HISTSEX ARCHIVES: MARCH 1999
© Lesley Hall and list contributors
Date: Mon, 1 Mar 1999 14:01:33 -0600 (Central Standard Time)
From: Angela Failler <afailler@YorkU.CA>
Subject: Introducing myself
I have just joined the histsex list as of two days ago and am anxious to
follow the conversation.
I am a doctoral candidate in Women's Studies at York University in
Toronto. I am not a "historian" per se. Currently my research involves
questions around (lesbian) practices of Sexual Innuendo. My work is
informed by cultural theories, discourse and psychoanalytic theory. I am
interested in how sexual innuendo, as a kind of performance, contributes
to the production of the self. I have thoughts to explore
some of these topics in relation to sexual innuendo: exhibitionism,
(as) defense mechanism, the construction of personal narratives,
implications of questions of gender...
I would be interested in other references to materials and resources. Or,
in questions or comments.
Angela Failler
___________________________________________________________________
From: "Emily Bingham" <emilyb@iglou.com>
Subject: introduction/query
Date: Mon, 1 Mar 1999 15:02:33 -0500
From: Emily Bingham, emilyb@iglou.com (Louisville, KY, USA)
I am an independent scholar (Ph.D. in history, 1998). I find that my =
interests, while not centered on the history of sexuality, frequently =
cross into it. I am working on a book about a 19th-century American =
family, and I am eager to make sex and sexuality as rich and real a part =
of their story as I can.
So I'll go ahead and take this opportunity to ask if any list members =
share an interest in the history of incest. Aside from James B. =
Twitchell's Forbidden Partners: The Incest Taboo in Modern Culture =
(1987) which treats the issue from a chiefly literary perspective, and =
examples from the life of author, Catharine Sedgwick and the Oneida =
Community, I have not found much on the social history of sibling =
affection, love, and sexual intercourse. Any suggestions of secondary =
or primary material that would put into perspective a lifelong passion =
(probably not consummated) between two middle-class siblings in the U.S. =
would be appreciated.=20
Thanks, Emily Bingham
___________________________________________________________________
From: "Lesley Hall" <lesleyah@primex.co.uk>
Subject: Fw: Introductions
Date: Mon, 1 Mar 1999 21:08:15 -0000
From: PETER BARTLETT <Peter.Bartlett@nottingham.ac.uk>
After Lesley's reminder, I should introduce myself. I am a lecturer
in the Law School at the University of Nottingham, with interests
in socio-legal history, and health law and mental health law (both
modern and historical). My work on history of sexuality has centred
on eighteenth-century sodomites in London, including a paper in
Social and Legal Studies on sodomites in the pillory.
At the moment, I am working on the homosexual panic defence.
In theory (although less obviously in practice), homosexual panic
seems to grow out of a Freudian notion, that when a repressed
homosexual man is subjected to an advance by another man, he panics,
and the result can be serious assault, or even the death of the
person advancing. This intersects in law with an older defense of
provocation, where a same-sex advance could serve as a partial
defense to murder. At the moment, I am looking at the way those two
concepts interweave.
Any ideas or advice greatfully received!
Peter Bartlett
The University of Nottingham
Department of Law
Nottingham
NG7 2RD
Tel: +44 (0) 115 951 5709
http://www.nottingham.ac.uk
___________________________________________________________________
From: "Catherine MacDonald" <cmacdon@supercity.ns.ca>
Subject: Introduction
Date: Mon, 1 Mar 1999 18:18:02 -0400
I have hesitated to post an introduction as I am not an historian. I am a
law student (Dalhousie Law School, Halifax, Nova Scotia) with a personal
interest in social history. In particular, I am interested in the history
of sexuality and gender and the law.
While I will likely not contribute much to the list, I am reading it with
immense interest. If I may be of any assistance in research, I hope the
members of the list will not hesitate to contact me. I have access to the
holdings of the Dalhousie Law Library, as well as other Dalhousie library
and archival materials and the Nova Scotia Archives.
Regards,
Catherine MacDonald
___________________________________________________________________
From: "Lesley Hall" <lesleyah@primex.co.uk>
Subject: Fw: Introductions
Date: Tue, 2 Mar 1999 13:36:28 -0000
From: Sophia Parker <sophia.parker@magdalen.oxford.ac.uk>
I joined the histex list a couple of weeks ago, apologies for not sending my
introduction then. Currently, I am an undergraduate at Magdalen College
Oxford, but I am in the process of applying for a place on the Women's
Studies MSt here, which I hope will lead on to a DPhil.
I am afraid my credentials are not particularly impressive to date! I joined
this list out of general interest, and also in the hope that some of its
members might be able to give me some suggestions on possible sources for my
proposed research. So far, in my (limited) undergraduate dissertation, I
have compared German and British lesbianism in the 1920s and 1930s, using
some of the sound archives at the Hall-Carpenter collection, as well as
lesbians' recollections of Nazi Germany, put to paper by Claudia Schoppmann.
The focus of this study lay in understanding how lesbians coped with, and
reacted to, the strongly maternalist emphasis of both countries in this
period.
The dissertation I intend to complete in my MSt will look at cross-dressing
in early twentieth century Britain, focussing particularly on the Music Hall
culture, involving performers such as Vesta Tilley. I have been in touch
with the Theatre Museum in London and they appear to have some sources, but
if any members of the list know of anything else that might be of use, I
would be extremely grateful.
I am hoping that this course will extend into a study of the wider topic of
homo-erotic and homo-social communities of women, again in Britain at the
start of this century. However this is all dependent on my getting the
funding for such study; at the moment I am more concerned with my initial
MSt dissertation.
I have one other question that other members of this list might be able to
answer: I am trying to locate the 5000 letters written to Radclyffe Hall
after her _Well of Loneliness_ trial - Una Troubridge has been quoted as
having said that of all these, only 5 expressed negative views about the
book. Does anyone know if they are available for study? If so, where are
they kept?
Sophia.
____________________
Sophia Parker
Magdalen College
Oxford OX1 4AU
07957 298 889
___________________________________________________________________
Subject: Re: Fw: Introductions
From: Gillian Rodger <grodger@worldnet.att.net>
Date: Wed, 3 Mar 1999 00:37:26 +0000
Sophia,
I just finished my dissertation on American male impersonation in
variety/vaude and had, by necessity, to consult many British sources. I am
so glad to see someone else finally getting interested in this topic and can
suggest any number of leads.
Its probably best done off-list. Contact me at grodger@worldnet.att.net and
we can take it from there.
Gillian Rodger
>__________________________________________________________________ Date: Tue, 02 Mar 1999 15:48:39 +0100
From: Bruno Wanrooij <wanrooij@mail.dada.it>
Subject: Introduction
Having registered for this list when it started, and having read with
interest the introductions, I feel it's time for me to introduce myself.
My name is Bruno Wanrooij. I am an Italian of Dutch origins, or - if you
prefer - a Dutchman with an Italian passport, having lived the first half
of my life in the Netherlands and the second half in Italy. I work for two
American University programmes in Florence, and teach interdisciplinary
courses on contemporary Italian society.
I became interested in the history of sexuality when working on
anti-americanism in 20th century Italy, which often used the claim of
Italian moral superiority to fight the diffusion of the 'American way of
life' Since then, I have published a volume on the history of the 'sexual
problem' in Italy (Storia del pudore. La questione sessuale in Italia
1860-1940, Venice, Marsilio, 1990) as well as articles and contributions to
collective volumes. Presently I am working on two new volumes one about the
history of sexuality in Italy in the period 1944-1981, the other on the
History of sexuality in Europe, 1800 to the present.
I am especially interested in the way in which issues relating to sexuality
became a territory on which to fight the battles between contrasting
political and social views of society, and - more generally - in the use of
references to the human body, sexuality, gender relations, and the family
in political discourse.
___________________________________________________________________ From: "Lesley Hall" <lesleyah@primex.co.uk>
Subject: Fw: Fw: Introductions: Radclyffe Hall papers (plus administrative plea)
Date: Wed, 3 Mar 1999 10:43:45 -0000
I'm forwarding this message which was sent to me. Please could I ask list
members to send messages for the list to histsex@listbot.com rather than
directly to me or to histsex-owner@listbot.com? This sometimes leads to
confusion about who originates queries/points for discussion as messages
then appear under my name.
Lesley Hall
lesleyah@primex.co.uk
>>Lesley Hall
>lesleyah@primex.co.uk
>From: Alan Miller <a7miller@acs.ryerson.ca>
>Date: 02 March 1999 17:45
>Subject: Re: Fw: Introductions
>>>>> I have one other question that other members of this list might be able
>to
>>> answer: I am trying to locate the 5000 letters written to Radclyffe Hall
>>> after her _Well of Loneliness_ trial - Una Troubridge has been quoted as
>>> having said that of all these, only 5 expressed negative views about the
>>> book. Does anyone know if they are available for study? If so, where are
>>> they kept?
>>>>>> Sophia.
>>>>I may be wrong, but the Hall archives is at the A & M University archives
>>in Texas. Years ago, I remember seeing a mention of Canadian letters,
>>send to Hall, being at A & M.
>>>>Alan Miller
>>(also archivist, Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives - Toronto)
>>www.clga.ca/archives
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Wed, 03 Mar 1999 12:08:26 -0600
From: Kriste Lindenmeyer <KLindenmeyer@tntech.edu>
Subject: Introduction: Kris Lindenmeyer
I teach U.S. history (esp. gender and social policy) at Tennessee
Technological University in the U.S. My current research focuses on
marriage and adolescence in the twentieth century. I very much hope
that being a part of this list will help me to gain a more comparative
perspective on marriage, sexuality, and adolescence.
Kris
Dr. Kriste Lindenmeyer
Dept. of History
Tennessee Technological University
http://gemini.tntech.edu/~klindenmeyer
klindenmeyer@tntech.edu
___________________________________________________________________
From: JNKATZ1@aol.com
Date: Wed, 3 Mar 1999 11:33:08 EST
Subject: Question: Health Benefits of Injested Semen
Dear HISTSEX List:
Can any one who knows Italian well tell me what the following book has to say
about the health benefits of injested semen? I can use this information in my
next book on sexuality and affection between men in the 19th century U.S. (to
be published Spring 2000).
Silvio Venturi (1850-1900)
Le Degenerazioni psico-sessuali nella vita degli individui e nella storia
delle società [Psychosexual Degeneration in the Life of Individuals and in the
History of Society], (1892).
Thanks, for any help you can give me.
I'm the author of Gay American History (1976), Gay/Lesbian Almanac: A New
Documentary (1983), and The Invention of Heterosexuality (1995), among other
books and articles. (l'll introduce myself more fully after my April 1
deadline for the new book!)
Jonathan Ned Katz
jnkatz1@aol.com
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Wed, 3 Mar 1999 12:02:56 -0500
Sender: denorchiar <denorchiar@gborocollege.edu>
Subject: Introduction
My name is Rachel DeNorchia and I am an undergraduate student at Greensboro
College. I am currently taking a Psychology of Women class that requires us
to do some research on related class topics. I subscribed to this listing
because I'm hoping that some of the discussions will pertain to some that I
have discussed already in class and can therefore relate it back to my
research paper.
Aside from my psychology of women class I have great interest in sexuality and
gender and hope to pursue my studies in that field.
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Wed, 3 Mar 1999 15:43:55 -0600
From: bjoyce@falcon.cc.ukans.edu (Beverly Joyce)
Subject: introduction
Histsex:For historians of sexuality - http://homepages.primex.co.uk/~lesleyah
Hi,
I'm a doctoral student in art history at the University of Kansas. I
joined this listserv because I hoped some discussions might relate to my
dissertation, which is on the significance of androgyny in the work of the
19th-century British artist, Edward Burne-Jones. My research has led me to
issues that may relate to this listserv such as concepts of masculinity,
effeminacy, and hermaphroditism.
Beverly Joyce
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Thu, 04 Mar 1999 15:01:34 +0000 (GMT)
From: Lucy Bland <l.bland@unl.ac.uk>
Subject: introduction
I have been working on issues concerning the history of sexuality
for several years. I wrote Banishing the Beast: English Feminism
and Sexual Morality, 1885-1914, Penguin 1995 (published in the US
by the New Press, with a different subtitle) and recently (last
October) co-edited (with Laura Doan) 2 books on sexology: Sexology
in Culture: Labelling Bodies and Desires, and Sexology
Uncensored: the Documents of Sexual Science. Both are published by
Polity Press and by Chicago UP. I have recently started
researching a series of British trials concerning sexual
`perversity` and racial otherness, during the 1st world war and
its aftermath. The trials include those of Roger Casement, Maud
Allan, Rose Allatini and Margarite Fahmy. I will also include a
cause celebre around drugs, race and sexual promisucity. I would
love to hear from anyone working on same/similar material.
Dr Lucy Bland
---------
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Thu, 04 Mar 1999 20:41:11 -0600
From: mary jo powell <mjp@kdi.com>
Subject: Re: Fw: Introductions
I am what we over here call an "independent scholar," i.e. someone who
is not employed in the field. My doctorate work was concerned with
reform of university education in the early 19th century, specifically
at Oxford. My interest in the history of sexuality is actually in the
history of asexuality since celibacy was a concern or goal of many of
the people I am intererested in --Newman and others.
___________________________________________________________________ Subject: Re: introduction
From: Gillian Rodger <grodger@worldnet.att.net>
Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1999 02:25:55 +0000
Is this Maud Allan, as in the Canadian Salome dancer? I wasn't aware that
she had been in trouble in Britain. She certainly caused a stir in the US,
as did the whole Salome craze. I have some info in the American context, and
more on the can can arrests of the 1870s if you're interested, but its
probably the wrong context for you.
GIllian Rodger
PS. Talking of trials, was anyone aware that Bolton and Parks ended up in
variety in the US. I am almost certain I have found them as Ernest Byne and
his brother in the NY trade paper.
> I have recently started
>researching a series of British trials concerning sexual
>`perversity` and racial otherness, during the 1st world war and
>its aftermath. The trials include those of Roger Casement, Maud
>Allan, Rose Allatini and Margarite Fahmy. I will also include a
>cause celebre around drugs, race and sexual promisucity. I would
>love to hear from anyone working on same/similar material.
>>>Dr Lucy Bland
>---------
>>>__________________________________________________________________
Date: Thu, 4 Mar 1999 12:17:16 -0500 (EST)
From: Robin Brownlie <brownlie@YorkU.CA>
Subject: Re: Introduction
Since many people seem to be heeding the good advice to introduce
ourselves, I'll join too.
