Class #15 Is homosexuality a recent invention?

Question 1

Who coined the term “homosexuality? and in what year?

Answer 1

Karl Maria Kentbeny in 1869!

Question 1

What is this? “The concept of sexual orientation was invented in the West in 1869, primarily by medical practitioners who created the idea of heterosexual and homosexual individuals through their research on the topic.”

Answer 1

Social Contructionist Claim

Question 2

What is tribadism?

Answer 2

Tribadism is an archaic term for lesbianism or female homosexuality, and describes sexual activity between women.

Question 3

What is sodamy?

Answer 3

sexual intercourse involving anal or oral copulation.

Question 4

Prior to medical professionals creating the idea of heterosexual and
homosexual individuals through their research on the topic, same-sex sexual acts existed (sodomy, tribadism), but homosexuals were not recognized by others as a distinct category of human beings.

Answer 4

Social Constructionist Claims!

Question 5

Personal or group identities based on same-sex sexuality did not exist and thus, neither did sub-cultures of same-sex attracted individuals

Answer 5

Social Constructionist Claims!

Question 6

Because sexual orientation categories did not exist, everyone was bisexual…

Answer 6

Social Constructionist Claims!

Question 7

Unambiguous (very clear) archaeological evidence of
homosexual behavior that predates
historical records is….

Answer 7

Rare!!!!!
Example? : NajTunich cave, Guatemala, ~1320 years old

Question 8

Who were the Portuguese fanchonos?

Answer 8

same-sex attracted males, many of whom
were effeminate

Question 9

Why specialized slang used by Portuguese fanchonos and English mollies?

Answer 9

This slang was used in conversations that the participants wanted to keep secret and the often involved sexual content.

Question 10

term used in England by gay men in the 20th century up until the 1960s when it gradually fell into disuse….

Answer 10

Polari

Question 11

What is polari?

Answer 11

a form of slang used by gay men in Britain prior to the decriminalisation of homosexuality.

Question 12

sub-group of individuals within a larger culture that has
unique traditions distinguishing it from the larger group os called what

Answer 12

subculture

Question 13

They employed nicknames such as Rafeal Fanchono (1570)…

Answer 13

Portuguese fanchonos

Question 14

What are some points to remember about Portuguese fanchonos?

Answer 14

• Late 16th and 17th century records of the Portuguese Inquisition in the National Archives in Lisbon
• Portuguese fanchonos – same-sex attracted males, many of whom
  were effeminate
• 1652: “There is also the priest Barreto, 44 years old. When he arrived in a place, the young people were warned: “Take care with this cleric because he is a fanchono and a somitigo [sodomite].”
• 1645: People referred to ”assemblies of fanchonos”
• They employed nicknames such as Rafeal Fanchono (1570)

Question 15

Fanchonos organized themselves in physical and social space in the
manner of a….

Answer 15

subculture!

Question 16

Characteristics of portuguese fanchonos?

Answer 16

-Wore distinctive clothing and hairstyles
-Often employed overtly feminine nicknames
-Employed specialized slang

Question 17

Fanchonos spoke about themselves as a ______________while outsiders were referred to as ______________.

Answer 17

Fanchonos spoke about themselves as a
“jurisdiction” while outsiders were
referred to as “ugly”

Question 18

Where did you usually find Fanchonos?

Answer 18

-Frequented certain taverns, inns, and cruising grounds.
-Shared houses where they would have noisy, campy parties

Question 19

Who were the English mollies?

Answer 19

same-sex attracted males who lived in 18th century London

Question 20

(Mollies) Individuals employed nicknames for themselves such as…..

Answer 20

Black Molly, Green Pea Molly or Flying Horse Molly.

Question 21

Mollies organized themselves in physical and social space in
the manner of a….

Answer 21

subculture!

Question 22

Mollies organized themselves in ________and ____________space in
the manner of a subculture!

Answer 22

physical and social space

Question 23

“There are a particular Gang of Sodomitical Wretches, in this
Town, who call themselves the Mollies” (Ward, 1710)

Answer 23

Remember!

Question 24

What are some characteristics of English mollies?

