Chapter 8: Sexuality

Chapter 8: Sexuality

Links to Original Sources

1. Aristotle, Homosexuality in The Politics, Athens

Aristotle is not usually given as a major author on homosexuality. Nevertheless, his writings show great familiarity with the subject, and with men with male lovers in particular. This includes sections from The Politics that refer to same-sex relations, and provides links to other ancient Greek works on same-sex relations.

2. Selections from Chinese Homosexual Literature, 4th Century BCE–18th Century CE

Taken from Brett Hinsch, Passions of the Cut Sleeve: The Male Homosexual Tradition in China.

3. The Qu'ran and Homosexuality, 7th Century Arabia

Selections from the Qu’ran that are often understood as referring to same-sex relations.

4. Thomas Aquinas on Sex, 13th Century Europe

Thomas Aquinas was the most important Western philosopher of the Middle Ages, and his philosophical system was later declared the official philosophy of the Catholic Church. In a series of works he addressed all the current issues of theology and philosophy. The selection here addresses Aquinas’s discussion of sex and sexuality.

5. Prostitution, Europe 16th–19th Centuries

This site includes sources on prostitution in Europe from the 16th to the 19th centuries, with an excellent introduction to ways they can be used to help understand different societies’ attitudes toward sexuality and women.

6. Sex and Race in Colonial Latin America, 18th Century

This site presents three marriage cases from 18th-century Latin America that involve the intertwining of gender and and racial ideologies, with extensive contextualization.

7. Age of Consent Laws, 19th–20th Centuries

Since the 19th century the age of consent – the age at which an individual is treated as capable of consenting to sexual activity – has occupied a central place in debates over the nature of childhood, adolescence, and adulthood, and been drawn into campaigns against prostitution and child marriage, colonialism, struggles to achieve gender and sexual equality, and the response to teenage pregnancy. A series of sources relating to age of consent debates from several places around the world.

8. “Passing as a Man,” Early 20th Century United States

Murray Hall was an urban political boss of the early 20th century, a leader of New York City’s notorious “Tammany Hall.” To all observers, Hall was a “man’s man,” but was actually a woman (by the name of Mary Anderson) who “passed” as a man for more than a quarter century. This is an article from the New York Times after Hall’s death (from breast cancer).

9. A Gay Childhood in the 1950s United States

Jim Justen grew up gay in Kenosha, Wisconsin during the 1950s, a time when homosexuality was considered a criminal offense that was thought to sap the moral fiber of both the individual and the nation. Gays were subjected to the same hysteria and persecution engendered by anticommunism, and pressured to conform to mainstream cultural and gender norms. On this site he recalls his childhood.

10. Gay Liberation, New York 1969

A series of demonstrations and conversations immediately following the Stonewall riots of June 1969 gave birth to the modern gay liberation movement. This site includes some of the early flyers, handed out on the street and at conferences. They both show an intense immediate awareness of the historic turning point for gays and lesbians, and reveal real attempts to engage in analysis as well as protest.

11. Advocates Call for an End to Anti-Gay Employment Discrimination, US 1994

In 1972, East Lansing, Michigan, became the first city to forbid discrimination in local government hiring based on sexual orientation. Since then more than 175 localities and 13 states have passed similar antidiscrimination legislation, but opponents have successfully campaigned to stop or repeal such laws by arguing that they conferred “special rights” on gay men and lesbians. In the following testimony to a U.S. Congressional subcommittee in 1994, five advocates for federal legislation presented arguments and personal accounts to demonstrate the need to establish, in the words of one of the witnesses, “the equal right to work in the US.”

12. South African Constitution, 1996

The South African Constitution was the first in the world that included sexual orientation among the categories promised equal rights. That clause is Section 9(3).

13. Hong Kong LGBT Conference, 1996

About 200 Chinese tongzhi (lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and all transgendered people) from different regions gathered in Hong Kong and participated in the "1996 Chinese Tongzhi Conference." They issued a manifesto stating that same-sex practices had long existed in China and were not a Western import. A press release from the conference, including the text of the manifesto.

14. FIERCE, New York 2000

FIERCE is a youth-led, multiracial organization in New York launched in 2000 (the acronym stands for Fabulous Independent Educated Radicals for Community Empowerment) to promote the leadership of LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, queer) youth of color.

15. United Nations Resolution 1820, 2008

In 2008, the UN passed resolution 1820, stating that “sexual violence, when used or commissioned as a tactic of war in order to deliberately target civilians or as a part of a widespread or systematic attack against civilian populations, can significantly exacerbate

situations of armed conflict and may impede the restoration of international peace.” In recognizing that rape as a weapon of war is a matter of national and international security, the UN thus placed gender and sexuality at the center of today’s most important issues. This site contains the text of the resolution, and the many statements made about its passng, including ones by then US Secretary of State, Condaleezza Rice, and UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon.

