Homosexuality

Homosexuality (rarely homophilia) is a sexual orientation or orientations characterized by romantic or sexual desire for, or sexual attraction toward, members of the same sex. The term usually implies an exclusive or predominant sexual orientation toward persons of the same sex, and is distinguished from bisexuality as well as heterosexuality. In addition to referring to a sexual orientation, the term homosexuality is also used for sexual behavior between people of the same sex.

Terminology

In women, romantic or sexual desire for other women is also called lesbianism (lesbian, noun and adjective). The term gay is used to refer to homosexual persons of either gender, although it is mostly used to refer to males (hence the expression gays and lesbians or gay men and lesbians). Persons with the sexual orientation of homosexuality are sometimes called homosexual (noun and adjective). Many people regard the term homosexual as derogatory or clinical because of its cold, antiseptic connotation, particularly when applied to a person, and most people who regard themselves as having a homosexual orientation prefer the term gay, lesbian, or, less frequently, queer (sometimes capitalized as Queer) or Same-Gender Loving.

The term homosexuality was coined in 1869 by Karl Maria Kertbeny in an anonymous pamphlet advocating the repeal of Prussia's sodomy laws. It was listed in 1886 in Richard von Krafft-Ebing's detailed study on deviant sexual practices, Psychopathia Sexualis. The word homosexual translates literally as "of the same sex," being a hybrid of the Greek prefix meaning "same" and the Latin root meaning "sex." Although some early writers used the adjective homosexual to refer to any single-sex context (such as the Roman Catholic clergy or an all-girls' school), today the term refers exclusively to same-sex sexuality. The term homosocial is occasionally used for single-sex contexts that are not specifically sexual.

Homosexuality in population

People whose sexual desire and activities are mainly channelled toward members of their own sex are a minority of the population. Due to the political nature of this topic it is difficult to find studies where the meaning of the results has not been challenged; therefore, putting a percentage to the number of homosexuals is impossible. At one extreme, the Kinsey report reported that 37% of men in the U.S. have achieved orgasm of some type and duration through contact with another male. At another extreme, the National Opinion Research Center has reported that approximately 0.7% of men in the U.S. consider themselves to be exclusively homosexual. (See Note 1.) Most random surveys carried out in the U.S. and Western Europe tend to place the number of people who have ever had same-sex experiences at around 8%, and the number who prefer exclusively same-sex experiences at around 2%.

Some people who are in general heterosexual may have mild or occasional interest in members of their own sex. Conversely, many people who identify themselves as homosexual, or who might prefer homosexual activities or relationships, have engaged in heterosexual activities or even have long-term heterosexual relationships. Such heterosexual behavior by people who would otherwise show homosexual behavior has often been part of being "in the closet", or concealing one's homosexual orientation, and may be becoming less common as acceptance of homosexuality increases.

Some studies, notably Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948) and Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (1953) by Dr. Alfred C. Kinsey, note that when asked to rate themselves on a continuum from completely heterosexual to completely homosexual, and when the individual's behavior as well as their identity is analyzed, the majority of people appear to be at least somewhat bisexual. (See Kinsey report.) Most people have some attraction to either sex, although usually one sex is preferred. Kinsey and his followers therefore consider only a minority (5-10%) to be fully heterosexual or homosexual. Conversely, only an even smaller minority can be considered "fully" bisexual, if that term is defined as having no preference for one sex over another. Some later studies have suggested that Kinsey's studies exaggerate the occurrence of bisexuality in the population at large, but his idea of a sexuality continuum still enjoys wide acceptance.

Sexual activity with a person of the same sex, in and of itself, does not necessarily demonstrate homosexual orientation, but is considered homosexual behavior. Not all who are attracted or have sexual relationships with members of the same sex identify themselves as homosexual or even bisexual. Some people frequently have sex with members of the same sex yet still see themselves as heterosexual. It is important therefore to distinguish between homosexual behavior, homosexual attraction and homosexual identity, which need not coincide. For example, people in prison, the military, or other sex-segregated environments may engage in homosexual situational sexual behavior despite being heterosexual outside these environments. In addition, some people engage in homosexual sexual behaviors for reasons other than desire. One example is hustlers, who are usually young men who make money through prostitution with men. Some hustlers are probably homosexual themselves, but a significant number are not.

Homosexual behavior in non-human animals

The presence of homosexual behavior appears to be widespread amongst birds, mammals and the apes, and some believe it to have its origin in male social organization and social dominance, similar to the dominance traits shown in prison sexuality.

The bonobo, which has a matriarchal society(unusual amongst apes), is a fully bisexual species- both males and females engage in heterosexual and homosexual behavior, being noted for lesbianism in particular.