I am a Canadian historian and did my Ph.D. in Aboriginal history. My
direct foray into the history of sexuality began in 1996 when I received a
postdoctoral fellowship to do a study in lesbian history. I ended up
focusing that project on lesbians and lesbianism in Canadian prisons, a
very rich topic which I found very engaging. My most recent paper on this
work looks at identities in prison -- I found that the women I interviewed
(I did both oral and conventional archival research) generally were not
very interested in lesbian identity. Many women in prison who develop
relationships with women do not adopt a lesbian identity, nor do they seem
particularly interested in maintaining a heterosexual identity -- at
least, the ones I talked to. I became interested in the way sexual
identity seemed to be not only highly fluid, but also an apparently
optional identity, in that there was no strong emphasis on choosing one.
This seemed to me to contrast with other identities such as racial and
ethnic ones. I'd be very interested in any observations you folks on the
list might have about this area.
I'm currently working partly in the academy and partly outside it, doing
part-time teaching in Canadian women's history and also (much
better-paid!) research in Aboriginal claims. I am also the Vice President
of the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives here in Toronto (a volunteer
position).
Hi to Dan Healey! :)
Robin Brownlie
Toronto, Canada
___________________________________________________________________
From: "PETER BARTLETT" <Peter.Bartlett@nottingham.ac.uk>
Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1999 21:10:36 GMT0BST
Subject: Nettiquette
A mundane question, that I'd just like to clarify. List traditions
differ as to how confidential information posted is. May I take it
that information posted on this list can be forwarded on to others,
as long as the original author is identified?
Not wishing to tread on toes ...
peter
The University of Nottingham
Department of Law
Nottingham
NG7 2RD
Tel: +44 (0) 115 951 5709
http://www.nottingham.ac.uk
___________________________________________________________________
Date: 6 Mar 1999 16:07:12 -0000
From: Histsex:For historians of sexuality <histsex-owner@listbot.com>
Subject: Re: Nettiquette
In response to Peter Bartlett's query about forwarding list postings, I
have the following thoughts:
If the messages consist of announcements of conferences or publications,
calls for papers, etc, (i.e. essentially impersonal information of a
fairly wide general interest) which may be of relevance to members of
other lists, I wouldn't consider the forwarding of these objectionable.
Messages of a more individual nature - information about a person's
research, participation in discussion - I personally would have no problem
about forwarding to another individual not on the list who might be
interested or working on related areas (and might indeed as a result wish
to join Histsex...), but I would have some reservations about posting
wholesale and broadcast to an entire list they didn't know they were being
posted to. In this case I would suggest that the intending forwarder
contacts the original poster to ask permission.
These points seem to me to be in a spirit of 'fair usage' but I'd be
interested to hear what other members of the list think.
Lesley
histsex-owner@listbot.com
lesleyah@primex.co.uk
___________________________________________________________________
From: "Lesley Hall" <lesleyah@primex.co.uk>
Subject: Fw: Nettiquette & Intro: Miranda E Morris
Date: Sun, 7 Mar 1999 12:00:07 -0000
From: Miranda E Morris <mimorris@netspace.net.au>
I would first of all like to thank Lesley Hall for starting up what is
turning out to be one of the most interesting lists around; and also to
endorse the code of etiquette she proposed.
Secondly, it is high time I introduced myself, having enlisted at Histsex's
inception.
I am an independent writer and historian. In 1995 New South Wales
University Press published my book PINK TRIANGLE; the gay law reform debate
in Tasmania. Although this was a commissioned work, during the course of
writing the book I became increasingly involved a an activist in what was a
highly charged and complex campaign: 1988 over a hundred people arrested
for crimes like trespassing in public spaces and signing petitions to
parliament; 1989 huge anti-gay rallies; 1991 appeal to United Nations &
1994 UN ruling that Tasmanian laws violated human rights ... Finally Mayday
1998 men are no longer liable to up to 21 years imprisonment for consensual
sex in private. Although the campaign took a long time, there were
benefits: we'd run a strong community education programme, and a number of
things clicked into place s soon as the laws were removed - anti
discrimination act, anti homophobia measures in school curricula, liaison
groups with Health and Community Services Dept and Police -.
More recently I have written 'A Matron's Honour; the life and trials of
Alice Gertrude Kenny' which explores the way in which 19th century
constructions of sexuality shaped one woman's life. Kenny was a matron of a
lunatic asylum, a position she could only obtain as a husbandless married
woman. She developed a growth that made her look pregnant and tried to
defend her honour by saying she had been raped. The charge was made public
and ended up in the supreme court where it was thrown out; but she was then
charged with perjury. In a nutshell.
So my interests are pretty eclectic...
Thanks again for the list.
Miranda Morris
mimorris@netspace.net.au
___________________________________________________________________
IDate: Sun, 07 Mar 1999 22:15:03 -0700 (MST)
From: Tim Hodgdon <Tim.Hodgdon@asu.edu>
Subject: Re: Robin Brownlie's research on optional sexual identity
Robin Brownlie's findings on the "optional" quality of sexual identity
among women in relationships with women in prison strike me as
fascinating--especially when one sets it alongside other phenomena, such
as the "Boston marriage" of the late nineteenth-century English-speaking
world, and the more contemporary "lesbian bed death" (see *Boston
Marriages: Romantic but Asexual Relationships Among Contemporary
Lesbians,* ed. Esther D. Rothblum and Kathleen A. Brahony [Amherst:
Univ. of Mass. Press, 1993]). Social historians have done so much to
document the centrality of sexual identity to modern social thought and
practice; therefore, I believe that any apparent manifestation of
indifference to the discourse on sexual identity deserves careful study.
I haven't, unfortunately, made thorough acquaintance w/ Prof. Brownlie's
research in Canadian prisons. I'm intrigued by how the women she
studied might mobilize their "indifference" to lesbian identity in
conjunction with their perceptions of/(dis)identification with feminism.
I would expect that in some cases, this "indifference" might be a
manifestation of an antipathy to identification with other women, while
for a great many other women prisoners, questions of gendered political
identification simply don't register, consciously or unconsciously. But
this "indifference" or "disinterest" in discourses of sexual identity
might also flow from a conscious or unconscious feminist critique of
such discourse--including its reversals--as irrelevant to their
condition as women, in prison or in the world more generally.
Might it be possible to interpret this (hypothetical) perspective of
indifference to identity discourse (which need not encompass
indifference to sexuality itself, nor intense emotional attachments to a
woman partner) could be interpreted as a critique of the subordination
of women in and through gendered sexuality? (In effect: "sexuality is
not nearly as big a deal as those--primarily men, but women too--deeply
invested in the reification of gender through sexuality make it out to
be.")
As I read him, this was not Foucault's position. He seemed to say that
the best way to "break away from" the "agency of sex" was to "counter
the grips of power with the claims of bodies, pleasures, and knowledges,
in their multiplicity and their possibility of resistance" (trans.
Hurley 1978, 157). My question for the list is this: have at least some
Foucauldian historians of sexuality considered the possibility that
conscientious objection to modernist discourses of sexual identity might
prove a more effective political strategy of feminist resistance to
gender inequality than reversals of those discourses? If you think you
might know of any, or if you're quite sure that there are none, I would
find your answers to be of great assistance to me in my research.
Thanks.
Tim Hodgdon
Ph.D. candidate
Teaching Associate
Department of History
Arizona State University
Tim.Hodgdon@asu.edu
On Thu, 4 Mar 1999, Robin Brownlie wrote:
> Histsex:For historians of sexuality - http://homepages.primex.co.uk/~lesleyah
> > Since many people seem to be heeding the good advice to introduce
> ourselves, I'll join too.
> > I am a Canadian historian and did my Ph.D. in Aboriginal history. My
> direct foray into the history of sexuality began in 1996 when I received a
> postdoctoral fellowship to do a study in lesbian history. I ended up
> focusing that project on lesbians and lesbianism in Canadian prisons, a
> very rich topic which I found very engaging. My most recent paper on this
> work looks at identities in prison -- I found that the women I interviewed
> (I did both oral and conventional archival research) generally were not
> very interested in lesbian identity. Many women in prison who develop
> relationships with women do not adopt a lesbian identity, nor do they seem
> particularly interested in maintaining a heterosexual identity -- at
> least, the ones I talked to. I became interested in the way sexual
> identity seemed to be not only highly fluid, but also an apparently
> optional identity, in that there was no strong emphasis on choosing one.
> This seemed to me to contrast with other identities such as racial and
> ethnic ones. I'd be very interested in any observations you folks on the
> list might have about this area.
> > I'm currently working partly in the academy and partly outside it, doing
> part-time teaching in Canadian women's history and also (much
> better-paid!) research in Aboriginal claims. I am also the Vice President
> of the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives here in Toronto (a volunteer
> position).
> > Hi to Dan Healey! :)
> > Robin Brownlie
> Toronto, Canada
> > > ___________________________________________________________________
From: "Lesley Hall" <lesleyah@primex.co.uk>
Subject: Fw: Nettiquette
Date: Mon, 8 Mar 1999 20:01:39 -0000
From: Ann Kendall <makend1@pop.uky.edu>
Hi:
I agree with these comments by Lesley. I think announcements are fine,
quotations from work are fine, with attribution, but anything else should
be governed by normal courtesy, by asking the original postee.
As a point of not forwarding without permission, when I came across a
question on one list that would have been better responded to by another, I
wrote back to the postee off list and suggested they write to the other
list, and offered to post the question for them if they had any difficulty.
This also helps to promote each list serve as no doubt after getting
responses from a new list, a new subscriber is gained.
Perhaps normal conversation rules are the ones we should apply, if someone
asks a question or makes a statement, and you would NOT normally reply in
front of a room full of listening people - (it being too personal so you
would take them aside to speak privately to them), then you should not post
to the server, as this is equivalent to a roomful of listening people, but
reply off-list and ask permission to speak openly.
With regard to research interests, referral to others working on similar
subjects needs to be handled with care too. Before posting someones
research topic, it would be polite to ask them if you can post, but naming
a renowned writer on a subject, however, is merely recognizing published
expertise.
Any other comments?
Happy researching
___________________________________________________________________
Date: 8 Mar 1999 20:27:02 -0000
From: Histsex:For historians of sexuality <histsex-owner@listbot.com>
Subject: Gender & Class in the 20th Century
Francis Ronsin has asked me to post the following:
AMSAB in co-operation with MIAT organizes
Gender & Class in the 20th Century
International colloquium Ghent 27 - 30 april 1999
Inaugural session of the international seminar "Socialism and sexuality"
Introduction
Recently, the relationship between class, gender and socialism has been
brought for discussion. The title of the colloquium 'Gender and Class'
covers a number of provocative contributions on two subjects whose paths
continually cross. At the forefront is the definition of masculinity and
femininity in the working-class' world in terms of exclusion and control
mechanisms in the political arena, work, social gender relations, sex
life, in art and in information. These issues are traversed by the
evolution of women in Belgium in the twentieth century from an historical,
sociological and psychodynamic point of view.
Program
TUESDAY APRIL 27, 1999
CAERMERSKLOOSTER, TROMMELSTRAAT 1, GHENT
7:00 p.m. ¨ welcome and acquaintance ¨ address by Prof. Herman
Balthazar, chairman of AMSAB
¨ visit of the AMSAB exhibition "Desire touched us: on gender,
sexuality and socialists"
¨ reception offered by AMSAB
WEDNESDAY APRIL 28, 1999
AULACOMPLEX, VOLDERSSTRAAT 9, GHENT
MODERATOR: DR. MARC HOOGHE
9:00 a.m. ¨ address by René De Herdt, director MIAT
¨ opening address by Dr. Denise De Weerdt, co-ordinator, AMSAB
9:30 a.m. ¨ "Sex, gender and society" by Prof. Jeffrey WEEKS, School of
Education, Politics and Social Science, South Bank University, London,
United Kingdom
10:00 a.m. ¨ "Women, law and politics in the European Union" by Prof.
Catherine HOSKYNS, Coventry University, Coventry, United Kingdom
10:30 a.m. ¨ coffee break
10:50 a.m. ¨ "Women and politics in the 20th century" by Dr. Saskia
POLDERVAART, University of Amsterdam
11:20 a.m. ¨ discussion
12:00 a.m. ¨ lunch break
2:00 p.m. ¨ "Factory boy meets factory girl" by Bart DE WILDE, AMSAB,
Ghent
2:30 p.m. ¨ "Gender and office before World War Two" by Dr. Francisca DE
HAAN, IISG/IIAV Amsterdam, The Netherlands
3:00 p.m. ¨ coffeebreak 3:20 p.m. ¨ "The evolution of women's work after
World War Two" by Stiene VAN RIE, ABVV, Brussels 3:50 p.m. ¨ discussion 5:
p.m. ¨ end 8: p.m. ¨ concert in the Council Chamber of the
Provinciehuis (Gouvernementstraat 1, Ghent) offered
by the Province of East-Flanders with welcome address Herman Balthazar,
governor
THURSDAY APRIL 29, 1999
AULACOMPLEX, VOLDERSSTRAAT 9, GHENT
MODERATOR: DR. HANS MOORS
9:00 a.m. ¨ "The French neomalthusians and sterilization" by Prof.
Francis RONSIN, University of Burgundy, Department of Human Sciences,
Dijon, France
9:30 a.m. ¨ "Emilie Claeys and birth control: feminism or
neomalthusianism?" by Dr. Hedwige PEEMANS-POULLET, Womens's
University, Brussels
10:00 a.m. ¨ coffee break
10:20 a.m. ¨ "Fertility, class and gender in Britain 1900-1940" by Dr.