Further Reading

The books in this list are organized by the topics noted below, and then in alphabetical order by author within each topic. Most of them have descriptions taken from the book jacket or from the publisher’s website. These descriptions are written by the author or the publisher to sell the book as well as to explain its contents. They thus do not necessarily represent my opinion of the book, but I have included them here so that you can get an idea of a book's contents and approach and thus better judge whether it would be useful for your purposes.

General Studies

Classical and Postclassical Eurasia (600 BCE–1500 CE)

Third Genders

The Early Modern and Colonial World: Sex and Race (1500–1900)

Modern Sexuality in the West (1750–1950)

The Globalized World (1900–2010)

General Studies

Abbott, Elizabeth. A History of Celibacy: Experiments through the Ages. New York: Scribner, 2000.

Celibacy is a worldwide practice that is often adopted, rarely discussed. Now, in Elizabeth Abbott's fascinating and wide-ranging history, it is examined in all its various forms: shaping religious lives, conditioning athletes and shamans, surfacing in classical poetry and camp literature, resonating in the voices of castrati, and permeating ancient mythology. Found in every society of the past, practiced by both the anonymous and the legendary (St. Catherine, Joan of Arc, Leonardo da Vinci, Elizabeth I, Gandhi), celibacy has as many stories as adherents, and Abbott weaves them into a provocative, seamless tapestry that brings history alive.

Aldrich, Robert. Gay Life and Culture: A World History. New York: Thames and Hudson, 2006.

Gay Life and Culture is the first ever comprehensive, global account of gay history. It is spectacularly illustrated throughout and includes an extensive selection of images, many of them only recently recovered. From Theocritus' verses to Queer as Folk, from the berdaches of North America to the boywives of Aboriginal Australia, this extraordinarily wide-ranging book illustrates both the commonality of love and lust, and the various ways in which such desires have been constructed through the ages.

Aries, Philippe and André Bejin, eds. Western Sexuality: Practice and Precept in Past and Present Times. London: Blackwell, 1985.

This is a wide-ranging collection of articles on "normal" and "abnormal" sexual practices in western society, from the ancient world to the present day. The contributors - French, Italian and English historians, sociologists and anthropologists - examine the complex origins of the western model of marriage, the importance of the distinction between love within and love outside marriage, the changing attitudes towards sexual practices between men and women, and the relative dissolubility of marriage at different periods. The "homosexual" revolution has been at least as far reaching in its effect on western convention and law as the "heterosexual" revolution of the 1960s. The origins and implications of both these movements are examined in the book from the perspective of past and present attitudes to femininity and masculinity.

Caplan, Pat, ed. The Cultural Construction of Sexuality. London: Tavistock, 1987.

The Cultural Construction of Sexuality illustrates the argument that sexuality is not a `thing in itself', but a concept that can only be understood with reference to economic, political and social factors.

Crompton, Louis. Homosexuality and Civilization. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 2003.

How have major civilizations of the last two millennia treated people who were attracted to their own sex? In a narrative tour de force, Louis Crompton chronicles the lives and achievements of homosexual men and women alongside a darker history of persecution, as he compares the Christian West with the cultures of ancient Greece and Rome, Arab Spain, imperial China, and pre-Meiji Japan. Ancient Greek culture celebrated same-sex love in history, literature, and art, making high claims for its moral influence. By contrast, Jewish religious leaders in the sixth century B.C.E. branded male homosexuality as a capital offense and, later, blamed it for the destruction of the biblical city of Sodom. When these two traditions collided in Christian Rome during the late empire, the tragic repercussions were felt throughout Europe and the New World. Louis Crompton traces Church-inspired mutilation, torture, and burning of "sodomites" in sixth-century Byzantium, medieval France, Renaissance Italy, and in Spain under the Inquisition. But Protestant authorities were equally committed to the execution of homosexuals in the Netherlands, Calvin's Geneva, and Georgian England. The root cause was religious superstition, abetted by political ambition and sheer greed. Yet from this cauldron of fears and desires, homoerotic themes surfaced in the art of the Renaissance masters--Donatello, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Sodoma, Cellini, and Caravaggio--often intertwined with Christian motifs. Homosexuality also flourished in the court intrigues of Henry III of France, Queen Christina of Sweden, James I and William III of England, Queen Anne, and Frederick the Great. Anti-homosexual atrocities committed in the West contrast starkly with the more tolerant traditions of pre-modern China and Japan, as revealed in poetry, fiction, and art and in the lives of emperors, shoguns, Buddhist priests, scholars, and actors. In the samurai tradition of Japan, Crompton makes clear, the celebration of same-sex love rivaled that of ancient Greece. Sweeping in scope, elegantly crafted, and lavishly illustrated, Homosexuality and Civilization is a stunning exploration of a rich and terrible past.

Duberman, Martin, Martha Vicinus and George Chauncey, Jr., eds. Hidden From History: Reclaiming the Gay and Lesbian Past. London: Meridian, 1989.

