Homosexuality

Homosexuality as a Cultural and Historical Construction

Homosexuality is a cultural antagonist used to define and (positively) connote heterosexuality. In various scientific theories and according to various approaches and disciplines, heterosexuality is considered a fundamental, static, unchangeable, and ahistorical category. Most societies have considered heterosexuality as a continual necessity, a primitive sexual expression on the basis of which we distinguish gender and sexual roles linked according to a fixed and defined alignment (having a penis means being male and having a masculine social role, whereas having a vagina means being female and assuming a feminine role). However, heterosexuality is not ontological but is rather a relational device that defines what it is right to feel, what pleasures should be considered normal, and what forms of complementarity must be protected and made legitimate.

Homoerotic Relationships in the Past

Homoerotic relationships have occurred and changed throughout the history of humanity according to relational arrangements structured on the basis of (a) the age (and social status) of the subjects practicing them, (b) inversion of the gender role of one of the two partners, (c) symmetrical relations between partners with a similar social status, or (d) relationships that involved social roles (e.g., religious roles) allowing or envisaging homoerotic relations. The case of the Sambia people of New Guinea is a classic example of relationships structured on the basis of age, particularly in anthropological analysis, as shown by the anthropologist Gilbert Herdt. In this case, the older male of the group becomes defined in his sexually active and insertive role and the young male in a passive or receptive role. The homoerotic relationship is a rite of passage in reaching adulthood and fertility. There are also examples from ancient times of homoerotic relationships between men structured according to age and social status (whereas information on women's homoerotic relationships based on age is more fragmentary). In classical societies, for example, in ancient Greece, love for one's own sex and for the opposite sex were not two opposing and incompatible choices, but the moral aspect was instead based on the contrast between the temperate man, in control of himself, and the man who indulged in pleasure. Pederasty was highly regulated by laws and subject to the judgments and sanctions of public opinion: Homoerotic behavior was based on the differentiation between distinct age-groups. There was the young boy who had not yet reached the definitive status of citizen, called eromenos (between 12 and 20 years old) and the mature man, the erastes (between 20 and 30 years old). Homoerotic relationships were based on the use of sexual desire for moral, pedagogical, and spiritual ends, and the practices of courtship involved were highly ritualized; the erastes initiated advances, and the eromenos had to appear reluctant and not yield to them immediately. Homoerotic sexual activities in ancient Greece, despite being mythicized as unrestricted, still had to contend with a number of cultural and juridical limitations and could not undermine the basic interest of the polis; male prostitution was highly disapproved of, as was effeminacy, prohibited for those in public office, and only prostitutes, the pornoi, assumed the receptive male sexual role. Homoerotic relationships in the context of ancient Rome no longer had pedagogical or educational aims but were instead practices of subordination. In fact, within cultural and moral constructions, the concept of the free man contrasted with that of the slave, as active contrasted with passive. It was no coincidence that homoerotic sexual practices took place with slaves, often defeated enemies, while the free and passive adult male, the so-called impudicus, was greatly scorned.

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