HISTSEX ARCHIVES: APRIL 1999
© Lesley Hall and list contributors
Date: Thu, 01 Apr 1999 10:54:43 +1000
From: Ivan Crozier <s9801550@pop3.unsw.edu.au>
Subject: medicine, homosexuality, identity; or, the time has not come
While Giovanni Dall'Orto has made some interesting and important points
about the problem of 'medicalising' Ulrichs, et al., by turning them
into doctors which they were not, it is still important to set out that
medicine (incl. sexology, neurology, psychoanalysis--as I would regard
Freud!--forensic medicine, venereology, etc) is a separate field of
discourse to homosexual rights activism. This is not to say that
medicine did not rearticulate the same kinds of concerns, or deal with
the problem in such a way that challenged the political activists'
ideas, or even colonise these political issues as medical ones. But as
these medical discourses are different to the political ones, it might
be problematic to suggest that the sexological discourses were purely
reactions to homosexual self identity; afterall, they have different
modes of construction, different facts, different theories, etc.
Thinking that emdicine was influenced purely and utterly by politics
sets up the idea that there is an influence from one social sphere to
another which is difficult to substantiate (although ths does *not* mean
that I have sympathy for the idea, as I htink that it has a certian
amount to offer). Harry Oosterhuis did it very nicely in his paper in
Rosario (ed), _Science and Homosexualities_, NY & London, 1997. And
from Oosterhuis' work we can get get a sense of medical rearticulation
of homosexual self identity in the 19th century. But there are counter
examples, such as Ellis and Symonds noting that many of their cases were
identifying themselves in terms of the medical theory. The same is the
case in some of the cases Ellis used in _Eonism_. This begins to get to
a picture of the relationship between medicine/science and
homosexuals/homosexual rights activity which is not unidirectional and
is quite complex; there is much cross-over between the fields.
Obviously one of the constraints here is that the fields of medicine
have to base their medical constructions of homosexuality on data of
some sort, and this often came from those who had already dealt with the
problem: Ulrichs, Kertbeny, etc.
Of course, as Giovanni Dall'Orto rightly pointed out, this does not mean
that one could include Ulrichs, Carpenter, Symonds, Kertbeny etc., as
doctors in their research into same sex desire/activity. Nor does it
mean, however, that one can suggest that the medicalisation of
homosexuality was *caused* by preceeding social interest into the
topic. Rather, the historian has to carefully map the differences,
cross-overs and other nuances which emerge as different fields (both
within the wider field of medicine and between 'medicine' and 'other
fields') struggle to create an orthdox (in Bourdieu's sense) discourse
about homosexuality. Until an orthodox opinion emerges (and I am not
sure that it ever will, and it certainly has not emerged to date), then
there are going to be series of boundary workings by different actors as
they struggle to create their discourses. This, to my mind, undermines
the position that behind the medical construction of homosexuality was a
homosexual rights activist, especially as some medicos, Havelock Ellis
for example, were medically trained, and were writing sexological texts
as a part of the homosexual liberation movement (for a good account of
Ellis' sexual politics as a part of a wider social reform movement, see
Chris Nottingham's forthcoming book on Ellis). This example detracts
from the previous notion that there were two separate fields, one
following the other.
Sorry, I think I started rambling!
Cheers, Ivan
Ivan Crozier,
School of STS,
UNSW, Sydney, 2052,
Australia
email: i.crozier@unsw.edu.au
Giovanni Dall'Orto :
Just for the sake of putting the record straight:
Benkert was neither a MD nor a sexologist: he was a writer, and a
homosexual activist (he actually coined the
word "homosexuality");
Ulrichs was not a sexologist: he was a jurist, and a homosexual activist
(he coined the word "uranism" & re.).
Krafft-Ebing was no sexologist: he was a neuropsychiatrist. He was
deeply influenced by Ulrich's ideas about
homosexuality.
Freud, eventually, was a neurologist. And he belongs to a generation
later.
You might have noticed that psychiatrists came AFTER homosexual
activists had spoken their mind.
Time has come, in my opinion, to ask whether the purpoted "medical
construcion of homosexuality" should not
be read the other way: i.e. as a social answer (a medical one, since the
traditional, religious one had proved too
weak) to the growth of a homosexual self-definition, identity and
activism; in other words, as a social answer to
the SELF-CONSTRUCTION of homosexuality by homosexuals themselves.
Actually, behind and before any "doctor" who is assumed to have
"invented" or "constructed" homosexuality,
one can always find a homosexual activist. Cherchez le pédé, really! :)
To date, the only answer to this objection of mine (and not of mine
alone, of course) has been just concealing
evidence by transforming homosexual activists such as Benkert or Ulrichs
into doctors, which they never were
nor ever dreamed of being.
Is this a serious way of making history? Distorting data?
How long shall we be victim of what at best is a myth, and at worst,
just a LIE?
Best wishes
Giovanni Dall'Orto
___________________________________________________________________Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1999 14:30:36 +0000
From: aquarius@well.com
Subject: Re: Impotency and Homosexuality
MillerJimE@aol.com wrote:
> Is this nausea, or merely frustration and futility?
> Jim Miller
>> In a message dated 03/30/1999 4:22:57 PM Central Standard Time,
> aquarius@well.com writes:
> << Wisdom of Sirach 30:20:
> Says that a eunuch is as nauseated by the act of embracing a girl as a sick
> man is at the sight of a table full of food: "He [the ill man] sees things
> with
> his eyes and groans, like a eunuch embracing a girl groans." >>
I could answer by providing a larger piece of the text of Wisdom of Sirach, to
set the verse above in proper context, or I could provide more examples of
"eunuchs" being defined as a group lacking desire for women, just like
homosexual men. What the heck, I'll do both.
For Lucian of Samosata (2nd century CE) the identification of eunuchs was
problematic (leaving artificial eunuchs aside for the moment), probably because
they did not differ from other citizens except in one respect: they lacked
potency with women. Thus in a dialogue entitled The Eunuch, he gives the
following method for identifying one: Get some women from a brothel and put him
in a room with them and have a trustworthy elderly gentleman judge stand by to
observe whether he is able to comingle and cohabit with them. (Eunuchus 12).
The Basilidians, a Christian sect of the second century CE, interpreted Matthew
19:12 in the following way, according to Clement of Alexandria:
"... when the apostles asked whether it was better not to marry, the Lord
replied: 'Not all receive this saying. For there are eunuchs, some by birth,
others by compulsion.' They interpret this saying this way: Some men from their
birth have a natural sense of revulsion from a woman ..."
Terence's play of the second century B-CE entitled The Eunuch concerned a young
man who poses as a eunuch in order to gain access to a household so he can rape
a girl he is infatuated with. The playwright, in an instance of foreshadowing,
has his main character state, after seeing the object of his desire (and before
getting the idea to pose as a eunuch): "From this moment I erase all women from
my mind. These vulgar beauties make me sick."
Finally, in the Book of Wisdom of Sirach, the verse I cited comes from the
following context (Sirach, i.e. Ecclesiasticus, 30:14-20):
>From Edgar Goodspeed's translation in _The Apocrypha_ (1938):
"A poor man who is well and has a strong constitution is better off than a rich
man who is afflicted in body. Health and a good constitution are better than any
amount of gold, and a strong body than untold riches. There is no greater wealth
than health of body, and there is no greater happiness than gladness of heart.
Death is better than a wretched life, and eternal rest than continual sickness.
Good things spread out before a mouth that is closed are like piles of food laid
on a grave. What good is an offering of fruit to an idol? It can neither eat nor
smell. That is the way with a man who is afflicted by the Lord: He sees things
with his eyes and groans, like a eunuch embracing a girl [groans]!" (In his
translation, Goodspeed omits the second "stenazon," or "groans," which is
present in the original.)
The analogy only works if the eunuch is nauseated by the female. A castrated man
may not be able to "eat" (or can't he?), but he is in any case able to "smell"
(please excuse the potential vulgarity). A eunuch, like a sick man, can do
neither.
Mark Brustman
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Thu, 01 Apr 1999 14:40:39 +0200
From: "Giovanni Dall'Orto" <giovanni.dallorto@iol.it>
Subject: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Re:_Cherchez_le_p=E9d=E9?=
In-Reply-To: <Pine.OSF.3.95.990331130456.32448F-100000@is3.nyu.edu>
In 13.08 31/03/99 -0500, David F. Greenberg wrote:
Givoanni Dall'Orto is right to note that the late nineteenth-century
>psychiatric literature on homosexuality was preceded by the writings=20
of
>activists like Benkert and Ulrichs. However, they themselves did not
>originate the ideas that a same-sex orientation was innate. This can=20
be
>found in European writings in the early and middle part of the
nineteenth
>century, and in writings of the Italian Renaissance, and going back
even
>earlier, in classical antiquity. I doubt that all such writings could
be
>traced to homosexual activists. At least, this has not been done so far.
-
>David Greenberg, Sociology Department, New York University
I really thank David Greenberg for pointing out that even XIX century
activists were not the first ones to speak of same-sex-intercourse as the
result of a way of being rather than a way of behaving
(<underline>pace</underline> Foucault and his grandchildren).=20
This goes against commonly held prejudices about the purpoted "modern
construction of homosexuality". Actually, the very same Marquis de Sade
who wrote a "Conjecture sur le troisi=E8me sexe" was no "doctor", was not
"modern", and he was writing about the "third sex" (purpotedly created by
XIX century sexologists) in the wrong century - at least, if we agree
with what self-styling "social constructionists" claim.
I would make a fool of myself if I claimed there were gay activists in XV
century Europe. The very conception of "activist" is a modern one. (Well,
the very conception of "<bold>Europe</bold>" is, but this is another
matter).
Yet, although S.C. claim that "we" invented homosexuality, "we" invented
sexuality, we invented food, love, fire, water, cats dog and everything
else, there used to be life even before "we" were born. At least: so they
say.
However, people who "advocated" same-sex love as a noble one to be
tolerated and even appreciated by society lived and spoke their minds
during and before the Italian and European Renaissance. (To the topic I
devoted a paper appeared in the "Journal of homosexuality" some years
ago: "Socratic love as a disguise for same-sex love in the Italian
Renaissance", dealing with XV-XVI century. What I found is that commonly
held prejudices about a purpoted "epistemological break" between "XIX
centiry" and "before", simply goes against historical documents).
And if we are to believe to complaints from conservative people about how
"nowadays" sodomites boast about what they are (in Rome, in medieval
Europe & re.), visibility is not an invention of ours either.
That "activism" did not exist "then" is totally true. No one marched in a
parade holding a banner saying: "SODOMITE PRIDE".
Yet that in history only what Power has to say - as post-stucturalists
take from granted - is something that still is to be demonstrated (and in
my humble opinion will never be). Definitions of what homosexual
behaviours are and - above all - mean are ALWAYS negotiated between
society (or "Les Discours du pouvoir", if you prefer to tell it so) and
those individuals concerned. Who have their point of view to say.=20
Depending upon how much power they held, this point of view will be more
or less taken into consideration or not, and a compromise will, or will
not, be found.
It's as simple as that. Yet nobody seems to care, recently.
Time has come to listen to what cinaedi/ sodomites/ buggers/ homosexuals
had to say wherever "Power Discourses" were uttered. One-dimentional
vision of history (so called "Power discourses" dictate, people just
adact and conform) is not only wrong: this is clearly silly!
