Homosexuals

English-speaking societies historically have regarded heterosexuality as the norm and homosexuality as an aberration or deviation to be viewed with hostility and abhorrence, being prosecuted as a crime in the United Kingdom from 1861 until 1967. It was regarded as a perversion , a term that originally (in medieval times) meant “a change to error in religious belief,” the opposite of conversion , before taking on its psychosexual meaning. (The entry for bugger shows the same combination of senses.) The Kinsey report on Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948) offered this illuminating legal insight: “Perversions are defined as unnatural acts contrary to nature, bestial, abominable, and detestable. Such laws are interpretable only in accordance with the ancient tradition of the English common law which … is committed to the doctrine that no sexual activity is justifiable unless its objective is procreation” (viii, 264). The report showed that individual sexual behavior did not match the traditional division between a heterosexual “norm” and a homosexual “abnormality.” The
history of the acknowledgment and problematic naming of homosexuals supports Michel Foucault’s thesis that sexuality is controlled as much by discourse and narration as by formal repression and legal measures.

Although what is termed “history from below” (the history of the common people) does not cover this intimate aspect of life, traditional English history (“from above,” that is, of the ruling class) furnishes a number of spectacular and scandalous examples. The infatuation of Edward II (1284–1327), especially for Piers Gaveston, was regarded by the nobles as so detestable that they first limited the royal privileges and finally put both the favorite and the king to death, the latter in a gruesomely symbolic fashion. The traditional version derives from “an emotional and highly colored account written by the chronicler Geoffrey le Baker some thirty years later, which culminates in the disgusting scene in which Edward was murdered by means of a red-hot plumber’s iron thrust up his anus” (Prestwich 1980, 99). However, Christopher Marlowe’s play The troublesome raigne and lamentable death of Edward the Second (1594) daringly juxtaposes critical words like minion with terms of endearment like “lovely boy,” “my friend,” “my Gaveston,” and contains a catalogue of famous classical homosexual lovers (I iv 390-400).

The equally public affair between James I (1566–1625) and his favorite the Duke of Buckingham provoked frank disapproval in the court but no political protest. The king was described by Sir Anthony Weldon as decadent, “his fingers … ever fiddling about his cod-piece … and not temperate in his drinking” (Goldberg 1983, 55). Francis Osborne was more explicit about James’s public demeanor toward his favorites: “the love the King shewed was as amorously convayed as if he had mistaken their sex and thought them ladies; which I have seene Sommerset and Buckingham labour to resemble, in the effeminateness of their dressings … kissing them after so lascivious mode in publick” (Goldberg 1983, 143). Intimate letters, in which King James addressed his favorites as “sweete boyes” with responses such as “my dear dad and master” and “your humble slave and dog” were read aloud in court (Goldberg 1983, 143-44). Toward the end of James’s reign, on August 29, 1622, Sir Simonds D’Ewes confided to a guest about “the sinne of sodomye, how frequent it was in this wicked cittye” (Goldberg 1983, 143). After the Restoration the noted diarist Samuel Pepys, who was decidedly heterosexual in his tastes and moved in high society circles, wrote in his entry for July 1, 1663: “Buggery is now almost grown as common amongst our gallants [smart society men] as in Italy, and … the very pages [personal servants] of the town begin to complain of their masters for it. But blessed be God, I do not to this day know what is the meaning of the sin, nor which is the agent nor which the patient.”

The first evidence of homosexuality in English literature is embodied in Chaucer’s corrupt Pardoner, placed last in the cavalcade of pilgrims with long, beautifully groomed yellow locks, a thin goatlike voice, and beardless, singing a love song in unison with his “freend and compeer [partner],” the physically revolting, venal, and alcoholic Summoner. Chaucer the pilgrim-narrator slyly uses equine symbolism as innuendo:

I trowe he were a gelding or a mare.
[I imagine he was a eunuch or effeminate.]
( Prologue l. 691)

While the portrait invites a variety of sexual interpretations (see Benson 1988, 824), the Pardoner unwittingly reveals his relationship in a hysterical denunciation:

O dronke man, disfigured is thy face,
Sour is thy breeth, foul artow [art thou] to embrace.
( Pardoner’s Tale , ll. 551-52)

Although the term sodomite was available, Chaucer preferred to be less direct. References in Elizabethan times are covered later.