Answer 24

-Often employed overtly feminine nicknames
-They a specialized slang and gestures.
-They patronized “molly houses”
-Camp was an important part of the subculture.
-They often held festival nights, mock weddings, mock births, and christenings.

Question 25

Recognition and labeling of
same-sex attracted females as
distinct “types” found in…………

Answer 25

Ancient Indian Medical Texts
“Man haters”

Question 26

• Ihara Saikaku’s, The Great Mirror of Male Love (1687)
• Onna girai: identity based on sexual orientation
• Nascent subcultures? -> ”We’re such a couple of onna girai!”

Answer 26

17th century Japan

Question 27

Evidence for a subculture of ludruk performers dates back to 1822.

Answer 27

Indonesian Ludruk

Question 28

Anne Lister was not able to create a
lesbian network, let alone a subculture…”
—Clarke (1996)

Answer 28

Remember! This wasnt any Lesbian subcultures avaliable prior to 1869.

Question 29

What was a “molly house”?
What went on inside molly houses?

Answer 29

Gathering places for homosexual men in early
eighteenth-century London.
-socialized with one another
-singing and dancing together and otherwise behaving in a disorderly fashion.

Question 30

Who were english mollies?

Answer 30

homosexual men who used gay slang, frequented homosexual cruising areas, and engaged in camp or effeminate behavior among themselves.

“mollies,” a colloquial term used both by
mollies (whose modern equivalents are “fairy” or “queer”)
themselves and by the public.

Question 31

documented by a substantial body of historical data, especially the records of the Old Bailey (London’s central criminal court),

Answer 31

The English mollies

Question 32

what is SODOMITE?

Answer 32

someone who engages in anal copulation

Question 33

The existence of the molly houses establishes the existence
of homosexual communities well before the French
philosopher Michel Foucault’s (1978) paradigm for
modern homosexual identities, which allegedly did not
arise until the medical/sexological discourse of the late
nineteenth century.

Answer 33

homosexual is not a
“modern invention”; instead, many salient features of
modern homosexual subcultures, social behaviors, and
self-understandings are recognizable in early eighteenthcentury England, suggesting strong analogies and close
resemblances between gay men today and men earlier
labeled sodomites and mollies.

Question 34

Gay sex was not casual or incidental but was
deliberately sought out by men who went to specific places
where they knew they could find other men with similar
inclinations.

Answer 34

The Mollies!

Question 35

picking up soldiers, ____________ used
a system of signals or coded gestures to indicate their desires
to one another, such as waving a white handkerchief between
the tails of their frock coats.

Answer 35

Mollies

Question 36

The molly houses in particular are important indicators of
a c___________________

Answer 36

collective homosexual identity.

Question 37

Indicators of Collective Sociocultural Identity =

Answer 37

mollie houses!

Question 38

The most popular molly house was a coffeehouse in Holborn owned by John Clap and his wife, Margaret Clap. Every night of the week thirty men would come to “Mother Clap’s” establishment, which operated for at least ten years before it was raided in 1726

Answer 38

“Mother Clap’s”
Two other molly houses were kept by
married men and women, but the rest were kept by men
best described as “queens,”

Question 39

The molly houses were frequented by men who
possessed a _______________, not just a
________________.

Answer 39

collective sociocultural identity, not just a sexual identity.

Question 40

Remember!

Answer 40

In these mollie houses, men let their hair down;
they would dance country jigs together while one of them
played on the fiddle, and they sang bawdy songs together.
They engaged in camp behavior, mimicking the voices
and mannerisms of women, and sometimes engaged in
“bitch” fights. They sometimes had what they called
“festival nights,” when they masqueraded as women.
Sometimes they performed elaborate mock births, one
man pretending to give birth (to a wooden doll), with all
the ceremony of a christening.

Question 41

What happend when a man first joins a molly club?

Answer 41

When a man first joined a molly
club, he would be christened with a “maiden name” as a
glass of gin was thrown in his face in a mock baptism
ritual that initiated him into the molly subculture.

Question 42

Onna girai:17th centuray Japan =

Answer 42

identity based on sexual orientation