After all the often and wrogly cited Foucault spent his whole life
repeating that "les discours du pouvoir" pass THROUGH all of us. Which
imply that WE are the Power. Which means that if we want, then we can
fight back, change these very same discourses (rules, norms,
mentalities). This was - by the way - the rationale for his being a
left-wing activist (not a gay one, though: he was a man belongin to the
Power structure, after all).
What would we think of a historician from XXIII century studying
homosexuality in XX century only by reading juridical and medical and
Religious texts and nothing else?=20
Yet this is quite what has been done to date for the past. Shame on us.
Thanks for your sharp answer.
Muy best wishes.
Giovanni Dall'Orto
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Thu, 01 Apr 1999 18:16:12 +0200
From: "Giovanni Dall'Orto" <giovanni.dallorto@iol.it>
Subject: "Medicine and homosexuality" by Crozier
Thanks to Ivan Crozier for his articulate answer (I am not quoting it
here because it was very long).
I notice in pleasure that he came very close to understanding my point of
view, notwithstanding the fact that I had not fully stated it.
My point of view is that in the purpoted "medical construction of
homosexuality", as in every historical phenomen, there was a
<underline>dialectical</underline> evolution. Homosexuals, or however you
prefere to define them (<underline>nomina NON sunt consequentia
rerum</underline>, so I don't care about labels) were the fist ones to
act when they realized the grasp from religion on "sexual" morality was
fading. This happened in last decades of XVIII century already.
Since evidence of this you can find in pamphlets, m=E9moirs, private
diaries, letters, you won't find this phenomenon described in medical
treatises nor in theological tomes (conservative by definition).
These first same-sex-love apologists "married" science hoping it could
give - at last - a liberating explanation about their way of being. A
"third sex", maybe: such an expression pre-exists its use by doctors by
at last one century.
That this hope proved vane is demonstrated by the very "medical
construction of homosexuality" phenomenon which is, and here too you
understand my point of view well, a social reaction to the growing
momentum of people from the "third sex" addressing themselves to doctors
to convince them to study the "riddle" (as Ulrichs called it) "of man-man
love" (lesbianism was not fully taken into consideration yet), and
addressing society to change its view about them.=20
(By the way you misunderstand me just when you have me say that this
phenomenon can be explained as "purely" a reaction to this. I know no
social phenomenon which is a "pure" reaction to one single issue. Society
is dynamic, and so are "discourses" about homosexuality).
=20
New mentalities in society created among early homosexual activists the
need for new definitions and prompted them to ask society new questions,
that shaped the medical discourse about homosexuality, that in turn
moulded homosexual self-definitions, which by reaction prompted new
theories to arise from homosexual scholars and activists, that caused the
counter-reaction brought by psychoanalisis to be greeted in favour (very
few scholars to date notice that Freud ATTACKS Hirschfeld in his "Three
essays")... Shall I carry on? :-) This phenomenon is still working
today, as I shall point out later in my mail.
This said, when I say "cherchez le p=E9d=E9" I am not joking: behind the
phenomenon of doctors & jurists & neurologists studying homosexuality
"seriously", there are ALSO homosexuals who sent unrequested memorials to
urge them to deal with the "riddle". Someone, as for instance Casper (one
of those credited with "inventing" homosexuality), even PUBLISHED one,
giving us an idea of what this kind of writings could be.
Why nobody to date paid attention to this fact? This is an interesting
question, since this is a "blind spot" in the research about this
period.
This all said, the fact that fifty years later homosexuals were eager to
describe themselves in medical terms comes in no surprise to me. They had
WANTED the possibility to do so, they had cooperated to have such a
possibility, so why should they have given it up?. Please keep in mind
that the alternative then was describing themselves in RELIGIOUS and
MORAL terms, or worse in JURIDICAL ones: if put in front of this option,
what would YOU choose?
We can have a very clear parallele example of how things worked, today,
in the Anglo-Saxon world that, having not adopted the Napol=E9on Code
principles about homosexuality, is still struggling today against
anti-homosexual laws that in Latin and Catholic Countries were abolished
between 1800 and 1850.
When I read any Usa gay magazine taking for granted without further
notice that homosexuality is a genetically determined condition (which
happend to me with "The Advocate" no later than yesterday night), I am
puzzled, since at 40 I did not decide yet whether homosexuality may have
a "cause" whatever. Yet I can understang why to them it is so important
make this point: if we have "born that way", why should laws punish us
for being born this way? In fact, Religious conservatives (including the
Pope) state "we have a choice", and we can convert. (It is just a matter
of will).
Furthermore, the very fact that social constructionism thrives in
Anglo-Saxon Countries (i.e. Common Law ones) alone comes, in my opinion,
from the need to set a clear separation between "then" and "now". Why
this should be done, I wondered many times, until I read the Supreme
Court "Hardwich" case sentence, quoting sodomy statutes enacted by Queen
Elisabeth (the FIRST, I mean). Oh, I see.
History is in no way indipendent from political concerns. Quite the
opposite: history belongs to politics, not to social sciences.
If Common-Law people need to make it clear that these statutes were
enacted against a set of people who are not us, who are separated from us
by an "epistemological break", then this is OK for me, even if this is
not true. But truth is a disposable commodity, under certain
circumstances. Only, I'd rather have them not try to export their
political concern elsewhere (as they are aggressively doing) by implying
that what happened in the Usa or in the UK had to happen worldwide, and
if it has not, it will.
In sum, my point is that so-called "modern homosexuality" is neither.
In fact, the overwhelming majority of homosexually enclined people in the
World do NOT live their homosexuality along the lines of the self-styled
"modern" homosexual. That these people should be dismissed as
"non-modern" of even worse as "non-homosexual" has to do with
ethnocentrism and racism, not with epystemology; the same being true - in
my opinion, of course - also for homosexual people living before the
alleged "medical construction" of the "modern homosexual".
A medical construction there was indeed, but it was neither the cause
for the birth of homosexuals, that pre-dated it, nor it was a worldwide
pheonomenon. Actually, it was a tool by which certain societies reacted
against homosexuals campaigning for abolition of laws punishing
homosexual acts between consenting adults. As such, it is a phenomenon
typical of those countries that did not adopt the Code Napol=E9on.
As for Italy (my Country, as you can see by my English :) ), it
decriminalized homosexuality partially in 1800-1820 and totally in 1889.
In this Country, as in all other Code Napol=E9on Countries, it was the
Catholic Church rather than the State to regulate and keep under control
homosexuals and homosexual acts.
Our problem, in fact, is not a social discourse trying to force us to
wear an identity which is socially constructed: quite the opposite, it is
a discourse saying that homosexuality is not something that
<underline>exists</underline>, is something <underline>you just
do</underline>, and there is no such a thing as an "essentially"
homosexual person.
As you see, Clinton may force my Country to bomb Serbia if he just wants,
but he can't change my Country's mentality about homosexuality nor its
traditional way to repress it.
Which shows, at last, that history counts, after all.
<bold>B</bold>est wishes.
Giovanni Dall'Orto
P.S. If you should reply, I won't be able to answer you before one week
or so: I'll be away from home for one week.
___________________________________________________________________
Date: 1 Apr 1999 19:35:44 -0000
From: Histsex:For historians of sexuality <histsex-owner@listbot.com>
Subject: Desire and identity
I've been reading the recent postings with great interest, and wondering
if part of the difficulty is the somewhat problematic use of 'homosexual'
to cover a range of potential same-sex preferences (from very occasional
to absolute) which the 'Kinsey' scale makes some endeavour to
differentiate. (It may be crude, as I've seen argued, but it's a major
jump from the either/or distinction.) And then I thought (given that
eunuchs have been, as it were, on the agenda) that although the Kinsey
scale accommodates, at least on the theoretical level, an absolute
equality of attraction to both sexes, it doesn't (as I recall) have a
'slot' for the individual who is equally unattracted to either sex. There
are people indifferent to or actively nauseated by the opposite sex who
are not, therefore, directing their desire to their own: they may (if this
possibility crosses their minds) be at least as indifferent or nauseated
(i.e. it is a revulsion from desire, intimacy, messy bodily entanglements
etc in general rather than specifically gendered bodies.
Lesley Hall
histsex-owner@listbot.com
lesleyah@primex.co.uk
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Thu, 01 Apr 1999 14:45:54 +0000
From: aquarius@well.com
Subject: Re: Desire and identity
Histsex:For historians of sexuality wrote:
> Histsex:For historians of sexuality - http://homepages.primex.co.uk/~lesleyah
>> I've been reading the recent postings with great interest, and wondering
> if part of the difficulty is the somewhat problematic use of 'homosexual'
> to cover a range of potential same-sex preferences (from very occasional
> to absolute) which the 'Kinsey' scale makes some endeavour to
> differentiate. (It may be crude, as I've seen argued, but it's a major
> jump from the either/or distinction.) And then I thought (given that
> eunuchs have been, as it were, on the agenda) that although the Kinsey
> scale accommodates, at least on the theoretical level, an absolute
> equality of attraction to both sexes, it doesn't (as I recall) have a
> 'slot' for the individual who is equally unattracted to either sex. There
> are people indifferent to or actively nauseated by the opposite sex who
> are not, therefore, directing their desire to their own: they may (if this
> possibility crosses their minds) be at least as indifferent or nauseated
> (i.e. it is a revulsion from desire, intimacy, messy bodily entanglements
> etc in general rather than specifically gendered bodies.
> Lesley Hall
> histsex-owner@listbot.com
> lesleyah@primex.co.uk
>
Well, that is precisely what I am trying to get at. Sexual activity, just on the
face of it, is very well described as a "messy bodily entanglement" regardless
of the gender(s) of the participants involved. Without specific biological
mechanisms of desire (pheromone receptors?) that establish a drive to have sex,
I wonder if the race would propagate at all! (Please excuse the immediate reach
for biological explanations, but I was a genetics major in college.)
Any number of factors, such as social conditioning, the weather, childhood
traumas, or a bad day at work can potentially block sexual desire (which is
different from the desire for intimacy). Just because biological mechanism(s)
exist which promote sexual desire, that does not mean we are slaves to our
genes. Many factors can interrupt lust. But what I am proposing is that sexual
arousal is _facilitated_ by mechanisms which direct the brain toward arousal,
and that some of these mechanisms are stimulated by some aspect of the gender of
the potential partner. In each person there would be mechanisms facilitating sex
with men, and other mechanisms facilitating sex with women (and most likely also
mechanisms operating regardless of the partner's gender).
It is here that I propose eunuchs and "born" lesbians are differentiated from
other people: they lack the biological mechanisms to feel lust for one sex -
which happens to be their respective counterpart sex in reproduction - and
therefore they view the prospect of sex with such a partner completely without
lust. Depending on one's view of the human body as clean or dirty, such a one
would find sex with the opposite sex either as indifferent as copulating with a
vegetable, or as repulsive as eating someone else's earwax. (On the other hand,
with lust operating, the inside of someone's ear can be quite tasty.)
There may be other distinct markers between gays and nongays which occur with
variable frequency, but the lack of desire for the opposite sex, in the presence
of same-sex desire, I think is as good a definition of gayness as any.
Your statement about the person "equally unattracted to either sex" brings up
the major sticking point that prevents full identification of gay men and
eunuchs: those (men) who have no desire for sexual intimacy, period, would also
meet the ancient definition of eunuchs, but of course they are not what some
would call "gay." Maybe in high school they would be called gay, but usually in
adult speech, "gay" people are interested in sex with somebody at least.