The major turning point in English perceptions was the scandal surrounding the trial of Oscar Wilde, the brilliant playwright, wit, and personality for homosexual practices in 1895. This brought out into the open “the love that dare not speak its name,” alluded to in a poem, “The Two Loves,” by Wilde’s lover, Lord Alfred Douglas, quoted during the proceedings. Wilde had been provoked into bringing an action of libel against Douglas’s father, the Marquess of Queensberry, who had left a note at the Albermarle Club addressed to “Oscar Wilde posing somdomite [sic]” (Ellmann 1988, 412). Queensberry subsequently accused Wilde of some fifteen instances of seeking to corrupt young boys. Wilde lost the libel action, was arrested for “committing indecent acts,” found guilty, and sentenced to prison with hard labor, left England in disgrace for exile in France, and died there, ruined at the age of forty-six. However, a double standard prevailed: the homosexuality of many nineteenth-century public figures was either covert or undiscussed.

The naming of homosexuals directly reflects public attitudes toward this sexual condition or preference. At the time of the compilation of the Oxford English Dictionary (1884–1928), there was no neutral term for what was then regarded as an abnormal, detestable, and criminal activity. The two prime words, bugger and sodomite , were part of a large, hostile, and expanding semantic field. There was no generic Greek word, presumably because homosexuals were not regarded as a discrete category. There was no Anglo-Saxon word. Homosexual itself appears to have been coined in 1869 by a Hungarian physician, K.M. Benkert, but given currency by Richard Krafft-Ebing in his classic on sexual disorders, Psychopathia Sexualis in 1886, translated into English by C.G. Chaddock in 1892. Krafft-Ebing deals with “homo-sexuality” as “the demonstration of perverse feeling for the same sex” (188), a deviation he puts on a par with fetishism, masochism, and sadism. In addition to distinguishing between “acquired homo-sexuality” and “congenital homosexuality,” he devotes a whole section to “Homo-Sexual Individuals or Urnings” (255-79). This curious term, coined in German by Carl Heinrich Ulrich in 1864, is related to Uranism and Uranian , both deriving from Plato’s Symposium: “This is noble, the heavenly love, which is associated with the heavenly muse, Urania” (1951, 56). The term, now virtually obsolete, became quite fashionable among the contemporary literati: “What a number of Urnings are being portrayed in novels now!” wrote John Addington Symonds to Edmund Gosse (Pearsall, 1969, 547). Symonds, who was openly homosexual, wishing to promote a more tolerant climate toward homosexuality, collaborated with Havelock Ellis in Studies in the Psychology of Sex until his death in 1893. However, when Ellis published the first volume entitled Sexual Inversion (his preferred term) in 1897 under their joint names, the Symonds family forced him to withdraw the coauthor’s name from the book. In the trial of George Bedborough in 1898 for selling the book, it was labeled a “lewd, wicked bawdy, scandalous libel” and was withdrawn from sale.

Although Krafft-Ebing clearly understood homosexual to apply to both sexes, there was a general misinterpretation of the word as deriving from Latin homo , “a man,” as opposed to Greek homos , “the same” (as in homogeneous ). The ambiguity certainly led to the widespread misconception that the term referred exclusively to males. Indeed, as the word field clearly shows, it is a curious fact that for centuries there were only words for male homosexuals. Not only is the male field far larger, virtually every word in the field is far more virulent and contemptuous than any in the female equivalent. The semantic imbalance no doubt reflects an odd legal double standard. Whereas male homosexuality has been a criminal offense in the United Kingdom for centuries, lesbianism has never had this status. Ronald Pearsall has traced the Victorian roots of this anomaly: “This state of affairs was largely accidental; when the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885 was amended to make homosexual acts in private a crime it referred only to men—no one could think of a way to explain to Queen Victoria what homosexual acts between women were” (1969, 576).

