‘Male homoerotic relations in history’

Janes, Dominic

Abstract

This chapter explores male homoerotic desire, whether idealised, romanticised, visualised or physically enacted. Male homoerotic practices and relations have sometimes been structured around notions of difference between two males who were thought to be respectively masculine and feminine, active and passive, free and slave, or older and younger. The last pairing was particularly important in classical European antiquity where it was, typically, regarded as compatible with heterosexual marriage and reproduction. This should alert us to the fact that many societies across the globe have not viewed male homoerotic relations according to the set of sexualised identities that emerged from nineteenth century western medical science, and which have since been contested by gay liberationists and queer activists. Western imperial practice has produced an abundance of evidence concerning the legal and religious regulation of ‘sodomy’. This invites comparison with records from other cultures which have often been, in their various ways, more positive in their attitudes to same-sex desire. The chapter, therefore, includes a consideration of globally diverse patterns of male homoerotic relations that acknowledges the complexity of cultural responses to same-sex desire.

Citation

Janes, D. (in press). ‘Male homoerotic relations in history’. In M. E. Wiesner-Hanks, & M. Kuefler (Eds.), The Cambridge World History of Sexualities (252 - 272). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108895996.013

• Acceptance Date: Sep 23, 2022
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Pages: 252 - 272
• Book Title: The Cambridge World History of Sexualities
• Chapter Number: 12
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108895996.013
• Public URL: https://keele-repository.worktribe.com/output/424418
• Publisher URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/cambridge-world-history-of-sexualities/male-homoerotic-relations-in-history/7B62B3366694826A954A9F9E27FE6E2C
• Additional Information: Publisher: Cambridge University Press; Expected online publication date: March 2024; Print publication year: 2024; Online ISBN: 9781108896078