Mark Brustman
___________________________________________________________________
From: MillerJimE@aol.com
Date: Thu, 1 Apr 1999 22:19:57 EST
Subject: Re: Impotency and Homosexuality
I am afraid you lost me here. The idol is not nauseated, nor is the
inhabitant of the grave. Revulsion is not a common factor to the examples in
this passage. Futility is the common factor, especially in light of the
value system which emphasizes reproduction.
Jim Miller
In a message dated 04/01/1999 3:05:58 AM Central Standard Time,
aquarius@well.com writes:
<< Finally, in the Book of Wisdom of Sirach, the verse I cited comes from the
following context (Sirach, i.e. Ecclesiasticus, 30:14-20):
From Edgar Goodspeed's translation in _The Apocrypha_ (1938):
"A poor man who is well and has a strong constitution is better off than a
rich
man who is afflicted in body. Health and a good constitution are better than
any
amount of gold, and a strong body than untold riches. There is no greater
wealth
than health of body, and there is no greater happiness than gladness of
heart.
Death is better than a wretched life, and eternal rest than continual
sickness.
Good things spread out before a mouth that is closed are like piles of food
laid
on a grave. What good is an offering of fruit to an idol? It can neither eat
nor
smell. That is the way with a man who is afflicted by the Lord: He sees
things
with his eyes and groans, like a eunuch embracing a girl [groans]!" (In his
translation, Goodspeed omits the second "stenazon," or "groans," which is
present in the original.)
The analogy only works if the eunuch is nauseated by the female. A
castrated man
may not be able to "eat" (or can't he?), but he is in any case able to
"smell"
(please excuse the potential vulgarity). A eunuch, like a sick man, can do
neither.
Mark Brustman >>
___________________________________________________________________Date: Sun, 4 Apr 1999 12:43:25 -0800
From: "David D. Leitao" <dleitao@sfsu.edu>
Subject: laius citations
Here's a classicist's two cents on sources for the myth of Laius. I think
Andrei is right to suggest Sergent's book (cited below), but one should use
that book with great care. Sergent pays almost no attention to the
rhetorical context of his sources and is rather careless when it comes to
chronology (he does not, for instance, seem to care whether a source for a
homosexualized version of a myth comes from the 7th century BCE or the 4th
century CE--he treats them all as equal witnesses to a prehistoric Greek
institution of initiatory pederasty). But he has done his homework, and
the notes at the back of the book are generally very reliable: that is
where I would go to find good "scholarly citations" for the myth of Laius.
Graves' book on Greek myth is much more troubling. I don't think you will
find a classicist anywhere who puts much stock in his theories of myth
(which are imaginatively retailed in the notes to _The Greek Myths_ and in
"The White Goddess_). What is troubling are his citations to ancient
sources (which Rictor Norton has been kind enough to reproduce in an
earlier message): in my experience, I have found that as many of 50% of
the citations are faulty. Either they do not say what he claims that they
say or (more commonly) the actual passage is miscited (e.g., he might cite
Hyginus, Fabulae 120.2 where the actual passage is Hyg. Fab. 12.2). All of
this could have been avoided with some careful cite-checking on his part
(or his editor's part). So here too, as with the case of Sergent, the
citations (the 50% of the time that they are accurate) are more useful than
the interpretation.
David Leitao
>Histsex:For historians of sexuality - http://homepages.primex.co.uk/~lesleyah
>>Part of my work on the Androphile site consists of piecing together
>ancient homoerotic Greek (and other) myth. To that end I have found
>Bernard Sergeant's _Homosexuality in Greek Myth_ to be priceless. I
>have also used Donald Richardson's _Great Zeus and All His Children_,
>published by Greyden Press. The latter is a miserable printing, with
>no year of publication, and with absolutely no bibliography.
>>Is anyone familiar with Richardson and his work, particularly his
>sources and his reliability? Are there any other sources of
>homoerotic Greek myth in unexpurgated translation?
>>Thanks for any help,
>>Andrei
Prof. David D. Leitao
Assistant Professor
Department of Classics, College of Humanities
San Francisco State University
1600 Holloway Ave, San Francisco CA 94132
(415) 338-3071 (o), (650) 994-7330 (h)
dleitao@sfsu.edu
http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~dleitao/welcome.html
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Sun, 4 Apr 1999 18:24:44 -0400 (EDT)
From: Gregory {Greg} Downing <gd2@is2.nyu.edu>
Subject: Re: laius citations (and introduction)
Comment follows....
At 12:43 PM 4/4/99 -0800, David Leitao <dleitao@sfsu.edu> wrote:
>Graves' book on Greek myth is much more troubling. I don't think you will
>find a classicist anywhere who puts much stock in his theories of myth
>(which are imaginatively retailed in the notes to _The Greek Myths_ and in
>"The White Goddess_). What is troubling are his citations to ancient
>sources (which Rictor Norton has been kind enough to reproduce in an
>earlier message): in my experience, I have found that as many of 50% of
>the citations are faulty. Either they do not say what he claims that they
>say or (more commonly) the actual passage is miscited (e.g., he might cite
>Hyginus, Fabulae 120.2 where the actual passage is Hyg. Fab. 12.2). All of
>this could have been avoided with some careful cite-checking on his part
>(or his editor's part). So here too, as with the case of Sergent, the
>citations (the 50% of the time that they are accurate) are more useful than
>the interpretation.
>
Though I have not checked Graves and his references thoroughly, the several
times that I have used _The Greek Myths_ to try to find my way to the
original ancient sources for the myths he discusses I have had very similar
experiences to those you describe -- i.e., the references are "off".... Some
I eventually figured out (along the lines of 12.2 instead of 120.2). Some I
never *could* find.
I never introduced myself when I subscribed, as I think I was probably
supposed to do. I publish on Joyce, and centrally on the "Oxen of the Sun"
episode (episode 14) of _Ulysses_. "Oxen" takes place in the National
Maternity Hospital in Dublin; sexual and reproductive issues are thematized
and discussed. So that's why I'm on this list.
Greg Downing/NYU, at greg.downing@nyu.edu or gd2@is2.nyu.edu
___________________________________________________________________
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From: "Rictor Norton" <norton@rictor.freeserve.co.uk>
Subject: Re: laius citations
Date: Mon, 5 Apr 1999 22:17:39 +0100
I'm not certain I see the point of David Leitao's blanket warning to beware
the accuracy of Robert Graves's references. Either his citations for the
story about Laius's rape/abduction of Chrysippus are correct, or they
aren't. If they're not, then please correct them. I notice that the main
source cited by Graves -- Hyginus, _Fabulae_ 85 -- is also cited in
_Lempriere's Classical Dictionary_, though I also see that Graves cites
Apollodorus, iii. 5. 5 whereas Lempriere cites Apollodorus, 3. c. 5: perhaps
this is just a variation in the conventions used for citations or perhaps
this is indeed an example of a Graves typographical error. And I see that
where Graves cites Athenaeus xiii 79, J.A. Symonds in _A Problem in Greek
Ethics_ cites Athenaeus xiii 602. Another error? I don't know.
Does Leitao?
Incidentally, I accept that I am wrong about the Sacred Band of Thebes
consisting of 600 men. Though the phrase "300 pairs of lovers" is very
frequently used when talking about them, I understand it actually means "300
men consisting of lovers in pairs" (i.e. 300 in total, not 600).
--
Rictor Norton
mailto:norton@rictor.freeserve.co.uk
http://www.infopt.demon.co.uk/rcnorton.htm
-----Original Message-----
From: David D. Leitao <dleitao@sfsu.edu>
To: Histsex:For historians of sexuality <histsex@listbot.com>
Date: 04 April 1999 22:44
Subject: laius citations
<snip>
>Graves' book on Greek myth is much more troubling. I don't think you will
>find a classicist anywhere who puts much stock in his theories of myth
>(which are imaginatively retailed in the notes to _The Greek Myths_ and in
>"The White Goddess_). What is troubling are his citations to ancient
>sources (which Rictor Norton has been kind enough to reproduce in an
>earlier message): in my experience, I have found that as many of 50% of
>the citations are faulty. Either they do not say what he claims that they
>say or (more commonly) the actual passage is miscited (e.g., he might cite
>Hyginus, Fabulae 120.2 where the actual passage is Hyg. Fab. 12.2). All of
>this could have been avoided with some careful cite-checking on his part
>(or his editor's part). So here too, as with the case of Sergent, the
>citations (the 50% of the time that they are accurate) are more useful than
>the interpretation.
>
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Wed, 07 Apr 1999 19:45:15 +1000
From: Ivan Crozier <s9801550@pop3.unsw.edu.au>
Subject: construction, etc.
> Giovanni Dall'Orto is right to note that the late nineteenth-century
> psychiatric literature on homosexuality was preceded by the writings
> of activists like Benkert and Ulrichs. However, they themselves did
> not originate the ideas that a same-sex orientation was innate.
--David Greenberg
"Well that just reinforces the point, doesn't it, that these nineteenth
century scientists did not themselves "construct" homosexuality as an
innate characteristic?...
If writers going back to classical antiquity (which ones are meant?)
state that a same-sex orientation is innate, then doesn't that beg the
question of why so many historians today follow Foucault in insisting
that the homosexual identity was constructed by doctors in the last
century intent on controlling deviant behavior?
There was -- is -- something there in nature that all these witnesses
are trying to describe, however much they may have brought their own
societal, historical prejudices to bear."--Mark Brustman
Actually, I am not to sure that it does reinforce the point. Different
fields, such as homosexual rights activists and sexologists and nowadays
geneticists, do construct homosexuality, often (but not always) as an
innate characteristic. But this is not a property of the object being
constructed, but an interpretation of it offered by different discursive
fields. Its not like making a cathedral; once constructed it will stand
forever. Construction, here, refers specifically to the way that
different fields of discourse articulate an object in a way which is
_sui generis_ to their field. For example, anorexia nervosa can be
discursively constituted by psychoanalysts, feminists, doctors who are
into biochemistry, etc. These fields are all constructing the object in
their own way. They all make it exist in some sense, although they
never get the whole complexity of the object (ie, it is always
underdetermined) They also all have their own set of paradigmatic rules
of construction which are appropriate to members of the field, but will
not be suitable for other fields. However, just because someone else in
another field has spoken of an object, put forward a point, developed a
concept, or whatever, does not mean that the object is not also
constructed (or re-constructed, or simply imported in some way, but
probabaly not THE SAME way) by another field. Construction, in the
sense that this debate has taken, does not mean that 19th C medicine
invented homosexuality for the *first* time, as Giovanni Dall'Orto has
shown in his lucid emails. Rather, I think, that different strands of
medicine were constructing same sex desire in particular ways. These
ways can be sexology, venereology, fornesic medicine, psychiatry,
psychoanalysis, etc. Even these constructions are not themselves
equivalent. But they share a similar social position, to a greater or
lesser extent, unlike other fields like law or religion or 'homosexual
rights activists', etc, which of course occupy a different social space.
Construction, at the end, is the only means of speaking about the
world. There is no escaping it!