Simon SZRETER, St John's College, University of Cambridge, Faculty of
History, United Kingdom
10:50 a.m. ¨ "Combating the hideous scourge: gender, class and moral
regulation in 20th century Scotland" by Dr. Roger DAVIDSON, The
University of Edinburgh, Department of Economic and Social
History, United Kingdom
11:20 a.m. ¨ discussion
12:00 a.m. ¨ lunch break
2:00 p.m. ¨ guided walk in the historic city of Ghent
5:00 p.m. ¨ reception with coffee in MIAT, Minnemeers 9, Ghent ¨ address
by Frank Beke, mayor of the city of Ghent ¨ free visit of the museum
exhibition "Our Industrial Past 1750-2000. The
Woman behind the show and on the barricades" in MIAT
¨ cold meal offered by MIAT-VIAT
FRIDAY APRIL 30, 1999
AULACOMPLEX, VOLDERSSTRAAT 9, GHENT
MODERATOR: PH.D. MARC HOOGHE
9:00 a.m. ¨ "Gender and labour movement in Spain" by Prof. Mary NASH,
Department of Contemporary
History, University of Barcelona, Spain
9:30 a.m. ¨ "Whose right to work? Conflicts over women's industrial and
clerical work
until World War Two on national levels and internationally" by
Prof. Brigitte STUDER, University of Bern, Department of History,
Switzerland
10:00 a.m. ¨ coffee break
10:20 a.m. ¨ "The art to charm us, the art to inspire us, that is a
woman's art. Gender-related art education for women in Belgium,
1880-1940" by Sabine VAN CAUWENBERGE, Gynaika, Antwerp
10:50 a.m. ¨ "Poverty, gender and class" by Francine MESTRUM, Institut de
Sociologie, Université Libre de Bruxelles
¨ discussion
11:20 a.m. ¨ Conclusions by Dr. Gita Deneckere, University of Ghent
11:50 a.m. ¨ concluding speech by Dr. Denise De Weerdt, co-ordinator, AMSAB
12:50 a.m.
1:00 p.m. ¨ expression of gratitude by Dr. Wouter Steenhaut, director,
AMSAB
Afternoon : INTRODUCTION TO THE SEMINAR "SOCIALISM AND SEXUALITY"
[further details to follow in second post]
REGISTRATION
To register please return the attached reply card.
Registrations are only valid if 1,500 BEF has been transfered to bank
account number 870-0007163-48 before March 1. 1999
In the case of registration after March 1. 1999, 2,000 BEF is to be
transferred to bank account number
870-0007163-48
Payments can also be made by credit card
The registration fee includes:
¨ summaries of the papers
¨ an informative leaflet with tourist information on Ghent
¨ visit to the exhibition "Desire touched us" on Tuesday April 27
¨ coffee during the breaks
¨ peripheral activities of the colloquium
¨ participation in the tour on Thursday April 29
___________________________________________________________________
Date: 8 Mar 1999 20:40:31 -0000
From: Histsex:For historians of sexuality <histsex-owner@listbot.com>
Subject: Socialism and Sexuality
[carried forward from the previously posted notice about the Gender and
Class conference]
Every attempt to define socialism more precisely than as the simple will
to promote a collective enterprise establishing social bonds on a rational
basis, has proved more worrying than convincing. Then, sexuality is
generally considered to be an individual drive which cannot be fulfilled
in the absence of social relationships. Well before the appearance of the
word "socialism", these social relationships had been narrowly encoded,
subject to numerous conditions: age, sex, duration, exact definition of
the role of the bodily parts, plus a range of addenda confined within a
legal framework : the family... "the basic social building block" for
liberals. Sexuality was, for a long time, the human activity subject to
the strictest and most numerous rules.
Socialist criticism was unable to separate sexuality from the wheels and
gears of the perfect social mechanism it wanted to generate. However, in
this area it encountered highly structured, almost universally
acknowledged concepts.
There were two ways open whereby socialist criticism could justify itself.
One was to object to already established rules. Such an objection might
be radical, seeking to destroy all pre-existing barriers so as to free up
the way for the future. It might be reformist : based on the denunciation
of the most obvious evils and incoherencies of the system : oppression of
women, prostitution, the inevitable pathological consequences of the
frustration of forbidden desires ... The other, opportunistic, way
consisted of conceding the basic premises of the existing morality whilst
accusing capitalist society of a failure of will or ability to enforce
these. This tactic has often culminated in the denunciation as "bourgeois
vices" forms of behaviour that the bourgeoisie pretended to condemn at the
same time as its dictatorship made these activities logically inevitable.
* * * * * * * *
The explanations set forth above were able to seem convincing because most
of them originated in the writing of historians and political scientists.
Scientifically this situation is not satisfactory. Scientific method does
not tolerate consensus; it requires clash, or, better, the conflict of
analyses and ideas. This is why we thought it urgent to organise this
seminar "Socialism and Sexuality", which will permit regular meetings of
researchers interested in this set of problems.
The seminar will be organised into annual study days which will be open to
the public and geared around a precise theme. These sessions - devoted to
listening to and discussing about ten lectures - will be held every first
Friday in October (the Saturday could be reserved for informal workshops)
in different towns, under the direction of local research units.
Since in April 1999 the Archives and Museum of the Socialist Workers'
Movement (ANSAB - Archives et Musée du Mouvement ouvrier socialiste) in
Ghent will be organising a conference on the theme of "Sex and Class in
the 20th Century" and an exhibition entitled: "Sex, Sexuality and
Socialism", it was natural for us to tie our initiative to theirs. AMSAB
agreed to participate in the team organising this international seminar,
"Socialism and Sexuality" and to host our inaugural session. It will
therefore be held in Ghent, following the Conference, on the afternoon of
Friday, 30 April, 1999.
After a short exposé of our project, we will give a progress report on
those sessions already scheduled. We will talk about problems arising in
the planning of these sessions and we will try to find solutions. After
this we will look into the question of further sessions.
In addition to the session co-ordinators including our AMSAB hosts
those participants in the "Sex and Class in the 20th Century" conference,
who would like to take an active part in our work, are invited to join
our inaugural session.
[Projected future meetings:
octobre 2000 : IISH (Amsterdam) « Anarchisme et sexualité »
- octobre 2001 : Université de Dijon « Partis ouvriers et sexualité »
- octobre 2002 : Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (Paris)
Socialisme et populationisme »
Francis Ronsin would be extremely interested to hear from any British
organisation or institution which might be interested in organising a
session in the UK in 2003 on 'Socialism and homosexuality.]
___________________________________________________________________
From: JNKATZ1@aol.com
Date: Tue, 9 Mar 1999 11:53:45 EST
Subject: Tolstoy's "Kreutzer Sonata"?
Do any of you literary people out there know what the sexual or sensational
content is in Tolstoy's "Kreutzer Sonata"? (I think it's a short story.) It
was banned from the U.S. mails in the 1890s.
I need the information for my next book -- on sexuality and affection between
men in the 19th century, and your help WILL be credited.
Jonathan Ned Katz
jnkatz1@aol.com
___________________________________________________________________
From: Carolyn Oldfield <CarolynO@nya.org.uk>
Subject: Introduction
Date: Tue, 9 Mar 1999 15:18:23 -0000
I joined this list last week, and am amazed at its diversity!
I am a part-time PhD student at the University of Warwick, Centre for the
Study of Women and Gender. My research is on the subject of girls and young
women in Britain during the period 1918-1939, looking at the way various
professional groupings - including medicine, social hygiene and youth
organisations - sought to shape their development towards adulthood and
heterosexual maturity. I am particularly focusing on approaches to sex
education, and the representation and regulation of girls' sexuality and
sexual activity.
I am also employed full time as an information officer at the National Youth
Agency, England, giving some (limited) cross-over between work and research.
Carolyn Oldfield
___________________________________________________________________
Date: 9 Mar 1999 19:19:36 -0000
From: Histsex:For historians of sexuality <histsex-owner@listbot.com>
Subject: Re: Tolstoy's "Kreutzer Sonata"?
I have a feeling that the scandalous thing about this was the overt
admission that a married couple were using birth control - even though
Tolstoy presents this as a Bad Thing which leads to dire events. If I
could only remember where I'd come across this information...
Lesley
histsex-owner@listbot.com
lesleyah@primex.co.uk
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Tue, 9 Mar 1999 14:42:12 -0500 (EST)
From: "David F. Greenberg" <dg4@is3.nyu.edu>
Subject: Re: Tolstoy's "Kreutzer Sonata"?
It is indeed a short story, in which the issue of adultery arises. If you
are going to write about the story in your next book, might it not be a
good idea for you to read it? It's readily available in translation,
libraries will surely have it, and it is
not very long. - David Greenberg
___________________________________________________________________ Subject: Seeking the Danielou pictures / Re-intro
Date: Tue, 09 Mar 1999 14:00:57 -0800
From: "andrei-f" <andrei-f@goplay.com>
Hello,
I am the editor of a new site documenting the history of male
homoerotic expression. For those who are new to the list, the url of
the site is http://www.androphile.com
It is intended as a vehicle for popularizing recent findings in the
queer history field, and it is very much directed to younger readers.
It has recently come to my attention that there is a large number of
photographs taken by Alain Danielou in India, documenting homoerotic
art that was in the process of being destroyed by organized puritan
elements in Indian society. I would appreciate any specific
information about the present location of these pictures. I
understand they have surfaced in England, where they were used by
Shivananda Khan, the organizer of the Naz Project, a safe-sex
education group for the East-Asian community in England. If anyone
knows of his whereabouts, please let me know.
Many thanks,
Andrei
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Wed, 10 Mar 1999 01:01:06 -0500
From: Frances Bernstein <bernstein@glasnet.ru>
Subject: Tolstoy's "Kreutzer Sonata"
While birth control is alluded to in the "Kreuzer Sonata," it is hardly the
most scandalous part of the story. The book caused an uproar because of
its harsh critique of conventional marriage and its message of abstinence
that combines a kind of proto-feminism with a distinct mysoginy. Its
narrator also acknowleges frequenting prostitutes and engaging in
masturbation. For context you should take a look at Peter Olf Moller's
_Postlude to the Kreuzer Sonata_.
___________________________________________________________________ Date: Thu, 11 Mar 1999 23:04:49 +1000
From: Catherine Driscoll <catherine.driscoll@adelaide.edu.au>
Subject: Re: Introduction
Carolyn Oldfield writes:
>I am a part-time PhD student at the University of Warwick, Centre for the
>Study of Women and Gender. My research is on the subject of girls and young
>women in Britain during the period 1918-1939, looking at the way various
>professional groupings - including medicine, social hygiene and youth
>organisations - sought to shape their development towards adulthood and
>heterosexual maturity. I am particularly focusing on approaches to sex
>education, and the representation and regulation of girls' sexuality and
>sexual activity.
My PhD dissertation (1996) discussed relations between modernism and
feminine adolescence focusing on the 1920s and 30s, and including an
emphasis on sex education and other discourses on 'sex' and 'sexuality'.
It's quite possible, therefore, that there's some crossover between what
you're doing and my work there which is now being prepared as a manuscript.
I lecture in English, Cultural Studies and Women's Studies at the
University of Adelaide (Australia) and am presently finishing another book
on _Girls: Feminine Adolescence in Popular Culture and Cultural Theory_
which has a substantial emphasis on sexuality. My other in process project
is an ethnography of Australian female adolescence, though that's in an
earlier stage.
Catherine
___________________________________________________________________
Subject: Revised address for the Androphile Project
Date: Thu, 11 Mar 1999 18:01:41 -0800
From: "andrei-f" <andrei-f@goplay.com>
As several people pointed out, the address for the gay history / teen
education site I posted in my last message was incorrect. The correct
address is:
http://www.androphile.org
Apologies to those who tried fruitlessly.
Andrei
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1999 15:46:49 +0000
From: Paula <fa1912@wlv.ac.uk>
Subject: New member
I have just joined the mailing list. My name is Paula Bartley and I work at
the University of Wolverhampton. I have just completed a book called
"Troublesome Girls: Preventing Prostitution in England, 1860-1914" for UCL
Press to be published sometime later this year or early next year. I have
just begun work (with Dr Barbara Gwinnett) on 20th century prostitution in
England, firstly for a chapter in a forthcoming book but hopefully for a
whole book if we can get a publisher to accept it.
Dr Paula Bartley
Senior Lecturer (History)
University of Wolverhampton
Dudley Campus
Dudley
DY1 3BD
e-mail P.Bartley@wlv.ac.uk
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Wed, 17 Mar 1999 13:17:58 -0500
From: Cathy Moran Hajo <cathy.hajo@nyu.edu>
Subject: Deadline Reminder: Internships at the Margaret Sanger Papers
Project
Just a reminder that the deadline for summer internships at the Margaret
Sanger Papers Project at New York University is March 30. Details on the
internship program this year are available at:
http://www.nyu.edu/projects/sanger/intern.htm
--
Cathy Moran Hajo
Assistant Editor/Assistant Director
The Margaret Sanger Papers Project
Department of History
New York University
53 Washington Square South, #501
New York, NY 10012-1098
cathy.hajo@nyu.edu
(212) 998-8666
(212) 995-4017 (fax)
Visit our web site at: http://www.nyu.edu/projects/sanger
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 19 Mar 1999 12:00:16 -0500
From: denorchiar <denorchiar@gborocollege.edu>
Subject: Posting a Question
Hi everyone,
Recently during one of my classes we discussed what classifies as sex. Many
people had many different opinions on this topic. Some thought that it was
just intercourse where as others said it was any sexual contact.
I'm curious to hear how you would respond to this question. Please let me know
what you think, it will help me with the research of my paper.
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 19 Mar 1999 15:01:21 -0700 (MST)
From: Tim Hodgdon <Tim.Hodgdon@asu.edu>
Subject: Re: What counts as "sex"?
Ms./Mr. denorchiar:
There's nothing like asking a group composed mostly of academics a
simple question, and getting back a complex non-answer.
To address your question in the spirit in which you asked it, we would
have to understand the epistemological presumptions you're making. That
is, are you presuming that there is something out there, in nature, that
can objectively be delimited as "sex," in clear distinction from that
which is "not-sex"? These are the prevailing presumptions about
sexuality and its study in our culture, and for good historical reasons.
It was precisely on these presumptions that, at the end of the
nineteenth century, the founders of the science of sexology pursued what
Lawrence Birken has elegantly termed a "natural law of sex."
I believe that the more rigorously and objectively one tries to
distinguish "sex" from "not-sex," the more frustrating and seemingly
"irrational" the answer becomes. This persuades me of the need to
change the basic assumptions, to question the existence of a "natural
law of sex." Along with a good many other scholars these days, I find
it more useful to presume that sexuality is a cultural construct--that
is, "sex" is what humans decide it is in a given context. Not even
members of the same culture can always agree, given that inequalities of
power help to determine who can most effectively and consistently
enforce their perspective, especially through "sexual" practice.
Clear as mud, right? Good questions always generate more questions.
