7/ I JUST SOLVED IT!!! It's amazing what thoughts one has on the loo!
Homosexuality depends upon one partner being *submissive*, right?
So - IT ONLY HAPPENS IN HIERARCHICAL SOCIAL ENVIRONMENTS!!!
Specifically, PATRIARCHAL!!! What I was saying about British (male only) private boarding schools, for example. Or the army, even.
Or, indeed, 'primate' social groups. So now we remember what I said about homo sapiens living in egalitarian societies let's say between 300kya and 10kya - then we give way to patriarchies. Some 'men' are dominant, some are submissive.
What was really, really, really interesting in that essay was their citation that the prevalence of lesbians is so much lower than poofs.
But in egalitarian societies, it probably wouldn't happen, other than let's call it 'natural variance' (amounting to no more than 1-2% - so it wouldn't have any impact whatsoever on group or individual survival - the group as a whole wouldn't care less, so long as it didn't involve 'forcing oneself on another member of the same sex' - related to 'child abuse' which would result in ostracism anyway).
Like I said, 1-2% of a population in, say a group of Dunbar's number 150, doesn't even register. So for the vast majority of human existence, was there ever even any homosexuality? It has no bearing on group or individual survival. Having between 1.5 and 3 gay blokes in a social group would be irrelevant and probably unnoticed. If those gay blokes are effeminate then they'd display 'socially beneficial' traits like intuition, sensitivity, social decision-making ability, rhythm on the dance floor - would those types not become shamans? Medicine men? Mystics and poets and storytellers?
Would they even think of themselves as 'gay' in the modern sense of the word? No, they wouldn't - they'd think of themselves as 'capable of heightened empathy towards members of their own gender' - and that, I venture, really is a group survival benefit.
So, once again, we think about the 'manifestation' of 'non-hetero' in a particular social environment, as opposed to the 'being' homo (which is, in the end, just a random variance of the sexuality bit of the brain). So I say, in those prehistoric societies homo-ness would've had a very different outlet for expression - whereas in more modern societies, hierarchical societies, those sorts of roles are entirely different, and thus the social expression of homo-ness is far more *fitting somewhere into the patriarchal caste system* if you see what I mean.
So, yeah - maybe we have solved your initial question about why what we would see as 'homosexuality' is largely absent from indigenous societies in the (north) Americas? If they were smaller social groups, and they didn't have hierarchies in the same way modern western societies do, and were far more gender-egalitarian, then, well, there we go.
I do so love your articles and the stuff you come out with - you always, without fail, get my brain going, and that is something I value and appreciate more than I can say. Thank you xx
Holy smokes, Evelyn, I think you might be right. According to the book I cited, homosexuality has been linked to mounting behaviour, which served double-duty in some mammals, such as dogs. It has to do with reproduction, but also dominance.
Your theory makes sense. You might have just solved the riddle.
5/ the nature of sexual attraction. The sexuality bit of the brain isn't really about 'male' or 'female'.
This is why there is such variety in the types to which people are attracted. Like, I don't know, gentleman prefer blondes.
Let's look at the varieties of sexual attraction in non-hetero types. Some (alleged) lesbians like butch dykes. I can't understand those people as lesbians because they're attracted to masculine characteristics. Surely a lesbian would be attracted to the feminine?
Gay boys - attracted to 'effeminate' type, or butch, buff type?
Hetero-blokes - attracted to plumptious child-bearing hips and fat-bottomed girls or lithe, athletic types?
How about 'sense of humour'?
See where I'm going with this? Likewise, because fMRI has shown that 'sexuality' and 'gender identity' are entirely unrelated (in terms of brain configuration), and both are subject to epigenetic influences, sexuality is unrelated to 'male' or 'female', but rather it's to do with 'attracted to a particular visual type' and, here we go with the REALLY SEXY BIT!!! it's either 'dominant type' or 'submissive type'. Under 'normal' circumstances 'males' are 'dominant' (penetrative) and 'women' are 'submissive' (receptive).
But!!! We know that 'sexuality' is different to 'gender' so what we're talking about here is a 'combination' hypothesis - you can have 'male + dominant type' (let's say 98% of males), 'male + submissive type', 'female plus dominant type' (very rare - maybe lesbian?) and 'female submissive type' (equally 98% of females? - I'm this one, btw, but that's different from being *socially* submissive - important point there). Those statistics seem ok to me.
Since proto-humans lost most of their hair, even 'males' would've appeared with female characteristics.
I'll make that one number 6/ when homo erectus (lol) started losing body hair, obviously women would've been the first to lose it by virtue of lack of testosterone levels, but then, gradually, the men do too, some more than others. So, they seem a bit 'effeminate' thus leading to...
Obviously it's a little bit outdated by now, and most of it is utter rubbish because of points I have previously made. 1/ 'mutations' do not have a purpose or intention behind them.
That's the most important bit. But let's add another misconception in the essay. 2/ sexuality is not genetic. I can 'kind of' forgive the authors since they were writing 20 years ago so they (presumably) had no idea about cascade mutations or epigenetics (the word 'epigenetic' was not, I believe, mentioned one single time), although they did sort of imply it in their somewhat infantile discussion of the aetiology of non-hetero. But then they continue by assuming it has some genetic cause and also a 'purpose'.
So now let's go to 3/ Homo behaviour (i.e. sexual relations with another bloke). It seems a bit weird what they actually say here. I mean it's all so contradictory! Also, primate sexuality with intra-group dominance-roles doesn't apply at all to pre-historic homo sapiens (let's say between 300kya-10kya end of ice age). We have to remember Dunbar's number. 150. This number is a direct evolutionary adaptation to life within a group of 150 individuals. They will be evenly gender-distributed, they will not have a hierarchy, so there will be no 'struggle for internal dominance' (yeah - I think we both agree about the socio-anarchist/egalitarian view here, right? I bloody hope we do anyway). Therefore, there is ZERO evolutionary adaptation survival advantage explanation even remotely applicable for the existence of non-hetero sexuality. ZERO.
Imagine: let's say 20 tribes of each 150 members within a given area, meaning 3,000 people. They gather together at various times of the year to party, exchange information, knowledge, innovations, and of course the adolescents get high and mate. The elders notice and simply decide which group (his or hers) the couple live with. Homosexuality simply doesn't even register.