Cheerio,
Ivan
Ivan Crozier,
School of STS,
UNSW, Sydney, 2052,
Australia
email: i.crozier@unsw.edu.au
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Wed, 7 Apr 1999 13:44:59 -0400 (EDT)
From: "David F. Greenberg" <dg4@is3.nyu.edu>
Subject: Re: construction, etc.
Ivan Crozier offers a standard social constructionist understanding of
discourses here in his remarks below. Most of these observations are
unexceptional, but I think they miss the point that Mark Brustman was
making. The discourses of late nineteenth-century psychiatry on same-sex
sexual attraction or activity were certainly not the same as those
employed in earlier periods of time. Hellenistic writers, and some writers
of the Italian Renaissance (e.g. Marsilio Ficino, Commentary on Plato's
Symposium on Love, speech 6, chapter 14), for example, explained same-sex
attraction astrologically; that is, as a result of the configuration of
the planetary bodies at the time. Innateness is configured differently
again the writings of contemporary genetic researchers like Dean Hamer.
But one need not be interested in discourses. Mark Brustman is simply
interested in the notion that over the ages, sexual interests were innate.
I don't doubt that he would concede that in different historical periods,
the detailed understanding of this innateness differed; that's simply not
his interest. Brustman goes on to suggest that "there is something in
nature that these witnesses are trying to describe." This is a strong
claim. The mere fact that notions of innateness appear and reappear at
various times doesn't make them true, any more than the recurrence of
claims for the existence of gods, ghosts or witches means that there is
anything corresponding to the words in discourses, or concepts in speech.
That's an entirely different question. Until very recently, the capacity
to determine what human traits are innate did not exist. There are a
limited number of ways available to explain human behavior and
inclinations. "Born that way" is one of them. I may be misreading
Crozier's remarks, but I construe (construct?) them to mean that one could
never determine whether the truth claims in a discourse are valid; in
other words, there are only verbal constructions or discourses, and the
constructions found in discourses are only representations unrelated to
the objects they purport to represent. If this is what Crozier means, it
seems to me to be altogether false. It is certainly true that some
representations correspond to nothing that exists in the world, but that
doesn't mean that this is true of all representations or discursive
fields. - David Greenberg, Sociology Department, New York University.
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Thu, 08 Apr 1999 15:05:14 +1000
From: Ivan Crozier <s9801550@pop3.unsw.edu.au>
Subject: construction and all that...
Thanks to Dr Greenberg for his comments on my email. I have a few
points which I think need to be addressed so as to state my position.
I completely agree that my observations were singularly unexceptional.
They have been commonplace to readers of Foucault for ages, and for
historians and sociologists of science as well (which is where I am
coming from). In this case my comment, which was directed primarily to
Dr Brustman's comment, "nineteenth century scientists did not themselves
"construct" homosexuality as an innate characteristic", should have no
effect at all. And it is for this reason that I wholly concur with
Greenberg when he writes, "The discourses of late nineteenth-century
psychiatry on same-sex sexual attraction or activity were certainly not
the same as those employed in earlier periods of time." How could they
be, if as I said all fields of discourse are in the business of
constructing discourses which are played out in such a way as to attempt
to establish an orthodox position on homosexuality (esp. when they are
making a knowledge claim, instead of a literary representation, but any
difference between these two things is another topic)? The best example
of this point, which Greenberg himslef wrote, was
"Hellenistic writers, and some writers of the Italian Renaissance (e.g.
Marsilio Ficino, Commentary on Plato's Symposium on Love, speech 6,
chapter 14), for example, explained same-sex attraction astrologically;
that is, as a result of the configuration of the planetary bodies at the
time. Innateness is configured differently again the writings of
contemporary genetic researchers like Dean Hamer."
What better example of the different constructions of innateness by
those commenting on homosexuality in history? I would have also added
Havelock Ellis, _Sexual Inversion_, John Addington Symonds, _A Problem
in Modern Ethics_, and a few other of my favourites. But, as historians
of sex recognise, there are other possible constructions of the same
object (homosexual desire), such as the acquired form constructed by
Schrenck-Notzing or by psychoanalysts, etc (I won't go on). My point
was that these are all constructions which are struggling for
legitimation and orthodoxy. Homosexual rights activists, sexologists,
forensic psychiatrists, etc, all are trying to establish the 'true' way
of interpreting homosexuality --the orthodoxy-- (although as Giovanni
Dall'Orto recently pointed out, this might especially be in countries
where there was no code Napoleon). This is why Dr Greenberg was not
misreading my remarks when he construed me to mean that "one could never
determine whether the truth claims in a discourse are valid; in other
words, there are only verbal constructions or discourses." I fully
agree. Unless one can get a God's eye view of how nature really is,
then one has to put up with discursive constructions of the world which
occasional produce the effects of the truth (in a sociological sense,
meaning that people believe them as if they were true, even though
epistemologists would have a great struggle with the same claims!--this
is why I am interested in the sociology of knowledge.)
This does not necessarily imply, however, that "the constructions found
in discourses are only representations unrelated to the objects they
purport to represent." (Greenberg) But the process of 'getting things
into discourse' is a difficult one, involving processes of articulation
-- it is a far more difficult issue than mere representation, although
the term will do in a lot of cases (but not really for facts about the
world). These articulations are done from the standpoint of one field
or other, and they are only ever going to be discursive in nature. They
are **not reality itself**, and they are not at all going to be correct
or incorrect in terms of 'the real world', but instead are going to be
judged by others making claims to the discursive construction of
reality. These others can be in the same field, or in a different field
altogether.
Such a view may be considered false by some. It has been said of my
email that "some representations correspond to nothing that exists in
the world, but that doesn't mean that this is true of all
representations or discursive fields." This, I believe, is the false
position. All constructions of the world or of reality, regardless if
they are of homosexual desires, quarks, microbes, genes, etc, are just
discursive constructions. There is a reality there somewhere, but it is
not in a discursive represenation which is about the thing itself. With
this a number of sociologists of knowledge, anthropologists, and
epistemologists will agree. The implication: we have to live with
discursive constructions. An unexceptional, and even stodgy old idea
(Wittgenstein, Bachelard, Kuhn and Canguilhem all were there years ago).
After all of this, however, I perhaps am on Dr Greenberg's 'side'? We
are both critical of Dr Brustman's claim that "there is something in
nature that these witnesses are trying to describe."
Dr Greenberg goes on to say that "This is a strong claim. The mere fact
that notions of innateness appear and reappear at various times doesn't
make them true, any more than the recurrence of claims for the existence
of gods [mean that the existence of gods are true]". This being the
case, is Dr Greenberg suggesting that some constructions of things (eg,
ghosts) are not true, whereas innateness is? I do not think so. If so,
then it is a strong claim. If not, then why am I writing this email in
response to a position which is almost the same as my own?
Cheers, Ivan
Ivan crozier,
School of STS,
UNSW, Sydney, 2052,
Australia
email: i.crozier@unsw.edu.au
___________________________________________________________________
From: "Rictor Norton" <norton@rictor.freeserve.co.uk>
Subject: Re: construction, etc.
Date: Wed, 7 Apr 1999 22:26:51 +0100
I think that Ivan Crozier misconstrued (misconstructed ?) the points that
Mark Brustman (and Giovanni dall'Orto) were making, and I'm glad David
Greenberg has clarified the issue by focusing on the central issue.
I quite agree that "one need not be interested in discourses". It is
entirely possible to discover, understand and experience objective reality
without the means of linguistic discourse (e.g. by using chemical analysis),
and in particular without using
discourse in its Foucauldian sense (i.e. an ideological set of paradigms
designed to extend and control the power of the bourgeoisie -- a meaning of
"discourse" that Ivan Crozier does not seem to realize is the ground for
most social constructionist talk about "discourse").
But to get to the point. I agree with Brustman that "there is something in
nature that these witnesses are trying to describe". And I think that the
history of homosexuality does suggest the existence of something innate in a
class of persons whom today we would call gay or lesbian or queer. Here are
a baker's half-dozen reasons why:
1. Whenever this class of persons is discussed (as sodomites or whatever),
in a very wide range of cultures and over a wide range of historical
periods, the predominant conclusion is that they embody an innate sexual
orientation, they were born that way, etc., as Greenberg mentions. This is
not conclusive, but it is suggestive. Either it reflects a widespread
perception of reality, or it is a mass delusion. (The fact that people
account for this innateness in different ways, including astrology, is, as
Greenberg says, irrelevant as far as this point is concerned. That simply
means that they use different tools (often inadequate by modern standards)
to explain what may be a relatively unitary objective reality.)
2. Although social constructionists rhetorically claim an "infinite variety"
of ways of being homosexual or ways of conceiving of homosexual classes of
person, that is not true: there are maybe four or five basic ways of being
homosexual throughout history and across cultures. You're not to get many
more even by using very fine points of discrimination. If homosexuality were
not innate, one would expect to find far more varieties of homosexualities
than in fact one can find.
3. Sexual excitement has physiological symptoms which seem to be beyond
rational control (in animals and in humans), and intense sexual desire often
provokes a chain reaction of behaviour that it is not entirely unreasonable
to call "instinctual", and which seems to be linked to various congenital or
biological or genetic patterns that may have developed several millennia
ago. That is, it is not unreasonable to suggest that both homosexual desire
and heterosexual desire are innate.
4. There is a great deal of evidence in twentieth-century records -- medical
and legal and historical -- to suggest that significant modification of
behaviour related to sexual orientation is nearly impossible to achieve.
This is true even though so many disadvantages accrue to being homosexual --
many really serious disadvantages for most of history. If sexual orientation
is mainly acquired rather than innate, it is odd that it is so difficult to
change it. Retraining for a new sexuality, unlike retraining for a new job,
usually ends in failure.
Finally, three reasons given by Ray Evans in a 1961 article in ONE Institute
Quarterly of Homophile Studies, which I do not think have been undermined by
advances in the past 35 years:
5. "the very fact that throughout the mammalian scale, a great many more
males than females engage in homosexual behavior is in itself suggestive of
a constitutional factor".
6. "Despite innumerable case histories and expansive psychoanalytic
"explanations", there is no incontrovertible evidence as to how
homosexuality is acquired through life experiences. There is no known set of
conditions which invariably leads to its development".
7. "When virtually all pressures and attitudes of parents and society tend
to teach and enforce heterosexual behavior, it is perplexing how anyone
learns to be homosexual."
The question of the innateness or congenitality of sexual orientation is not
itself an issue that historicans can definitively answer: it may well be an
issue that only geneticists and biologists can answer. In that sense it is
an issue that is "beyond history", and frankly it's not the most interesting
issue in the history of sexuality. It is nevertheless an issue the historian
of sexualty has to address, for it may affect the "weighting" that we give
to certain kinds of evidence or theory. My own position is simply that
sexual culture (which is the more interesting subject to me) is *grounded
upon innate sexuality*. I frankly think that this premise is more productive
than trying to account for sexuality itself in purely cultural terms, or
even in primarily cultural terms. The attempt to find a cultural "cause" of
something as fundamental as sexual orientation (though SC theorists deny
that this is "fundamental") has led to some overstrained notions, for
example, about the relation of capitalism and homosexuality, a common theme
of the social constructionist approach, which incidentally tends to be less
truly historical than the essentialist approach, for it so often gets locked
into accounting for everything in terms of the bourgeois discourses
constructed in the late nineteenth century.