The word-field is made up entirely of two distinct kinds of vocabulary: the scholarly items, which are rare and opaque, and the low-register slang terms, which are hostile, demeaning, or ironic. There are no common or neutral terms. The earliest word, sodomite , is a biblical toponym deriving from the sexual rapacity of the men of Sodom in Genesis 18-19. Its arrival in the fourteenth century is historically late, indicating the absence of an Anglo-Saxon equivalent, and suggests that the application of sodomite to homosexuals is a medieval construction. There is a rapid expansion of the field during the Elizabethan period, then a slowing down, followed by another period of efflorescence from the early decades of the twentieth century. There has been a steady shift in the origins of the terms, in that many of the early words are classical (e.g., ganymede, catamite, pathic, tribade , and pederast ) while nearly all the additions of the past century or so are slang terms or metaphorical extensions of common words (e.g., fairy, gay, nancy, faggot , and queen ). Whereas classical terms are rare, distinctive, precise, high-toned, and obsolete, the slang terms are generally contemptuous or insulting, although like fairy and pansy , they have quite charming or innocent origins, thus belonging to the category that Stephen Ullmann calls “pseudo-euphemism” (1964, 90-91). Furthermore, it is often difficult to separate the senses in this second category and thus pinpoint the arrival of the new meaning.

Gay is a notable case in point: to many the use became apparent in the 1980s, when it attracted much controversy. However, even the semantic and lexical authorities are not in agreement. John Ayto’s study 20th Century Words dates the new sense to 1933, the earliest reliable printed record, but notes that the homosexual sense can be traced to earlier clues. The most recent comprehensive source, the Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang (1994), gives the first written instance as 1922 (in a quotation by Gertrude Stein). However, the OED Supplement (1972) traces the sense back to 1889, to the Cleveland Street Scandal, which concerned a homosexual brothel in London frequented by many respectable society gentlemen. In the court proceedings a policeman explained to the magistrate that the term Mary Anne was used of “Men that get a living by bad practices,” and a male prostitute, John Saul, referred to his associates as “gay” (Pearsall 1969, 574). He was evidently using the word in the established heterosexual senses of “sexually active” or “promiscuous,” found in Chaucer’s Miller’s Tale (“some gay gerl,” l. 3769) and of a prostitute, as in “the gay ladies of the beat.”

The terms chosen out of preference for “the decent obscurity of a learned language” are pederast (“lover of boys”), ganymede (“a Trojan youth, whom Zeus made his cup-bearer”), catamite , which is, extraordinarily, “a corrupt form of Ganymede,” and pathic , defined much later: “The persons who suffered this abuse were called pathics, and affected the dress and behaviour of women” (1795). These are, of course, their literal meanings, which are far more polite than were their critical uses. Naturally, respectable origins (etymologically speaking) do not ensure high status in subsequent semantic history. In one of the earliest instances, John Florio used ganymede to translate Italian catamito with characteristic trenchancy: “a ganimed, an ingle, a boie hired to sinne against nature” ( Worlde of Wordes 1598), while Ben Jonson’s friend William Drummond of Hawthornden uttered the prayer (in 1649): “I crave thou wilt be pleased, great God, to save my sov’reign from a Ganymede.” A character in Thomas Heywood’s play Captives (1624) denounces “that ould catamiting cankerworm” (II ii). Yet the comment on Francis Bacon by John Aubrey (1626–1697) in Brief Lives is completely frank and non-judgmental: “He was a pa?de?ast?? [a pederast]. His Ganimeds and Favourites took bribes; but his lordship always gave sound Judgements.” Of this classical group, only catamite still survives, as a recherché literary term.