So now let's add 4/ the one thing they didn't think about!!! DIFFERENT HORMONE LEVELS BETWEEN MALES AND FEMALES AND DIFFERENT FUCKING CYCLES!!!
Male sexual desire is governed by something called 'testosterone'. It makes them want, physiologically, to shove their cock inside some channel and pump up and down until they ejaculate. But testosterone production is such that this happens - in adolescents at least - EVERY FUCKING DAY!!! That's why they masturbate.
Will they be *allowed* to fuck someone every day? I don't think so. Women, remember, have menstrual cycles. Like, 'it's my fucking period so don't you fucking come near me!!!'. Equally 'can't you fucking tell i'm in my third trimester!!!'
Hopefully something is clicking in your head by now. Yes - the existence of male homosexuality, I venture to suggest, is simply a product of the DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE MALE AND FEMALE REPRODUCTIVE CYCLE.
It doesn't serve any survival purpose at all, it just happens. A bloke has no access to a female so, well, that anus looks inviting, so, here we go.
Then again, we also have 5/ sexual attraction is not male or female, it's visual. To be continued...
total agreement about the socio-anarchist/egalitarian view. I believe that this matter is settled. The only people who argue against it seem to be sketchy political agendas, often non-specialists such as Harari, Pinker, and Diamond.
I will mention that female sexual arousal as it pertains to the menstrual cycle is not as clear-cut as you're making it out to be. Some women get super horny immediately before their period, possibly seeking a cascade of hormones to catalyze menstruation. This is something I've observed, seemingly inversely correlated with PMS.
Ok - I am one paragraph in to the essay and the underlying flaw sticks out like a pair of maternal boobies.
Here it is: "Clearly such genes [for homosexuality] must possess some adaptive advantage otherwise they would have disappeared from the genome."
And here we have the ENTIRE flaw in the whole of evolutionary theory. Namely, the idea that *only* genes or mutations which have an 'adaptive advantage' end up remaining in the genome.
No, no, and no again! Here is how it works. We can look at mutations in three different categories - 1/ mutations which do lead to a survival advantage (for the individual within its own lifetime, NOT for the species), 2/ mutations which have a distinct disadvantage, but more importantly 3/ mutations which have no effect whatsoever on survival.
Once you understand that, evolution becomes very clear. Adaptations/mutations do not happen with any purpose in mind. They just happen. Some turn out to be beneficial. Others, detrimental. But most, neither. Evolution, without a (conscious) external interference, has no teleological consciousness.
1/ it is obvious that 'survival advantage adaptations' are going to stand out. Likewise, 'survival disadvantage adaptations' will not be noticed (or they stand out equally obviously in a newborn, hence 'exposure to the elements, or crocodiles' or 'shoving out of the nest' etc.). But it's the number 3 category above which is often ignored. And it's this category which, I would say, is the most interesting, because that's what creates variety.
We can think about it this way: if evolution only produced 'survival advantages' then, given that there is always a logically 'best' option, then evolution would tend towards homogeneity, not variety (a master race, even). Take butterflies, for example. There would only be one colour and pattern of butterflies if that view of evolution was true. The reason there are so many varieties is not because there are so many varieties of 'optimum', but because so many of them do not create a survival *disadvantage*. So those varieties survive. Same for human beings - why do we have different eye colours? no reason. Different cultural identities and ways of doing society? no reason.
Any study of nature must take this into account. Fish is another one - why isn't there only one type of fish? Rhetorical question.
So, homosexuality is neither an advantage nor a disadvantage. Why? because such males can still fertilise women. Sterility as a mutation, now yes, that is clearly a survival disadvantage (but we do see a lot of males today with, say, lazy sperm or other defects. Same for some women, actually - it happens). But even these types are not a survival disadvantage from the social group's point of view (or the species, even), because they can still help the group to survive (and likewise, in alloparenting groups, look after children and teach them skills etc.).
There is, in other words, ZERO evolutionary reason for non-hetero (or even non-cis) mutations - 'it just happens'. Evolution does not have a *purpose* to it. It just happens. Some mutations turn out to be advantageous so they get reinforced and become prominent. Some die out. But all the rest - that's what creates diversity. One could say, overall, that it's never a case of 'survival of the fittest' but rather 'survival of anything that doesn't significantly impair survival chances'. Hence the variety of nature.
And as far as I am concerned, there really is far more grandeur in that view of life, than in some quasi-fascist view.
Obviously I haven't read the rest of the essay yet, but I felt compelled to get that out of my system.
Ok - my educational background. That requires quite a long and personal answer. I have some degrees (philosophy, German, and literary translation; then I did a PhD which I didn't complete because I had a shit supervisor; my thesis was going to be about ancient philosophy and reincarnation and ethics and stuff like that).
Since then, I have simply voraciously learned stuff on my own kind of thing. I just have a kind of pathological need to know. There's a lot of psychology involved.
Actually, now I think about it (and looked her up) my memory seems to have been jogged a bit - I'm sure I had heard of her. I have no memory of when though! Well, I've bookmarked some stuff, so I look forward to that.
I had not heard of Antonia Mills actually. I just looked her up, however, and I should thank you yet again for introducing me to her work - I am going to have to explore that in detail so it's now in my to-do list!
I can understand why I wouldn't have heard of her before, though, because my PhD was mainly looking at the (classical Greeks) pre-Socratic philosophers (with a bit of ancient Egypt thrown in). Pythagoreanism, that kind of thing. In other words I was confining myself to a sort of European/Mediterranean context. I am sure though that if I'd been able to complete my thesis and then start working in academia then I would definitely have encountered Mills at some point, as it's kind of obvious that there's a tradition of reincarnation beliefs outside of the European tradition. For a thesis though, you sort of have to confine it to one specific area or subject.
In particular I was going to relate it to ethics, in the sense of 'how does a belief in reincarnation alter a person's ethical outlook?' The obvious first response concerns a lack of a fear of death, and a continuous 'responsibility' beyond one's own lifetime - compared to the monotheistic view that you only have one lifetime, which does not, I would argue, lead to greater responsibility to the world around you or other people etc. Especially when they have 'cop outs' like 'follow these commandments and you'll go to heaven'.
