homosexuality
Encyclopedia Britannica Article

Sexual interest in and attraction to members of one's own sex. The term gay is frequently used as a synonym for homosexual; female homosexuality is often referred to as lesbianism.

At different times and in different cultures, homosexual behaviour has been variously approved of, tolerated, punished, and banned. Homosexuality was not uncommon in ancient Greece and Rome, and the relationships between adult and adolescent males in particular have become a chief focus of Western classicists in recent years. Judeo-Christian as well as Muslim cultures have generally perceived homosexual behaviour as sinful. Many Jewish and Christian leaders, however, have gone to great lengths to make clear that it is the acts and not the individuals or even their “inclination” or “orientation” that their faiths proscribe. Others—from factions within mainstream Protestantism to organizations of Reform rabbis—have advocated, on theological as well as social grounds, the full acceptance of homosexuals and their relationships. The topic has threatened to cause outright schisms in some denominations.

Modern developments

Attitudes toward homosexuality are generally in flux, partially as a result of increased political activism (see gay rights movement) and efforts by homosexuals to be seen not as aberrant personalities but as differing from “normal” individuals only in their sexual orientation. The conflicting views of homosexuality—as a variant but normal human sexual behaviour on one hand, and as psychologically deviant behaviour on the other—remain present in most societies in the 21st century, but they have been largely resolved (in the professional sense) in most developed countries. The American Psychiatric Association, for example, declassified “ego-syntonic homosexuality” (the condition of a person content with his or her homosexuality) as a mental illness in 1973. Nonetheless, some religious groups continue to emphasize reparative therapy in the attempt to “cure” homosexuality through prayer, counseling, and behaviour modification. Their claims of success, however, are controversial. Wherever opinion can be freely expressed, debates about homosexuality will likely continue.

Selected theories of homosexuality

Psychologists in the 19th and 20th centuries, most of whom classified homosexuality as a form of mental illness, developed a variety of theories on its origin. The 19th-century psychologist Richard von Krafft-Ebing, whose Psychopathia Sexualis (1886) included masturbation, sado-masochism, and “lust-murder” in its list of sexual perversions, saw it as originating in heredity. His contemporary Sigmund Freud characterized it as a result of conflicts of psychosexual development, including identification with the parent of the opposite sex. Others have looked at social influences and physiological events in fetal development as possible origins. It is likely that many instances of homosexuality result from a combination of inborn or constitutional factors and environmental or social influences.

At the turn of the 21st century, many societies discussed sexuality and sexual practices with increased candour. Together with a growing acceptance of homosexuality as a common expression of human sexuality, long-standing beliefs about homosexuals have begun to lose credence. The stereotypes of male homosexuals as weak and effeminate and lesbians as masculine and aggressive, which were widespread in the West as recently as the 1950s and early '60s, have largely been discarded.

In the 20th-century United States, a field known as sex research was established among the social and behavioral sciences in an effort to investigate actual sexual practice. Researchers such as Alfred Kinsey reported that homosexual activity was a frequent pattern in adolescence, among both males and females. The Kinsey report of 1948, for example, found that 30 percent of adult American males among Kinsey's subjects had engaged in some homosexual activity and that 10 percent reported that their sexual practice had been exclusively homosexual for a period of at least three years between the ages of 16 and 55. About half as many women in the study reported predominantly homosexual activity. Kinsey's research methods and conclusions have been much criticized, however, and further studies have produced somewhat different and varying results. A range of more recent surveys, concerning predominantly homosexual behaviour as well as same-gender sexual contact in adulthood, have yielded results that are both higher and lower than those identified by Kinsey. Instead of categorizing people in absolute terms as either homosexual or heterosexual, Kinsey observed a spectrum of sexual activity, of which exclusive orientations of either type make up the extremes. Most people can be identified at a point on either side of the midpoint of the spectrum, with bisexuals (those who respond sexually to persons of either sex) situated in the middle. Situational homosexual activity tends to occur in environments such as prisons, where there are no opportunities for heterosexual contact.

