Same-sex relations are documented throughout history and varied in acceptance depending on time and place. However, many historians and anthropologists warn against using terms like "homosexuality" to describe these practices, because that may draw false equivalencies between acts that, while technically similar, may have been viewed as completely different acts. In many cultures, same-sex relations were not always considered sexual in the same way that "reproductive" sex between men and women was—particularly lesbian sex. Modern-style homosexual partnerships, including marriages, are even more uncommon, probably because marriages have almost always been oriented around producing children.
Richard von Hohenburg and his
squire Anton Mätzler) at the stake outside
Zürich, 1482 (from the
Spiezer Schilling chronicle) In cultures influenced by
Abrahamic religions, the
law and the
church established
sodomy as a transgression against divine law or a
crime against nature. The condemnation of
anal sex between males, however, predates Christian belief. Throughout the majority of
Christian history, most
Christian theologians and
denominations have considered homosexual behavior as
immoral or
sinful. Many historical figures, including
Socrates,
Lord Byron,
Edward II, and
Hadrian, have had terms such as
gay or
bisexual applied to them. Some scholars have regarded uses of such modern terms on people from the past as an
anachronistic introduction of a contemporary
construction of sexuality that would have been foreign to their times. Other scholars see continuity instead. The philosopher of science
Michael Ruse has stated that the social constructionist approach, which is influenced by Foucault, is based on a selective reading of the historical record that confuses the existence of homosexual people with the way in which they are labelled or treated.
Africa The first record of a possible homosexual couple in history is commonly regarded as
Khnumhotep and Niankhkhnum, an
ancient Egyptian male couple, who lived around 2400 BCE. The pair are portrayed in a nose-kissing position, the most intimate pose in
Egyptian art, surrounded by what appear to be their heirs. The anthropologists
Stephen Murray and
Will Roscoe reported that women in
Lesotho engaged in socially sanctioned "long term, erotic relationships" called
motsoalle. The anthropologist
E. E. Evans-Pritchard also recorded that male
Azande warriors in the northern
Congo routinely took on young male lovers between the ages of twelve and twenty, who helped with household tasks and participated in
intercrural sex with their older husbands. Some scholars have criticized labeling relationships like these "homosexual", because these relationships were temporary arrangements designed to prepare young men for full manhood, rather than the permanent sexual orientation implied by the word "homosexual".
Americas Indigenous cultures ceremonial dance to celebrate the two-spirit person. George Catlin (1796–1872); Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. homosexual men talking, from the
Florentine Codex (1577) As is true of many other non-Western cultures, it is difficult to determine the extent to which Western notions of sexual orientation and gender identity apply to Pre-Columbian cultures. Evidence of homoerotic sexual acts and transvestism has been found in many pre-
conquest civilizations in
Latin America, such as the
Aztecs,
Mayas,
Quechuas,
Moches,
Zapotecs, the
Incas, and the
Tupinambá of Brazil. The Spanish conquerors were horrified to discover sodomy openly practiced among native peoples, and attempted to crush it out by subjecting the
berdaches (as the Spanish called them) under their rule to severe penalties, including public
execution, burning and being torn to pieces by dogs. The Spanish conquerors talked extensively of sodomy among the natives to depict them as savages and hence justify their conquest and forceful conversion to Christianity. As a result of the growing influence and power of the conquerors, many native cultures started condemning homosexual acts themselves. Among some of the
indigenous peoples of the Americas in North America prior to European colonization, a relatively common form of same-sex sexuality centered around the figure of the
Two-Spirit individual (the term itself was coined only in 1990). Typically, this individual was recognized early in life, given a choice by the parents to follow the path and, if the child accepted the role, raised in the appropriate manner, learning the customs of the gender it had chosen. Two-Spirit individuals were commonly
shamans and were revered as having powers beyond those of ordinary shamans. Their sexual life was with the ordinary tribe members of the same sex. During the colonial times following the European invasion, homosexuality was prosecuted by the
Inquisition, sometimes leading to death sentences on the charges of sodomy, and the practices became clandestine. Many homosexual individuals went into heterosexual marriages to maintain appearances, and many joined the (unmarried) Catholic clergy to escape public scrutiny of their lack of interest in the opposite sex.