Homosexual black swans of Australia will form sexually active male-male mated pairs and steal nests or form temporary threesomes with females to obtain eggs(the female is driven away after she lays the eggs), more of their cygnets survive to adulthood than those of heterosexual pairs possibly due to their superior ability to defend large portions of land.

Whip-tailed lizard females have the ability to reproduce through parthenogenesis and as such males are rare and generally distained (from a Darwinian standpoint the females are passing their full genetic code to all of their offspring and do not want it compromised by sexual reproduction), the females engage in sexual behavior to stimulate ovulation.

Theories

Some scholars in Queer studies, and most famously the French philosopher Michel Foucault (though some have argued that his opinions on this issue have been distorted by later scholars), attack the notion that sexual identities such as 'homosexuality', 'heterosexuality' or 'bisexuality' have any objective existence, viewing them instead as social constructions. (See Queer theory.) A frequent argument used is that homosexuality prior to the modern period differed from modern homosexuality (age-, gender- or class-structured rather than egalitarian). Critics argue that, although homosexuality in different periods has had different features, the underlying phenomenon has always existed and is not a recent invention of our society.

Once homosexual desire or behavior has been singled out for attention, and especially negative attention, the question naturally arises: What makes people this way? The causes of sexual orientation are currently under investigation. The general understanding that seems to be emerging is that rather than a single cause being involved, there is instead a symphony of factors that act over a long time to determine each individual's sexual orientation.

Social attitudes towards homosexuality

Many moralists and religious groups view homosexuality to be a sin, though John Boswell argues that there are several periods in European history when homosexuality was tolerated or celebrated as with heterosexuality. See the article on Religion and homosexuality for a discussion of how homosexuality is viewed in Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and in neo-pagan religions.

For these reasons, homosexuality (and specifically anal sex) have been considered a crime in many cultures, in spite of its status as a consensual act (see consensual crime). In England, Henry VIII introduced the first legislation against homosexuals with the Buggery Act of 1533, making buggery punishable by hanging, a penalty not finally lifted until 1861. Heterosexuals have not historically been prosecuted for anal sex as much as homosexuals and some sodomy laws included all homosexuality or all non-coital sex. see oral sex , Frottage (sexology) , masturbation , vanilla sex, sexual intercourse

The Wolfenden report in the UK was a turning point in the legalization of homosexuality in Western countries. Many Western cultures have now legalized or decriminalised homosexuality and homosexual acts, including the USA, whose Supreme Court ruled in June 2003 in the case of Lawrence v. Texas that US state laws criminalizing private, non-commercial sexual activity (including homosexual activity) between consenting adults are unconstitutional. (See sodomy law.) A number of states in Europe (for example, the Netherlands and Belgium), and the provinces of Ontario and British Columbia in Canada have changed the law to allow same-sex marriages. Other jurisdictions (for example. Germany, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, France, and the US states of Vermont and California) recognize in law long-term gay relationships as "domestic partnerships" or the like. A number of jurisdictions now allow gay couples to adopt children.

An increasing number of politicians have openly admitted either to being homosexual, bisexual or to having had past homosexual experiences. These include a former British Defence Secretary under John Major, Michael Portillo. An openly gay politician, David Norris, sits in the Irish Senate, while the current and previous Presidents of Ireland, Mary McAleese and Mary Robinson were founders for the Irish Campaign for Homosexual Law Reform, which led to decriminalisation of homosexuality in the Republic of Ireland. In France, the mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë, had already publicly admitted he was gay when he was elected. Four Canadian MPs are openly gay (two New Democrats, a Bloquiste, and a Tory.) There have been various US politicians who have served as openly gay, including Congressman Barney Frank of Massachusetts.

This trend among western nations has not been followed in all other regions of the world, where sodomy often remains a serious crime. At the extreme, homosexuality remains punishable by death in Afghanistan, Mauritania, Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. Lesser penalties of life in prison are found in Bangladesh, Bhutan, Guyana, India, Maldives, Nepal, Singapore, and Uganda.

Homosexuals were among the groups who were imprisoned and killed during the Nazi Holocaust, though there was no concerted effort to exterminate all homosexuals as there was with Jews and Gypsies, and homosexuals who maintained the party line usually avoided arrest. Nonetheless, Nazi Germany passed many laws criminalizing homosexual relations, and people caught in the act were often sent to their deaths in concentration camps. Homosexuals in the concentration camps were often singled out for special abuse, torment, torture, and murder, by guards and sometimes by other prisoners, consequently they died at rate higher than most other groups. In the concentration camps, homosexuals were forced to wear pink triangles. This symbol has since been adopted as a symbol of gay pride and identity. (See Homosexuals in Nazi Germany.)