Anyway, there's obviously an entire thesis in there! I get the impression that first nations people, in general at least, do have a more spiritual view of the world and that this provides the kind of responsibility to look after the land and each other, and treat other lifeforms with respect etc. - this is the sort of thing that I was ultimately wanting to highlight - namely the importance of a belief system in shaping one's ethical and moral decisions. Clearly the European tradition has not led to decency!
I finally got round to watching your interview - what a lovely woman. That's so very sad about her diagnosis - but, well, given the fact of reincarnation, I am sure she will be fine (and young again soon enough).
The next thing I was going to ramble on about was that I think you're definitely onto something there with the epigenetics.
Another fairly new/emerging understanding in evolutionary theory is that 'mutations' in genes actually happen as a 'cascade' - and this is how complex changes can take place in an organism. Also, the more complex the organism, the more cascades there are. The reason is because, for example, each of the organs in a human body (or parts of the brain, if we're talking neuroscience) are governed by an entire sequence of genes (thousands of them) - so if one of them mutates, it causes a kind of domino effect, because each of those genes in that specific sequence is 'interdependent'. So this is how something as complex as the human eye, for example, can evolve. Human sexuality would probably be similar to that, because it's not a simple thing - plus of course, the less simple something is, the more variety there can be.
Some evolutionary theorists have posited the idea that evolution itself 'evolves' to become more 'intelligent' in terms of these cascades and the interdependency of genetic sequences. In the sense that evolution becomes more 'efficient' with these mutation-sequences. I tend to concur. There are some papers on this but I'd have to go on a hunt to find them (and I seriously doubt you'd want to wade through them).
So, with regards to epigenetics, this is where the 'social environment' influence on evolution happens. How this relates to non-hetero stuff, however, is an interesting quesion, and I would suggest that 'social bonding' is a perfectly reasonable explanation, as you have yourself suggested.
In this, what we have to distinguish here is 'how it manifests itself socially' - bonding, after all, doesn't have to mean 'sex'. Really close male friendships are a good example. Likewise, as you said, girls practicing kissing. We sort of see this kind of thing in primates too don't we, in the form of 'grooming'.
So, if we distinguish 'same sex intimacy' from the more modern (and western world) manifestation of 'gay' then we may have solved our question I think. You see, my kind of instinctive objection comes from the knowledge that non-hetero sexuality is simply a product of brain development, not a choice. fMRI scans do show specific areas of the brain associated with sexuality, for example. As such, there should be a fairly uniform prevalence of non-hetero brain development across human social groups (and animals too, for that matter - that's one thing I forgot to mention before - there are indeed examples of homosexuality in the animal kingdom!) - what is different, however, is the way in which that manifests - and that's a social question, not an evolutionary question. Unless of course we say that social evolution is an epigenetic phenomenon.
I do think you are right about the anal sex thing - there would be a taboo about that simply because it's gross and unhygienic and, well, because it hurts, basically (yeah, I know some people like that but hetero-sex can also cause some 'nice' pain given the relative penis-vagina sizes - but not in the same way as anal sex, which is a different kind of pain). In such a case of social taboo, the naturally homosexually inclined would not express it in the distinctly modern (or classical) way of gay sex (let alone gay pride marches ffs!). It would be expressed in some more, perhaps subtler, social bonding way.
Lesbians are another matter entirely. I think it's always probably been much easier to be a lesbian than a gay bloke. Here's another fun fact about the Victorians - there was no law against being a lesbian because Queen Victoria refused to believe that lesbians existed! Totally true! Honest!
This is such a long article I'm going to have to tackle it in stages. I'm about a third of the way through, after your conversations with ChatGPT (I've done that too, by the way, and I've got a cool article about it lined up - I basically got it to be in full support of conspiracy theorists questioning the epistemic authorities for the purpose of preserving a free democracy! - it's so wonderfully childlike and innocent).
Could you ask it the same questions about 'documented cases of homosexuality' amongst European cultures in the past? All the variants of British and European Celts, for example. How about ice age peoples? How about the Maori? or Australian Aborigines? How about medieval social groups? Dark ages groups? The Hun? The Mongols? And so on, and so on. The point being that ChatGPT's point about 'absence of evidence' is a very good one, and can be applied to any illiterate society that doesn't really document itself. Here in the developed world we are used to having copious historical records - but even then, you would be hard-pressed to find documents relating to, say, instances of homosexuality in twelfth century London or Prague or Paris or Rome or whatever. You might find the odd one or two, but it's the fact that it's only one or two that makes it stand out - and it's nearly always associated with some 'other' transgression, not about homosexuality per se (sexual assault on a child, for example, or some clergyman caught with his frock down). Then there's that English King's lover who got the red hot poker up the arse treatment. That's definitely gonna put you off mentioning any non-hetero tendencies in public, eh?
The point being that it's not really the existence of non-hetero relationships which is being questioned here, but the different cultural attitudes towards documenting their own social history. And that is indeed a really interesting historiographical question. Likewise, there are so many social behaviours that are simply so taken for granted, without prejudice, that it simply wouldn't occur to anyone to document them. How about asking ChatGPT to tell you about documented cases of something else entirely. Like, I don't know, people claiming to be from another planet. Or men singing falsetto. Or a woman with a beard. Or, I don't know, my brain's not in the mood to think of decent examples right now.
In the same way, at this present time, we are perhaps suffering from a surfeit of social documentation regarding non-hetero stuff! Go back a hundred years and you don't get that. Ironically you'd have to go to Berlin if you wanted to find out what a trans person is. Talk to anyone in Quebec, say, a hundred years ago they'd look at you funny, and may not even believe it. 'You must be making it up!'.
Anyhow, I've still got two-thirds left, and other work I have to do, so I'll just say to be continued...
The sexual practices and attitudes of Australian Aboriginal societies prior to 1960 are not widely documented in detail, and much of what is known comes from the accounts of early anthropologists and missionaries. However, there are indications that homosexuality was present and practiced in various Aboriginal communities, though the specifics varied widely among different groups due to the diversity of Aboriginal cultures across Australia.