Without peer, Hidden from History gathers together the works of the most exciting scholars in the dynamic field of homosexual studies, making this a ground-breaking and provocative work that reveals the history of gays and lesbians in different cultures and eras.

Faderman, Lillian. Surpassing the Love of Men: Romantic Friendships and Love between Women from the Renaissance to the Present. New York: William Morrow, 1981.

A classic of its kind, this fascinating cultural history draws on everything from private correspondence to pornography to explore five hundred years of friendship and love between women. "Surpassing the Love of Men" throws a new light on shifting theories of female sexuality and the changing status of women over the centuries.

Flandrin, Jean-Louis. Sex in the Western World: The Development of Attitudes and Behavior, trans. Sue Collins. Chur, Switzerland: Harwood, 1991.

Laslett, Peter, et al., eds., Bastardy and its Comparative History. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1980.

Studies in the history of illegitimacy and marital nonconformism in Britain, France, Germany, Sweden, North America, Jamaica, and Japan.

Licata, Salvatore J. and Robert P. Peterson, eds. Historical Perspectives on Homosexuality. New York: Haworth Press, 1981.

Fascinating reading on the plight of gay men and women through the ages. The contributors to this compassionate book document how society has made life difficult and even dangerous for homosexual people. Through narrative history as well as biography, these essays trace the legal, social, and physical consequences of this oppression.

MacLachlan, Bonnie and Judith Fletcher, eds. Virginity Revisited: Configurations of the Unpossessed Body. Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto, 2007.

From Classical Antiquity to the present, virginity has been closely allied with power: as someone who chooses a life of celibacy retains mastery over his or her body. Sexual potency withheld becomes an energy-reservoir that can ensure independence and enhance self-esteem, but it can also be harnessed by public institutions and redirected for the common good. This was the founding principle of the Vestal Virgins of Rome and later in the monastic orders of the middle ages. Mythical accounts of goddesses and heroines who possessed the ability to recover their virginity after sexual experience demonstrate a belief that virginity is paradoxically connected both with social autonomy and the ability to serve the human community. Virginity Revisited is a collection of essays that examines virginity not as a physical reality but as a cultural artefact. By situating the topic of virginity within a range of historical 'moments' and using a variety of methodologies, Virginity Revisited illuminates how chastity provided a certain agency, autonomy, and power to women. This is a study of the positive and negative features of sexual renunciation, from ancient Greek divinities and mythical women, in Rome's Vestal Virgins, in the Christian martyrs and Mariology in the Medieval and early Modern period, and in Grace Marks, the heroine of Margaret Atwood's novel Alias Grace.

McLaren, Angus. Impotence: A Cultural History. Chicago: University of Chicago, 2007. As anyone who has watched television in recent years can attest, we live in the age of Viagra. From Bob Dole to Mike Ditka to late-night comedians, our culture has been engaged in one long, frank, and very public talk about impotence—and our newfound pharmaceutical solutions. But as Angus McLaren shows us in Impotence, the first cultural history of the subject,the failure of mento rise to the occasion has been a recurrent topic since the dawn of human culture.
Drawing on a dazzling range of sources from across centuries, McLaren demonstrates how male sexuality was constructed around the idea of potency, from times past when it was essential for the purpose of siring children, to today, when successful sex is viewed as a component of a healthy emotional life. Along the way, Impotence enlightens and fascinates with tales of sexual failure and its remedies—for example, had Ditka lived in ancient Mesopotamia, he might have recited spells while eating roots and plants rather than pills—and explanations, which over the years have included witchcraft, shell-shock, masturbation, feminism, and the Oedipal complex. McLaren also explores the surprising political and social effects of impotence, from the revolutionary unrest fueled by Louis XVI’s failure to consummate his marriage to the boost given the fledgling American republic by George Washington’s failure to found a dynasty. Each age, McLaren shows, turns impotence to its own purposes, using it to help define what is normal and healthy for men, their relationships, and society. From marriage manuals to metrosexuals, from Renaissance Italy to Hollywood movies, Impotence is a serious but highly entertaining examination of a problem that humanity has simultaneously regarded as life’s greatest tragedy and its greatest joke.

Schmidt, Robert A. and Barbara L. Voss, eds. Archaeologies of Sexuality. New York: Routledge, 2000.

Status, age and gender have long been accepted aspects of archaeological enquiry, yet it is only recently that archaeologists have started seriously to consider the role of sex and sexuality in their studies. Archaeologies of Sexuality is a timely and pioneering work. It presents a strong, diverse body of scholarship which draws on locations as varied as medieval England, the ancient Maya kingdoms, New Kingdom Egypt, prehistoric Europe, and convict-era Australia, demonstrating the challenges and rewards of integrating the study of sex and sexuality within archaeology.

Classical and Post-classical Eurasia (600 BCE–1500 CE)

Brown, Judith C. Immodest Acts: The Life of a Lesbian Nun in Renaissance Italy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986.