Tim Hodgdon
Ph.D. candidate
Teaching Associate
Department of History
Arizona State University
Tim.Hodgdon@asu.edu
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 19 Mar 1999 22:54:12 +0000
From: Ianthe <ianthe@duende.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Posting a Question
In message <19990319170331964.AAA505.459@callisto>,
denorchiar <denorchiar@gborocollege.edu> writes
>Histsex:For historians of sexuality - http://homepages.primex.co.uk/~lesleyah
>>Hi everyone,
>>Recently during one of my classes we discussed what classifies as sex. Many
>people had many different opinions on this topic. Some thought that it was
>just intercourse where as others said it was any sexual contact.
>>I'm curious to hear how you would respond to this question. Please let me know
>what you think, it will help me with the research of my paper.
February 99 --
A recent study asked US college students to choose from
a list of activities, ranging from kissing to sexual
intercourse, and asked to say which of them counted as
"having sex", more than half answered that oral sex did
not.
The study was published in the Journal of the American
Medical Association by its distinguished editor, George
Lundberg, and appeared last month as members of the US
senate began considering whether the sexual high jinks
of the President, and his subsequent denials, should
result in his impeachment.
Impeccable timing, you might have thought. The majority
American view of whether oral sex counts as having sex is
surely relevant to the events now unfolding on Capitol
Hill. That, however, is not how the luminaries of the
American Medical Association saw it. To them, Dr Lundberg's
decision to time publication as he did was an unacceptable
intrusion into the political process. He was sacked.
The sacking has provoked an extraordinary reaction which
cannot have been anticipated by the AMA. The story
dominated the broadcast media for most of the day on which
it was announced, and at least 53 metropolitan newspapers
carried it on their front pages. Since then, acres of
newsprint have been devoted to the sacking, almost all of
it critical of the AMA, which has been depicted as
hidebound and out of touch. As the New York Post put it: "I
haven't heard recently of any editor being fired for being
relevant about what's going on in the world."
On this side of the Atlantic, the British Medical Journal
had within 10 days received 67 responses on its website to
its comment on the sacking, 55 of which (82 per cent) were
outraged by Lundberg's dismissal. Half of these were
editors themselves. One, Magne Nylenna, editor of the
Journal of the Norwegian Medical Association, suggested
establishing a George Lundberg Award for editorial
integrity.
Nor is the finding unimportant. For doctors and
other health professionals with an interest in adolescent
and sexual health, the issue of what young people
understand as "having sex" matters a good deal. It
could affect everything from sex education to HIV
prevention.
As one correspondent to the BMJ - Simon Chapman, editor
of Tobacco Control - discovered when he questioned his
teenage children, fellatio may be commoner than we think.
--
Ianthe
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Sat, 20 Mar 1999 11:52:20 +0100
From: "Giovanni Dall'Orto" <giovanni.dallorto@iol.it>
Subject: Re: What counts as "sex"?
In 15.01 19/03/99 -0700, Tim Hodgdon wrote:
>>Ms./Mr. denorchiar:
>>There's nothing like asking a group composed mostly of academics a
>simple question, and getting back a complex non-answer.
>>To address your question in the spirit in which you asked it, we would
>have to understand the epistemological presumptions you're making. That
>is, are you presuming that there is something out there, in nature, that
>can objectively be delimited as "sex," in clear distinction from that
>which is "not-sex"? These are the prevailing presumptions about
>sexuality and its study in our culture, and for good historical reasons.
>It was precisely on these presumptions that, at the end of the
>nineteenth century, the founders of the science of sexology pursued what
>Lawrence Birken has elegantly termed a "natural law of sex."
>>I believe that the more rigorously and objectively one tries to
>distinguish "sex" from "not-sex," the more frustrating and seemingly
>"irrational" the answer becomes. This persuades me of the need to
>change the basic assumptions, to question the existence of a "natural
>law of sex." Along with a good many other scholars these days, I find
>it more useful to presume that sexuality is a cultural construct--that
>is, "sex" is what humans decide it is in a given context. Not even
>members of the same culture can always agree, given that inequalities of
>power help to determine who can most effectively and consistently
>enforce their perspective, especially through "sexual" practice.
>>Clear as mud, right? Good questions always generate more questions.
Dear Mr Hogdon,
such a long and nice answer just to let us know that sex is what we define
as such?
Wel... can you think of ANYTHING which is not what we define as such?
Did we really learn something new, then?
Is not all this "de-constructing" leaving us with just a handful of
tautologies, such as in this case?
Sex is what we call sex. Really...
Best wishes
Giovanni Dall'Orto (Milano - Italy)
---------------------------------------------------------
Giovanni Dall'Orto - Via Ruggero Bonghi 12 - I 20141 Milano (Italy) - Tel.
(+39) 0289512182
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Sat, 20 Mar 1999 04:44:55 -0500
From: Bob <suannschafer@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: What counts as "sex"?
>are you presuming that there is something out there, in nature, that
>can objectively be delimited as "sex," in clear distinction from that
>which is "not-sex"? These are the prevailing presumptions about
>sexuality and its study in our culture, and for good historical reasons.
>It was precisely on these presumptions that, at the end of the
>nineteenth century, the founders of the science of sexology pursued what
>Lawrence Birken has elegantly termed a "natural law of sex."
Can you provide a citation for Birken? I'd like to read more.
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Sat, 20 Mar 1999 04:00:54 -0500
From: Bob <suannschafer@earthlink.net>
Subject: What is sex?
>Recently during one of my classes we discussed what classifies as sex. Many
>people had many different opinions on this topic. Some thought that it was
>just intercourse where as others said it was any sexual contact.
Clearly, for Bill Clinton -- and most of the members of his generation --
sex = intercourse.
And in talking to my gen-x students, sex = intercourse
But once it's clarified and explored most would consider almost anything to
be sex.
Plus ca change ....
And I'm curious as to what constitutes "sexual contact"? Contact involving
a sexual organ(s)?
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 19 Mar 1999 22:54:12 +0000
From: Ianthe <ianthe@duende.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Posting a Question
In message <19990319170331964.AAA505.459@callisto>,
denorchiar <denorchiar@gborocollege.edu> writes
>Histsex:For historians of sexuality - http://homepages.primex.co.uk/~lesleyah
>>Hi everyone,
>>Recently during one of my classes we discussed what classifies as sex. Many
>people had many different opinions on this topic. Some thought that it was
>just intercourse where as others said it was any sexual contact.
>>I'm curious to hear how you would respond to this question. Please let me know
>what you think, it will help me with the research of my paper.
February 99 --
A recent study asked US college students to choose from
a list of activities, ranging from kissing to sexual
intercourse, and asked to say which of them counted as
"having sex", more than half answered that oral sex did
not.
The study was published in the Journal of the American
Medical Association by its distinguished editor, George
Lundberg, and appeared last month as members of the US
senate began considering whether the sexual high jinks
of the President, and his subsequent denials, should
result in his impeachment.
Impeccable timing, you might have thought. The majority
American view of whether oral sex counts as having sex is
surely relevant to the events now unfolding on Capitol
Hill. That, however, is not how the luminaries of the
American Medical Association saw it. To them, Dr Lundberg's
decision to time publication as he did was an unacceptable
intrusion into the political process. He was sacked.
The sacking has provoked an extraordinary reaction which
cannot have been anticipated by the AMA. The story
dominated the broadcast media for most of the day on which
it was announced, and at least 53 metropolitan newspapers
carried it on their front pages. Since then, acres of
newsprint have been devoted to the sacking, almost all of
it critical of the AMA, which has been depicted as
hidebound and out of touch. As the New York Post put it: "I
haven't heard recently of any editor being fired for being
relevant about what's going on in the world."
On this side of the Atlantic, the British Medical Journal
had within 10 days received 67 responses on its website to
its comment on the sacking, 55 of which (82 per cent) were
outraged by Lundberg's dismissal. Half of these were
editors themselves. One, Magne Nylenna, editor of the
Journal of the Norwegian Medical Association, suggested
establishing a George Lundberg Award for editorial
integrity.
Nor is the finding unimportant. For doctors and
other health professionals with an interest in adolescent
and sexual health, the issue of what young people
understand as "having sex" matters a good deal. It
could affect everything from sex education to HIV
prevention.
As one correspondent to the BMJ - Simon Chapman, editor
of Tobacco Control - discovered when he questioned his
teenage children, fellatio may be commoner than we think.
--
Ianthe
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Sat, 20 Mar 1999 09:50:31 -0700 (MST)
From: Tim Hodgdon <Tim.Hodgdon@asu.edu>
Subject: Citation for Birken
Bob and other interested list members:
Lawrence Birken, *Consuming Desire: Sexual Science and the Emergence of
a Culture of Abundance, 1871-1914* (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
1988).
Tim Hodgdon
Ph.D. candidate
Teaching Associate
Department of History
Arizona State University
Tim.Hodgdon@asu.edu
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Sat, 20 Mar 1999 11:54:06 -0700 (MST)
From: Tim Hodgdon <Tim.Hodgdon@asu.edu>
Subject: Re: What counts as "sex"?
On Sat, 20 Mar 1999, Giovanni Dall'Orto wrote:
> Dear Mr Hogdon,
> > such a long and nice answer just to let us know that sex is what we define
> as such?
> > Wel... can you think of ANYTHING which is not what we define as such?
> Did we really learn something new, then?
> > Is not all this "de-constructing" leaving us with just a handful of
> tautologies, such as in this case?
> > Sex is what we call sex. Really...
> > Best wishes
> > Giovanni Dall'Orto (Milano - Italy)
> ---------------------------------------------------------
> > Giovanni Dall'Orto - Via Ruggero Bonghi 12 - I 20141 Milano (Italy) - Tel.
> (+39) 0289512182
Sre. Dall'Orto:
You have voiced a concern that may be on the minds of other list
members. Please allow me to attempt to clarify the reasons why I
believe that I have served up not an empty tautology, but rather a
potentially productive analysis.
Although today many of those who argue that sexuality is culturally
constructed proceed from a deconstructionist perspective (or
"postmodernist" or "post-structuralist"--the terminology is not very
precise), I do not. My point of departure is Thomas Kuhn's *The
Structure of Scientific Revolutions.* Implicit in his argument about
science and its methods is a larger argument: that all human knowledge
is culturally situated, and that absolute objectivity is impossible.
If all human knowledge is grounded in cultural presumptions, then at
some level all inquiry displays a certain circularity of logic. This is
not a failing. It is, rather, evidence of the holistic nature of human
intelligence, which organizes limited evidence into generalizations
about the nature of the universe.
If we as scholars cannot "escape" from cultural presumptions, we can at
least attempt to be conscious of those presumptions. To observe them,
and to construct rigorous arguments about them, leaves us open to the
charge that we have advanced a circular argument, when in fact we may be
confronting in an honest way the holistic nature of human intelligence.
What do we learn from such a confrontation? Proceeding from Kuhn's
argument, one may argue quite persuasively that the search for a
"natural law of sex" is evidence of both noble and ignoble human
desires. We are intelligent beings, and we want to know about ourselves
and our world; if we lose sight of this "noble" (for lack of a better
term) dimension of the search for a natural law of sex, then we lack
compassion for fellow human beings with whom we disagree. Without
dismissing that noble desire to know about human sexuality through the
pursuit of scientific inquiry as inconsquential, I argue that we may
also understand the search for a natural law of sex as rooted in the
self-interests of its protagonists--a profoundly political project.
Thomas Laqueur, in his monograph *Making Sex: Body and Gender from the
Greeks to Freud,* captures this when he argues that "almost everything
one wants to *say* about sex--however sex is understood--already has in
it a claim about gender" (11). Thus, by inquiring into the cultural
construction of sexual science, we arrive not at tautologies, but at the
consideration of whose interests are served by the pursuit of a
natural-law model of sexual knowledge. I am convinced by my reading of
feminist theory that the search for a natural law of sex constitutes a
modern claim of political legitimacy for male supremacy. It is a claim
that the sexual practices through which men reify masculinity and
subordinate women are "natural," not cultural--and thus, not susceptible
to question or change. It is the claim, furthermore, that "masculinity"
and "femininity" are natural occurences in complementary relation,
whereas radical feminists discovered, through consciousness-raising
around issues of sexual violence and sexual objectification, that gender
comprises a culturally constructed hierarchy.
What lends credence, in my view, to this radical reinterpretation of
human nature is its congruence with a fundamental insight of cultural
anthropology which well predates the postmodern turn: that whereas
nineteenth-century science tended to dichotomize the categories "nature"
and "culture"--and, like Freud, to view culture as a civilized veneer on
a brutal human nature--it is more accurate to view human culture *as*
human nature, to collapse the dichotomy on the strength of the evidence
of human prehistory. Radical feminists took that step, and went one
further, identifying the search for a natural law of sex not simply as a
questionable scientific paradigm, but as a paradigm supportive of an
oppressive social reality.
I don't hold any of this out as absolute truth; reasonable people can
and do disagree. I do hope, however, that you will find intriguing the
possibility that it is not my argumentation that is circular, but rather
the phenomenon which I analyze that exhibits a certain all-too-human
circularity.
Tim Hodgdon
Ph.D. candidate
Teaching Associate
Department of History
Arizona State University
Tim.Hodgdon@asu.edu
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 19 Mar 1999 15:09:27 -0600
From: Kriste Lindenmeyer <KLindenmeyer@tntech.edu>
A few weeks ago the editor of the Journal of American Medicine (JAMA)
was fired for publishing an article detailing a study conducted with
university students on a "midwest American campus" asking the
definition of sex. The editor was fired because the survey
specifically asked what constituted sex and someone at the American
Medical Association felt that the study's publication timing was
politically motivated to help President Bill Clinton. Clinton had
claimed that oral sex was not sex. Whatever the details of this
controversy, the study should give you exactly what you are looking
for to answer the question about defining sexual contact. I don't
have the citation, but it was a recent volume of JAMA.
Kris Lindenmeyer
Dr. Kriste Lindenmeyer
Dept. of History
Tennessee Technological University
http://gemini.tntech.edu/~klindenmeyer
klindenmeyer@tntech.edu
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Tue, 23 Mar 1999 17:31:11 -0400
From: Leah Himmelhoch <lhimmelhoch@mail.wesleyan.edu>
Subject: Introduction
Dear All,
Greetings! I have been a 'lurker' for a while now because I've been busy
trying to get a job in this oh-so-friendly job market. It's about time to
introduce myself.