Contemporary issues

As mentioned above, different societies respond differently to homosexuality. In most of Africa, Asia, and Latin America, both the subject and the behaviour are considered taboo, with some slight exception made in urban areas. In Western countries, attitudes were somewhat more liberal. Although the topic of homosexuality was little discussed in the public forum during the early part of the 20th century, it became a political issue in many Western countries during the late 20th century. This was particularly true in the United States, where the gay rights movement is often seen as a late offshoot of various civil rights movements of the 1960s. After the 1969 Stonewall riot, in which New York policemen raided a gay bar and met with sustained resistance, many homosexuals were emboldened to identify themselves as gay men or lesbians to friends, relatives, and even to the public at large. In much of North America and Western Europe, the heterosexual population became aware of gay and lesbian communities for the first time. Many gay men and lesbians began to demand equal treatment in employment practices, housing, and public policy. In response to their activism, many jurisdictions enacted laws banning discrimination against homosexuals, and an increasing number of employers in America and European countries agreed to offer “domestic partner” benefits similar to the health care, life insurance and, in some cases, pension benefits available to heterosexual married couples. Although conditions for gay people had generally improved in most of Europe and North America at the turn of the 21st century, elsewhere in the world, violence against gay people continued. In Namibia, for example, police officers were instructed to “eliminate” homosexuals. Gay students at Jamaica's Northern Caribbean University were beaten, and an anti-gay group in Brazil by the name of Acorda Coracao (“Wake Up, Dear”) was blamed for murdering several gay people. In Ecuador, a gay rights group called Quitogay received so much threatening e-mail that it was given support by Amnesty International.

Even in parts of the world where physical violence is absent, intolerance of homosexuality often persists. There are, however, some signs of change. In one such instance, Albania repealed sodomy statutes in 1995, and in Amsterdam in 2001, gay couples were legally married under the same laws that govern heterosexual marriage (rather than under laws that allowed them to “register” or form “domestic” partnerships).In the late 20th century gay men and lesbians proudly revealed their sexual orientation in increasing numbers. Still others, notably those in the public eye, had their sexual orientation revealed in the media and against their will by activists either for or against gay rights—a controversial practice known as “outing.”

One of the issues that loomed largest for gay men in the last two decades of the 20th century and beyond was AIDS. Elsewhere in the world AIDS was transmitted principally by heterosexual sex, but in the United States and in some European centres it was particularly prevalent in urban gay communities. As a result homosexuals were at the forefront of advocacy for research into the disease and support for its victims through groups such as Gay Men's Health Crisis in New York City. Novelist and playwright Larry Kramer, who believed a more aggressive presence was needed, founded the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT-UP), which began promoting political action, including outing, through local chapters in such cities as New York, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and Paris. The disease also took a heavy toll on the arts community in these centres, and virtually none of the artistic output of gay men in the late 20th century was untouched by the topic and the sense of great loss.

Lesbians, especially those uninvolved with intravenous drugs and the sex trade, were probably the demographic group least affected by AIDS. However, most shared with gay men the desire to have a secure place in the world community at large, unchallenged by the fear of violence, the struggle for equal treatment under the law, the attempt to silence, and any other form of civil behaviour that imposes second-class citizenship.

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HOMOSEXUALITY

Homosexuality, defined variously as same-sex love, desire, and/or sexual activity, has been, in one form or another, a universal phenomenon. In the United States, male homosexuality, like all same-sex attraction and behavior, has often challenged entrenched gender systems that define and maintain masculinity. Although the term homosexual referred to both sexes when it was coined in the nineteenth century, male homosexuality has been a more prominent concern in American society. This is due to the larger public role that men have played, and to the resulting concern with definitions of, and conformity to, a masculine ideal. For these reasons—in addition to moral opposition to sexual acts between same-sex partners—homosexuality has been among the most controversial and divisive issues in the United States.

Homosexuality has been classified as a sin, a crime, and an illness, with changes in the dominant view reflecting both the general secularization of life in the United States and the power of legal and medical institutions in the twentieth century. The history of homosexuality in the United States might be divided into two broad eras: Before about 1900, when there was a wide range of categories for sexual behavior and identity (with a gradual narrowing of options over time); and the period after 1900, which has been dominated by the homosexual/heterosexual duality and the mid-twentieth-century emergence of political movements and organizations asserting a gay identity.

