History of homosexuality

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Societal attitudes towards same-sex relationships have varied over time and place. Attitudes to male homosexuality have varied from requiring males to engage in same-sex relationships to casual integration, through acceptance, to seeing the practice as a minor sin, repressing it through law enforcement and judicial mechanisms, and to proscribing it under penalty of death. In addition, it has varied as to whether any negative attitudes towards men who have sex with men have extended to all participants, as has been common in Abrahamic religions, or only to passive (penetrated) participants, as was common in Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. Female homosexuality has historically been given less acknowledgment, explicit acceptance, and opposition.

Homosexuality was generally accepted in many ancient and medieval eastern cultures such as those influenced by Buddhism, Hinduism, and Taoism.^[1][2] Homophobia in the eastern world is often discussed in the context of being an import from the western world,^[3][4] with some contending that definitions of "progress" on homosexuality (e.g. LGBT rights) as being Western-centric.^[5]

It is thought that ancient Assyria (2nd millennium BC to 1st millennium AD) viewed homosexuality as negative and at least criminal,^[6] with the religious codes of Zoroastrianism forbidding homosexuality,^[7] and the rise of Judaism, Christianity and Islam leading to homophobia in much of the western world; the majority of the ancient sources prior to the onset of the Abrahamic religions present homosexuality in the form of male domination or rape.^[8][9] Abrahamic religions played a key role in the spread of homophobia in further Asia, such as Islam through the Mongol Empire (where homosexuality was banned) to parts of Central Asia, Southern Asia and the Sinosphere,^[10][11][12] or Christianity through the numerous colonial adventures of European nations.^[13][14]

European Enlightenment ideas contributed to the French revolutionaries indirectly decriminalising gay sex in 1789 as part of the separation of secular and religious laws, though homophobia remained rampant in both secular and religious governments in an attempt to uphold the "highest moral standards".^[15] The 19th century later saw the first homosexual movement in Germany particularly in the aftermath of World War 1. The modern LGBTQ rights movement emerged in the 20th century with the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York.^[16]

Many male historical figures, including Socrates, Lord Byron, Edward II, and Hadrian,^[17] have had terms such as gay or bisexual applied to them; some scholars, such as Michel Foucault, have regarded this as risking the anachronistic introduction of a contemporary social construct of sexuality foreign to their times,^[18] though others challenge this.^[19][20][21] A common thread of constructionist argument is that no one in antiquity or the Middle Ages experienced homosexuality as an exclusive, permanent, or defining mode of sexuality. John Boswell has countered this argument by citing ancient Greek writings by Plato,^[22] which describe individuals exhibiting exclusive homosexuality.