My name is Leah Himmelhoch, and I am a Ph.D. in the Classics. I am
currently a Visiting Assistant Professor at Wesleyan University, and I will
be at Hobart and William Smith College for the '99-'00 academic year. My
particular area of focus is Ancient Greek Poetry (especially Homer and
Drama), and poetry's use as an ideological tool for the
representation/promotion/confirmation of identity. I am especially
interested in the use of mythological/epic precedents as an effective
strategy for establishing the poetic persona's immediate cultural
authority, or prominence. My interest in epic tradition's/mythology's
centrality to the formulation of identity also regularly leads me to
discuss the continuity of the poetic tradition between Greece and Rome,
i.e., Roman poetry's use of (reconstructed) Greek poetic and mythological
precedents as a means of delineating Roman identity. Bizarrely enough, my
other hat is Bronze Age Archaeology (Linear B). What may be of immediate
interest to some on the list (or not!), is that I have recently published a
translation of Aristophanes' speech in Plato's *Symposium* (yes, the bit
about the 'spheres') in a text called, *Same Sex: Debating the Ethics,
Science, and Culture of Homosexuality*, J. Corvino, ed. (Rowman &
Littlefield, 1997).
I guess you could say that I spend a great deal of time paying very
close attention to language and gender. For the most part, I do research
on ancient gender/sexuality, and the importance of a gendered discourse to
the representation of citizenship in the Greek *polis*. My dissertation
(eek - this sort of summarizing always makes me nervous, as its reductive
aspects inevitably obliterate nuance, but, here goes) discusses how the
poetic charioteer, his poetic chariot, and his poetic team, a previously
unrecognized symbolic configuration, are regularly used to represent
(aristocratic) dominance in every sort of interaction, be it political,
social, martial, or erotic. Of course, the distinction between these
supposedly different categories of interaction is blurred in ancient texts
(and in modern ones, for that matter), so it would not be unreasonable to
say that my interest in gender regularly ties in with issues of dominance,
and the cultural strategy of 'naturalizing' the dominant discourse's rights
to, and access to, power and privilege. The chariot and charioteer figure
is also especially prominent in coming-of-age and foundation scenarios,
almost all of which encapsulate a mini-reenactment of masculine
victory/domestication of feminine/female-identified attributes (some of
them even seem to re-create the cosmological myths used to justify the
current divine (patriarchal) hierarchy on Olympos). The figure's
aristocratically identified valences are upended and reprogrammed, however,
in Attic poetry, i.e., Solon and tragedy, which uses the figure to
promote/represent a more egalitarian, and eventually a more democratic,
ideology. Again, in all of the figure's appearances, gender and sexuality
are a prominent part of its symbolic discourse.
There you have it; a mouthful. So far I've been enjoying the messages
coming in a great deal! I look forward to further postings, and, again, I
apologize for my belated introduction!
Cheers,
Leah Himmelhoch
Visiting Assistant Professor
Department of Classical Studies
Wesleyan University
Middletown, CT 06459-0146
Off.#/FAX: (860) 685-2082/2089
lhimmelhoch@wesleyan.edu
___________________________________________________________________
Subject: Seeking artwork depicting Hercules with either Hylas or Iolaus
Date: Wed, 24 Mar 1999 04:19:19 -0800
From: "andrei-f" <andrei-f@goplay.com>
Good morning!
I am presently engaged in enlarging the art collection of the
Androphile Project ( http://www.androphile.org ) and I am looking for
any surviving classical sculpture of Hercules with one of his male
lovers, or any more recent depiction of the subject. If anyone is
aware of the existence of such works I would be very grateful to hear
of it.
Many thanks,
Andrei
___________________________________________________________________
To: Histsex:For historians of sexuality <histsex@listbot.com>
From: "Krista Schnee" <marcellaslark@hotmail.com>
Subject: Introduction and question
Date: Wed, 24 Mar 1999 06:08:51 PST
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-type: text/plain
Hello! Like many of the other people on this list, I have also been a
lurker observing the various postings. I have to admit that the
professional qualifications of the people subscribing to this list have
intimidated me quite a bit. I am a Master's degree student in history at
Oklahoma State University. I have only recently become interested in the
history of sexuality, and so I am not very familiar with many of the
texts concerning this subject. However, I am taking a class this
semester in the History of Sexuality, which should acquaint me with many
of them.
Irish history has been an interest of mine for over a year now, and I
hope to write a thesis concerning a subject somewhere in this area. I
recently read Brendi McClenaghan's essay about gay men and lesbians in
the Republican movement. It made me realize that they were never
mentioned in any of the books covering the history of Irish Republicans.
This subject--and even the general history of gay men and lesbians in
Ireland--seems to be a good subject for a thesis, but I am having
trouble finding sources for such research, much less primary resources.
I have spoken to one professor here at OSU, and she said that the only
way to do such research would require a trip to Ireland, which is out of
the question financially. I have also been looking for fiction and
poetry concerning this subject. Does anyone have suggestions for me? I
would appreciate any help youu can give me.
Krista Schnee
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Wed, 24 Mar 1999 09:42:06 -0800
From: "David D. Leitao" <dleitao@sfsu.edu>
Subject: Heracles, and Introduction
This is a response to the query posted by Andrei. But first a brief
introduction. My name is David Leitao and I am an assistant professor of
Classics at San Francisco State University. My speciality is
representations of gender and sexuality in ancient Greece, especially in
ritual and myth. I have written and/or presented on transvestism in
adolescent transition rites and on rites of passage more generally, third
genders in Greek myth, the role of pederasty in ancient Greek armies
(especially the Theban Sacred Band), Plato's theory of love, male pregnancy
rituals, etc. I am happy to have joined this list.
Now, Andrei's question. The most comprehensive catalog of ancient artistic
representations of Greek and Roman myth (includes sculpture, vase painting,
coins, etc.) is the _Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae_ (aka
LIMC)(1981-1997). This multi-volume reference work is organized
alphabetically. You can go directly to the Heracles entry, but it might be
simpler to look at the entries for Hylas and Iolaos first, as they will be
considerably shorter. Be advised that the entries may be in English,
French, Italian, or German; there is no telling what language these
particular entries will be in. But even if you are not competent in these
modern European languages (as a practicing classicist like myself must be),
you can still gain a good deal of information just from the lists of vases
and sculpture themselves. Good luck.
>I am presently engaged in enlarging the art collection of the
>Androphile Project ( http://www.androphile.org ) and I am looking for
>any surviving classical sculpture of Hercules with one of his male
>lovers, or any more recent depiction of the subject. If anyone is
>aware of the existence of such works I would be very grateful to hear
>of it.
>>Many thanks,
>>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: Wed, 24 Mar 1999 12:40:56 -0500 (EST)
From: "David F. Greenberg" <dg4@is3.nyu.edu>
Subject: Re: Introduction
These comments about charioteers are especially interesting in view of
texts from the ancient Near East suggesting that the relationship between
the chariot driver and the chariot rider might sometimes be a sexual one.
Regretably I don't have citations to particular texts at hand. - David
Greenberg, Sociology Department, New York University.
On Tue, 23 Mar 1999, Leah Himmelhoch wrote:
> Histsex:For historians of sexuality - http://homepages.primex.co.uk/~lesleyah
> > Dear All,
> > Greetings! I have been a 'lurker' for a while now because I've been busy
> trying to get a job in this oh-so-friendly job market. It's about time to
> introduce myself.
> > My name is Leah Himmelhoch, and I am a Ph.D. in the Classics. I am
> currently a Visiting Assistant Professor at Wesleyan University, and I will
> be at Hobart and William Smith College for the '99-'00 academic year. My
> particular area of focus is Ancient Greek Poetry (especially Homer and
> Drama), and poetry's use as an ideological tool for the
> representation/promotion/confirmation of identity. I am especially
> interested in the use of mythological/epic precedents as an effective
> strategy for establishing the poetic persona's immediate cultural
> authority, or prominence. My interest in epic tradition's/mythology's
> centrality to the formulation of identity also regularly leads me to
> discuss the continuity of the poetic tradition between Greece and Rome,
> i.e., Roman poetry's use of (reconstructed) Greek poetic and mythological
> precedents as a means of delineating Roman identity. Bizarrely enough, my
> other hat is Bronze Age Archaeology (Linear B). What may be of immediate
> interest to some on the list (or not!), is that I have recently published a
> translation of Aristophanes' speech in Plato's *Symposium* (yes, the bit
> about the 'spheres') in a text called, *Same Sex: Debating the Ethics,
> Science, and Culture of Homosexuality*, J. Corvino, ed. (Rowman &
> Littlefield, 1997).
> I guess you could say that I spend a great deal of time paying very
> close attention to language and gender. For the most part, I do research
> on ancient gender/sexuality, and the importance of a gendered discourse to
> the representation of citizenship in the Greek *polis*. My dissertation
> (eek - this sort of summarizing always makes me nervous, as its reductive
> aspects inevitably obliterate nuance, but, here goes) discusses how the
> poetic charioteer, his poetic chariot, and his poetic team, a previously
> unrecognized symbolic configuration, are regularly used to represent
> (aristocratic) dominance in every sort of interaction, be it political,
> social, martial, or erotic. Of course, the distinction between these
> supposedly different categories of interaction is blurred in ancient texts
> (and in modern ones, for that matter), so it would not be unreasonable to
> say that my interest in gender regularly ties in with issues of dominance,
> and the cultural strategy of 'naturalizing' the dominant discourse's rights
> to, and access to, power and privilege. The chariot and charioteer figure
> is also especially prominent in coming-of-age and foundation scenarios,
> almost all of which encapsulate a mini-reenactment of masculine
> victory/domestication of feminine/female-identified attributes (some of
> them even seem to re-create the cosmological myths used to justify the
> current divine (patriarchal) hierarchy on Olympos). The figure's
> aristocratically identified valences are upended and reprogrammed, however,
> in Attic poetry, i.e., Solon and tragedy, which uses the figure to
> promote/represent a more egalitarian, and eventually a more democratic,
> ideology. Again, in all of the figure's appearances, gender and sexuality
> are a prominent part of its symbolic discourse.
> > There you have it; a mouthful. So far I've been enjoying the messages
> coming in a great deal! I look forward to further postings, and, again, I
> apologize for my belated introduction!
> > Cheers,
> > Leah Himmelhoch
> Visiting Assistant Professor
> Department of Classical Studies
> Wesleyan University
> Middletown, CT 06459-0146
> Off.#/FAX: (860) 685-2082/2089
> lhimmelhoch@wesleyan.edu
> > > ___________________________________________________________________
Date: Wed, 24 Mar 1999 13:01:42 -0500
From: denorchiar <denorchiar@gborocollege.edu>
Histsex:For historians of sexuality - http://homepages.primex.co.uk/~lesleyah
Hi everyone,
I wanted to thank you all on your feedback to my question earlier on what
constitutes as sex.
Last night during my Psychology of Women class we discussed the topic further
and they were delighted to hear how others felt on the matter.
Thank you all very much and I hope that no one minds me using their opinions
in my class. Everyone's opinions were helpful and generated a lot of further
discussion in our class.
Thanks again.
Rachel
___________________________________________________________________
From: "Lesley Hall" <lesleyah@primex.co.uk>
Subject: Re: when is sex not sex
Date: Wed, 24 Mar 1999 20:09:59 -0000
Kriste Lindenmeyer has drawn our attention to the recent JAMA editorial
about what 'counts' as sex.
I'd like to complicate the picture by mentioning the case of couples who
think they're 'having sex' but aren't: a small but significant proportion of
couples attending fertility clinics turn out not to be infertile, it's
simply they haven't been doing anything likely to result in conception. So
these couples, presumably doing something which other people would count as
'not sex' (no penetration, no ejaculation, whatever), consider it to be, to
them, 'sex'.
Lesley Hall
lesleyah@primex.co.uk
___________________________________________________________________ Date: Wed, 24 Mar 1999 12:58:45 -0800
From: "David D. Leitao" <dleitao@sfsu.edu>
Subject: charioteers
I too found Leah Himmelhoch's description of her work on charioteers in
Greek poetry fascinating. I have a possible parallel from the ancient
Greek world to suggest (cf. David Greenberg's reference to Near Eastern
parallels). The ancient Greek city of Thebes had a special military band
called the "Sacred Band" which tradition claimed was composed of 300 male
lovers and their male beloveds. It is hard to know how much stock to put
in this tradition (frankly, I am skeptical). What is interesting, in the
contexst of Leah Himmelhoch's work, is that this Sacred Band (whatever its
actual composition) was probably the same as the Theban band of 300 (=150
pairs?) "charioteers and sidemen" (heniochoi kai parabatai) mentioned by
the historian Diodorus (12.70.1). Did Thebes' "homosexual" military band
derive from a more archaic aristocratic tradition of charioteers and their
riders? The evidence from the Near East which David Greenberg alludes to
may be of some help here. A brief discussion of the Theban "charioteers
and sidemen" may be found (for those who are interested) in J.K. Anderson,
_Military Theory and Practice in the Age of Xenophon_ (Berkeley 1970).
------------------------------------------------------------
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
___________________________________________________________________
From: "Greg Reeder" <reeder@sirius.com>
Subject: Re: charioteers
Date: Wed, 24 Mar 1999 17:26:08 -0800
This ancient Egyptian New Kingdom poem from my web
page at : http://www.egyptology.com/extreme/mehy/
may be about ancient egyptian same-desire and the charioteer.
The male speaker has been contemplating beauty or his female love. He
journeys on
a road where he meets the charioteer Mehy . The speaker is afraid that Mehy
will discover "his turnings" but cannot pass him because the river is the
only other path. He is afraid that if he blurts out to Mehy that " I am
thine" that Mehy will throw him in with the rest of his male " hareem (?)"
more like military academy)
What is interesting is that among Egyptologists there has been disagreement
about
whether the speaker is a man or woman.
My heart purposed to see its beauty,
Sitting within it.
I found Mehy a-riding on the road,
Together with his lusty youths.
I knew not how to remove myself from before him.
Should I pass by him boldly?
Lo, the river is the road,
I know not a place for my feet.
Witless art thou, O my brave heart, exceedingly,
Why wilt thou brave My?
Behold, if I pass before him,
I shall tell him of my turnings;
Behold, I am thine, I shall say to him,
And he will boast of my name,
Allotting me to the first-come hareem
of some one among his followers.
A.H.Gardener, The Library of A. Chester Beauty,
The Chester Beauty Papyri, No. 1 (London: Oxford University Press, 1931).
