Greg knotts:
Yes, Virginia, there is homosexuality, and A Queer Reader provides evidence of this for over 2500 years. Higgins collects textual references to homosexuality and homosexual behavior and tries very hard to remind the reader that because these acts were in evidence, they do not necessitate the presence of a gay sensibility or gay identity. He couches the organization of this collection with the idea that today, people who "perform homosexual acts or have homosexual thoughts" often feel somehow "different from the rest of their fellow citizens. It is a reaction to the division of sexuality into hetero and homo, an acceptance of the prevailing social doctrine" (p. 4). But to read the texts from antiquity to the present clearly allows an opportunity to see different prevailing social doctrines through time; some clearly organized around a gay identity — people who define themselves by their sexual partners, and others organized around a fluid sexuality, people not asked to niche or define themselves by the people with whom they have sex.
He organizes the book chronologically beginning with Antiquity (Ancient Greece and Rome) and running through to the present, which he umbrellas under the term 'homintern,' a word coined in 1939 used to describe the global homosexual community (p. 287). Writings in antiquity are rife with homosexual behavior. Greek society was structured around "the socialization of younger men" (p. 18) whereby older Greek men would seek out a younger man to mentor and mold into a productive Greek citizen. More often than not, these youths would use "their beauty [physical beauty and athletic prowess] to capture the affections of powerful and influential older men" (p. 18). Plato, writing in The Symposium, refers to many examples of homosexuality. He declares that male-male love is superior to male-female love (p. 17). Plato also describes an idea of sexual attraction stemming from the origin of three sexes: female, male and hermaphrodite. These three sexes were originally "rounded wholes" having a double back and flanks forming a complete circle; it had four hands and an equal number of legs, and two identically similar faces upon a circular neck, with one head common to both the faces, which were turned in opposite directions. It had four ears and two organs of generation and everything else to correspond (p. 21).So, women had two vaginas, men had two penises and hermaphrodites one of each. Zeus, for odd reasons, decides to split these people in two, thereby creating the notion that each half would be searching for their other half, today's 'soul mate' ideal, to make them complete again. Searching for the other half provides physical enjoyment, yes, but it is the interconnectedness of these halves that surpass mere physical pleasure. "Whenever the lover of boys — or anyone for that matter—has the good fortune to encounter his own actual other half, affection and kinship and love combined inspire in him an emotion which is quite overwhelming, and such a pair practically refuse to be separated even for a moment" (p. 23). Plato affirms homosexuals, indeed all people, that it is the pursuit of this whole, a "longing which [even the soul] cannot express" which can ultimately lead to love.
The Greeks were no strangers to homosexual behavior either. When the government taxed male prostitutes and offered them an official holiday each year, it is obvious that this behavior was part of the fabric of everyday society (p. 19). From the Greek emperors to the common man on the street, everyone seemed to be enjoying the physical pleasures of other men. A play by Suetonius mentions Caligula who
had not the slightest regard for chastity, either his own or others', and was accused of homosexual relations, both active and passive, with Marcus Lepidus, also Mnester the comedian, and various foreign hostages; moreover, a young man of consular family, Valerius Catullus, revealed publicly that he had buggered the Emperor, and quite worn himself out in the process (p. 35).
One of Juvenal's Satires mentions an ageing hustler who laments that his profession is difficult and asks "Do you suppose it's easy, or fun, this job of cramming my cock up into your guts till I'm stopped by last night's supper? The slave who ploughs his master's field has less trouble than the one who ploughs him" (p. 38). It is obvious that this kind of experience was common enough for it to be satirized by one of the acclaimed writers of the day. As the experience with Caligula mentions, the passive and active role in homosexual relations played a large factor in the sexual act. To dominate, or penetrate, was the right of a male citizen, independent of the receiver's gender. And male prostitutes were hired for their discretion, as often as not, when the Greek citizen sought someone to penetrate him. So although homosexuality was interwoven into the societal fabric, there was still stigma attached to the experience if a man was drawn to the passive role.
Higgins takes us next to the Middle Ages and Renaissance where Greek writers had influence on societal thought, but so did the rise to power of the Church. Although "Medieval ecclesiastical institutions were sexual hothouses in which priests and monks often fell under the spell of other members of their own sex" (p. 42), the Church played a large role and laid a heavy hand on the political rulers of the day. A French priest who became bishop of Pavia, writing circa 500 C.E. says "there is a constant deception at play in his double sex: he's a woman when passive, but when active in shameful deeds, he's a man" (p. 43).
This concept of shame and the introduction of Old Testament biblical references are common throughout the next 500 years. Pope Gregory XI alludes to the sins of the Florentines and says, "it is so abominable I don't dare mention it" (p. 46). Yet the court of King William Rufus, a contemporary of this pope, had courtiers who "shamelessly gave themselves up to the filth of sodomy. They rejected the traditions of honest men, ridiculed the counsel of priests, and persisted in their barbarous way of life and style of dress" (p. 46). Again here we see shame, sodomy and filth — the influence of the church — reaching into the general mind of society.
Poetry of the thirteenth century reflects ideas like damning the "semen from which no offspring comes" and making the love of boys a "violent plague" (p. 52). From Richard the Lionheart to Edward II to citizens convicted of sodomy who need to be "degraded and placed in iron chains in the strictest prison, to be fed a diet of bread and water for life" (p. 57), homosexual behavior during the Middle Ages was regarded with the least possible accord.