Two of the oldest terms in the field, sodomite and bugger , have lost force over the centuries. This is a consequence of the semantic trend of generalization, and possibly of the growth of greater tolerance for homosexual activity as a result of political correctness. There is also the complicating factor of outsider ignorance about homosexual sex acts, which can lead to ambiguity in the use of the terms. Thus under English law buggery can refer to anal intercourse with a person or unnatural intercourse with an animal. The same complication surrounds the early history of cocksucker . The earliest instances, in Farmer and Henley’s Slang and Its Analogues (1890–1904) and in Cary’s Veneris (1916), define the term as feliatrix , denoting a feminine agent, though the latter authority specifies that the term is “said of either sex.” Although now seldom used of women, it has become a generalized term of abuse in the United States. The reference to “the cocksucking leisure classes” by E.E. Cummings (in a letter of 1923) could be general or specific. However, Malcolm Cowley’s use in a letter of 1946 (“I’m working on Whitman, the old cocksucker”) is surely a sly dig at Walt Whitman’s sexual preferences ( Burke-Cowley Correspondence , 273).

The historical disposition of the word-field indicates that homosexual activity was openly acknowledged only around 1600. In his groundbreaking play Edward II (1593), Marlowe frequently uses the complex term minion (“The King is love-sick for his minion,” I iv 87) in the sense defined by the OED of “a (usually male) favourite of a sovereign … with contemptuous suggestion of homosexual relations.” Only used by Edward’s enemies, the word is usually preceded by base . Shakespeare seems the first user of favorite in 1599 in the euphemistic sense of the OED definition: “one who stands unduly high in the favour of a prince etc.” ( Much Ado About Nothing III i 9). Antonio’s covert homosexuality in The Merchant of Venice (1596–1597) is referred to symbolically in his self-identification: “I am the tainted wether of the flock” (IV i 114). His contemporary Ben Jonson is far more outspoken: The Poetaster (1601) has the exclamation: “What, shall I have my sonne a stager now? an enghle [ingle] for players?” (I ii). John Minshew in his Guide to Tongues (1617) was also very direct: " ingle : a boy kept for sodomy," while John Florio defined Italian cinedo in 1598 similarly as “a buggring boy, a wanton boy, an ingle.” Philemon Holland’s Pliny (1601) mentions a place “called Cinedopolis, by reasons of certain Catamites and shamefull bagages [rubbish] left there by Alexander the Great” (I, 111). Samuel Purchase’s Pilgrimage (1613) contains an account, no doubt tinged by xenophobia: “He tells of their Pæderastie, that they buy Boyes at an hundred or two hundred duckats and mew [cage] them vp for their filthie lust” (293).

The modern terms have common phonetic characteristics, being short and laden with hostility or contempt. In this respect they are notably similar to xenophobic terms such as chink, jap, wog, gook , and so forth. Homo is the abbreviated and critical form of a term that was originally neutral. Some show great semantic flexibility. Thus in British English sod has greatly generalized into the exclamations sod it! and sod off! , the intensive epithet sodding and sod all , the phrase not give a sod and even sod’s law (similar to Murphy’s Law). Likewise fag , which in its English Public School sense denotes service by junior boys for seniors, often with the implication of sexual favors, has generated in American English fag-hag, fag-bash, fag-bait , and fag-bag , all within the semantic parameters of “homosexual” sense.

