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Homosexuality

Homosexuality generally refers to sexual and/or emotional attraction to members of the same sex. Homosexuality is considered to be a sexual orientation along with heterosexuality, or attraction to members of the opposite sex, and bisexuality, or the potential for attraction to members of both sexes. In addition to attraction, sexual orientation may also refer to the practice of sexual relations with members of the desired sex.

The term homosexuality is a relatively recent Western creation. It was initially used by European scientists who considered sexual relations among members of the same sex to be abnormal. Western views of homosexuality have had an impact on the ways in which anthropologists and other scientists have studied the topic. Changing societal attitudes in the past century have allowed for more in-depth research on homosexuality. This research, in turn, has influenced social changes.

Cross-culturally, there are diverse ways in which people perceive their attraction to members of the same sex or engage in sexual relations with them. In many cases, same-sex relations exist in addition to opposite-sex relations. They are sometimes limited to particular contexts, such as rites of passage, certain periods of life, or specific age-based relationships. In other cases, same-sex behavior is connected with gender variance, where an individual takes on the social role of the opposite sex. There are also cases where same-sex acts that would be labeled as “sex” by many Westerners do not qualify as “sex” to the local participants.

Although it exists in human societies around the world, as well as in some other animal species, homosexuality is often an issue of great contention. Its existence is considered natural or tolerable in some cultural areas, and in some cases, unions between members of the same sex are legally or socially recognized. In other locations, this is considered unnatural and is prohibited, sometimes to the extent that individuals thought to have transgressed this taboo are severely punished by imprisonment or death.

Western Notions of Homosexuality

Nineteenth-century Europe was characterized by tensions between scientific and Christian thought. However, even scientists who tried to break from religious teachings to explain human existence and behavior were influenced by their ideological upbringing when it came to matters of sexuality. Ideas about what constitutes normal and moral sexuality are heavily influenced by religious ideology in any society, and the religious teachings in Europe at the time taught people that sexual relations between members of the same sex were immoral. Therefore, scientists rarely questioned the assumption that this behavior was abnormal and unnatural.

In addition, important research regarding human evolution during this time concerned natural selection, which is directly concerned with reproductive success and the transmittal of adaptive genes as forces of physical and behavioral change in living species. With an emerging scientific worldview that considered reproduction to be a driving human force, any behavior that appeared to deviate from it was unsurprisingly viewed as counterproductive and unhealthy in terms of the individual or group that participated in such acts.

This view of homosexuality had an impact in the field of anthropology. Physical anthropologists, concerned with human evolution, rarely considered the possibility of the existence of homosexual behavior in early human societies. In addition, early ethnographers and other observers of worldwide cultural behavior had a tendency to project Western values and ideas upon other societies. The existence of same-sex emotional attachments or sexual behavior in many areas was therefore frequently overlooked, since the evidence was not visible to Westerners who had predetermined criteria for what constituted this behavior.

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