Cultural Diversity: Australian Aboriginal societies were (and still are) incredibly diverse, with hundreds of distinct language groups and cultural practices. This diversity means that attitudes towards and practices of homosexuality likely varied significantly from one community to another.
Anthropological Accounts: Some anthropologists and ethnographers who studied Aboriginal communities in the early 20th century documented instances of same-sex relationships and behaviors. For example, anthropologist Donald Thomson recorded instances of what could be described as homosexual relationships among the Yolngu people of Arnhem Land. Similarly, reports from other researchers indicate that ritualized homosexual behavior sometimes occurred in the context of initiation ceremonies or other rites of passage in certain Aboriginal groups.
Ritual and Initiation: In some Aboriginal cultures, same-sex activities were part of initiation rituals. These practices were often embedded within broader social and spiritual frameworks and were not necessarily seen in the same light as modern Western conceptions of sexual orientation. For instance, among some Central Australian tribes, young boys might engage in sexual activities with older men as part of their initiation into manhood. These practices were ritualistic and symbolic, aimed at transferring knowledge and social roles rather than forming permanent sexual identities.
Gender and Sexual Fluidity: Aboriginal societies often had more fluid understandings of gender and sexuality compared to the binary views that became dominant with European influence. Some groups recognized individuals who did not conform strictly to male or female roles, which could include people who engaged in same-sex relationships.
Impact of Colonization: The arrival of European settlers brought new social, religious, and legal norms that profoundly impacted Aboriginal societies. Christian missionaries and colonial authorities often condemned and sought to eradicate practices they viewed as immoral, including any form of non-heteronormative behavior. This led to a suppression of traditional practices and a shift towards the norms imposed by the colonizers.
Contemporary Understanding: Today, there is a growing recognition and reclamation of traditional practices and identities among Aboriginal Australians. Efforts to revive and honor the cultural heritage include acknowledging the historical presence and acceptance of diverse sexual orientations and gender identities within many Aboriginal communities.
In conclusion, while detailed and comprehensive documentation is limited, there is enough evidence to suggest that homosexuality and diverse sexual practices were present and, in some cases, culturally embedded within various Aboriginal societies in Australia prior to 1960. The degree of acceptance and the specific nature of these practices varied across different groups, reflecting the rich cultural diversity of Aboriginal Australia.
The traditional Māori society of New Zealand had complex and varied attitudes towards sexuality, including homosexuality. While detailed historical records specifically focusing on Māori views of homosexuality are limited, there is evidence to suggest that pre-colonial Māori culture exhibited a degree of tolerance and fluidity in matters of sexuality.
Cultural Context: Māori society, like many indigenous cultures, had a holistic view of life and did not necessarily categorize sexuality in the rigid terms that Western societies often do. Relationships and sexual behaviors were considered personal matters, and the focus was more on community harmony and social responsibilities.
Same-Sex Relationships: There are accounts and oral traditions that indicate the presence of same-sex relationships among the Māori. These relationships were not necessarily labeled or stigmatized in the way they were in European societies at the time. The Māori word "takatāpui" is a traditional term that has been revived to describe LGBTQ+ identities, reflecting that such concepts were known and acknowledged in pre-colonial times.
Acceptance and Roles: In some Māori communities, individuals who engaged in same-sex relationships were accepted and integrated into society without significant discrimination. Gender roles were also more fluid, allowing individuals to express a range of gender identities and sexual orientations. Some Māori legends and stories feature deities and heroes who exhibit gender fluidity and same-sex attractions, further indicating cultural acceptance.
Impact of Colonization: The arrival of European missionaries and colonizers brought new religious and legal frameworks that imposed stricter norms regarding sexuality. Christian missionaries, in particular, promoted heterosexual monogamy and condemned what they saw as immoral behavior, which included homosexuality. This led to a decline in the open expression and acceptance of same-sex relationships among the Māori.
Modern Revival and Recognition: In contemporary New Zealand, there has been a resurgence of interest in traditional Māori understandings of sexuality and gender. The term "takatāpui" has been embraced by many Māori as a way to connect with their cultural heritage while identifying as LGBTQ+. This revival is part of a broader movement to reclaim and celebrate indigenous identities and practices.
In summary, while direct historical documentation is limited, evidence from oral traditions, cultural practices, and the use of traditional terms like "takatāpui" suggests that homosexuality was tolerated and integrated into Māori society prior to European colonization. The influence of colonization introduced more rigid and negative attitudes towards homosexuality, but modern efforts are helping to revive and honor the more inclusive aspects of traditional Māori culture.
I do so love ChatGPT! That (and the Australians) is really fascinating. Just goes to show how important the cultural context is.
Maybe we might also suggest that all this 'culture/identity war' shit (woke and anti-woke) could only really happen in this Western cultural context. Seems to me like these more spiritually/earthly-minded indigenous societies simply didn't see any problem with it. I had thought that might be the case actually - if it doesn't pose any threat to the social group then why bother even worrying about it!
Interesting about the ritual aspects (I think some of those nefarious secret societies like skull and bones have similar initiation rituals, although in an unhealthy way designed for humiliation, not maturation).
It's interesting about the effect of colonialism - in the sense that it's the missionaries, with their rigid 'moral' code who just project their own 'values', and say such non-hetero practices are 'immoral'. Once we remember that the patriarchal, monotheistic ideologies (along with Statism in the form of an authoritarian hierarchy) were, on the most basic level, simply a means to achieve and maintain social control and subjugation of a population (partly by assigning fixed gender roles to men and women), then it's easy to understand how anything that does not conform (so called 'deviant') will be labelled as 'immoral', because the existence of 'other options for social behaviour or social organisation' would be perceived as a threat to their social control system, because the population might start to question their own social order ('other ways are possible'). This 'animosity towards the other' clearly has a long history - and I guess my version of 'feminism' is very much focussed on understanding authoritarian social systems as simply a mechanism of social control by a small minority group - so in that sense it doesn't have a 'basis in nature', it's purely arbitrary.