--
Rictor Norton
mailto:norton@rictor.freeserve.co.uk
http://www.infopt.demon.co.uk/rcnorton.htm
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Wed, 07 Apr 1999 22:48:04 +0000
From: aquarius@well.com
Subject: Conferences?
Hi all. I have been promoting the idea that the "construction" of
eunuchs in the ancient world matches the modern "construction" of
homosexuality in most of its key elements, so that when reading ancient
texts, such as the Bible, the eunuchs mentioned therein can be
interpreted as analogous to or even identified with today's homosexual
men.
The key finding of my research is that under Roman law (and in other
ancient texts), eunuchs were defined as potentially procreating, of
which somebody should inform the people who compile the Oxford English
Dictionary, at the very least.
My question now is: As I am not in the academic profession, can any of
those who are in this field say what conferences I should apply to so I
might make a presentation of my research in this area?
___________________________________________________________________
From: "Rictor Norton" <norton@rictor.freeserve.co.uk>
Subject: Re: construction, etc.
Date: Thu, 8 Apr 1999 11:58:48 +0100
By way of a postscript to my earlier remarks on innate homosexuality,
I just want to address David Greenberg's reference to Ficino and the
discourse of astrology used to illustrate innateness. Greenberg says:
"Hellenistic writers, and some writers of the Italian Renaissance (e.g.
Marsilio Ficino, Commentary on Plato's Symposium on Love, speech 6,
chapter 14), for example, explained same-sex attraction astrologically;
that is, as a result of the configuration of the planetary bodies at
the time." This is strictly correct, but it is a shorthand summary that
may give a wrong impression about the importance of astrological discourse,
particularly in the case of Marsilio Ficino (1433-99).
Ficino's letters addressed to the young and handsome Giovanni
Cavalcanti (1444-1509) are nothing less than ardent love letters. After
Ficino's death his biographers tried to rebut the rumours that he and
Cavalcanti were lovers, and his follower Benedetto Varchi was openly
accused of being a sodomite. Ficino in one letter acknowledged that one
can have "too great a love for the body, [but] that is not strange
either, since the body is the companion and child of the soul." It is
worth remarking that Ficino loved his pupil Cavalcanti (the son of a
nobleman) from a very early age, and they lived together for many years
at the villa at Careggio, where he supervised his Platonic Academy.
Most of Ficino's works were written with Giovanni at his side, solacing
him during periods of black melancholy, and his most important work _De
Amore_ is dedicated to his protege. In this commentary on Plato's
Symposium, members of Ficino's Academy read aloud and analyze the
speeches of Plato's characters; Cavalcanti took the speeches of
Phaedrus, the archetypal beloved in the canon of _amor Socraticus_.
It is quite true that Ficino was a student of Hermetic mysticism and
astrology (and a singer of Orphic hymns) and that he used this
discourse to explain that lover and beloved are transformed into one
another: he who gives himself unreservedly to his beloved ceases to be
himself and becomes his beloved. Several of Ficino's works have what we
would consider to be a very odd reverence for Jupiter within a
Christian context. In one letter to Cavalcanti he says:
"It is said that the ancient theologians, whose memory we
revere, entered into sacred bonds of love and friendship
with one another. Among the Persians it is said that
Zoroaster, under the divine mystery of religious
philosophy, chose Arimaspis as his companion. Hermes
Trismegistus among the Egyptians similarly chose
Aesculapius. In Thrace Orpheus chose Museus as his
companion, and for such a union Pythagorus chose
Aglaophemus as his companion. Plato in Athens first chose
Dion of Syracuse, and after his death Xenocrates was
dearest to him. Thus wise men have always felt it necessary
to have God as their guide, with a man as their companion
on their journey. Although I am not confident that I can
follow in the footsteps of such men in their heavenly
journey, there is nevertheless one thing I have acquired in
full measure from the study of sacred philosophy, virtue
and truth: the joyful company of the man most dear to me.
For I think that the friendship of Giovan Cavalcanti and
Marsilio Ficino as worthy of being numbered among those I
have just named, and I do not doubt but that, with the
guidance of God, who has so happily established and
quickened our bond, this friendship will provide everything
necessary to us for a life of tranquility and our
investigation of the divine."
Ficino also used Christian symbolism to legitimate Socratic love: for
example, a celebration of the holy day of the pair-bond of St James and
St Christopher (cf. Boswell):
"Yesterday at Novola we celebrated the holy day of St James
and St Christopher - I would have called it a feast rather
than just holy if you had been there: but without you there
was no feast for me. See how dear you are to your Marsilio,
who cares not (if one dare say so) even for heavenly things
without you. That is appropriate, for he who has joined
together St James and St Christopher in a single solemn
festival has similarly united Marsilio and Giovanni in
life. And the same spirit, or a similar genius, guides us
both. I believe that God has ordained that we share one
will and the same habits here upon earth, and that in
heaven we shall live under the same rule, and with the same
marks of happiness."
The point I want to make is that these examples suggest that Ficino
could be said to have exploited a variety of discourses (Neoplatonic
and Christian) in order to legitimate the love he had for Cavalcanti.
Ficino practically acknowledges that these discourses are mere tools
rather than beliefs when when he says that he "cares not (if one dare
say so) even for heavenly things without you." His basically
inexplicable love was the objective ground upon which different
intellectual superstructures were placed in order to increase its
valuation and in order to comprehend it. And, it must be said, these
superstructures are often mere subterfuges: as reviewed in Giovanni
Dall'Orto's excellent article on "`Socratic Love' as a Disguise for
Same-sex Love in the Italian Renaissance," _Journal of Homosexuality_,
16 (1988), pp. 33-65.
The social constructionist will typically focus upon these
superstructures (constructs) and get into some rather arid discussions
about Neoplatonic homoerotics; whereas the essentialist will focus upon
the fundamental matter here, which is Marsilio Ficino's love for
Giovanni Cavalcanti. The social constructionist will claim that the
discourse determines the experience; the essentialist will say that the
experience determines the discourse. The social constructionist will
typically address the theory; the essentialist will typically address
the reality. I think that the essentialist "bottom-up" view of influence, as
seen in this short history of Ficino's constructs, tends to reflect the
state of affairs more accurately than the social constructionist "top-down"
view of influence; and insofar as this is the case, tends to suggest (though
not prove) innateness.
Ficino in his translation of Plato's _Phaedrus_ is responsible for
coining the term "platonic love", meaning love between men (in a
patron/protege relationship), striving for virtue but allowing for
physical love (as does Plato's _Phaedrus_). "Platonic love" combines
Neoplatonic and Christian ideals with images and phrases from Provencal
and Tuscan love lyrics, and is deeply romantic. Barely a generation
after Ficino's death, his concept of "amore Platonico" was split up
into two opposing concepts: the original male/male relationship, now
more likely to be called "amor Socraticus", was treated by nearly
everyone as a euphemism for sodomy (and remains the basis for much
homosexual discourse); and most of the positive elements of the concept
were transferred to male/female relations, under the term "courtly
love" (and remain the basis for much heterosexual discourse). Several
books were written at this time (e.g. Castiglione's _The Courtier_, 1528)
containing passages from Plato's works that were rewritten substituting
female pronouns for male pronouns so as to suppress their original
male/male content. Many of the features of Platonic love grew out of
male/male relations and no longer functioned in this new male/female
context (e.g. pedagogy; military honour), but they were simply glossed over
or ignored or re-designed without regard to the logic of the original. It's
an important watershed (though I don't know that I would call it a
paradigmatic shift) in sexual history, after which heterosexual history
became mainstream and homosexual history became marginalized.
--
Rictor Norton
mailto:norton@rictor.freeserve.co.uk
http://www.infopt.demon.co.uk/rcnorton.htm
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 09 Apr 1999 20:17:44 +1200
From: sara <sara@meridian.net.nz>
Subject: research on rape
My name is Sara Taylor. I am a masters student at the University of
Auckland in New Zealand, enrolled for a masters degree in the department
of Psychology. I am conducting my research on women's experience of
therapy for rape.
I am wishing to engage in email conversation with women who have been
raped and have been through or are in the process of undergoing therapy
for the experience of rape.
If you feel that you may be interested in participating or would like
more information about this research please email me
sara@meridian.com.nz.
Thank you for you time and interest.
Yours sincerely,
Sara Taylor
My supervisor is:
Dr Nicola Gavey
Department of Psychology
The University of Auckland
Private Bag 90219
Auckland
New Zealand
Tel. 373-7999 extn. 6877
The Head of Department is:
Professor Graham Vaughn
Department of Psychology
The University of Auckland
Private Bag 90219
Auckland
New Zealand
Tel. 9 373-7999 extn. 8555
For any queries regarding ethical concerns please contact:
Dr Dennis Moore,
Chair, The University of Auckland Human Subjects Ethics Committee,
The University of Auckland, C/o Research Office, Private Bag 90219,
Auckland. Tel. 373-7999 extn. 8939
APPROVED BY THE AUCKLAND HUMAN SUBJECTS ETHICS COMMITTEE
on 19 August, 1998 for a period of 2 year, from 19/08/1998
Reference 1998/179
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 9 Apr 1999 03:46:23 -0500
From: Bob <suannschafer@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: construction, etc.
>... I think that the
>history of homosexuality does suggest the existence of something innate ....
>>1. Whenever this class of persons is discussed (as sodomites or whatever)
>... the predominant >conclusion is that they embody an innate sexual
>orientation, they were born that way, etc., ....
I appreciate what I take to be your example of Ficino in a later posting,
but I'm wondering if other examples can be found in your book, _The Myth of
the Modern Homosexual_?
And I'm wondering if you think "innateness" is a construct -- the meaning
of which is consequently contextually determined.
>2. ... there are maybe four or five basic ways of being
>homosexual.... If homosexuality were
>not innate, one would expect to find far more varieties of homosexualities
>than in fact one can find.
And I'm wondering if "being homosexual" is indeed necessarily "innateness."
>3. ... intense sexual desire often
>provokes a chain reaction of behaviour that it is not entirely unreasonable
>to call "instinctual" ....
And is this necessarily "innateness"?
>5. "the very fact that throughout the mammalian scale, a great many more
>males than females engage in homosexual behavior is in itself suggestive of
>a constitutional factor".
And is "a constitutional factor" necessarily the same as "innateness"?
>6. "Despite innumerable case histories and expansive psychoanalytic
>"explanations", there is no incontrovertible evidence as to how
>homosexuality is acquired through life experiences. There is no known set of
>conditions which invariably leads to its development".
And is the converse necessarily "innateness"?
>The question of the innateness or congenitality
Is "innateness" necessarily "congenitality"?
>of sexual orientation ....
>My own position is simply that
>sexual culture (which is the more interesting subject to me) is *grounded
>upon innate sexuality*.
And of course doesn't the above depend on how one defines "sexual culture,"
indeed "sex" itself, the latter a query someone raised on this list about a
week ago?
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 09 Apr 1999 15:15:40 +0200
From: "Giovanni Dall'Orto" <giovanni.dallorto@iol.it>
Subject: Re: construction, etc.
In 03.46 09/04/99 -0500, a "Bob" wrote to Rictor Norton:
>I appreciate what I take to be your example of Ficino in a later posting,
>but I'm wondering if other examples can be found in your book, _The Myth of
>the Modern Homosexual_?
Norton will of course answer for his own book.
As for your question in general, however, there are scores of examples from
ancient sources attributing same-sex behaviours to a personal preference.