Canada During the colonial period, both the French and the British criminalised same-sex sexual relations. Anal sex between males was a capital offence. Post-Confederation, anal sex and acts of "gross indecency" continued to be criminal offences, but were no longer capital offences. Individuals were prosecuted for same-sex sexual activity as late as the 1960s, which led to the federal Parliament amending the
Criminal Code in 1969 to provide that anal sex between consenting adults in private (defined as only two persons) was not a criminal offence. In advocating for the law, the then-Minister of Justice,
Pierre Trudeau, said: "The state has no place in the bedrooms of the nation." In 1995, the
Supreme Court of Canada held that sexual orientation is a protected personal characteristic under
the equality clause of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The federal Parliament and provincial legislatures began to amend their laws to treat same-sex relations in the same way as opposite-sex relations. Beginning in 2003, the courts in Canada began to rule that excluding same-sex couples from marriage violated the equality clause of the
Charter. In 2005, the federal Parliament enacted the
Civil Marriage Act, which legalised same-sex marriage across Canada. Canada has been referred to as the most
gay-friendly country in the world, ranked first in the
Gay Travel Index chart in 2018, and among the five safest in
Forbes magazine in 2019. It was also ranked first in Asher & Lyric's LGBTQ+ Danger Index in a 2021 update.
Mexico Anthropologist Joseph Carrier found in the 1990s that same-gender sexual relations were relatively common in many neighborhoods in
Mexico City. While long-term partnerships were not acceptable, and queer men were still expected to marry and have children, it was acceptable for men to have "discreet" relations with other men as long as they took on the active, penetrative role. Taking the passive role was considered detrimental to one's masculinity.
United States During the Victorian era, same-sex desire was viewed as a common sin. Anyone was capable of "succumbing" to same-sex attraction, and various sexual and non-sexual acts—including masturbation—were considered possible ways that someone could be "turned" queer. Queer people were often viewed as predators, exclusively attracted to heterosexuals, and therefore a danger to society.
Same-sex marriage in the United States expanded from one state in 2004 to all 50 states in 2015, through various state court rulings, state legislation, direct popular votes (
referendums and
initiatives), and federal court rulings.
Asia East Asia . Painting. 18th CenturyIn
East Asia, same-sex love has been referred to since the earliest recorded history.
Homosexuality in China, known as the
passions of the cut peach and various other euphemisms, has been recorded since approximately 600 BCE. Homosexuality was mentioned in many famous works of Chinese literature. The instances of same-sex affection and sexual interactions described in the classical novel
Dream of the Red Chamber seem as familiar to observers in the present as do equivalent stories of romances between heterosexual people during the same period. Keith McMahon suggests that homosexual relationships between men in Ming stories such as Bian er chai was described as more harmonious and enjoyable than heterosexual relationships. Writings from the
Liu Song dynasty by Wang Shunu claimed that homosexuality was as common as heterosexuality in the late 3rd century. Opposition to homosexuality in China originates in the medieval
Tang dynasty (618–907), attributed to the rising influence of Christian and Islamic values, but did not become fully established until the
Westernization efforts of the late
Qing dynasty and the
Republic of China.
North Asia Early Russian ethnographers observed that
Chukchi shamans in
Siberia were sometimes said to called by mystical forces to engage in a form of
ritualized homosexual relations with other men. This ritual typically involved a
gender change—a religious ceremony that, it was believed, transformed his genitalia into that of a female. After the change, he might dress in women's clothing and behave in feminine ways. He was then believed to "lose" masculine traits like hunting skill, and instead take on "feminine" traits, like healing and nurturing. Some of these shamans would take male lovers, and could even marry other men, and the shaman would take on a "wifely" role. Homosexual relations outside of this specialized role were reportedly not tolerated.
South Asia South Asia has a recorded and verifiable history of homosexuality going back to at least 1200 BC. Hindu medical texts written in India from this period document homosexual acts and attempt to explain the cause in a neutral/scientific manner. Numerous artworks and literary works from this period also describe homosexuality. Several ancient Hindu texts have passages that condemn homosexuality. For example, Manu-smṛti (11.174) says that if a man has sex with another man, then he should take a shower with clothes on. The implication of the statement is that sex between two men is not considered normal. Pali Cannon, written in Sri Lanka between 600 BC and 100 BC, states that sexual relations, whether of homosexual or of heterosexual nature, is forbidden in the monastic code, and states that any acts of soft homosexual sex (including masturbation and interfumeral sex) does not entail a punishment but must be confessed to the monastery. These codes apply to monks only and not to the general population. The Kama Sutra written in India around 200 AD also described numerous homosexual sex acts. Prior to early modern period and colonialism, there were no strict laws against homosexuality and transexuality. However certain dharmic moral codes forbade sexual misconduct (of both heterosexual and homosexual nature) among the upper class of persists and monks, and religious codes of foreign religions such as Christianity and Islam imposed homophobic rules on their populations. Hinduism describes a
third gender that is equal to other genders and documentation of the third gender are found in ancient Hindu and Buddhist medical texts. There are certain characters in the
Mahabharata who, according to some versions of the epic, change genders, such as
Shikhandi, who is sometimes said to be born as a female but identifies as male and eventually marries a woman.
