Most educated people in the U.S. and Europe have a default model or construction of homosexual behavior which I will call “romantic homosexuality”. Romantic homosexuality is homoeroticism between equals; men or women of roughly the same age and social position, with the relationship having affective elements similar to the emotional range in heterosexual relationships (from one-night stand through lifetime marriage).
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Over and over again, the pattern of male homosexual behavior in pre-modern sources is overwhelmingly one of pederasty and domination sex. And not just in pre-modern sources but in most of the present-day world as well. […] We may further note that there are, broadly speaking, two contending models of “normal” — acceptable or semi-acceptable male homosexual behavior — observable in human cultures. In one model, that of the modern West, romantic homosexuality is relatively tolerated, while pederasty and domination sex are considered far more deviant. I’ll call this the homophilic construction. It’s what most of my readers accept as normal.
But in the other, older model, pederasty and domination sex are considered more “normal” than romantic homosexuality. In cultures with this model, the “top” in an episode of pederasty or domination sex is not necessarily considered homosexual or deviant at all; any stigma attaches to the passive partner. Romantic homosexuality is considered far more perverse, because it feminizes both partners. I think of this as the “classical” construction of homosexuality, as it describes the attitudes of ancient Rome – but it persists in cultures as near to our own as South America and the Mediterranean littoral.
It’s the classical construction that is the rule in human cultures. The homophilic one is the exception; in fact, I am not able to identify any culture which held to it until after the Industrial Revolution in Europe. And not all of Europe has acquired it yet. Even in the English-speaking countries, where the homophilic construction is most entrenched, the connotations of sexual insults and threats in our language still reflect the older model.
To put it another way, the male homosexuals of the last two centuries in our culture have engaged in a massive reinvention of homosexuality that is still underway. Specifically the male homosexuals; lesbians began the game with romantic homosexuality as their dominant mode. I have not identified any culture in which it was considered more normal for lesbians to have sex with prepubescent girls or with dominated inferiors.
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This analysis raises two interesting questions. The first one is about the past: what changed? That is, how did the homophilic construction replace the classical one, where it did? I’m only speculating here, but I think the proximate cause may have been the sentimentalization of family life around the turn of the 19th century in Europe, which in turn was enabled by a sharp fall in infant mortality rates. Both processes started earlier and moved faster in England and the Anglosphere than they did elsewhere.
The other interesting question is whether this reinvention is sustainable in the longer term. If my analysis is correct, modern homosexuals are bucking a pretty strong biological headwind. How strong can be judged by a chilling little statistic I picked up years ago from a how-to manual written by homosexual SM practitioners for newbies, er, learning the ropes; it noted that, adjusted for population size, male homosexuals murder each other at a rate 26 times that of the general population.
That suggests to me that a tendency for male homosexuals to drift into the darker corners of domination sex is still wired in beneath the modern homophilic construction. It might take actual genetic engineering, of a kind we don’t yet have, to fix that wiring. Until then, I wish them luck. Because (and here I make the first and only value claim in this essay) whatever one’s opinion of homophilic homosexuals might be, the behaviors associated with the pederastic/dominating classical style are entangled with abuse and degradation in a way that can only be described as evil. Modern homosexuals deserve praise for their attempt to get shut of them.
Eric S. Raymond, “Reinventing Homosexuality”, Armed and Dangerous, 2009-06-17.