Before 1900

In most indigenous American cultures, some individuals dressed and acted as the opposite sex or engaged in same-sex acts and relationships. But the Europeans who colonized North America arrived with sexual codes. Having already made the Judeo-Christian sin of sodomy a capital crime in the New World, they considered the indigenous peoples that they encountered inferior (and Native American men wanting in masculinity) in part because of the more fluid gender roles and sexual behaviors that existed among native peoples. Some sodomy laws were liberalized in the eighteenth century, but antisodomy laws still remained in force in many U.S. states at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

As the United States took shape in the nineteenth century, the emerging middle class developed separate public and private spheres—with public roles for males and private roles for females. In practice this division contributed to homosocial behavior and created an environment conducive to and supportive of intense same-sex friendships, with varying degrees of sexual activity in these “romantic friendships” (such as those associated with poet Walt Whitman). Scholars debate whether such relationships, as well as same-sex acts in singlesex communities (such as those on the nineteenth-century frontier) should be viewed in terms of later concepts of sexuality, since the idea of homosexuals and heterosexuals as types of people was not yet common.

The Twentieth Century

Recent scholarship suggests that the modern concepts of heterosexuality and homosexuality were “invented” in Western society in the late nineteenth century. Each was conceived in relation to the other, and both, as identities, were considered products of specific historical conditions rather than biologically or physically constant. The emerging sciences of psychology and sexology created the sexual “invert” (also called “variant,” “deviant,” and “Uranian”), meaning one whose biological sex did not correspond to his or her gender behavior and, possibly, to a person sexually attracted to the same sex. At best, the invert represented immature development, and at worst a threat to society and a need for therapy or more drastic treatment (e.g., institutionalization, castration and, later, shock therapy). Thus, the types of romantic friendships that had often been freely expressed during the previous century, were now stigmatized as abnormal, and many who were involved in such friendships felt the need to appear and live according to heterosexual norms.

Several late-nineteenth-century developments contributed to this new environment for sexual and gender nonconformists. Intensifying industrial capitalism and nationalism encouraged a fixed gender system in which a virile masculinity was seen as both the cause and effect of U.S. economic and political ascendancy. In addition, a new focus on “companionate marriage” idealized the romantic heterosexual couple. The link that was made between masculine traits and national strength—(reflected in the “muscular Christianity” movement and the new emphasis on the “strenuous life”) coupled with intensified concerns for social order, rendered traits and behaviors considered feminine less tolerable in men. Violation of prevailing gender codes became an offense against Americanism itself and led to the persecution of gender inverts and homosexuals from that time forward.

The defining and stigmatizing of homosexuality made homosexual subcultures more visible, especially in the 1920s and 1930s in Bohemian enclaves in New York, such as Greenwich Village and Harlem, as well as in other large cities. These subcultures embraced a variety of definitions and behaviors, falling along racial and class lines (for example, “normal” men could have sex with men as long as they took only the “active” role), but most visible were effeminate, or gender-inverted, males, often referred to as “fairies” or “pansies.” It was also at this time that drag balls, bars, and bath houses provided sites for the expression of multiple masculinities and same-sex expression and community. Drag queens, in particular, challenged conventional notions of maleness. The onset and deepening crisis of the Great Depression, however, combined with new liquor licensing laws, revitalized rigid gender roles and the desire to remove sexual and gender outlaws from public spaces.

World War II and Postwar America

The climate of Cold War America—in which “deviant” homosexuality was identified with national weakness and communism and “normal” heterosexuality with national strength and Americanness—further encouraged public fear of homosexuality. The virulent anticommunism of the 1950s merged with notions of gender normalcy to exaggerate fears of effete men in government and military service, resulting in the firing of thousands of known or suspected homosexuals. Rooted in limited notions of masculinity, the conceptual link between political and sexual “subversion” has contributed to homophobia in the United States.

Still, the massive mobilization of troops and industries after the United States entered World War II provided new opportunities for realizing and expressing homosexual identity and community by throwing together previously isolated individuals who had always felt “different.” Significantly, homosexuals at this time began using same-sex sexuality, rather than the medically imposed conflation of homosexuality with gender inversion (e.g., “effeminacy” in men) as the basis for their identity. After the war, homosexuals increasingly politicized their identity, resulting in the emergence of a self-described homophile movement, represented by the Mattachine Society, which was founded in Los Angeles by 1951. Organization around the concept of homosexual rights, which had first been attempted in 1924 in Chicago by Henry Gerber's Society for Human Rights, slowly gained adherents, becoming the conceptual basis of subsequent gay rights movements.

During the 1960s, the growth of movements asserting civil rights and expressing pride in racial and gender identities enhanced the momentum of what became known (as homosexuals sought new names in an attempt to jettison older medical and legal stigmas) as the gay rights and gay liberation movements. During the 1960s and 1970s, gay people achieved an unprecedented public presence in the United States and developed a flourishing culture that included books and magazines; bars and baths; political, religious, and social organizations; symbols and fashion representing gay pride; and marches and celebrations. Highly visible communities emerged in New York, San Francisco, and other large cities. After New York's 1969 Stonewall riot—which erupted when police raided a gay bar—“gay pride” became a rallying cry. Gay rights activists achieved a major victory in 1973 when the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its list of mental disorders.