Bahuchara Mata is the goddess of fertility, worshipped by
hijras as their patroness.
Europe Classical period The earliest Western documents (in the form of literary works, art objects, and
mythographic materials) concerning same-sex relationships are derived from
ancient Greece. The formal practice of Pederasty, an erotic yet often restrained relationship between a free adult male and a free adolescent, was valued for its
pedagogic benefits and as a means of population control, though occasionally blamed for causing disorder. In his
Symposium,
Plato has Phaedras praising its benefits whilst having Socrates encouraging platonic relationships between older and younger men (the literal origin of the term,
platonic love). In his later work,
Laws, he has an Athenian stranger propose prohibition of sexual relationships between men entirely saying that it is unnatural. But Aristotle,in his Nichomachean ethics, states that homosexuality in men for some comes about by nature and others through habituation and further states that no one could be described as lacking in self control for whom nature is the cause Some scholars argue that there are examples of homosexual love in ancient literature, such as
Achilles and Patroclus in the
Iliad. "Sappho sings for Homer", 1824. Little is known of female homosexuality in antiquity.
Sappho, born on the island of
Lesbos, was included by later Greeks in the canonical list of
nine lyric poets. The adjectives deriving from her name and place of birth (
Sapphic and Lesbian) came to be applied to female homosexuality beginning in the 19th century. Sappho's poetry centers on passion and love for various personages and both genders. The narrators of many of her poems speak of
infatuations and
love (sometimes requited, sometimes not) for various females, but descriptions of physical acts
between women are few and subject to debate. In
Ancient Rome, the kind of homosexuality seen took the form of pederastic relationships, where older free men took on an active role and slaves or freed youths took the receptive/passive role in sex. Romans saw passivity as generally unmanly, and as incompatible with the warrior ethos expected of men serving the expansionist Roman state. In his letter addressed to the Christian community in Rome,
Paul the Apostle writes of people engaging in idolatry ("[they] exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles") who eventually become infatuated with a person of the same sex in a "suffering of dishonour". Pederastic attentions were legitimate only when directed toward current or former slaves. The
Hellenophile emperor
Hadrian (117–138) is renowned for his relationship with
Antinous, a young man of low birth. Only the Christian emperor
Theodosius I decreed a law on 6 August 390, condemning passive males to be burned at the stake. Notwithstanding these regulations taxes on
brothels with boys available for homosexual sex continued to be collected until the end of the reign of
Anastasius I in 518.
Justinian, towards the end of his reign, expanded the proscription to the active partner as well (in 558), warning that such conduct can lead to the destruction of cities through the "wrath of God".
Renaissance During the
Renaissance, wealthy cities in northern
Italy—
Florence and
Venice in particular—were renowned for their widespread practice of same-sex love, engaged in by a considerable part of the male population and constructed along the classical pattern of Greece and Rome. But even as many of the male population were engaging in same-sex relationships, the authorities, under the
aegis of the
Officers of the Night court, were prosecuting, fining, and imprisoning a good portion of that population. From the second half of the 13th century, death was the punishment for male homosexuality in most of Europe. The relationships of socially prominent figures, such as
King James I and the
Duke of Buckingham, served to highlight the issue, including in anonymously authored street pamphlets: "The world is chang'd I know not how, For men Kiss Men, not Women now;...Of J. the First and Buckingham: He, true it is, his Wives Embraces fled, To slabber his lov'd Ganimede" (''Mundus Foppensis, or The Fop Display'd'', 1691).
Modern period artist Touko Laaksonen (1920–1991) alias
Tom of Finland, well known for his stylized and highly masculinized
homoerotic art, playing the piano in late 1950s. In the background, his partner Veli Mäkinen (
left) and his sister Kaija (
right).