(By the way, I would not use the word "innate", because the ancients did
not use it, as far as I know: they often used, on the other hand, another
term: "inclinatio", which is by the way also an astrological term).
Just think of Jacques de Vitry's complaint (In: _Historia occidentalis et
orientalis_) that in XIII century Paris prostitutes in the roads yelled
"Sodomite!" after students who had refused their sollicitation: ("Quod si
forte ingredi recusarent, confestim eos sodomitas post ipsos conclamantes
dicebant"). If we were to believe to Social Constructionist dogma,
sodomites were "single-act sinners" (Foucault dixit), and this anecdote
would make no sense at all: a man refused to have intercourse with a woman,
then the women accused him of... liking anal intercourse... as if it were
something that cannot be performed with women as well.
Of course Social Constuctionism is, as usual, wrong, and Paris prostitutes
were just conceptualising just as we do in terms of a dychotomy: i.e. males
who _only_ love males versus males who love women.
Another amusing example is the one in pseudo-Artistoteles' "Problemata",
puzzled by the fact that some men prefer to be anally penetrated by other
men. It gives a *physical* explanation to the riddle (they have their
pleasure "nerves" - whatever they might have been - ending in the anus
instead than in their genitalia!). Would Bob call this situation "innate"
or not?
Aquinas (Summa theologica, I, ii, quaestio 31, art. 7) discussed this
theory, believing it to be a genuine one by Aristoteles. He objected that
some acts which are against nature might in fact take place according with
a particular person's nature, but this must be a sick nature (such as the
man with rabies who hates water), therefore they are against nature anyway.
Which shows that it is purely false that our ancestors, including Aquinas,
were not capable of conceptualising same-sex acts as stemming from an
"inclinatio": they simply did not _want_ to do it. Quite as the Christians
are doing now. This is a *political* decision, not a gnoseological one.
The fact that sodomy was not strictly meant as "anal intercourse" is shown
in scores of documents (even amusing ones, such as a complaint that
"nowadays" priests who do not have a concubine are assumed to be
sodomites...), some of which amazing: e.g. Jean Gerson in his
_Confessionel_ says that if a man confesses masturbation, the confessor
should ask about his fantasies, because if he fantasised about a married
woman, then his act must be dealt with as adultery, if he fantasised about
a man, then this is sodomy... and so on.
One XVII century treatises says that a man having intercourse with a woman
fantasizing about a man is a sodomite anyway.
And the "Visitaçao" of Inquisition in Bahia, Brasil, at the end of XVI
century, has an incredible statement by the Inquisitor towards a woman who
confessed same-sex acts with a woman: "Esta torpeza entre molheres é
sodomia": "This filthiness between women is sodomy".
Somebody must explain to me how this statemenmt could be translated as
"anal sex", as Social Constructionist dogmas would put it. "Sodomia" here
clearly means not "anal sex", but "sexual acts between persons of the same
sex", which is what "homosexuality" (also) means today. So, what the
construction was assumed to be, please?
Yet until now all of these documents have been swept away in contempt
without ever being taken into consideration and/or discussed by prevailing
dogmas. Since there could be no homosexuality before 1869, then they cannot
deal with homosexuality. And since they don't deal with a thing called
homosexuality, then it is proved that no such a thing as homosexuality
existed before 1869. And so on.
In philosophy this circular way of reasoing is called "petitio principii".
The point I (and not only me, of course) make is that nobody ever
demonstrated that a medical construction of homosexuality occurred in the
first place.
Just picking up what doctors said in XIX century does not demonstrate they
had the lead. They were just one among several social groups who were
making their very own "discourses" about same-sex sex. Yet discourses were
made also by philosophers, lawyers, thologists, politicians,
HOMOSEXUAL/URANIAN/THIRD SEX ACTIVISTS... and many more!
Therefore before positing a "social construction" based on what doctors had
to say, one has to demonstate that any other discourse except the medical
one was not relevant at all. Which Social contructionists not only never
achieved, but never tried to.
This said, I would not buy Norton's eagerness in calling himself an
"essentialist", as he does in the book of his Bob mentions. Essentialism is
a straw man, invented by Constructionists to have a token enemy and an
anathema word to be used against anyone disagreeing with their religion. I
can't find anything interesting in an "essentialist" point of view.
Constructionsts imply that since tehre were no gay saunas in XIII centruy
Paris, then there was no homosexuality. Essentialists à la Boswell say
there were "gay people" (!!!) then they proceed and find out gay saunas in
XIII Paris! As if life should always comply with the models Anglosaxon
homosexuals best like and as if reality should be rated accordingly.
What both sides do is (falsely) implying that homosexuality, to have the
right to be so defined, must comply, EVERYWHERE AND ALWAYS, to the
Anglo-saxon social model of today.
Here is where the true "social construction" lies (in both meanings :) ):
in the assumption that such a thing such as a "modern homosexual" ever
existed. Which is false.
I agree with Bob, anyway, that the conception of "innatedness" is socially
constructed. Quite as the words "to agree", "conception", "social" and
"construction" are all socially constructed.
In fact, nothing we can discuss about can be but socially constructed. The
very language we use to talk is.
My point is: given this obvious and self-evident fact, why has sex or worse
homosexuality alone to stand alone to be "deconstructed"?
There is an answer I have been waiting to get for 15 years.
Any answers, anyone?
Best wishes.
Giovanni Dall'Orto (Milano - Italy)
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 9 Apr 1999 11:59:25 -0500
From: Bob <suannschafer@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: construction, etc.
>... there are scores of examples from
>ancient sources attributing same-sex behaviours to a personal preference.
>(By the way, I would not use the word "innate", because the ancients did
>not use it, as far as I know: they often used, on the other hand, another
>term: "inclinatio"....
Okay, as a non-scholar of Latin, can I assume inclinatio "becomes" the
English "incline."
And so I would agree that I would also not use the word "innate"
And this was the issue I had with some of Rictor Norton's points. I hardly
think "inclined" is the same as "innate" -- and therefore I think one must
be careful in how one interprets -- historically, contextually -- examples
-- as "evidence."
>Another amusing example is the one in pseudo-Artistoteles' "Problemata",
>puzzled by the fact that some men prefer to be anally penetrated ....
>Would Bob call this situation >"innate"or not?
I don't think so -- it's "preference."
>Aquinas (Summa theologica, I, ii, quaestio 31, art. 7) discussed this
>theory, believing it to be a genuine one by Aristoteles. He objected that
>some acts which are against nature
Of course further explanation is required as to how anal penetration is
"against nature."
> ... our ancestors, including Aquinas,
>were not capable of conceptualising same-sex acts as stemming from an
>"inclinatio": they simply did not _want_ to do it.
And I don't think this is at all "innate."
>"sexual acts between persons of the same
>sex" ... is what "homosexuality" (also) means today.
But "homosexuality" also mean other things today.
>Since there could be no homosexuality before 1869, then they cannot
>deal with homosexuality. And since they don't deal with a thing called
>homosexuality, then it is proved that no such a thing as homosexuality
>existed before 1869. And so on.
>In philosophy this circular way of reasoing is called "petitio principii".
And of course this depends on what one means by "homosexuality." Just
because one before 1869 did not have -- for lack of a better term -- a
"blanket term" for homosexuality, does not of course mean there wasn't
sexuality. One didn't have a term for DNA at the same time, but of course
DNA has always existed.
>The point I (and not only me, of course) make is that nobody ever
>demonstrated that a medical construction of homosexuality occurred in the
>first place.
I am confused as to the insistence on a "medical" construction of homosex.
>... discourses were
>made also by philosophers ...
>Therefore before positing a "social construction" based on what doctors had
>to say, one has to demonstate that any other discourse except the medical
>one was not relevant at all.
I agree.
> I
>can't find anything interesting in an "essentialist" point of view.
Why?
>Constructionsts imply that since tehre were no gay saunas in XIII centruy
>Paris, then there was no homosexuality.
How do we "know" there weren't? Perhaps not saunas, perhaps not what we
would call "gay bathhouses," but perhaps same-sex activities occurred in
the 13th century bathhouses of Paris and elsewhere?
>As if life should always comply with the models Anglosaxon
>homosexuals best like and as if reality should be rated accordingly.
THANK YOU :)
>What both sides do is (falsely) implying that homosexuality, to have the
>right to be so defined, must comply, EVERYWHERE AND ALWAYS, to the
>Anglo-saxon social model of today.
I agree.
>the words "to agree", "conception", "social" and
>"construction" are all socially constructed.
Precisely.
>In fact, nothing we can discuss about can be but socially constructed. The
>very language we use to talk is.
And yet as another list of which I am a member insists, there is (some)
underlying "reality" to the social constructions formulated by langue.
>My point is: given this obvious and self-evident fact, why has sex or worse
>homosexuality alone to stand alone to be "deconstructed"?
Why, because we're uncomfortable talking about sex. Witness the president
of the USA.
>There is an answer I have been waiting to get for 15 years.
I'm not sure that's an answer that will satisfy anyone.
>Giovanni Dall'Orto (Milano - Italy)
E come va le cose a Milano?
Bob
___________________________________________________________________
From: The Fawcett Library <fawcett@lgu.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: construction, etc.
Date: Fri, 9 Apr 1999 16:26:33 +0100 (British Summer Time)
Discussion of "essentialism" reminds me of the old feminist
saw:
I believe in difference.
You tend towards essentialism.
She is a biological determinist.
('Scuse frivolity).
David Doughan, Reference Librarian
The Fawcett Library (The National Library of Women)
fawcett@lgu.ac.uk
http://www.lgu.ac.uk/fawcett/main.htm
Phone: 0171 320 1189
Fax: 0171 320 1188
_________________
"If a woman has to choose between catching
a fly ball and saving an infant's life, she will
choose to save the infant without even considering
whether there's a man on base." [attrib. to Dave Barry]
___________________________________________________________________
From: "Rictor Norton" <norton@rictor.freeserve.co.uk>
Subject: Re: construction, etc.
Date: Fri, 9 Apr 1999 17:30:53 +0100
I know that objections can be raised to the various arguments I recently put
forth in support of "innateness", but I don't understand the nature of Bob's
apparent objection to my use of the word "innate". All I mean by "innate" is
its commonly accepted meaning: "inborn, natural", as distinguished from
"acquired, cultural". The other words that I used -- "instinctual",
"congenital", "constitutional" -- , as they are usually understood, are
pretty well synonymous with the usual meaning of "innate". So I don't see a
linguistic problem here, though perhaps I am missing Bob's point.
Innateness itself is not a construct "the meaning of which is consequently
contextually determined" -- it's simply a word with a commonly understood
meaning that can be looked up in any dictionary: at least the way I'm using
it!
But I do appreciate the argument that *the belief that one's sexual
orientation is innate* could be a construct (e.g. drummed into one from an
early age, and therefore "internalised"). However, many of the examples I
cite are not related to *beliefs*: they are related to measurable
physiological patterns of behaviour etc. which suggest (though they do not
prove) the primacy of innate factors. There might be a variety of reasons
for my *belief*, for example, that my sexual orientation is genetically
predisposed, and people could psychoanalyse me or analyse my political
ideology and treat this *belief* as a "construct". But whether or not my
sexual orientation *really is* genetically predisposed can be tested and
evaluated according to scientific procedures. In this context, I was
interested to see a posting last month from Dean Hamer -- whose famous Xq28
finding gave rise to the journalistic term "gay gene", shorthand for an
exceedingly complex finding -- that "new data from an independent research
group at NIMH and University of Chicago has replicated the linkage between
Xq28 DNA markers and male sexual orientation." Whether or not this finding
is correct, and exactly *how much* influence genes have on orientation, I
don't know. But I don't think that this research can be evaluated by
treating it as either a "construct" or a "discourse".