This is one of the reasons why I feel the need to passionately defend 'the other' - because I see those others as a kind of resistance to the 'ordained' norm, which only exists to subjugate. Also, given that being LGB etc. is not a 'choice' (although the social expression of it certainly is a choice), one of my fundamental moral or ethical principles is that 'you cannot impose a moral judgement on something that is not a matter of choice'. It would be like saying 'people with brown eyes are morally bad' - obviously your eye colour is not your choice. In such a situation the authorities would presumably force all the brown-eyed people to wear coloured contact lenses! It's a good analogy I think.
So yeah - I think this woke/anti-woke stuff really should be understood in the cultural context. But I think where I am with you on the issue is about bad people manipulating 'woke' for their own nefarious purposes (partly just to sow discord), and of course it's innocent children in particular who suffer. But now, with two-spirit, maybe they are also using it to subversively attack indigenous cultures (almost 'westernise' them) - which could perhaps be seen as yet another example of 'western colonialism' - to which I would naturally have very strong objections!
But I would also say it's vitally important to distinguish between the bad guys who are doing the subversion and the manipulation, and the innocent LGBT etc. people who are caught in the middle, used as sort of political footballs, and who, I can assure you, do not have an 'agenda' or an 'ideology' - in fact, I would imagine they really hate all the attention and just want to be left alone! I would say that a healthy society would be perfectly capable of accommodating people who are different, and would just go about its usual business without batting an eyelid. Because in a healthy society 'the other' is never a threat, but rather seen as an example of the fascinating variety of nature.
The historical record on the tolerance of homosexuality among the Huns is sparse and less documented than for some other ancient cultures. The Huns, a nomadic group that emerged in the 4th century and played a significant role in the decline of the Roman Empire, left few written records of their own, and much of what we know about them comes from the accounts of their adversaries and neighbors.
Sources and Historical Accounts: Most information about the Huns comes from Roman and Greek historians, such as Ammianus Marcellinus, Priscus, and Jordanes. These accounts focus primarily on the Huns' military activities, social structures, and interactions with other peoples, but they provide limited details about their sexual practices or attitudes towards homosexuality.
Cultural Practices: The Huns were a warrior society with strong emphasis on martial prowess, kinship ties, and loyalty. In many nomadic societies, social cohesion and alliances were crucial for survival. Sexual behavior, especially that which did not interfere with these social bonds, might not have been as rigorously policed as in some settled, agrarian societies.
Comparative Context: Looking at other nomadic and warrior cultures of the time can provide some context. For instance, some Scythian and Sarmatian tribes, who were also nomadic and had interactions with the Huns, exhibited a range of attitudes towards sexuality, often more relaxed compared to the strictures of Roman or Greek societies.
Lack of Direct Evidence: There is no specific evidence from the historical accounts that explicitly discusses the acceptance or rejection of homosexuality among the Huns. This absence of evidence means we must be cautious about making definitive statements. The silence in the records could imply that it was either not noteworthy to the Roman and Greek chroniclers or that it was not a significant issue in Hun society.
General Tolerance: Given the pragmatic nature of many nomadic societies and the primary focus on survival, loyalty, and martial capability, it is possible that personal sexual practices, including homosexuality, were tolerated as long as they did not disrupt the social order or the group's cohesion.
In conclusion, while there is no direct evidence detailing the attitudes of the Huns towards homosexuality, the broader context of nomadic societies suggests that they might have had a pragmatic approach to such matters. The lack of explicit condemnation or mention in the historical accounts could indicate that it was not a significant issue in their society.
Chat GPT:The historical record on the tolerance of homosexuality among the Mongols is not extensive, but there are some indications that attitudes towards homosexuality varied depending on the context and time period.
Social and Cultural Context: The Mongol Empire, which at its height in the 13th and 14th centuries was one of the largest contiguous land empires in history, was known for its relative tolerance and adaptability to different cultures and customs. The Mongols incorporated a wide range of peoples and traditions into their empire, often allowing local customs and practices to continue. This suggests a degree of pragmatism and tolerance in their governance, which could have extended to personal and sexual behaviors.
Historical Records and Sources: There are few direct references to homosexuality in primary Mongol sources. The Secret History of the Mongols, the oldest surviving Mongolian-language literary work, does not provide explicit references to homosexuality. However, other accounts, such as those by Persian historian Ata-Malik Juvayni and the 14th-century Moroccan traveler Ibn Battuta, offer glimpses into Mongol social life but do not explicitly discuss attitudes toward homosexuality.
Perspectives of Conquered Peoples: The Mongols were often described by the people they conquered. Some accounts from Islamic and Christian sources sometimes reflected the biases and moral judgments of those cultures rather than the actual practices of the Mongols. For example, the Persian historian Rashid al-Din mentions various aspects of Mongol life but does not provide specific details on their views on homosexuality.
Comparative Practices: In other contemporary cultures in Central Asia and among the nomadic Turkic peoples, attitudes towards homosexuality varied. In some Turkic and Persian societies, same-sex relationships were relatively common and at times celebrated in poetry and literature. It is possible that the Mongols, who had close interactions with these cultures, might have been influenced by similar practices.
Modern Interpretations: Some modern scholars suggest that the Mongols, like many other nomadic societies, may have had a more pragmatic and less dogmatic approach to sexual practices, focusing more on social cohesion and loyalty than on strict moral codes.
In summary, while there is no conclusive evidence that explicitly details Mongol attitudes towards homosexuality, the available historical and cultural context suggests that they might have been relatively tolerant, especially compared to the more rigid sexual mores of contemporary settled societies. The adaptability and pragmatic governance style of the Mongols likely allowed for a variety of personal behaviors, including those related to sexuality.
Yes, of course it's true that evidence of absence doesn't mean evidence of absence... perhaps it would be good to search for cases of incest, pedophilia and bestiality and see if there are reports of those in the historical record... it would be good to get a sense of how often accounts of prohibited sexual behaviour would have been written down.
I've heard that child prostitution was common during the Victorian era... was homosexuality also common? How about bestiality and incest? How much do we really know about how common such things are?
If bestiality is normalized in the future, will they look up on the 20th century and assume that everyone was fucking their pets? Will they assume that part of the reason people kept livestock was for sexual purposes? How would a future historian debunk this myth, if it came to be widely believed?
Listen, homosexuality is common in some cultures, that's a fact. It's huge in parts of the Middle East to this day, but people keep it hush-hush. Even if homosexual ideation is common, there's no reason to assume that homosexual behaviour is universal cross-culturally.