As pointed out to me by Christian E. Loeben:
Mathieu ( see B.Mathieu, La poésie amoureuse de l'Égypte ancienne -
Recherches sur un
genre littéraire au Nouvel Empire, BdE 115, Cairo: IFAO, 1996.)
shows that the poem is an " "obstacle episode", the
lover is hindered to see and go to HER, because he encounters the two
possible obstacles: a - the topographical one (the river) and b - the
social one (Mehy will invite him to join his group and he then cannot say
'no' ... due to "group dynamic reasons", just like colleagues going to have
a beer together after work and you feel obliged to join them although you
would love to do something entirely different ...)."
At least Mathieu appears to have a coherent theory as to the meaning of the
poem.
Of interest her is Robyn Gillam's presentation at ARCE in LA last April.
Her paper was " The Mehy Papers: Text and Lifestyle in Translation" where
she dealt with all the different translations of this poem including
Mathieu's. Her conclusion was that interpretation of this poem is colored by
the viewpoints of the translators and it is still inconclusive just what
the poem means. Gardiner saw a woman being hassled by lusty youths,
White sees lusty lovers.
I encourage an examination carefully Gardiner's hieroglyphic transcription.
( easy access at
http://www.egyptology.com/extreme/mehy/mehyhier.gif )Consider the origin
of the Chester Beatty Papyrus owned by two drinking buddies at Deir el
Medina who also
collected, on the other side of this very papyrus, the Tale of Horus and
Seth, who's chief ribald account is the sexual intercourse of the two male
deities. And as you examine the hieroglyphs used in these love poems pay
attention to the word plays and choices made of just which words to use.
>From ( what Gardiner calls lusty youths "meriw" to the word for shout or
boast....swh determined by the Seth animal. ). It is a visual as well as an
oral verse.
And consider another fragment ( from Thebes ?) that mentions Mehy and
importantly Mehy's connection to love.
DM 1079
Beer is sweet,
when I sit at his side
[ and my] hands have not been far away.
The wind blows
as I say in my heart,
"_____...with sweet wine.
I am given of [love (?)]."
...
My voice is hoarse from saying,
"(King) Mehi! Life,prosperity, health!"
He is in his fortress.
It is possible that a "homosexual" culture existed in the military of the
ancient Egyptian Thebes as well.
Greg Reeder
reeder@sirius.com
http://www.egyptology.com/
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Wed, 24 Mar 1999 20:37:42 -0400
From: Leah Himmelhoch <lhimmelhoch@mail.wesleyan.edu>
Subject: Charioteers
I apologize if this is the second time for this particular posting, but the
first try was rebounded back to me...Leah
>These comments about charioteers are especially interesting in view of
>texts from the ancient Near East suggesting that the relationship between
>the chariot driver and the chariot rider might sometimes be a sexual one.
>Regretably I don't have citations to particular texts at hand. - David
>Greenberg, Sociology Department, New York University.
I think you are on to something very important, and if you could come up
with some of these citations (on your own time, of course), that would be
most appreciated. In Greek poetry, there seems to be a regular,
homo-erotic element between the chariot rider (in Greek poetry, the senior
fighter and the chariot's owner) and the chariot driver (the younger male,
often coming-of-age, the clearly less-experienced fighter). It's worth
keeping in mind that in the *Iliad*, Patroklos was Akhilleus' charioteer,
and that the relationship between the hero Diomedes and his charioteer,
Sthenelos, is VERY close (see especially book 5, v. 243: 'Son of Tydeus,
Diomedes, you who delight my heart' (Tudeide Diomedes emoi kecharismene
thumoi). This element becomes especially interesting in later, lyric
poetry. But it's also significant in epic, given the chariot's symbolic
ties to poetic immortality, (kleos aphthiton, undying fame) - a connection
which my dissertation firmly identifies. For those of you who are not as
involved in the study of Greek Literature, the hero's acquisition of
immortality through song, that is, 'kleos', is a DOMINANT theme in Greek
poetry. The reason why this is so very interesting in terms of the
homo-erotic relationship between the chariot-rider and the chariot-fighter,
then: the relationship between Akhilleus and Patroklos SPURS ON (pardon
the pun) the *Iliad* itself; without Akhilleus' love for Patroklos,
Akhilleus would never have returned to battle and guaranteed his own death,
and, as a result, the *Iliad* itself, a poem which celebrates Akhilleus'
deeds in life and thereby serves as his immortality, would never have been
written/sung. The text of the *Iliad* makes it rather clear that
Akhilleus' immortality in song is largely, if not almost entirely, due to
his relationship with his charioteer.
Talk about validating a male-to-male relationship (perhaps sexual, perhaps
not, but certainly INTENSE).
For the record, even though the *Iliad* itself makes no real mention of the
sort of relationship Akhilleus and Patroklos had, later Greeks believed
that they were lovers. My personal feeling is that, given the culture in
which the text was written and in which, theoretically, the characters were
'living', the burden of proof lies with those interested in claiming their
relationship was NOT erotic. The text does not need to be explicit about
their relationship if the audience's cultural assumptions are already at
work. Personally, I don't NEED Akhilleus and Patroklos to be lovers, nor
do I think the text needs it, but the fact that so many people go to such
great lengths to prove that they AREN'T strikes me as 1) being pure
homophobia, and 2) missing the point. If you have to argue the sexual
point one way or the other, the chances are greater that they are or have
been erotically involved at some point, than not. Some people make a great
deal about the fact that the text clearly describes Patroklos and Akhilleus
sharing their respective beds with the occasional female, and that
Akhilleus himself states that he would be interested in marrying a female
spear-captive, Briseis. But people who focus upon these details are
assuming that the presence of one type of relationship necessarily excludes
the presence of another (a fallacy). Such an argument also ignores the
fact that Akhilleus and Patroklos lived in a non-monogamous culture (for
enfranchised men, anyhow). Sure, you only MARRIED one woman, but you could
sleep with dozens (usually slaves or non-citizens of some sort). And let's
not get into who else you could be sleeping with. But anyhow, the women
Akhilleus and Patroklos are sleeping with in the *Iliad* are their slaves,
and as their possessions, they are there to be 'used' (a disturbing concept
to modern minds, but that's the way it was). It makes sense that the 'use'
of a female slave would be expressly mentioned in this poem precisely
because of its aggrandized, heroic context: we see heroes with incredible
wealth, eating lots of exotic stuff like meat and fine imported wine,
owning and using lots of slaves (and, literarily speaking, slave-women are
the ideal 'symbol' of the masculine acquisition of wealth). In other
words, the express mention of the 'use' of a female slave does not imply
that there is no other sort of sexual activity going on; it's a symbol of
power and wealth (with a smattering of virility mixed in). Again, if the
audience's cultural context is such that they are already assuming an
erotic relationship between Akhilleus and Patroklos, it need not be spelled
out.
Oh, btw, I enjoyed your book, David Greenberg!
Cheers,
Leah Himmelhoch
___________________________________________________________________
From: MillerJimE@aol.com
Date: Wed, 24 Mar 1999 23:05:27 EST
Subject: Re: Seeking artwork depicting Hercules with either Hylas or Iolaus
I would second the suggestion to go to the Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae
Classicae, but this is available only in some large libraries. Also as you
requested sculptures you may find few representations of Herakles and Hylas or
Iolaus. I know of none off hand, but there are many vase paintings of
Herakles with one or the other. These vase paintings can be found in
various books on Greek vase painting or in TH Carpenter's Art and Myth in
Ancient Greece.
Jim Miller
In a message dated 03/24/1999 7:51:11 AM Central Standard Time, andrei-
f@goplay.com writes:
<< I am presently engaged in enlarging the art collection of the
Androphile Project ( http://www.androphile.org ) and I am looking for
any surviving classical sculpture of Hercules with one of his male
lovers, or any more recent depiction of the subject. If anyone is
aware of the existence of such works I would be very grateful to hear
of it. >>
___________________________________________________________________
From: "Rictor Norton" <norton@rictor.freeserve.co.uk>
Subject: Re: charioteers
Date: Thu, 25 Mar 1999 13:31:24 -0000
In _The Myth of the Modern Homosexual_ I argue that a very large group
of words for the receptive homosexual male began life as `favourite
servant' and by a process of evolution went down the scale until they
became synonyms for "catamite" etc. That is, many words which we now
say *only* describe receptive homosexuals originally described *all*
homosexuals irrespective of sex/gender role. One example may be
girsequ, meaning chamber palace servant or charioteer (in the Code of
Hammurabi, c. 1725 BC). Greenberg in _The Construction of
Homosexuality_ describes these men as the receptive partners, but in
the Sacred Band of Thebes the charioteers, heniochoi, were the older
and active partners of their younger companions, the paraibatai.
Charioteers are high-status persons, and it is odd to think of the
ancient astrological charioteer, girsequ, as a catamite rather than a
hero.
Some ancient writers say that Laius initiated pederasty when he became
enamoured of Pelops's son, Chrysippus, whom he seized and placed in his
chariot, and then fled to Thebes. The chariot seems to be more than an
incidental feature of this myth. (The "active" homosexual would be the
charioteer in this instance.)
King Minos is supposed to have had a charioteer as his beloved. (In
this instance the charioteer apparetly took the passive role.)
An ancient Egyptian poem describes the love relationship between the
speaker (a man) and the charioteer Mehy. (The Love Songs of the Chester
Beatty Papyrus I, Third Stanza). Some early English translators
incorrectly construed the speaker as a woman, apparently believing that
such strong emotions could only be heterosexual.
It's interesting to note how the famous chariot race in _Ben Hur_ is
used to characterize the relationship between Ben Hur (the Jewish
charioteer who would seem to play the active role) and Messala (the
Roman soldier who would seem to play the passive role) (at least in
Gore Vidal's subversive screenplay).
Incidentally, I don't think there is any doubt about the existence of the
Sacred Band of Thebes and the male pair-bond for which they were famous.
Their participation in various battles between 371 and 338 B.C. is
documented, and we know the names of some of them (e.g. Epiminondas), and
their mass gravemound at Chaeronea certainly exists. They consisted of 300
pairs, i.e. 600 men.
--
Rictor Norton
mailto:norton@rictor.freeserve.co.uk
http://www.infopt.demon.co.uk/rcnorton.htm
___________________________________________________________________
From: SusanDara@aol.com
Date: Thu, 25 Mar 1999 15:38:25 EST
Subject: flower garden & bordellos
Hello all,
I have been a member on this list for about a month now and am thrilled to see
how helpful everyone has been to those who post. I know have a question to
ask for anyone who can help.
I can't seem to remember where or when I first heard about images of flower
gardens / flower beds being used as a code to represent bordellos and houses
of ill-repute. Does anyone know where this came from or is it a convention
that is used in the Northeast USA.
Any help will be greatly appreciated.
Susan
___________________________________________________________________From: JNKATZ1@aol.com
Date: Thu, 25 Mar 1999 15:44:04 EST
Subject: Laius citations?
Re Laius, can you give us some reliable scholarly citations for the info about
Laius?
I'm interested because Boulton or Park (I forget which) is compared to Laius,
and I'll be mentioning this in passing in my next book. Thanks. Jonathan Ned
Katz
Rictor Norton said:
Some ancient writers say that Laius initiated pederasty when he became
enamoured of Pelops's son, Chrysippus, whom he seized and placed in his
chariot, and then fled to Thebes. The chariot seems to be more than an
incidental feature of this myth. (The "active" homosexual would be the
charioteer in this instance.)
___________________________________________________________________
Subject: RE: flower garden & bordellos
Date: Thu, 25 Mar 1999 17:04:42 -0800
From: "andrei-f" <andrei-f@goplay.com>
I know nothing about the symbology of flower beds vis-a-vis
bordellos, but I stumbled across an interesting etymological tid-bit:
The fellow telling me the story claimed that some French king ordered
houses of ill repute to be placed close to the water's edge, so that
the ladies could wash more often. And in French, 'by the water' is
'au bord de l'eau' hence 'bordello.'
Has anyone else heard this one?
Andrei
___________________________________________________________________
From: "Rictor Norton" <norton@rictor.freeserve.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Laius citations?
Date: Fri, 26 Mar 1999 09:22:27 -0000
Jonathan Ned Katz asks for scholarly citations for the info about Laius.
I'm not a classical scholar, and my most accessible source is Robert Graves,
_The Greek Myths_, Section 110, subsection (g). For example, he summarizes:
"Laius, when banished from Thebes, was hospitably received by Pelops at
Pisa, but fell in love with Chrysippus, to whom he taught the charioteer's
art; and, as soon as the sentence of banishment was annulled, carried the
boy off in his chariot, from the Nemean Games, and brought him to Thebes as
his catamite." Graves cites Apollodorus, iii. 5. 5; Hyginus, _Fabulae_ 85
and 271; Athenaeus, xiii. 79. Pelops marched against Thebes to recover
Chrysippus, but decided to forgive Laius, "recognizing that only an
overwhelming love had prompted this breach of hospitality. Some say that
Laius, not Thamyris, or Minos, was the first pederast; which is why the
Thebans, far from condemning the practice, maintain a regiment, called the
Sacred Band, composed entirely of boys and their lovers." Citations for this
are: Hyginus, _Fabulae_ 85 and 271; Plutarch, _Theseus_ 6; Aelian,_Varia
Historia_ xiii. 5.
In accordance with the White Goddess theory, Graves suggests that Chrysippus
was a royal surrogate sacrificed in a chariot crash (a large part of the
myth concerns a chariot race between Pelops and Myrtilus, the charioteer who
also loved Hippodamia, which formed the basis of the Olympian games), an
annual event to reinstate the sacred kingship (i.e. Pelops). The 50 or 60
sources for the stories of Pelops are full of obviously symbolic references
to chariots and charioteers and bloody chariot races. The royal chariot
represents the sacred year, it wheels being solar discs etc. Graves says
this myth "became confused with a justification of Theban pederasty", but in
my book _The Homosexual Literary Tradition_ I argue that all these myths
about the ritual sacrifice of the boy-surrogate in place of the sacred king
are *integrally* homoerotic. Apollo was a solar charioteer, with loads of
boyfriends, many of whom died "accidentally".