--
Rictor Norton
mailto:norton@rictor.freeserve.co.uk
http://www.infopt.demon.co.uk/rcnorton.htm
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 09 Apr 1999 18:29:51 +0200
From: "Giovanni Dall'Orto" <giovanni.dallorto@iol.it>
Subject: Re: Desire and identity
In 14.45 01/04/99 +0000, hai scritto:
who said eunuchs were considered in ancient times as lacking sexual desire?
The lusty enunuch does appear in satyrists. He would like to, but he cannot.
THEY found it very amusing...
Furthermore "galli", self castrated priests for Syrian cults, were always
portraied as very effeminate, and sometimes also as seized by lust (for
men) that, as passive partenrs, they could at least satisfy.
Giovanni Dall'Orto
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 09 Apr 1999 14:51:06 +0000
From: aquarius@well.com
Subject: Re: Desire and identity
Well, a couple of famous Christians at least said eunuchs lacked sexual
desire, Clement of Alexandria ("the eunuch is really not unable, but unwilling
to have sex" Paedagogus III 4.25) and Jerome ("born eunuchs are those of a
colder nature, who do not seek lust" Comm. in Matth. 19.12). Of course, these
were Christians who believed that sex was only to be used within marriage for
procreative purposes, so they would not have needed to be very specific that
eunuchs' lack of desire was for sex with _women_.
I myself did not mean to say -- if I really did -- that eunuchs were lacking
in sexual desire for men. I meant that if a man lacked sexual desire for
women, he could be called a eunuch.
Clement also quoted the Basilidians as saying that born eunuchs are "men who
from their birth have a natural sense of revulsion from a woman, and men who
are naturally so constituted do better not to marry" (Stromata III 1.1).
You are correct that Martial (Epigrams XI 81) tells a joke about an old man
and a eunuch trying to have a three-way with a female, and neither being able
to do it. The frustrated woman is left praying to Aphrodite to make the old
man a youth and the eunuch a male. But this is a fairly isolated instance in
literature and seems to be a ridicule of frustrated female lust due to male
impotence. Or it could be just an anti-eunuch joke: "An old man and a homo
walk into a bar, and..."
Martial (Epigrams III 81) also ridicules the case of a man who does like
women, who has himself castrated so he can be a eunuch priest. Martial's
ridicule shows that he expects eunuchs to have no desire for women:
What is a woman's chasm to you, Baeticus Gallus?
This tongue is supposed to lick undecided men.
For what reason was your dick cut off by Samia with a potsherd
If the pussy was so satisfying to you, Baeticus?
Your head should be castrated, for though you are accepted for a priest
because of your groin,
You still deceive the sanctuary of Cybele: in the mouth you are a male.
There are numerous other instances in which a "eunuch" is said to be impotent,
and numerous other instances in other languages in which a lack of desire for
sex with women is said to be innate.
I think the problem is that we are unable to see homosexuality (the innate
characteristic) the way the ancient people and people from other cultural
traditions saw (see) it, because our cultural views have changed, not because
it did not exist then or does not exist now.
You are from Italy, and as you note your situation there is different from
that of Anglo-Saxon cultures. Several years ago, at the age of nineteen, I was
approached by an old man in the park in Padova and we started talking about
gay life. I asked him what the Italian word for gay was. He said there was no
such word, only: "un uomo che dorme con un altro uomo." He said that 96% of
Italian men "were that."
In such a context, which is very different from the Anglo-Saxon context, it is
not the man who likes sex with other men who stands out. It is the man who
likes the insertee role who stands out. In ancient Rome and Greece, such a man
would be called a eunuch, and might very well be considered lascivious and
lustful, but only with men.
In Anglo-Saxia, any man who is discovered to have had sex with a man, no
matter what role if any he adopts, is often considered a deviant by nature.
Which is why in Anglo-Saxia, some scholars try so hard to prove there is no
such thing as "nature" in sexuality.
Mark
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 09 Apr 1999 15:58:34 +0000
From: aquarius@well.com
Subject: Correction!
Please excuse me, I was in a hurry and misspoke when I said a man who likes the
insertee role would be called a eunuch in ancient Greece and Rome. He would
probably be called a cinaedus. A eunuch is, as I have said repeatedly, a man who
lacks desire for women. Being a cinaedus and being a eunuch, however, often
occurred in conjunction.
Mark
aquarius@well.com schrieb:
> In such a context, which is very different from the Anglo-Saxon context, it is
> not the man who likes sex with other men who stands out. It is the man who
> likes the insertee role who stands out. In ancient Rome and Greece, such a man
> would be called a eunuch, and might very well be considered lascivious and
> lustful, but only with men.
>
___________________________________________________________________
From: SusanDara@aol.com
Date: Sat, 10 Apr 1999 09:38:10 EDT
Subject: Question of Masculinity
Hello all.
I want to assign something to my undergrade class on the construction of
masculinity in the Victorian World and I am having the hardest time doing so.
The problem is that there is not enough time to have them read a book length
work. What had wanted was one or two chapters from a work or an article. I
am planing on tieing this into Jane Eyre, The Wide Sargasso Sea, and, if it
is approaved, excerpts from some period erotica in order show how men's
concept of malness in this era directly affected their power of
interrelationship with women, society, family, and their sexual drives.
I hope that this is withing the scope of our list, if not I appoligize for
posting this.
Susan
___________________________________________________________________
From: "Lesley Hall" <lesleyah@primex.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Question of Masculinity
Date: Sat, 10 Apr 1999 15:28:26 +0100
Susan Dara wrote:
>I want to assign something to my undergrade class on the construction of
>masculinity in the Victorian World and I am having the hardest time doing
so.
> The problem is that there is not enough time to have them read a book
length
>work. What had wanted was one or two chapters from a work or an article.
There is a good article by John Tosh in History Workshop (though I don't
have an exact ref for this to hand - at a guess 1997) on Victorian
constructions of masculinity (mainly middle-class as I recall) and some
useful articles in his edited collection with Mike Roper _Manful Assertions_
(1991).
On the specific construction of man as sexual being and the resultant
anxieties in the Victorian era, I might venture to suggest chapter one of my
own _Hidden Anxieties: male sexuality 1900-1950_ (1991)!
Lesley Hall
lesleyah@primex.co.uk
___________________________________________________________________ From: "Lesley Hall" <lesleyah@primex.co.uk>
Subject: Fw: (Reumann) Question of Masculinity
Date: Sat, 10 Apr 1999 23:05:14 +0100
From: Reumann@aol.com <Reumann@aol.com>
Date: 10 April 1999 16:57
Susan Dara -
A good work on the construction of Victorian masculinity is Lenore
Davidoff, "Class and Gender in Victorian England: The Diaries of Arthur J.
Munby and Hannah Cullwick," which appeared in _Feminist Studies_ vol. 5
(Spring, 1979). Munby was a middle-class bachelor who had an elaborate and
long-term sexual relationship with his servant Hannah Cullwick, a
relationship which revolved around his conflicted attraction to
working-class
women. As I recall, the author examined the diaries of both Munby and
Cullwick along with photographic evidence, and analyzed their relationship
in
the context of broader patterns of mid-Victorian sexual culture. I read
this
as an undergrad more than 10 years ago, and the fact that I remembered
enough
detail to find the reference attests to how compelling a read it was.
Miriam Reumann
Visiting Scholar, Brown University
Dept. of American Civilization
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Sat, 10 Apr 1999 16:09:44 +0100
From: Ianthe <ianthe@duende.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Question of Masculinity
In message <31257001.2440ae42@aol.com>, SusanDara@aol.com writes
>Histsex:For historians of sexuality - http://homepages.primex.co.uk/~lesleyah
>>Hello all.
>>I want to assign something to my undergrade class on the construction of
>masculinity in the Victorian World and I am having the hardest time doing so.
> The problem is that there is not enough time to have them read a book length
>work. What had wanted was one or two chapters from a work or an article.
Possible items, with a focus on youth and masturbation,
which might be a tittilating enough topic to drag them
away from the tv and graphic novels... :)
Hendrick, Harry. Images of Youth - Age, Class, and
the Male Youth Problem, 1880-1920.
Hare, E.H.
Masturbatory Insanity - the history of an idea.
JOURNAL OF MENTAL SCIENCE, Vol. 108. pp. 1-25.
Nelson, Claudia B.
Sex and the Single Boy - ideals of manliness and sexuality in
Victorian literature for boys.
VICTORIAN STUDIES, Vol.32, No.4, 1989. pp. 525-550.
There's also a good Masculinity and Imperialism Bibliography
by pahonen@sol.uvic.ca which is up on the web somewhere.
An AltaVista search on the e-mail address should bring
it up.
--
Ianthe
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Mon, 12 Apr 1999 09:57:03 +1000
From: Ivan Crozier <s9801550@pop3.unsw.edu.au>
Subject: You say essentialism, I say constructivism...
The unsolvable debate about essentialism and constructivism has, I
think, been manifest once again in its usual form. And it is patently
clear that this is not a case of some not understanding others, but that
there are two incommensurable approaches to something like homosexuality
(or any other thing, for that matter). There are those who are
concerned with its existence in reality, and there are those who think
that reality exists, but that any knowledge about it is constructed by
different groups of people at different times. As an historian and
sociologist of science, I am interested to see that the kinds of debates
which took place amongst positivist philosphers of science and
post-Kuhnian sociologists of science (and later with the sociologists
and scientists themselves) are raging on this list too!
Basically, to restate the point, there are those who think that reality
speaks for itself (essentialists, although I too thought--like Giovanni
Dall'Orto--that these were straw men constructed by constructivists);
and there are those who think that anything we know about the world is
mediated through culture in order to be knowledge. There is no
knowledge, according to the constructivist, which *is* reality itself
(and by implication, anything you know is constructed). Knowledge is a
human product. And this is why I am studying the construction of
homosexuality by 19th C doctors in England (and to a lesser extent in
Germany). It is not because I think that Westpahl, Krafft-Ebing, Ellis,
or Moll INVENTED homosexuality FOR THE FIRST TIME. It is because the
medical construction of homosexuality is different to that of Ulrichs,
Carpenter and Symonds and others. These guys had there own version of
what homosexuality was, and why it existed. This comment says nothing
at all about reality. It is purely and utterly a comment on knowledge
systems. If you do not believe me, then why are there such vast
differences between Schrenck-Notzing, Freud and Ellis (to pick some
contemporaries who are very closely related)--a rhetorical question?
And this is not to even start addressing either ancient sources (of
which I have little knowledge and only a literary interest), or other
versions of why people are homosexual, which of course would give even
greater differences between discourses (in a way derived from by
Foucault in _Archaeology of Knowledge_, NY 1972).