Eventually, however, the gay rights movement divided over goals and strategy. Those who conformed more to prescribed gender images, and were hence less visible, often sided with more accommodationist principles and emphasized sexual-object choice as the only salient difference between heterosexuals and homosexuals. On the other hand, advocates of gay liberation, like radical feminists, offered a more thorough critique of prevailing codes of gender and heterosexuality and sought to articulate a variety of gay, straight, and bisexual masculinities. Dissention also occurred around the relationship of gay rights activism to other movements and groups, and around the appearance of sexism and male domination within the movement's organizations. The association of a gay identity with maleness led to the addition of the term lesbian to the movement and prompted some homosexual women to develop a lesbian-separatist theory and practice.

By the 1970s, gay masculinities had become highly varied, ranging from the “macho men” (as exemplified by the pop group The Village People) who incorporated, in exaggerated form, traditionally masculine characteristics to the drag queens who continued to seek male identities that included characteristics traditionally considered feminine.

AIDS and Beyond

Gay liberation and gay pride were forced in different directions with the 1981 discovery of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) and its initial link to the sexual activities and multiple partners of many gay men (AIDS was called a “gay plague” in early 1980s media accounts). New organizations—notably the Gay Men's Health Crisis (founded in 1982), and AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT-UP, founded in 1987)—emerged to address and debate responses to the epidemic.

Public reactions to AIDS were informed by a climate of backlash: Conservatives resisted or overturned the gains of most gay rights movements and touted conventional heterosexuality as “traditional family values.” Yet events of the 1980s and 1990s also prompted productive dialogue and analysis within gay culture and politics. Concepts of sexuality and masculinity as fluid—varying from one individual to another and across time, place, and culture—began to replace the essentialist notion that homosexual/heterosexual and masculine/feminine are fixed dualities. Scholars, including postmodernists and queer theorists, began re-examining intersections among gender, sexuality, race, and class in American society, both past and present. In the popular mass media, too, a variety of gay and male identities were explored in the 1990s with increasing frequency and acceptance—examples include the feature films Philadelphia (1993) and In and Out (1997) and the television series Will and Grace (premiered 1998) and Queer as Folk (premiered 1999). Political controversies erupted over ongoing discrimination against gay men (and lesbians) in the military and in the workplace, while the newer visibility, activism, and variety of gay youth began adding a new dimension to debates over gender and sexuality. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, however, the legal rights of same-sex couples to marry and raise children had yet to be gained, and same-sex organizations (such as the Boy Scouts) continued to rely on stereotypes of masculinity to deny openly gay males equal participation.

—Vicki L. Eaklor

Entry Citation and other information:

Eaklor, Vicki L. "Homosexuality." American Masculinities: A HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA. 2003. SAGE Publications. 6 Mar. 2009. <http://sage-ereference.com/masculinities/Article_n113.html>.

American Masculinities: A Historical Encyclopedia (Sage Reference Publication) (v. 1) (Hardcover) $195.00

by Bret Carroll (Editor) (Author)

Description:

"This is a highly recommended purchase for undergraduate, medium-sized, and large public libraries wishing to provide a substantial introduction to the field of men's studies."
--Reference & User Services Quarterly

"Pleasing layout and good cross-references make Carroll's compendium a welcome addition to collections serving readers of all ages. Highly recommended."
--CHOICE

"An excellent index, well-chosen photographs and illustrations, and an extensive bibliography add further value. American Masculinities is well worth what would otherise be too hefty a price for many libraries because no other encyclopedia comes close to covering this growing field so well."
--American Reference Books Annual

American Masculinities: A Historical Encyclopedia is a first-of-its-kind reference, detailing developments in the growing field of men’s studies. This up-to-date analytical review serves as a marker of how the field has evolved over the last decade, especially since the 1993 publication of Anthony Rotundo’s American Manhood. This seminal book opened new vistas for exploration and research into American History, society, and culture.

Weaving the fabric of American history, American Masculinities illustrates how American political leaders have often used the rhetoric of manliness to underscore the presumed moral righteousness and ostensibly protective purposes of their policies. Seeing U.S. history in terms of gender archetypes, readers will gain a richer and deeper understanding of America’s democratic political system, domestic and foreign policies, and capitalist economic system, as well as the "private" sphere of the home and domestic life.