I think part of my point is that we need to keep in mind the difference between, say 'being' non-hetero, and 'socially expressing it'. Whilst the former is almost certainly pretty much the same small percentage throughout any human population (natural variation in brain development etc.) the social expression of it will massively vary (likewise 'repression' of it - such that one could go through their whole lives and never realise it, kind of thing, and get into marriages of convenience and such like).
Another thing which suddenly strikes me is that it may also depend on the size of the social group. If it's, I don't know, like 1% or something in terms of natural variance, then in a small tribe of say 1,000 people that's only 10 people (say, 5 gay boys and 5 lesbians - how awful for the one left out, eh!), and if it's socially unacceptable, then those 10 may not even be able to identify each other. In the modern world people just go to gay bars.
Similarly with 'trans' people - if the natural occurrence is only 1 in 10,000 people, then from a certain point of view you'd need a social group of at least 10,000 just to find one per generation. And no one would understand that person anyway (that person themselves might not either) - they probably wouldn't even have a word for it. They'd probably come up with some mystical (shamanic?) explanation for that person. So from that way of thinking it's likely we only end up seeing people who would be identified by modern anthropologists or historians as fitting into this 'LGBT-whatever spectrum' once we reach settlement sizes of, say, 100,000 - and that's relatively modern (in terms of human history). I think imperial Rome was the first city of a million people. 1 in 10,000 means 100 in the whole of Rome - and in Rome, they would've had ample opportunities for social expression (like prostitution or the theatre, darling). Eunuchs, yes, that's the chappie (or not, as the case may be).
I really like your point about the Victorians. With regards to bestiality and incest we're almost getting to the secret high level child abuse network. In the Victorian age (and earlier), there would've been zero protection from high level sexual predators or kidnapping and so on (just as any upper caste guy could rape a lower caste girl and never get prosecuted, let alone convicted). Then there's Freud saying 'it doesn't happen in middle class society, it's all in your mind' and muddying the waters when it comes to understanding sexual development.
I think the sickness of a society does have a big part to play in how non-heteronormative (I hate that word too, by the way, just so as you know) 'socially express themselves'. Perhaps from a certain point of view when we talk about these indigenous societies we're actually saying that they are more civilised and have a far healthier (psychologically) attitude towards human relationships. As such, maybe they didn't really ever think about non-hetero stuff. I don't know. I'm not an expert on those societies (I'm grateful for your articles about them by the way - I like knowing new stuff).
Ironically, I've just finished re-reading Brave New World, and there's a lot of sexuality in it of course, whereby promiscuity is seen as normal and civilised and monogamy is for 'savages'. It's interesting that there is zero mention of any non-hetero stuff in the book - I never noticed that before. Despite Aldous Huxley having gone to Eton! So he *must* have known about it!
the issue is nominalization of an action - like, can a person be straight and have homo-erotic encounters with members of the own sex? Depends who you ask. But a guy who has sex with men in prison isn't necessarily gay when he is released. Homosexuality, in this example, is an adaptation to a specific environment.
English is a very noun-based language, but indigenous languages were more verb-based. So even if a guy had sex with a guy, they wouldn't necessarily be considered gay, unless it became part of their identity.
Identity is really a function of the ego... and gay behaviour would need to nominalized (turned into a noun) before such a thing as a gay identity could exist.
In a verb-based language, it may have not occurred to people to base their identity on their sexual preference. Just saying. Gay identity isn't actually something heritable. Homosexual desires probably are, but identity-formation is its own thing, and is very culturally contingent.
Eton College - it's the top toff private school in England. British private schools are historically notorious for aberrant sexual behaviour (no girls, you see). And, of course, child abuse (physical, emotional, psychological and sexual) - and this should be borne in mind when we psychoanalyse all those 'socially important people' like the prime ministers who went to that school. Well, the entirety of the British Establishment, for that matter. And equally so, all those 'academics' in the Victorian era who pretty much founded all the modern academic subjects. There's an entire thesis in that.
wow! interesting! That's a juicy tidbit about George Orwell...
Residential schools definitely led to a lot of homosexuality amongst indigenous Turtle Islanders... Probably worth studying English boarding schools... seems like that would support my theory that homosexuality is caused by adaptation to certain environments.
Yes, Freud attributed female "hysteria" to "childhood sexual fantasies" involving father-daughter incest... Could it be that father-daughter incest was actually common amongst his clients in Vienna? AFAIK, this hasn't been disproven...
But yes, there is a lot of scholarship which has shown that in Freud's social milieu child abuse was very prevalent, and that Freud didn't want to accept it so he projected it onto his patients saying 'you're fantasising'. Freud himself and his siblings were all victims of serious abuse at the hands of his father. Freud essentially repressed that, and tried to 'excuse' it by coming up with his 'family romance' theory (the Oedipus complex etc.), projecting 'sexuality' onto children. I'm sure I don't need to explain how relevant that is to some of the 'issues of today', eh?
It has been historically difficult to discuss this aspect of Freud because Freud was Jewish, of course. Some people have, but, inevitably, they will often get accused (falsely) of anti-semitism.
I have been intending to do a much fuller essay about the Freudian Coverup, but I've got so much going on in my head these days!
Oh boy this has "deep dark rabbit hole" written all over it... Question, though, have you looked into the multiple personalities disorder / age regression hynotheraphy / Satanic ritual abuse triangle?
There is good evidence that therapists can uncover invented "childhood memories"... So if you want to get to the bottom of whether Freud uncovered widespread father-daughter incest in Vienna, you would have to be aware of False Memory Syndrome.
Yes, I have. This is probably not the place to start elucidating, though.
With regards to your comment below about 'false memory syndrome' - this is linked to the child abuse network/satanic abuse, but not in a good way. There is a 'false memory syndrome foundation' which was clearly founded in order to discredit victim statements of the most serious child abuse (including satanic abuse). The same applies to the so-called 'satanic panic' in the 80s - it was a deliberate set-up in order to discredit victims of the network.