Along with alleged communists, homosexuals were investigated by the notorious senator Joseph McCarthy in the USA, who produced a report entitled "Employment of Homosexuals and Other Sex Perverts in Government".

Some religious movements believe that they can heal or cure homosexuals' sexual orientation through "reparative therapy". However, this has been rejected by all major American health and mental health professional organizations as ineffective, unnecessary, and potentially harmful. In 1973, the (US) American Psychological Association decided that it would no longer consider homosexuality to be a mental disorder. However, in some other parts of the world it is still considered to be a mental disorder and illness, although there is no consensus on what causes it or whether it is inborn. Research in this area in the USA is no longer sponsored because of pressure from gay and lesbian groups, but views of the scientific community and people around the globe are far from unanimous. Many oppose the gay and lesbian movement because they view it as an attempt to impose Western liberal values on other cultures, and thus as an instrument of oppression of the New World Order rather than a bid for the rights of the oppressed.

History

Main article:History of Homosexuality

When discussing the history of homosexuality, one must first understand that the term "homosexuality" and its associated meanings are a product of 19th century psychology as well as the years of post-Stonewall gay liberation. Throughout most of written history, homosexual relations usually took the form of pederasty, that is, they were characterized by a marked age difference and the fixed assignment of sexual roles. Passive anal sex was thought of as unmanly, and adult men who enjoyed being penetrated were ridiculed. Another paradigm would be the two-spirits of America or the arivanna of the Indian sub-continent in which partners of the same biological sex but different social genders would be common.

The earliest documents concerning homosexual, pederastic relationships come from Ancient Greece. However, Kenneth J. Dover has claimed that such relationships did not replace marriage between man and woman, but occurred before and beside it. A mature man would never have a mature male mate, one notable exeption being Alexander the Great , but he would be the erastes (lover) to a young eromenos (loved one). In this relationship it was considered improper for the eromenos to feel desire, as that would not be masculine. Driven by desire and admiration, the erastes would devote himself unselfishly to providing all the education his eromenos required to thrive in society. In recent times, the research by Dover has been questioned in light of massive evidence of love poetry which suggests a more emotional connection than earlier researchers liked to acknowledge.

It is tempting to assign historical personalities like Alexander the Great, Plato, Hadrian, Virgil, Christopher Marlowe or Leonardo da Vinci to our modern-day sexual identity bins like homosexuality or bisexuality, however, this act of discovery of sexual identity was never much of an issue at the time, because only the sex acts were seen as being homosexual or heterosexual, but not the persons themselves. Accordingly, while some of the people mentioned above lived in all likelihood a life of sex with one gender exclusively, the nature of one's love interests, be they heterosexual or homosexual, were much less important than the sexual role one took in these encounters, namely active, passive, both or neither.

During the last decades, in part due to their history of shared oppression, homosexuals in the West have developed a shared culture, although not all homosexuals participate in it, and many homosexual men and women specifically decline to do so. (See gay pride.)

External links and references

International Lesbian and Gay Association
Human Rights Campaign
GLSEN: Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network
Lambda Legal Defense Fund
Alfred C. Kinsey, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, 1948, ISBN 0721654452 (o.p.), ISBN 0253334128 (reprint).
Alfred C. Kinsey, Sexual Behavior in the Human Female, 1953, ISBN 0721654509 (o.p.), ISBN 0671786156 (o.p. pbk.), ISBN 025333411X (reprint).
Kenneth J. Dover, Greek Homosexuality, 1979, Gerald Duckworth & Co. Ltd., London, ISBN 0674362616 (o.p. hardcover), ISBN 0674362705 (pbk.).

Footnote

[1]: Survey responses are often conditioned by the desire not to express opinions or supply information which the respondent suspects society and perhaps the questioner may not approve of. Revealing one's sexual orientation may well fall into this category, so affecting the accuracy of some surveys and under-estimating the actual scale of homosexuality. A similar phenomenon affects survey data on minority religions, on personal views on controversial matters such as abortion, and on degrees of political support for a political party. (Classic examples of this are not 'admitting' support in surveys in the late 1990s for the British Conservative Party, or controversial parties like the Democratic Unionist Party and Sinn Féin in Northern Ireland, etc. with such parties getting a higher vote in the privacy of a ballot box than reported in surveys.) Regarding the NORC data, one must accept the limitations. Researchers, in the original data in the early 1990s, reported that approximately 40% of adult males indicated that they had never masturbated. This research has been criticised because the original design sampling techniques were not followed, and depended upon direct self report regarding masturbation and same sex behaviors.