Love Letters Between a Certain Late Nobleman and the Famous Mr. Wilson was published in 1723 in England, and is presumed by some modern scholars to be a novel. The 1749 edition of
John Cleland's popular novel
Fanny Hill includes a homosexual scene, but this was removed in its 1750 edition. Also in 1749, the earliest extended and serious defense of homosexuality in English,
Ancient and Modern Pederasty Investigated and Exemplified, written by
Thomas Cannon, was published, but was suppressed almost immediately. It includes the passage, "Unnatural Desire is a Contradiction in Terms; downright Nonsense. Desire is an amatory Impulse of the inmost human Parts." Around 1785
Jeremy Bentham wrote another defense, but this was not published until 1978. Executions for sodomy continued in the
Netherlands until 1803, and in
England until 1835,
James Pratt and John Smith being the last Englishmen to be so hanged. Between 1864 and 1880
Karl Heinrich Ulrichs published a series of 12 tracts, which he collectively titled
Research on the Riddle of Man-Manly Love. In 1867, he became the first self-proclaimed homosexual person to speak out publicly in defense of homosexuality when he pleaded at the Congress of German Jurists in
Munich for a resolution urging the repeal of anti-homosexual laws. Although medical texts like these (written partly in Latin to obscure the sexual details) were not widely read by the general public, they did lead to the rise of
Magnus Hirschfeld's
Scientific-Humanitarian Committee, which campaigned from 1897 to 1933 against
anti-sodomy laws in Germany, as well as a much more informal, unpublicized movement among British intellectuals and writers, led by such figures as
Edward Carpenter and
John Addington Symonds. Beginning in 1894 with
Homogenic Love, Socialist activist and poet Edward Carpenter wrote a string of pro-homosexual articles and pamphlets, and "came out" in 1916 in his book
My Days and Dreams. In 1900,
Elisar von Kupffer published an anthology of homosexual literature from antiquity to his own time,
Lieblingminne und Freundesliebe in der Weltliteratur.
Middle East There are a handful of accounts by Arab travelers to Europe during the mid-1800s. Two of these travelers, Rifa'ah al-Tahtawi and Muhammad as-Saffar, show their surprise that the French sometimes deliberately mistranslated love poetry about a young boy, instead referring to a young female, to maintain their social norms and morals. Israel is considered the most tolerant country in the Middle East to homosexuals, with
Tel Aviv being named "the gay capital of the Middle East" and considered one of the most gay friendly cities in the world. The annual
Pride Parade in support of homosexuality takes place in Tel Aviv. On the other hand, many governments in the Middle East often ignore, deny the existence of, or criminalize homosexuality. Homosexuality is illegal in almost all Muslim countries.
Same-sex intercourse officially carries the death penalty in several Muslim nations: Saudi Arabia, Iran,
Mauritania, northern
Nigeria, and
Yemen. Iranian President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, during his
2007 speech at Columbia University, asserted that there were no gay people in Iran. However, the probable reason is that they keep their sexuality a secret for fear of government sanction or rejection by their families.
Pre-Islamic period Abbas the Great with a page boy. By Muhammad Qasim,
Safavid Iran (1627). In ancient
Sumer, a set of priests known as
gala worked in the temples of the goddess
Inanna, where they performed elegies and lamentations.
Gala took female names, spoke in the
eme-sal dialect, which was traditionally reserved for women, and appear to have engaged in homosexual intercourse. The Sumerian sign for
gala was a
ligature of the signs for "penis" and "anus". with the religious codes of
Zoroastrianism forbidding homosexuality. Some religious texts contain prayers for divine blessings on homosexual relationships. The
Almanac of Incantations contained prayers favoring on an
equal basis the love of a man for a woman, of a woman for a man, and of a man for man.
South Pacific In some societies of
Melanesia, especially in
Papua New Guinea, traditional practices required a prepubertal boy to be paired with an older adolescent who would become his mentor and who would "inseminate" him (orally, anally, or topically, depending on the tribe) over a number of years in order for the younger to also reach puberty. A small minority of males remain bachelors and continue to engage in homosexual relations, and are considered unusual and ridiculed by other tribesmen. Many Melanesian societies have abandoned this practice since the introduction of
Christianity via
European missionaries. ==Sexuality and identity==