The story of Laius and Chrysippus was fairly well known and alluded to in
poetry and in accounts about Oedipus and the Sphinx. (The Sphinx being sent
to Thebes by Hera as vengeance for this abduction by Laius, father of
Oedipus. [Tying in with the feminist psychoanalytical view that
homosexuality is "pre-Oedipal".]) It would probably be recognized by most
Victorian gentlemen with their education in the classics, which would
account for it being mentioned in the context of Boulton and Park, the drag
queens and occasional prostitutes. (Though any analogy would be pretty
far-fetched! Perhaps Laius became an epithet for "queer", though usually all
such epithets implied effeminacy, whereas Laius was quite masculine.)
--
Rictor Norton
mailto:norton@rictor.freeserve.co.uk
http://www.infopt.demon.co.uk/rcnorton.htm
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 26 Mar 1999 13:28:29 -0500 (EST)
From: "David F. Greenberg" <dg4@is3.nyu.edu>
Subject: girsequ
Message-ID: <Pine.OSF.3.95.990326132454.16498O-100000@is3.nyu.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Histsex:For historians of sexuality - http://homepages.primex.co.uk/~lesleyah
A day or two ago Rictor Norton raised a question about the sexual role of
the girsequ (I am omitting an accent over the u, signifying that the vowel
is super-long). There are very few texts describing the sexual activities
of the girsequ. The only one I know of is an apodictic omen saying that if
a man has intercourse with one, his cares will leave him. The word was
borrowed from Sumerian into Akkadian, and most often used to designate a
domestic servant or attendant in a palace or temple. There are a couple of
passages in which the girsequ is in a chariot with the king. That the word
could also be used to designate a prepubescent male may suggest something
of the sexual roles they played, when they did so. - David Greenberg,
Sociology Department, New York University.
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 26 Mar 1999 17:13:38 -0500 (EST)
From: michael sibalis F <msibalis@mach1.wlu.ca>
Subject: Bordello
Message-ID: <Pine.3.89.9903261716.A19599-0100000@mach1.wlu.ca>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Histsex:For historians of sexuality - http://homepages.primex.co.uk/~lesleyah
The notion that bordello comes from "au bord de l'eau" is entertaining but
totally mistaken. (In any case, bordello is an Italian word; the French
is "bordel.") The French word "bordel" derives from medieval French
"bordeau," which means "cabin" or "hut" and that word is derived from
the old French word for the boards of which the cabin was constructed.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Michael D. Sibalis
Associate Professor
Department of History
Wilfrid Laurier University
Waterloo, Ontario
CANADA N2L 3C5
(519)-884-0710 ext. 3141
msibalis@mach1.wlu.ca
___________________________________________________________________ Date: Sat, 27 Mar 1999 00:23:55 +0100
From: "Giovanni Dall'Orto" <giovanni.dallorto@iol.it>
Subject: RE: bordellos
In 17.04 25/03/99 -0800, hai scritto:
>The fellow telling me the story claimed that some French king ordered
>houses of ill repute to be placed close to the water's edge, so that
>the ladies could wash more often. And in French, 'by the water' is
>'au bord de l'eau' hence 'bordello.'
>>Has anyone else heard this one?
One should always be very suspicous about any such "cute" explanations for
word etimology. In most cases they are but what is called "volksetimologie"
(folk etymologies), such as, for instance, "homosexual" from latin "homo"
(man) and "sexualis" (whereas it comes from greek "Homoios" (same) and late
latin "sexualis").
Furthermore, suspicion should have arosen by noticing that the purpoted
etymology only works with the Italian word "bordello", whereas the French
word is "bordel". Cela ne pouvait pas marcher, donc!
My pocket etymology dictionary tells me it comes from ancient French
"bordel", = "hut", "small house", which in turn came from romance "borda" =
"hut made of wood planks", in its turn from ancient German "bord", "plank".
Please compare Italian "casino", originally: "piccola casa" (= small
house), that in common parlance today means just "brothel" (up to the point
that Italian "fare casino" = French "faire bordel" = both "to make a lot of
noise").
Best wishes.
Giovanni Dall'Orto (Milano, Italy).
---------------------------------------------------------
Giovanni Dall'Orto - Via Ruggero Bonghi 12 - I 20141 Milano (Italy) - Tel.
(+39) 0289512182
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Sat, 27 Mar 1999 18:44:20 +0000
From: aquarius@well.com
Subject: ISO "Regained Potency"
I am preparing a presentation on Islam and homosexuality, and I am
researching the link
between impotency for heterosexual sex (in men) and the loss of male
status. I believe
that a lack of sexual potency with women has been the primary marker of
homosexual
men as a type in various cultural contexts including Islamic ones. My
website about
eunuchs being homosexual men rather than castrated men is at
http://www.well.com/user/aquarius
I am looking for a particular book cited in Fatna Sabbah's _Woman in the
Muslim
Unconscious_ (New York: Pergamon, 1984, p. 23, note 4).
The Arabic title according to Sabbah's transliteration is "Ruju'
al-shaykh ila sabah
fil-quwwa ala al-bah," which she renders as _How An Old Man Can Regain
His Youth
Through Sexual Potency_. I have read in the Encyclopedia of Islam that
"shaykh" is a
common euphemism for "eunuch" starting in the tenth century CE/fourth
century AH.
Sabbah quotes the author as follows about the purpose of his book:
"I have written this book, but my aim in doing it is certainly not to
play a part in inciting
debauchery or encouraging sin; my aim is not to help the voluptuary who
violates the
commandments or makes licit what Allah has declared to be illicit. My
aim is to come to
the aid of him whose desire does not result in the achievement of that
which is permitted
and which is the source of populating the earth and increasing the
race..."
Of course, this person whose desire is inadequate to populating the
earth perfectly
matches the heterosexually-impotent homosexual.
Sabbah says this book is available in the Middle East in bookstores and
on stands in
front of masjids, "costs about sixty cents and is the work of the
'savant of the century,
unique in his time, the honorable Mawla Ahmad Ibn Sulayman, famous under
the name
of Ibn Kamal Pasha, who died in the year 940 of the Hegira'" (i.e. about
1534 CE).
She says selections from the book were translated and published in Paris
in 1979 under
the title "Le livre de la volupté pour que le vieillard recouvre sa
jeunesse" (Editions
Sycomore). There was a two-volume English translation by Charles
Carrington,
published in Paris in 1898 under the title "The Old Man Young Again."
Neither of these
translations is available at UC Berkeley, my source for obscure
literature.
Does anybody on this list have any idea how to get hold of this
ubiquitous book which
is so hard to find in translation?
Mark Brustman
___________________________________________________________________
Date: 28 Mar 1999 11:48:49 -0000
From: Histsex:For historians of sexuality <histsex-owner@listbot.com>
Subject: Re: ISO 'Regained Potency'
While I don't know the details about the Islamic context, I'd be rather
cautious about subsuming all 'defects' of male sexuality to homosexuality.
My own work on male impotence and related disorders in C19th-C20th Britain
suggests that the stigma of and anxieties about being 'less than a man'
through sexual dysfunction were powerful in their own right. (See my 1991
book from Polity Press, _Hidden Anxieties_.) As Angus McLaren suggests in
_The Trials of Masculinity_ (1998 U Of Chicago Press) 'normal' masculinity
is defined in contrast with a range of transgressive/defective
masculinities. The idea of impotence with women as signifying
homosexuality sounds the sort of thing that was being propounded in the
USA and to some extent the UK around the 1950s as a result of the more
popular rescensions of Freudian thought.
Lesley Hall
histsex-owner@listbot.com
lesleyah@primex.co.uk
___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
From: "Lesley Hall" <lesleyah@primex.co.uk>
Subject: Fw: ISO 'Regained Potency'
Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1999 19:37:50 +0100
From: Rictor Norton <norton@rictor.freeserve.co.uk>
To: Histsex:For historians of sexuality <histsex-owner@listbot.com>
Date: 29 March 1999 19:16
Subject: Re: ISO 'Regained Potency'
>>Lesley Hall says: "The idea of impotence with women as signifying
>homosexuality sounds the sort of thing that was being propounded in the
>USA and to some extent the UK around the 1950s as a result of the more
>popular rescensions of Freudian thought."
>The equation of gay men and eunuchs has been a popular prejudice for
centuries.
In _Satan's Harvest Home_, 1749, the mollies were called "eunuchs": "unable
to please the Women, [they] chuse rather to run into unnatural Vices one
with another, than to attempt what they are but too sensible they cannot
perform". Exactly how men are supposed to be able to perform with men when
they could not perform with women is never made clear. Or we should say is
never really thought about: in most cases it's simply a homophobic epithet.
Men construed specifically as non-effeminate sodomites were also said to
take up with boys because they could not perform with women.
There is also the more ancient charge, e.g. found in the 5th-century _De
morbis chronicis_ (Latin translation by Caelius Aurelianus of a Greek
medical work of the 2nd century), that old men who cannot perform
penetrative sex with women offer themselves to men for insertive sex.
Actually, it's a bit more complicated than that, because the text makes it
clear that the man's *sexual orientation* has changed, that he's not simply
making the best of a bad job: "But in the case of old men who have lost
their virile powers, all their sexual desire is turned in the opposite
direction and consequently exerts a stronger demand for the feminine role in
love." This is not a world away from the "third-sex" theory popularized in
the 1890s-1930s.
This kind of thinking in the 1950s was really the fag end of a long
tradition.
--
Rictor Norton
mailto:norton@rictor.freeserve.co.uk
http://www.infopt.demon.co.uk/rcnorton.htm
___________________________________________________________________
Date: 29 Mar 1999 18:58:27 -0000
From: Histsex:For historians of sexuality <histsex-owner@listbot.com>
Subject: RE: ISO 'Regained Potency'
Rictor Norton comments:
>Exactly how men are supposed to be able to perform with men when
>they could not perform with women is never made clear. Or we should >say
is
>never really thought about: in most cases it's simply a homophobic
>epithet.
Possibly a characteristic confusion caused by general reluctance to
contemplate the subject. Very muddled thinking about sex is something that
crops up persistently.
While this concept of defect/deficiency is clearly recurrent, aren't
rhetorics of 'excess' also used to account for behaviours defined as
sexual deviant? Or indeed, both are sometimes concatenated: as in Acton's
'worn-out debauchee' incapable of 'normal' satisfactions who seeks out
'nameless vices'
Lesley Hall
histsex-owner@listbot.com
lesleyah@primex.co.uk
And might I remind contributors to the list to make sure that they are
posting their messages to histsex@listbot.com and not to me
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1999 11:59:16 +0000
From: aquarius@well.com
Subject: Re: ISO 'Regained Potency'
Some excerpts from my website Born Eunuchs http://www.well.com/user/aquarius and
a comment, in response to this statement from Lesley Hall:
Lesley Hall writes:
> While this concept of defect/deficiency is clearly recurrent, aren't
> rhetorics of 'excess' also used to account for behaviours defined as
> sexual deviant? Or indeed, both are sometimes concatenated: as in Acton's
> 'worn-out debauchee' incapable of 'normal' satisfactions who seeks out
> 'nameless vices'
>
Comment:
While one can find descriptions of homosexuals as excessive as well as
deficient, one must ask upon whom these labels can be applied so that they even
make sense. Certainly some homosexual men could be called (by certain prejudiced
observers) both excessive and deficient, but a man who is bisexually capable and
active could certainly not be called deficient, although he could be called
excessive.
Thus it seems as though two types of homosexuality are being lumped together
here under "sexual deviance": Homosexuality in which the subject is also capable
of enjoying heterosexual sex, and homosexuality in which the subject is turned
off by or impotent with the opposite sex.
By calling homosexuality merely a range of actions rather than an orientation,
we are left with no way to differentiate between these two subjects. The
exclusive homosexual is merely an ordinary person who hasn't had the occasion to
have heterosexual sex, it would seem. His or her lack of lust for the opposite
sex is irrelevant in this view.
Mark Brustman
Excerpts:
"Aristotle warns that boys allowed to indulge in anal intercourse will grow to
like it, 'and some will become 'unmanly' [anêboi] from birth and
'nonreproducing' [agonoi] due to an imperfection of the reproductive organs; in
the same way, women can also become 'unwomanly' [anêboi] from birth.' (History
of Animals, VII 1.5-6)
"The fourth-century Sicilian astrologer Firmicus Maternus said that Mercury and
Saturn together ascendant in a feminine sign 'make eunuchs, that is males
without semen and who cannot have sex [coire], obscene, disreputable, impure,
lewd, homosexual men [cinaedos].' (Mathesis, III 9.1)
"A waning Moon from Venus to Saturn in nocturnal makes 'either sterile men, or
eunuchs, or high priests of Cybele, or hermaphrodites, or in any case such which
are compelled by the heat of miserable lust to play the passive role of women.'
(Mathesis III 6.22)
"An ascendant in terms of Saturn in nocturnal 'makes impure, lewd, sordid men
and those involved into sinful acts by miserable lust and those [i.e. eunuchs]
who cannot approach natural sex but who are taken by the inverted fury of lust
against nature.'" (Mathesis V 2.11)
___________________________________________________________________
From: "Lesley Hall" <lesleyah@primex.co.uk>
Subject: Re: ISO 'Regained Potency'
Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1999 21:55:46 +0100
Re Msrk Brustman's comment:
>Thus it seems as though two types of homosexuality are being lumped =
together here under "sexual >deviance": Homosexuality in which the =
subject is also capable of enjoying heterosexual sex, and >homosexuality =
in which the subject is turned off by or impotent with the opposite sex. =
Refer to my previous posting and comments on confusion: coherence and =
consistency are often not the most outstanding features of definitions =
of sexuality, though historians do try to impose it with greater or =
lesser success. This was the point I was making.=20
Lesley Hall
lesleyah@primex.co.uk
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Tue, 30 Mar 1999 12:16:06 +1000
From: Ivan Crozier <s9801550@pop3.unsw.edu.au>
Subject: homosexuality and impotence
This is the second time I have sent this (technical dramas). DO not
distress if you get it twice!
This kind of thinking was also around in the German sexological
tradition: Albert von Schrenck-Notzing mentions that homosexuality is
often looked at as a form of impotency, because some homosexual men were
incapable of being sexually aroused by women (usually as cases of
auto-suggestion). S-N does not specify that old men were necessarily
the cases involved; Acton, as Lesley has noted, does on the other hand
specify about "vile old wretches," esp. in the first twenty or so pages
of _Functions and Disorders..._, 4th ed, 1865. This was also propounded
by Krafft-Ebing, who suggested that some men turn to paedophilia as it
is the only thing to 'excite their flagging powers'. Sorry I do not
have the S-N ref on this computer (it makes a particular argument about
impotence which I found interesting), but its in Schrenck-Notzing,
_Suggestiontherapie_. 1892, trans GC Chaddock, 1895. Obviously, this
does not undermine Rictor's point, but provides a further tradition for
this kind of thinking.
