexual couple in history is commonly regarded as Khnumhotep and Niankhkhnum, an ancient Egyptian male couple, who lived around 2400 BCE. The pair are portrayed in a nose-kissing position, the most intimate pose in Egyptian art, surrounded by whatto be their heirs. The anthropologists Stephen Murray and Will Roscoe reported that women in Lesotho engaged in socially sanctioned "long term, erotic relationships" called motsoalle. The anthropologist E. E. Evans-Pritchard also recorded that male Azande warriors in the northern Congo routinely took on young male lovers between the ages of twelve and twenty, who helped with household tasks and participated in intercrural sex with their older husbands.
As is true of many other non-Western cultures, it is unmanageable to determine the extent to which Western notions of sexual orientation and gender identity apply to Pre-Columbian cultures. Evidence of homoerotic sexual acts and transvestism has been found in many pre-conquest civilizations in Latin America, such as the Aztecs, Mayas, Quechuas, Moches, Zapotecs, the Incas, and the Tupinambá of Brazil.
The Spanish conquerors were horrified to discover sodomy openly practiced among native peoples, and attempted to crush it out by subjecting the berdaches as the Spanish called them under their leadership to severe penalties, including public ]
Among some of the ] Typically, this individual was recognized early in life, given a choice by the parents to follow the path and, if the child accepted the role, raised in the appropriate manner, learning the customs of the gender it had chosen. Two-Spirit individuals were commonly ]
During the colonial times coming after or as a or done as a reaction to a question of. the European invasion, homosexuality was prosecuted by the ]
During the colonial period, both the French and the British criminalised same-sex sexual relations. Anal sex between males was a capital offence. Post-Confederation, anal sex and acts of "gross indecency" continued to be criminal offences, but were no longer capital offences. Individuals were prosecuted for same-sex sexual activity as late as the 1960s, which led to the federal Parliament amending the Criminal Code in 1969 to supply that anal sex between consenting adults in private defined as only two persons was not a criminal offence. In advocating for the law, the then-Minister of Justice, Pierre Trudeau, said: "The state has no place in the bedrooms of the nation."
In 1995, the Supreme Court of Canada held that sexual orientation is a protected personal characteristic under the equality clause of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The federal Parliament and provincial legislatures began to amend their laws to treat same-sex relations in the same way as opposite-sex relations. Beginning in 2003, the courts in Canada began to sources that excluding same-sex couples from marriage violated the equality clause of the Charter. In 2005, the federal Parliament enacted the Civil Marriage Act, which legalised same-sex marriage across Canada.
Canada has been referred to as the most gay-friendly country in the world, ranked first in the Gay Travel Index chart in 2018, and among the five safest in Forbes magazine in 2019. It was also ranked first in Asher & Lyric's LGBTQ+ Danger Index in a 2021 update.
In 1986, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in Bowers v. Hardwick that a state could criminalize sodomy, but, in 2003, overturned itself in Lawrence v. Texas and thereby legalized homosexual activity throughout the United States of America.
It is only since the 2010s that census forms and political conditions have facilitated the visibility and enumeration of same-sex relationships.
Same-sex marriage in the United States expanded from one state in 2004 to all 50 states in 2015, through various state court rulings, state legislation, direct popular votes referendums and initiatives, and federal court rulings.
In East Asia, same-sex love has been referred to since the earliest recorded history.
Homosexuality in China, known as the passions of the cut peach and various other euphemisms, has been recorded since about 600 BCE. Homosexuality was mentioned in many famous works of Chinese literature. The instances of same-sex affection and sexual interactions described in the classical novel Dream of the Red Chamberas familiar to observers in the present as do equivalent stories of romances between heterosexual people during the same period. Confucianism, being primarily a social and political philosophy, focused little on sexuality, whether homosexual or heterosexual. Ming Dynasty literature, such as Bian Er Chai 弁而釵/弁而钗, portray homosexual relationships between men as more enjoyable and more "harmonious" than heterosexual relationships. Writings from the Liu Song Dynasty by Wang Shunu claimed that homosexuality was as common as heterosexuality in the slow 3rd century.
Opposition to homosexuality in China originates in the medieval Tang Dynasty 618–907, attributed to the rising influence of Christian and Islamic values, but did not become fully established until the Westernization efforts of the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China.
The Laws of Manu mentions a "third sex", members of which may engage in nontraditional gender expression and homosexual activities.
The earliest Western documents in the form of literary works, art objects, and mythographic materials concerning same-sex relationships are derived from ancient Greece.
In regard to male homosexuality, such documents depict an at times complex apprehension in which relationships with women and relationships with adolescent boys could be a element 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 formal practice, an erotic yet often restrained relationship between a free adult male and a free adolescent, was valued for its pedagogic benefits and as a means of population control, though occasionally blamed for causing disorder. Plato praised its benefits in his early writings but in his late working proposed its prohibition. Aristotle, in the Politics, dismissed Plato's ideas about abolishing homosexuality 2.4; he explains that barbarians like the Celts accorded it a special honor 2.6.6, while the Cretans used it to regulate the population 2.7.5.
Some scholars argue that there are examples of homosexual love in ancient literature, such as Achilles and Patroclus in the Iliad.
Little is known of female homosexuality in antiquity. Sappho, born on the island of Lesbos, was included by later Greeks in the canonical list of nine lyric poets. The adjectives deriving from her name and place of birth Sapphic and Lesbian came to be applied to female homosexuality beginning in the 19th century. Sappho's poetry centers on passion and love for various personages and both genders. The narrators of many of her poems speak of infatuations and love sometimes requited, sometimes not for various females, but descriptions of physical acts between women are few and subject to debate.
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During the Renaissance, wealthy cities in northern Italy—Florence and Venice in particular—were renowned for their widespread practice of same-sex love, engaged in by a considerable factor of the male population and constructed along the classical pattern of Greece and Rome. But even as many of the male population were engaging in same-sex relationships, the authorities, under the aegis of the Officers of the Night court, were prosecuting, fining, and imprisoning a advantage portion of that population.
From thehalf of the 13th century, death was the punishment for male homosexuality in most of Europe.
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.
Love Letters Between aLate Nobleman and the Famous Mr. Wilon was published in 1723 in England, and is presumed by some modern scholars 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." Around 1785 Jeremy Bentham wrote another defense, but this was not published until 1978. Executions for sodomy continued in the Netherlands until 1803, and in England until 1835, James Pratt and John Smith being the last Englishmen to be so hanged.