Reticence over explicit reference to lesbian activity surely explains the remarkable gap in time between the emergence of the male and female categories. The translators of the King James Bible (1611) clearly had a problem with a lexical gap when they came to render Deuteronomy 23:17: “There shall be no whore [marginal note: sodomitesse ] of the daughters of Israel, nor a sodomite of the sons of Israel.” ( Sodomitesse is thus a genuine “nonce-word” or unique example of a word made up for a specific context.) Ben Jonson is, once again, a prominent contributor with the first, classically derived, term tribade (from a Greek root meaning “to rub”): In the Prelude to The Forest (1601) he writes suggestively of “Light Venus … with thy tribade trine, invent new sports.” ( Rub also has a slang sense of “masturbation” recorded from about 1599.) The seminal figure of the lyric poet Sappho of Lesbos (ca. 630) has generated the two central terms, although sapphist (1902) was anticipated by Sappho-an , used in the title of an anonymous erotic poem published by the Grub Street printer Edmund Curll in 1749. Although Sappho and her poetry were widely admired in classical times, the first recorded references to lesbian are in medical textbooks, including Krafft-Ebing’s Psychopathia Sexualis (1886). The OED cites a letter by Aldous Huxley dismissing Florence as “a third rate provincial Italian town colonized by English sodomites and middle aged Lesbians” (April 21, 1925). Less hostile Page 239  |   Top of Article was Evelyn Waugh’s arch inquiry, “I think Swedish Countess was a Sapphist?” in a letter of May 1951, using the term as a pseudo-euphemism. Yet Waugh could be very frank. Commenting on the homosexual revelations in the Kinsey Report, he wrote to Nancy Mitford: “All popular plays in New York are about buggers but they all commit suicide. The idea of a happy pansy is inconceivable to them” (August 18, 1949).

In recent decades homosexuals have “come out of the closet,” a phrase recorded from 1971, four years after the British laws were changed to permit sex between consenting adults. Homosexuality is now seen in terms of individual human rights, sexual preference, and lifestyle choice. The simultaneous growth of political correctness with its taboos on stigmatic terms has also had an influence. There has been in concert a considerable program of semantic engineering. This has involved the appropriation of positive terms like gay and queen as well as neutral terms like pink , the reclaiming of the traditionally stigmatic words like queer , and the invention of new stigmatizing terms such as homophobic , as used by the Observer in 1981: “Rat-packs of homophobic punks, white or Latino, prowled gay neighbourhoods.” When homophobic was first coined in the 1920s, it referred to “fear or hatred of men,” but in the 1970s it started to be popularized in the modern sense of “fear or hatred of homosexuals” as part of the Gay Liberation Movement, notably by the American writer George Weinberg.

The reclamation of the stigmatic vocabulary has not been a simple or consistent process, as is shown in a number of studies, such as that of William L. Leap ( Word’s Out: Gay Men’s English , 1996), arguing for the existence of “Gay English” as a variety. However, one of the first sociolinguistic studies was Stephen O. Murray’s “The Art of Gay Insulting” (1979), an investigation into an interesting variation of “sounding,” but played as an in-group game using traditional taunts. Furthermore, as the mainstream culture has become more tolerant of homosexuals, some practitioners of rap and reggae have continued to be blatantly homophobic.

An unusual historical and geographical provenance has produced the colloquial South African English noun moffie . Its origins are remarkable, though disputed: the word seems clearly linked with mophy , seaman’s slang for “a delicate and well-groomed youth,” used from the nineteenth century. Though maufee , “a bad fairy” has been suggested, the more likely derivation is from mophrodite , a corruption of hermaphrodite . The abbreviated form was current slang in the eighteenth century, appearing in Henry Fielding’s novel Joseph Andrews (1742) when a society lady is advised that if she continues to fire all her servants: “You must get a set of mophrodites to wait upon you” (I ix). A mixture of affection and contempt surrounds the term, also found in the compound koffie-moffie for an airline steward. A recent study of South African gay argot by Ken Cage under the title of Gayle (2003) includes a comprehensive dictionary.

A curious bureaucratic intervention in the naming of homosexuals occurred in 2002. The British Department of Trade and Industry, in the process of drafting new anti-discrimination laws, took the view that " homosexual is no longer the way forward in defining sexual orientation" and proposed in its stead the form OTPOTSS, an abbreviation for “orientation toward people of the same sex.” Clearly the problem of naming is not yet solved.