According to Arthur Koestler, the Khazars viewed homosexuality as a great sin. Given that Khazars were very similar to Huns (culturally if not ethno-linguistically), I'm going to take a stab in the dark and say that the Huns weren't super-duper-Big Gay Al level tolerant... and that if there were gay Huns, they probably kept their cards close to their chests. Just guessing. If anyone's got proof of gay barbarian nomadic horse archers from the steppes of Central Asia, I'm all ears! No homo!
That is indeed highly amusing. I liked the Only gay eskimo song as well, especially when they start lampooning people.
I can, however, offer you something even more hilarious which you will probably have never heard of - from a British comedy sketch show called Little Britain - this video is a compilation of sketches featuring 'the only gay in the village'. Trust me, you're gonna love it.
I think that's an important point actually, especially when it comes to epigenetics.
Example: we know that exposure to increased sex-hormones (like oestrogen) in the womb can be a cause of 'gender incongruence' ('trans') - so if there is increased sex hormones in the water and food supply etc. then, yes, one would expect to see a greater prevalence of children with gender incongruence. Similar thoughts apply to other chronic conditions, like allergies, autism and such like (it's not just 'vaccines', there's industrial farming and pollution and so on as well).
So I do think that's a very important consideration. Good point there, Sir.
The most serious problem with soy formula is the presence of phytoestrogens or isoflavones. While many claims have been made about the health benefits of these estrogen-like compounds, animal studies indicate that they are powerful endocrine disrupters that alter growth patterns and cause sterility. Toxicologists estimate that an infant exclusively fed soy formula receives the estrogenic equivalent of at least five birth control pills per day. By contrast, almost no phytoestrogens have been detected in dairy-based infant formula or in human milk, even when the mother consumes soy products. A recent study found that babies fed soy-based formula had 13,000 to 22,0000 times more isoflavones in their blood than babies fed milk-based formula. Scientists have known for years that isoflavones in soy products can depress thyroid function, causing autoimmune thyroid disease and even cancer of the thyroid. But what are the effects of soy products on the hormonal development of the infant, both male and female?
Male infants undergo a “testosterone surge” during the first few months of life, when testosterone levels may be as high as those of an adult male. During this period, the infant is programed to express male characteristics after puberty, not only in the development of his sexual organs and other masculine physical traits, but also in setting patterns in the brain characteristic of male behavior. In monkeys, deficiency of male hormones impairs learning and the ability to perform visual discrimination tasks-such as would be required for reading-and retards the development of spatial perception, which is normally more acute in men than in women.
It goes without saying that future patterns of sexual orientation may also be influenced by the early hormonal environment. Pediatricians are noticing greater numbers of boys whose physical maturation is delayed, or does not occur at all, including lack of development of the sexual organs. Learning disabilities, especially in male children, have reached epidemic proportions. Soy infant feeding-which floods the bloodstream with female hormones that could inhibit the effects of male hormones-cannot be ignored as a possible cause for these tragic developments.
As for girls, an alarming number are entering puberty much earlier than normal, according to a recent study reported in the journal Pediatrics. Investigators found that one percent of all girls now show signs of puberty, such as breast development or pubic hair, before the age of three; by age eight, 14.7 percent of white girls and a whopping 48.3 percent of African-American girls had one or both of these characteristics. New data indicate that environmental estrogens such as PCBs and DDE (a breakdown product of DDT) may cause early sexual development in girls and a study in Puerto Rico implicated soy feeding as a cause of early menarche. The use of soy formula in the WIC program, which supplies free formula to welfare mothers, may explain the astronomical rates of early menarche in African American girls.
The consequences are tragic. Young girls with mature bodies must cope with feelings and urges that most children are not well-equipped to handle. And early maturation in girls is frequently a harbinger for problems with the reproductive system later in life including failure to menstruate, infertility and breast cancer.
Yeah, but there's a whole evil cocktail of shitty chemicals those cabal fuckers are putting into the water and food supply nowadays. And I wouldn't be surprised at all if they weren't shoving hormones in it too, precisely to 'pacify' the population, Brave New World style.
This is my two-thirds comment - I read what you wrote, but I've not read the essay you cited yet.
The first, and most obvious thing to say - which you do kind of obliquely accept - is that pretty much every evolutionary theorist has gotten the whole thing totally wrong. I don't just mean homosexuality. I mean evolution.
Part of the reason is because the modern subject of evolution arose at the height of the Victorian era by a bunch of overprivileged white Victorian men who thought that racism and fascism and the patriarchy and war and struggle for world domination etc. was 'normal'. Or rather, they needed to come up with a theory that said it was 'normal' and 'natural', so as to justify themselves and their way of life.
The same is true with their own sexually repressed nature (which, ironically, concealed an almost lurid obsession with sex and pretty brutal attitude towards it).
Today, this has morphed into the likes of Dawkins.
So here's the great colossal error made by 'evolutionary theorists' - it's the idea that there is a PURPOSE to every attribute or evolutionary development/change in an organism. Furthermore, the idea that 'the survival of the species' is paramount. In Dawkins' case he takes this to the extreme and thinks genes themselves have some kind of 'instinct' for self-preservation, some teleological consciousness.
Bollocks. A gene is just a complex set of chemicals (DNA - polynucleotides, I believe) which happens to produce a protein (another complex set of chemicals - polypeptides, I believe they're called) when triggered by another complex chemical molecule (RNA, also a nucleotide). And that's it.
Sometimes these chemicals change their structure on replication, in which case we get mutations.
Some of those mutations mean the organism dies before it reaches maturity (stage where it can reproduce) so it doesn't survive to become a new species.
Other times, some mutations do not hinder the maturation process meaning the organism can reproduce. If that mutation doesn't cause any problems then over time you have a species.
And remember - it's all about the survival of the individual organism within its own lifetime, not about the survival of the species. Individuals don't care about the species. Any mutation which doesn't endanger the survival of the individual organism's lifetime will 'survive', if reproduction happens. And reproduction is simply a logical necessity, not an imperative. Think about it this way - you can't have a 'species' without 'reproduction'.
But here's the point - there is zero purpose to any of these mutations. There is, in fact, no such thing as 'adaptation' - adaptation implies purpose - and that's nonsensical when we're talking about a bunch of chemical reactions. The entirety of evolution is a series of chemical accidents.
The rule is actually this: 'any mutation that does not prevent an organism from reproducing will survive'.
