Queer Blogging

notre dame paris

The History of Homosexuality: The Napoleonic Code

The Napoleonic Code is the name for a new code of law introduced in France under Napoleon I in 1804, the purpose of which was to replace the patchwork of feudal laws which had previously existed and unify the French legal system under a more democratic form of rule. Most notably, the code prohibited birthright privileges, specified that government jobs should go to the most qualified candidates, and established freedom of religion.

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By Kate Aaron, ago
temple of zeus

People in Fiction: Zeus and Ganymede

One of the most enduring of the Greek myths concerns Ganymede, the son of Tros, a great king for whom Troy and the Trojans are named. Tros had three sons, all perfect, but Ganymede was said to be the most beautiful boy who had ever lived. One day, while still a youth, Ganymede was resting in a meadow on Mount Ida when Zeus, king of the gods, saw him and fell instantly in love.

Summoning a great storm, Zeus transformed into an eagle and swept from the skies, seized the boy, and carried him off to the heavens. There, he made Ganymede immortal and gave him a position as cupbearer to the gods, supplanting his daughter Hebe, who had previously held the title. (more…)

By Kate Aaron, ago
lion statue

People in History: Alexander and Hephaestion

Born in Pella, Macedon, in 356BC, Alexander was the first son of Philip II and his principle wife, Olympias. Almost from the moment he was conceived, Alexander became something of a legend.

His mother, a princess of Epirus in her own right, was a follower of an orgiastic, snake-worshiping cult of Dionysus, and was widely believed to be a sorceress. She mythologised her son, claiming visions of thunderbolts from the heavens and a great fire accompanied his conception, and Philip himself was recorded as saying he dreamed he sealed Olympias’ womb with the device of a lion. As Philip’s fourth of seven or eight wives, likely elevated to principle only because of Alexander’s birth, it served Olympias’ interests to secure her son as Philip’s heir, and herself as mother of the future king.

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By Kate Aaron, ago
parthenon

The History of Homosexuality: Ancient Greece

Ancient Greece stands as something of a shorthand whenever we think today of a “history” or even “origin” of homosexual behaviour. On the surface, the correlation is a fair one. There’s enough in the written record — to say nothing of statues, art, and pottery — to convince us that male same-sex sexuality was known and frequently celebrated. To call such conduct “homosexual” as we recognise that meaning today is, however, not only anachronistic, but simply wrong.

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By Kate Aaron, ago
people in history

People in Fiction: Fanny Hill

We’re going back a little in time from the Labouchere Amendment, to 1748 and the perhaps surprising choice of an erotic novel told through the eyes of a female prostitute.

Female prostitution and homosexuality have long been linked in British law (Labouchere’s Amendment was to an Act concerned with the former, after all, and the Wolfenden Committee was convened in the 1950s to look at both issues). (more…)

By Kate Aaron, ago
oscar wilde

People in History: Oscar Wilde

It’s impossible to discuss the criminalisation of homosexuality without discussing Wilde, the most famous victim of the infamous Labouchere Amendment. What most people don’t know is that Wilde wasn’t a victim, so much as a martyr. “Where your life leads you, you must go,” he famously said, and refused to move from his hotel room until the police arrived to arrest him for “gross indecency.” (more…)

By Kate Aaron, ago
fence wire prison

The History of Homosexuality: Criminality

As science moved from acts to identities, so too did the public consciousness and, very quickly, the law. In England, consensual male-male sex was first prohibited by the Buggery Act of 1533. Plenty of sources will cite it as the first British anti-homosexual law, although of course it wasn’t anything of the sort. It was, however, one of the earliest anti-sodomy laws passed by any Germanic country (previously the only laws concerning sex had prohibited adultery), and it outlawed specifically “the detestable and abominable Vice of Buggery committed with mankind or beast.” The penalty was death. (more…)

By Kate Aaron, ago
quill ink

People in History: Christopher Marlowe

Christopher “Kit” Marlowe (February 1564-30 May 1593) was a contemporary of Shakespeare’s, and considered the most popular and talented tragedian of his time. Were it not for his murder at the age of 29, cutting him off at the height of his success, it is highly probable it would be Marlowe’s name which became the bane of schoolchildren the world over, not Shakespeare’s. (more…)

By Kate Aaron, ago
shakespeare macbeth

People in History: William Shakespeare

England’s most famous playwright, darling of the Elizabethan and Jacobean court, and beloved of schoolteachers ever since, Shakespeare might seem an odd choice for a biography, not least because so little is known about it. We don’t even know the day he was born, although from the existing records it’s pretty clear he died if not on, then close to, his birthday (baptised 26 April 1594, died 23 April 1616, are the known dates). (more…)

By Kate Aaron, ago
gay identity

The History of Homosexuality: Identity

We often think of sexuality as though it exists on a linear continuum: we talk about homosexuality in Ancient Greek society, for example, when in fact there was no such thing as a “homosexual” before 1868, when the word was coined by German sexologists. It wasn’t used in English until the 1890s.

There were, obviously, other words in use before that time: pederasts, inverts, urnings, sodomites, lesbians, tribads, and so on. Most of those terms referred very specifically to particular socio-sexual behaviour (the active or passive partner in anal intercourse, etc.), and not to identities as we know them. Before the second half of the nineteenth century, when the Germans became obsessed with the idea of how the sex we have affects the people we are, the very idea of a sexual identity would have seemed absurd. (more…)

By Kate Aaron, ago