Cheers, Ivan
Ivan Crozier,
School of STS,
UNSW, Sydney, 2052,
Australia
email: i.crozier@unsw.ed.au
>>Lesley Hall says: "The idea of impotence with women as signifying
>homosexuality sounds the sort of thing that was being propounded in the
>USA and to some extent the UK around the 1950s as a result of the more
>popular rescensions of Freudian thought."
>The equation of gay men and eunuchs has been a popular prejudice for
centuries.
In _Satan's Harvest Home_, 1749, the mollies were called "eunuchs":
"unable to please the Women, [they] chuse rather to run into unnatural
Vices one with another, than to attempt what they are but too sensible
they cannot perform". Exactly how men are supposed to be able to perform
with men when they could not perform with women is never made clear. Or
we should say is never really thought about: in most cases it's simply a
homophobic epithet.
Men construed specifically as non-effeminate sodomites were also said to
take up with boys because they could not perform with women.
There is also the more ancient charge, e.g. found in the 5th-century _De
morbis chronicis_ (Latin translation by Caelius Aurelianus of a Greek
medical work of the 2nd century), that old men who cannot perform
penetrative sex with women offer themselves to men for insertive sex.
Actually, it's a bit more complicated than that, because the text makes
it clear that the man's *sexual orientation* has changed, that he's not
simply making the best of a bad job: "But in the case of old men who
have lost their virile powers, all their sexual desire is turned in the
opposite direction and consequently exerts a stronger demand for the
feminine role in love." This is not a world away from the "third-sex"
theory popularized in the 1890s-1930s.
This kind of thinking in the 1950s was really the fag end of a long
tradition.
Rictor Norton
And from Lesley Hall:
Possibly a characteristic confusion caused by general reluctance to
contemplate the subject. Very muddled thinking about sex is something
that crops up persistently. While this concept of defect/deficiency is
clearly recurrent, aren't rhetorics of 'excess' also used to account for
behaviours defined as sexual deviant? Or indeed, both are sometimes
concatenated: as in Acton's 'worn-out debauchee' incapable of 'normal'
satisfactions who seeks out 'nameless vices'
Lesley Hall
___________________________________________________________________
From: "Lesley Hall" <lesleyah@primex.co.uk>
Subject: Fw (from Crozier): ISO 'Regained Potency'
Date: Tue, 30 Mar 1999 15:20:13 +0100
From: Ivan Crozier <s9801550@pop3.unsw.edu.au>
To: Histsex:For historians of sexuality <histsex-owner@listbot.com>
Date: 30 March 1999 02:01
Subject: Re: ISO 'Regained Potency'
It was excatly the kinds of differentiation between varieties of
homsexuality (bisexuality, exclusive homosexuality, etc) which Mark
Brustman described (see below) which are germane to the development of
sexology. More and more labels, of increasing specificity, can be
thought to typify the sexological work of Krafft-Ebing and others, and
these detailed categories of sexual behaviour were attempts to replace
many of the older categories, such as linking homosexual desire with
psychical impotence with the opposite sex (which, it would seem, has
been around since Aristotle). Furthermore, the undifferentiated aspect
of the term which Brustman identified is precisely the kind of attitude
that was taken by the law and forensic medicine in the nineteenth
century (while the detailed schema of sexual types was being constructed
by Krafft-Ebing and Tarnowski amonsgst others in Germany and Russia).
Sodomy was the crime; nothing to do with a variety of desire. The
reaction to this attitude was perhaps one of the motors which drove the
sexologists to look for specificity in sexual desire, in order to escape
the kinds of simplistic understandings of sexuality which were
maintained by legal systems and the like. However, such attempts are
not always successful, and still homosexual exists as a term which fails
to capture the complexity of human sexual relations.
For two really nice collections of essays on the development of
sexology, see both Lucy Bland and Laura Doan, eds, _Sexology in
Culture_, Chicago, 1998, and Vernon Rosario, ed, _Science and
Homosexualities_, NY and London, 1997. Many essays contianed in these
collections opine on the kinds of issues Brustman raised.
Cheers, Ivan
Ivan Crozier,
School of STS,
UNSW, Sydney, 2052,
Australia
email: i.crozier@unsw.edu.au
>"While one can find descriptions of homosexuals as excessive as well as
>deficient, one must ask upon whom
>these labels can be applied so that they even make sense. Certainly some
>homosexual men could be called (by
>certain prejudiced observers) both excessive and deficient, but a man
>who is bisexually capable and active could
>certainly not be called deficient, although he could be called
>excessive.
>>Thus it seems as though two types of homosexuality are being lumped
>together here under "sexual deviance":
>Homosexuality in which the subject is also capable of enjoying
>heterosexual sex, and homosexuality in which
>the subject is turned off by or impotent with the opposite sex.
>>By calling homosexuality merely a range of actions rather than an
>orientation, we are left with no way to
>differentiate between these two subjects. The exclusive homosexual is
>merely an ordinary person who hasn't had
>the occasion to have heterosexual sex, it would seem. His or her lack of
>lust for the opposite sex is irrelevant in
>this view."
>>Mark Brustman
>>
___________________________________________________________________
Subject: Un- expurgated Greek myth
Date: Tue, 30 Mar 1999 09:10:07 -0800
From: "andrei-f" <andrei-f@goplay.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Tue, 30 Mar 1999 12:10:27 +0000
From: aquarius@well.com
Subject: Impotency and Homosexuality
Here are some more examples of nineteenth century sexologists called impotence
with or revulsion to the opposite sex a defining characteristic of
"homosexuality":
Karl Maria Benkert (1869):
"... along with the normal-sexual drive of all of humanity and of the animal
kingdom, Nature appears in its sovereign caprice to have also provided, in both
man and woman, the homosexual drive to certain male or female individuals at
birth; to have conferred on them a sexual constraint which makes the one
afflicted by it both physically and mentally incapable of achieving a
normal-sexual erection, even with the best of intentions, thus it implies a
sheer horror of the opposite sex, and makes it likewise impossible for those
afflicted by this passion to escape the impression that certain individuals of
their own sex exert upon them."
Karl Ulrichs (Memnon: The Sexual Nature of the Man-Loving Urning, 1868):
Ulrichs (p. 63) considered a feeling of horror about sexual contact with women
to be one of the sufficient defining traits of an "urning," although he noted in
a footnote that "this horror is apparently not always to be found. But where it
is present, it is defining."
Richard von Krafft-Ebing (1892):
"In its full expression, it consists of the condition that the man feels himself
in a female role vis-à-vis the man, and the woman feels herself in a male role
vis-à-vis the woman; accordingly each one is attracted to persons of their own
sex and possesses an inclination to have intercourse with them, while persons of
the other sex have a psychosexually repulsive effect."
Sigmund Freud (1905):
Freud described the "absolutely inverted" as follows: "They are absolutely
inverted; i.e. their sexual object must always be of the same sex, while the
opposite sex can never be to them an object of sexual longing, but leaves them
indifferent or may even evoke sexual repugnance. As men they are unable, on
account of this repugnance, to perform the normal sexual act or miss all
pleasure in its performance."
Now a couple more ancient citations:
Hippocrates (Airs, Waters, Places 22):
Hippocrates, in his medical survey of the peoples of the world, said the
Scythians had a habit of accidentally making themselves impotent by slicing
certain conduits located behind their ears: "Consequently, when they come into
the presence of their wives, they do not perhaps worry about it at first, but
when after the second and third and more attempts, the same thing happens, they
conclude that they have sinned against the divinity whom they hold responsible
for these things. Then they accept their unmanliness and dress as women, act as
women, and join work in their toil." For this reason, he says, the Scythians are
known as "the most eunuchoid of all human beings."
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."
If it is true, and I believe it is, that most human beings have the "natural" or
genetic capacity to experience lust with both sexes, then the exceptions to the
norm are those who for some reason are not attracted to one sex, and
particularly noticeable are those who are not attracted to the opposite sex.
This is why the nineteenth century sexologists noticed this phenomenon. They
were trying to say that restrictive laws against sodomy should not be applied to
those who have no other choice in their sexual expression, because they are
naturally turned off by the opposite sex. The unfortunate thing is that they
then pathologized homosexual desire by claiming that it was a symptom of this
condition, when really it was only the exclusivity of the homosexual desire that
was characteristic of their research subjects. But the prevailing Victorian
Christian moral climate, to which they were subject, could not admit that
homosexual desire was a natural trait in almost all human beings. So they said
homosexual desire was a symptom of the homosexual's condition.
Mark Brustman
> Histsex:For historians of sexuality - http://homepages.primex.co.uk/~lesleyah
>> From: Ivan Crozier <s9801550@pop3.unsw.edu.au>
> To: Histsex:For historians of sexuality <histsex-owner@listbot.com>
> Date: 30 March 1999 02:01
> Subject: Re: ISO 'Regained Potency'
> It was excatly the kinds of differentiation between varieties of
> homsexuality (bisexuality, exclusive homosexuality, etc) which Mark
> Brustman described (see below) which are germane to the development of
> sexology. More and more labels, of increasing specificity, can be
> thought to typify the sexological work of Krafft-Ebing and others, and
> these detailed categories of sexual behaviour were attempts to replace
> many of the older categories, such as linking homosexual desire with
> psychical impotence with the opposite sex (which, it would seem, has
> been around since Aristotle). Furthermore, the undifferentiated aspect
> of the term which Brustman identified is precisely the kind of attitude
> that was taken by the law and forensic medicine in the nineteenth
> century (while the detailed schema of sexual types was being constructed
> by Krafft-Ebing and Tarnowski amonsgst others in Germany and Russia).
> Sodomy was the crime; nothing to do with a variety of desire. The
> reaction to this attitude was perhaps one of the motors which drove the
> sexologists to look for specificity in sexual desire, in order to escape
> the kinds of simplistic understandings of sexuality which were
> maintained by legal systems and the like. However, such attempts are
> not always successful, and still homosexual exists as a term which fails
> to capture the complexity of human sexual relations.
>> For two really nice collections of essays on the development of
> sexology, see both Lucy Bland and Laura Doan, eds, _Sexology in
> Culture_, Chicago, 1998, and Vernon Rosario, ed, _Science and
> Homosexualities_, NY and London, 1997. Many essays contianed in these
> collections opine on the kinds of issues Brustman raised.
>> Cheers, Ivan
>> Ivan Crozier,
> School of STS,
> UNSW, Sydney, 2052,
> Australia
> email: i.crozier@unsw.edu.au
> >"While one can find descriptions of homosexuals as excessive as well as
> >deficient, one must ask upon whom
> >these labels can be applied so that they even make sense. Certainly some
> >homosexual men could be called (by
> >certain prejudiced observers) both excessive and deficient, but a man
> >who is bisexually capable and active could
> >certainly not be called deficient, although he could be called
> >excessive.
> >> >Thus it seems as though two types of homosexuality are being lumped
> >together here under "sexual deviance":
> >Homosexuality in which the subject is also capable of enjoying
> >heterosexual sex, and homosexuality in which
> >the subject is turned off by or impotent with the opposite sex.
> >> >By calling homosexuality merely a range of actions rather than an
> >orientation, we are left with no way to
> >differentiate between these two subjects. The exclusive homosexual is
> >merely an ordinary person who hasn't had
> >the occasion to have heterosexual sex, it would seem. His or her lack of
> >lust for the opposite sex is irrelevant in
> >this view."
> >> >Mark Brustman
> >> >>> ___________________________________________________________________
Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1999 00:34:10 +0200
From: "Giovanni Dall'Orto" <giovanni.dallorto@iol.it>
Subject: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Cherchez_le_p=E9d=E9?=
Mark Brustman wrote:
Here are some more examples of what nineteenth century sexologists called
impotence with or revulsion to the opposite sex a defining characteristic
of "homosexuality":
Karl Maria Benkert (1869):
Karl Ulrichs (Memnon: The Sexual Nature of the Man-Loving Urning,=20
1868):
Richard von Krafft-Ebing (1892):
Sigmund Freud (1905):
(omissis)
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
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 <underline>answer</underline> (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. <underline>Cherchez le p=E9d=E9</underline>, really!=20
:)
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
___________________________________________________________________
From: MillerJimE@aol.com
Date: Tue, 30 Mar 1999 20:22:52 EST
Subject: Re: Impotency and Homosexuality
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." >>
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1999 13:08:25 -0500 (EST)
From: "David F. Greenberg" <dg4@is3.nyu.edu>
Subject: Re: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Cherchez_le_p=E9d=E9?=
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. This can 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
On Wed, 31 Mar 1999, Giovanni
Dall'Orto wrote:
> Histsex:For historians of sexuality - http://homepages.primex.co.uk/~lesleyah
> > Mark Brustman wrote:
> > > Here are some more examples of what nineteenth century sexologists called
> impotence with or revulsion to the opposite sex a defining characteristic
> of "homosexuality":
> > > Karl Maria Benkert (1869):
> > Karl Ulrichs (Memnon: The Sexual Nature of the Man-Loving Urning,
> 1868):
> > Richard von Krafft-Ebing (1892):
> > Sigmund Freud (1905):
> > > (omissis)
> > > ============
> > > 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 <underline>answer</underline> (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. <underline>Cherchez le pédé</underline>, 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 18:28:42 +0000
From: aquarius@well.com
Subject: Re: DFG's reply to GD'O
David F. Greenberg wrote:
> Histsex:For historians of sexuality - http://homepages.primex.co.uk/~lesleyah
>
> 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.
Well that just reinforces the point, doesn't it, that these nineteenth century
scientists did not themselves "construct" homosexuality as an innate
characteristic?
> This can 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
>
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. In classical antiquity this thing was constructed as the lack
of desire for the opposite sex and the wish to play the "role" of the opposite sex
with one's own sex. In the nineteenth century, the desire to have sex at all with
one's own sex was defined as part of this phenomenon. Then in the twentieth
century, the sole focus has been on the homosexual desire, and the lack of
heterosexual desire has been completely passed over.
Yet I argue that it is this lack of heterosexual desire, or more precisely the
lack of desire for women when it occurs in men, and the lack of desire for men
when it occurs in women, that really defines these groups in biological terms.
Mark Brustman