I suppose it is plain, then, that my own work does not address wider
cultural history (ie, outside the culture of medicine, except insofar as
there is an impact from other fields of discourse on the medical
discourses, which there of course was). But I am not especially
interested in homosexual sub-cultures in London in the period I study
unless they appear in medical documents. Even with the Boulton and Park
trial, on which I have done some work with a colleague recently, the
focus is not on B&P themselves, but on the construction and
deconstruction of evidence in the legal setting. For our purposes, it
is just as interesting to look at other aspects of forensic medicine,
but the B&P trial has other interest for my work as well. Obviously
this position is not everyone's cup of tea, but it is quite popular
amonst historians and sociologists of science and medicine. And to push
this point further, there is a world of difference between science
studies and some of the opinions voived in this debate. For example:
1) "It is entirely possible to discover, understand and experience
objective reality without the means of linguistic discourse (e.g. by
using chemical analysis), and in particular without using discourse in
its Foucauldian sense." (Rictor Norton, 7-4-99) (and I agree about
discourse in the Foucaulsdian sense. I am more inclined for Edinburgh
School sociology of scientific knowledge and Bourdieuian field
sociology)
2) "[Factors] related to measurable physiological patterns of behaviour
etc. which suggest (though they do not prove) the primacy of innate
factors." (Rictor Norton, 9-4-99)
No contemporary historian or sociologist of science (or probably
philosopher of science for that matter) would suggest that data from
test can speak for nature (ie, objective reality), and that it is not a
construct. There are thousands of extremely detailed cases about this:
see the entire journal, _Social Studies of Science_, since 1971, or for
a simpler way in, see Harry Collins and Trevor Pinch, _The Golem: what
everyone should know about science_, Cambridge, 1993. Experiments are
constructed. Chemistry is constructed. Mathemantics is constructed
(See David Bloor's 1976, _Knowledge and social imagery_ for this). With
in the history of science, these claims of mine are established facts
(or accepted constructions, to be reflexive!) All I am interested in
doing is applying the same kinds of techniques for the analysis of
knowledge, especially that which is considered factual knowledge, to an
area (medical construciton of homosex. in 19th C). This has political
implications about the status of knowledge, but is not overtly political
in itself (another reason why constructionists are seen to be sitting on
the fence, or worse).
Having said this, I would liek to add that a lot of the opinions voiced
in this debate share a striking similarity to those kinds of sexology
which were interested in innateness, especially in relation to other
versions of the aetiology of homosexuality like acquiredness. For
example, don't Ray Evans' 1961 explanations sound a lot like liberal
sexology, Ellis style?:
5. "the very fact that throughout the mammalian scale, a great many more
males than females engage in homosexual behavior is in itself suggestive
of a constitutional factor". (See Ellis discussing same sex activity
between pigeons as derived from Muccolli in Sexual Inversion, 1897)
6. "Despite innumerable case histories and expansive psychoanalytic
"explanations", there is no incontrovertible evidence as to how
homosexuality is acquired through life experiences. There is no known
set of conditions which invariably leads to its development". (see
Ellis discussing Schrenck-Notzing in SI, 1897, and Freud in SI 1915)
7. "When virtually all pressures and attitudes of parents and society
tend to teach and enforce heterosexual behavior, it is perplexing how
anyone learns to be homosexual." (Same ref as above)
There is a large political investment in innateness. Havelock Ellis
argued, as did/do others, that if homosexuality was/is innate, and
therefore natural, it should not be illegal. This is a fundamental part
of Ellis' political stance, as will be further drawn out in Chris
Nottingham's new book on Ellis, forthcoming in 1999 from Amsterdam Uni
Press, I believe. But calling medical discourses constructed, and
saying that these discourses constructed their own version of reality
(as do other discourses, even genetic markers for predisposition and
chemical tests used in the establishing of this fact), does not
undermine the scientific position. In fact, failure to suggest that
science is a human product sets up a false image of science, to my mind,
and one to which it could never aspire. There is no true, unmediated
knowledge about the world, only facts which have histories, and may one
day cease to exist... This is the epistemological problem which faces
people: how to proceed once this is established.
The debate has been fun!
Cheers, Ivan
Ivan Crozier,
School of STS,
UNSW, Sydney, 20652,
Australia
email: i.crozier@unsw.edu.au
___________________________________________________________________
From: "Chris Willis" <chris@chriswillis.freeserve.co.uk>
Subject: Introduction
Date: Mon, 12 Apr 1999 12:42:36 +0100
Hi!
I'm a postgrad at Birkbeck College, working on women and popular culture,
1860-1914. I've published work on the New Woman and on crime fiction, and
I'm co-editor (with Angelique Richardson) of a collection of essays on the
New Woman to be published by Macmillan in late 1999 or early 2000.
As a result of my work on the New Woman I've become interested in late 19C
and early 20C birth control and the eugenics movement. I'm also interested
in changes in the divorce laws during the 19C, fin de siecle attitudes to
female sexuality and the response to the Contagious Diseases Acts.
With all good wishes
Chris
==================================
Chris Willis
English Dept
Birkbeck College
Malet Street
London WC1E 7HX
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Crete/3783/
==================================
___________________________________________________________________
From: JNKATZ1@aol.com
Date: Mon, 12 Apr 1999 12:51:02 EDT
Subject: Re: You say essentialism, I say constructivism...
I have a problem with the way Ivan Crozier formulates his objection to
essentialists' assertions. Croziers formulation is not not historically
specific or constructionist enough for me. It falls into essentialism. In
the statement below, Crozier privileges "homosexuality" as if it is the real
name of the real thing, and in the process denigrates the ontological
implications of Ulrich's "Urnings," Ellis' "sexual inverts," somebody else's
"contrary sexualism," etc. I think we have to take seriously the ontological
assertions contained in all the different definitions of the different
categories and stop privileging "homosexuality" simply because it's the
socially dominant category in contemporary Western culture.
Crozier says:
"It is not because I think that Westpahl, Krafft-Ebing, Ellis,
or Moll INVENTED homosexuality FOR THE FIRST TIME. It is because the
medical construction of homosexuality is different to that of Ulrichs,
Carpenter and Symonds and others. These guys had there own version of
what homosexuality was, and why it existed. This comment says nothing
at all about reality. It is purely and utterly a comment on knowledge
systems. "
Katz continues:
I also think that knowledge systems are integrally related to political and
economic systems (the state of professionalization of the medical profession,
the develiopment of the invert (or whatever) cutlure, the stage of
capitalism, etc.) although in subtle complicated ways, and I'm interested in
work that begins to make those connections.
But a subtle historically specific constructionism will show its value in
application, in elucidating the implications of specific empirical data, not
in general discussions such as these, altho they are fun. Wish I had more
time to take part. Must get back to finishing a historically specific
constructionist book. Best, Jonathan Ned Katz
___________________________________________________________________
From: GHekma@aol.com
Date: Mon, 12 Apr 1999 12:44:00 EDT
Subject: posting
CALL FOR PAPERS
Overcoming Boundaries: Ethnicity, Gender and Sexuality
Thamyris' special 2000-issue
Issue Editors: Gert Hekma and Isabel Hoving
Thamyris wants to devote its spring 2000-issue to an exploration and
comparison of ethnic, gendered and sexual cultures, communities,
identities, knowledges and arts. Although in many publications lip
service is paid to the co-construction of the three themes, the
similarities and differences between same-sexual, ethnic and gendered
experiences in culture, society and academia are seldomly systematically
investigated or discussed. On the threshhold of the 21st century, the
insight that all of our lives are multidimensional, informed by these
three axes of social differentiation, gives particular urgency to the
project of thinking these dimensions simultaneously and comparatively.
Thamyris focuses on ethnicity, gender and sexuality to give visibility
to the variety of human identities, interests and desires, and to speak
about power, oppression and resistance. In the vision of the editors
each of the three concepts covers both the marked and the unmarked
categories within its purview. Thus, ethnicity refers not only to
non-white positionalities in a Caucasian context, but expressly concerns
itself with various constructions of whiteness. Likewise, gender is
about the construction of both women and men, while sexuality addresses
homo- and heterosexualities. We want to highlight and problematize the
ways in which ethnic, gendered and sexual categories can be used to
marginalize people, but can also be seen as empowering categories on
which communities and coalitions are built.
The articles we are looking for focus on at least the comparison of two
of the mentioned aspects, or on groups and subjects that combine several
threads. The perspective may be theoretical, epistemological, political,
historical, sociological, literary. The topics of articles may be
concrete social or educational movements or projects, specific
case-studies e.g. concerning identity or community formation where
boundaries are tested and perhaps overcome, a novel that discusses
limits and crossings, epistemological and conceptual issues, political
mobilization, and also antagonisms between groups. It has, for instance,
been observed that those marginalized in one way will often marginalize
those marked in other ways. Many cultures indulge in the adoration of
mothers, but also in the vilification of "sluts" or other independent
women. And while same-sex contacts may be available to men in some of
these cultures, little respect is given to those men who take on gay
identities. White gay men in various Western European countries target
Moroccan youth for their alleged anti-homosexual aggression. Dominant
versions of feminism have been confronted with great difficulties in
overcoming ethnic and heterosexual boundaries. How does the hegemonic
reinsert itself in what is oppositional? How do we proceed in a world
that produces ever more social, sexual, gendered and ethnic
differentiations? What is the influence of class on various
configurations? How will we be able to create societies that offer
easier access to education, economic resources, cultural products,
political participation, various positions for everybody?
Deadline for submission: December 21, 1999
Scheduled date of publication: June 2000
Articles, requests, proposals, or abstracts should be sent to the issue
editors: c/o Gert Hekma, Dept. of Sociology, Amsterdam University, Oude
Hoogstraat 24, 1012 CE Amsterdam, The Netherlands
emails: hekma@pscw.uva.nl and ihoving@hovi.demon.nl
An Instruction to Contributors and information about the journal are
available on request:
The editors of Thamyris c/o Nanny de Vries, Najade Press, P.O. Box
75933, 1070 AX Amsterdam, The Netherlands; fax +31-20-679 8874; email
thamyris@wxs.nl or najade@wxs.nl
Summary:
Thamyris' special 2000-issue:"Overcoming Boundaries: Ethnicity, Gender
and Sexuality"
The spring issue of Thamyris wants to focus on the similarities and
differences of ethnic, gendered and sexual identities, communities,
movements. We look for articles that discuss these groups, their
interrelations and oppositions, possibilities for coalition and strive.
Articles may be both
theoretical and more practical. Case studies of cooperation and conflict
are welcome. Thamyris is an interdisciplinary journal that pays special
attention to ethnic, gendered and queer themes.
Articles, requests, proposals, or abstracts should be sent in duplicate
before 21 December, 1999 to the issue editors, c/o Gert Hekma, Dept. of
Sociology, Amsterdam University, Oude Hoogstraat 24, 1012 CE Amsterdam,
The Netherlands, or by email hekma@pscw.uva.nl and ihoving@hovi.demon.nl
--
Editors of Thamyris
c/o Nanny de Vries
Najade Press
P.O. Box 75933
1070 AX Amsterdam
The Netherlands
Fax: +31-20-679-8874
Phone: +31-20-471-3305
Email: najade@wxs.nl or thamyris@wxs.nl
___________________________________________________________________
From: MillerJimE@aol.com
Date: Mon, 12 Apr 1999 20:26:54 EDT
Subject: Re: You say essentialism, I say constructivism...
This isn't about sexuality per se, but I have recently been reading
Phantoms in the Brain by VS Ramachandran and S Blakeslee (William Morrow,
1998) in which the authors use essentialism to discover how we construct
"reality" in our b