The contributors to American Masculinities share the assumption that men’s lives have been grounded fundamentally in gender, that is, in their awareness of themselves as males. Their approach goes beyond scholarship which traditionally looks at men (and women) in terms of what they do and how they have influenced a given field or era. Rather, this important work delves into the psychological core of manhood which is shaped not only by biology, but also by history, society, and culture.

Encapsulating the current state of scholarly interpretation within the field of Men’s Studies, American Masculinities: A Historical Encyclopedia is designed to help students and scholars advance their studies, develop new questions for research, and stimulate new ways of exploring the history of American life.

Key Features

- Reader’s Guide facilitates browsing by topic and easy access to information

- Extensive name, place, and concept index gives users an additional means of locating topics of interest

- More than 250 entries, each with suggestions for further reading

- Cross references direct users to related information

- Comprehensive bibliography includes a list of sources organized by categories in the field

Topics Covered

- Arts, Literature, and Popular Culture

- Body, Health, and Sexuality

- Class, Ethnic, Racial, and Religious Identities

- Concepts and Theories

- Family and Fatherhood

- General History

- Icons and Symbols

- Leisure and Work

- Movements and Organizations

- People

- Political and Social Issues

About the Editor

Bret E. Carroll is Associate Professor of History at California State University, Stanislaus. He received his Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1991. He is author of The Routledge Historical Atlas of Religion in America (1997), Spiritualism in Antebellum America (1997), and several articles on nineteenth-century masculinity.

Dr. Bret E. Carroll, Professor

Education:

Ph.D., Cornell University, 1991 (History)

M.A., Cornell University, 1988 (History)

B.A., Emory University, 1983 (History)

            Specialty Fields:

            Early National / Antebellum U.S.

            U.S. Gender and Masculinity

            U.S. Religious

            U.S. Family

Publications:

Books

American Masculinities: A Historical Encyclopedia (Sage Publications, 2003). Editor-in-Chief.

The Routledge Historical Atlas of Religion in America (Routledge, 2000).

Spiritualism in Antebellum America (Indiana University Press, 1997).

Articles and Essays

“Worlds in Space: Geographical Perspectives on American Religious Pluralism,” in Charles L. Cohen and Ronald Numbers, eds., Modern American Religious Pluralism (forthcoming)

“Reflections on Regionalism and U.S. Religious History,” Church History 71/1(March 2002): 120-131

“’A Higher Power to Feel’: Spiritualism, Grief, and Victorian Manhood,” Men and Masculinities 3/1 (July 2000): 3-29

“The Context of Cassadaga: An Historical Overview of American Spiritualism,” in Cassadaga: The South’s Oldest Spiritualist Community, ed. John J. Guthrie, Jr., Phillip C. Lucas, and Gary Monroe (University Press of Florida, 2000), 1-26

“’I Must Have My House in Order’: The Victorian Fatherhood of John Shoebridge Williams,” Journal of Family History 24/3 (July 1999): 275-304

“The Religious Construction of Masculinity in Victorian America: The Male Mediumship of John Shoebridge Williams,” Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation 7/1 (Winter 1997): 27-60

“Spiritualism and Community in Antebellum America: The Mountain Cove Episode,” Communal Societies 12 (1992): 20-39

Encyclopedia Entries

A total of 34 entries have been or will be published in Encyclopedia of the Early Republic and Antebellum America (forthcoming), Encyclopedia of the History of Women in America (forthcoming), Encyclopedia of the New American Nation (2005), American Masculinities: A Historical Encyclopedia (2003), Dictionary of American History (2003), The Family in the United States: Colonial Times to the Present: An Encyclopedia (2001), Contemporary American Religion (2000), American National Biography (1999), Encyclopedia of New York State (2005), and Encyclopedia of New England (2005).

Book Reviews

A total of 29 book reviews have been published in American Historical Review, Church History, Journal of American History, Journal of Church and State, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, Journal of Religious History, Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions, Religious Studies Review, and on H-AMSTDY

Conference Presentations

Paper presenter, commenter, or panel chair at meetings of American Academy of Religion, American Historical Association, American Historical Association – Pacific Coast Branch, American Society for Church History, American Studies Association, Association of American Geographers, Communal Studies Association, Organization of American Historians, and Social Science History Association