History of Homosexuality

Jessica Quach

"Two-Spirit"

            Before entering this class, I never really gave much thought to homosexuality. I always considered it to be something modern—something that just recently surfaced in the past couple hundred of years. More accurately, I knew somewhere in the back of my head that it has existed since the beginning of time. However, it was never necessary for me to think so far back about the topic. I realized that I never researched the topic because school never taught me this side of history. None of my previous history classes ever touched on the topic, so it built a misconception in my head that homosexuality only became prominent in my day.         

Since we explored homosexuality a little bit in class, I wanted to expand my knowledge on how it was viewed in the past. Today, homosexuals are often discriminated against and the victims of demeaning looks. However, has this been society’s view since we became aware of homosexuality? I learned it was quite the opposite.

            Homosexuality was considered a higher level of “being” for Native Americans. People with this kind of sexual orientation were actually looked upon with respect and earned the title of “Two-Spirit”. Although they had their own disadvantages to being “Two-Spirit”, the general outlook on homosexuality was largely positive.[1]

            After seeing one side of the coin, I decided to delve further into history. I discovered what people thought in the age of Greece. Back in this time, people in Greece were well aware of same-sex relationships and it was more or less considered a social norm. The real issue at the heart of these relationships lied in the importance social status. Same-sex relationships were accepted if the partner was of a lower class. For instance, slaves, people who weren’t yet citizens, or those who weren’t at the age of adulthood were appropriate partners for same-sex relationships. [2]

A teenage boy and a man same-sex relationship

            Even more so, same-sex attraction between men and boys was encouraged because it represented masculinity. [2] Teenage boys were courted by older men and were even expected to play “hard to get”; they couldn’t consent too easily or choose too quickly if more than one man was pursuing him. However, the relationship was immediately ended after the boy became of age. [2]

            It was from these findings that I came to broaden my perspective on homosexuality. It was not what I had once thought of as “an ongoing dilemma in society”. Homosexuality was one of the natural states of being that only recently became stigmatized. From reading about homosexuality in ancient times and learning about it from the Native American lecture, it only makes sense to me now that these kinds of topics are essential to understanding history.

            Citations

[1].  Moore, Crystal. “Native American Sexuality & Sexual Violation in the Conquest of the America’s”. Charlotte: The History of Sexuality in America from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Accessed January 14, 2014.

[2]. “Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy,” last modified February 11, 2011, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/homosexuality/.