The Renaissance saw the influence of artists like Shakespeare, Marlowe and Michelangelo — and the rise of the influence of the ancient ideal of beauty. Nudity and physical beauty played a role in art as well as the mindset of the common citizen. A poem by Michelangelo includes the line, "for if every one of our affections displeases heaven, to what purpose would God have made the world?" (p. 65), seeming to bridge the ideas of man with the ideas of the church, the prevailing societal legislator. Young Venetain nobles and citizens were known to "trick[] themselves with so many ornaments, and with garments that opened to show the chest" (p. 64). Sensitivity to the refined, the beautiful and the artistic seemed to act as a counterbalance for the rising influence and power of the Church.
The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries experienced this same struggle. English monarchs such as James I, William III and Charles II all experienced notorious homosexual dalliances — that were satirized in plays of their time (p. 75). Sermons like Thomas Shepard's in 1640 declaring the potential of committing sodomy, among other acts, to be in the common man's soul "like a nest of snakes in an old hedge. Although they break not out in to thy life, they lie lurking in thy heart" (p. 81). There was a rise of "eighteenth-century journalists [who] soon discovered that sensational sexual tales at whatever level in society sold newspapers and magazines" (p. 76). This type of account was common:
Today Monday the 6th [July 1750], two workmen were publicly burnt at the Stake in the Place de la Greve at 5 o'clock in the evening. They were a young carpenter and a pork butcher, aged 18 and 25, whom the watch had caught in the act of committing sodomy. It was felt that the judge had been a bit heavy-handed. Apparently a drop too much of wine had led them to this degree of shamelessness (p. 88).
Heavy-handed? Two kids, whether influenced by wine or not, were killed for an act that in another time or place would have been considered normal and part of everyday life.
Higgins deals with the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in terms of science, religion and geography. He organizes these centuries into the influential realms of German, English and American experiences. Higgins makes it clear that the nineteenth century saw the influence of scientific as well as continued Judeo Christian influenced definitions of homosexual behavior. The writings of the English moralist John Addington Symonds, the German academics Karl Friedrich Ulrichs and Magnus Hirschfeld and others became part of the common vernacular. Wilde, Whitman, and Wilhelm [von Gloden — a photographer who took pictures of male nudes in Taormina that became widely distributed] were read and viewed as voices reflective of the pervasive homosexual sensitivity rising in artistic circles (p. 92). The voice of religion was also heard. Oscar Wilde had named the 'love that dare not speak its name' and the Church responded with the idea of purging this "unnatural vice" from schools, as well as any other aspect of society where it might be found (p. 113).
The rise of science and the significance of Sigmund Freud's writing heavily influenced the beginning of the twentieth century. People, especially those homosexually inclined, looked at their mothers, fathers and environments differently. "One might wonder whether homosexuality is also due to an oedipal situation" (p. 125); "there are no happy homosexuals" (p. 124); "anything that discourages heterosexuality encourages homosexuality" (p. 126); these sentiments are not explicitly Freudian, but certainly influenced by him. The rise of anthropological studies during this period influenced scientific, psychological thought and allowed for the idea of "a homosexual [to] exist in a society that has no name for the trait" (p. 126).
The twentieth century saw the rise of a gay identity, the rise of the Christian Right, witch-hunts in the work force, legislative changes and a myriad of influences revolving around homosexual behavior. Higgins offers textual examples relating to World War II, the entertainment industry, AIDS and the "Golden Age" of 1970's America when a rise in visibility and awareness allowed for homosexual activity to form into a gay identity.
Higgins creates a thorough look at homosexuality in history, effectively collecting 2500 years of texts. He makes it clear that we as present day readers cannot project our historical context into the contexts of these other times. We must read the texts for what they are — comments of the day, whether good, bad or indifferent. We cannot look at the Roman or Greek society and say, 'see — they liked gays' because a gay identity had nothing to do with the behavior of those male citizens. In the post modern discussion of homosexuality being Essentially or Socially Constructed, Higgins offers arguments for both throughout history, and seems to allow the reader to decide for himself how he views the construction of homosexuality. I believe this to be a powerful component of A Queer Reader. Higgins is sensitive to this post modern discussion of homosexuality and allows the reader to decide for himself on what side of this fence he sits — or even to embrace both ideals, as suggested in his final chapter.
This final chapter, "The Homintern," is a look at the global ideas of homosexuality. Terrence Rattigan in The Deep Blue Sea in 1952 is quoted as saying,
To see yourself as the world sees you may be very brave, but it can be very foolish. Why would you accept the world's view of you?….What rights have they to judge? To judge you they must have the capacity to feel as you feel. And who has? (p. 336)
Higgins collects textual references that call the homosexual to define himself — not to be influenced by societal, scientific or religious doctrines. He quotes Gore Vidal who says, "same-sexers would think little or nothing at all about their preference if society ignored it" (p. 347). The onus is on the individual to accept or reject his own behavior and to place it within his own construct, but at the same time, be aware of how to play the game. "In so far as the origins of prejudice can be traced, gay love has been accepted or despised to the degree to which it supports (or at least does not threaten) the values of those in charge. It is for this reason that gay people must be politically aware" (p. 203).
This was written in 1983 in a book called The Penguin Book of Homosexual Verse; it is an ideology that seems to bridge many gaps. In one sentence, the author places homosexuality in history, without committing to an Essential or Social Constructivist argument and calls gay men to at least be 'aware' politically — leaving the door open, I believe, for individuals to take that awareness in many directions from apathy to activism. But be aware. Be aware of the society in which you find yourself, but do not define yourself by their mores. Be aware of yourself. Define yourself.
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