If you look at the sheer variety of characteristics of living organisms on the planet you'll see that the vast majority of those characteristics serve ZERO purpose. Especially not a survival purpose, whether for the individual or the species.
I would say non-hetero is just such a random variation that does not endanger the survival of the individual or the species. In some societies, sure, the expression of it will endanger their survival, but the 'being' of it (which they can't help and nature herself doesn't care about) is neither here nor there.
So that's the random lack of purpose aspect of evolution taken care of. Evolutionary changes 'just happen', they have no purpose. Any retrospective/hindsight appearance of purposeful adaptation is just that - appearance. Nothing more.
I think my basic point is that it only looks like evolution has an intention behind it when we focus on 'adaptations' (of the beneficial variety), rather than simply 'variety'. It's logical that some mutations will be really beneficial and stand out, whilst others which have only a neutral impact on survival will just kind of drift along, so to speak.
From the info you got from ChatGPT, it seems to me that the cultural context is key - if homosexuality isn't seen as a threat to the social order, then, if we assume it is simply tolerated and largely ignored, then we can see the homosexual mutation/variation as one of those 'neutral' varieties. Conversely, we can certainly imagine a cultural context in which it is seen as detrimental - in which case, we would expect to see such traits 'rooted out of the gene pool' so to speak (ostracism). Or at the very least, homosexuals would conceal themselves and 'act normal'. This was indeed largely the way things used to be in Western societies, say the Victorian era. So someone like Oscar Wilde really stands out, and then gets punished for it. So there's the deterrent effect.
I'd imagine that a lot of so-called trans people might feel the same today. 10 or 20 years ago no one seemed to make much of a fuss about it. Then, when the WHO finally re-categorised it so it's no longer seen as a mental illness/psychiatric phenomenon (disorder of sexuality), a lot of the radicals got upset, presumably because it fundamentally challenged their fixed ideas about gender. One might even say this was an entirely predictable consequence of the increasing ability to use fMRI (and other brain scanning techniques).
I think it's also kind of interesting from a social history point of view that the LGB issue in terms of 'rights' and 'tolerance' etc. was resolved, for the most part, before the advent of fMRI. Maybe also this is unfortunate, because rather than just 'continue in private', a lot of the LGB community have reacted to the previous prejudice and increased so-called 'liberalism' by demanding pride marches and all that silly stuff. I mean, I have nothing whatsoever against carnivals, but I'm not too keen on the in-your-face stuff.
"The first, and most obvious thing to say - which you do kind of obliquely accept - is that pretty much every evolutionary theorist has gotten the whole thing totally wrong. I don't just mean homosexuality. I mean evolution."
Ding, ding, ding, ding!!! We have a winner... maybe.
I am going to get into the weeds on this one eventually... The fact is that Darwinian ideas about Natural Selection will probably be partially overturned eventually... this is already happening with Sarah Hrdy's contributions (allo-parenting & cooperative breeding), which place more emphasis on kinship groups and less on the genetic fitness of individuals... this is nothing short of a revolution in evolutionary theory, and it isn't challenged by the Darwinians.
But there's more radical critiques as well... namely the Lamarckian heresy that individuals can pass on traits acquired in their lifetimes.
Lastly, there's the possibility that Dr. Lanka is right and genes serve metabolic functions and that we need to revisit our understanding of what DNA is.
I think we are definitely on the same page on this one. (Actually I just posted another comment about some new ideas in evolutionary theory). I do like what you have been saying about this Sarah Hrdy person - I think I'd like her very much.
Where I am though, on this side of the mighty Atlantic, it's getting to my bedtime again, so I shall bid you an adieu for now and do one of my classic 'to be continued's. I still have the third part of the article to read (the essay I mean) anyhow...
7/ I JUST SOLVED IT!!! It's amazing what thoughts one has on the loo!
Homosexuality depends upon one partner being *submissive*, right?
So - IT ONLY HAPPENS IN HIERARCHICAL SOCIAL ENVIRONMENTS!!!
Specifically, PATRIARCHAL!!! What I was saying about British (male only) private boarding schools, for example. Or the army, even.
Or, indeed, 'primate' social groups. So now we remember what I said about homo sapiens living in egalitarian societies let's say between 300kya and 10kya - then we give way to patriarchies. Some 'men' are dominant, some are submissive.
What was really, really, really interesting in that essay was their citation that the prevalence of lesbians is so much lower than poofs.
But in egalitarian societies, it probably wouldn't happen, other than let's call it 'natural variance' (amounting to no more than 1-2% - so it wouldn't have any impact whatsoever on group or individual survival - the group as a whole wouldn't care less, so long as it didn't involve 'forcing oneself on another member of the same sex' - related to 'child abuse' which would result in ostracism anyway).
Like I said, 1-2% of a population in, say a group of Dunbar's number 150, doesn't even register. So for the vast majority of human existence, was there ever even any homosexuality? It has no bearing on group or individual survival. Having between 1.5 and 3 gay blokes in a social group would be irrelevant and probably unnoticed. If those gay blokes are effeminate then they'd display 'socially beneficial' traits like intuition, sensitivity, social decision-making ability, rhythm on the dance floor - would those types not become shamans? Medicine men? Mystics and poets and storytellers?
Would they even think of themselves as 'gay' in the modern sense of the word? No, they wouldn't - they'd think of themselves as 'capable of heightened empathy towards members of their own gender' - and that, I venture, really is a group survival benefit.
So, once again, we think about the 'manifestation' of 'non-hetero' in a particular social environment, as opposed to the 'being' homo (which is, in the end, just a random variance of the sexuality bit of the brain). So I say, in those prehistoric societies homo-ness would've had a very different outlet for expression - whereas in more modern societies, hierarchical societies, those sorts of roles are entirely different, and thus the social expression of homo-ness is far more *fitting somewhere into the patriarchal caste system* if you see what I mean.
The Romans, for example, had a specific word for 'one who takes it up the arse'. I can't remember what the word is - ah 'cinaedus' that's it. This Wiki entry is illuminating: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_in_ancient_Rome
So, yeah - maybe we have solved your initial question about why what we would see as 'homosexuality' is largely absent from indigenous societies in the (north) Americas? If they were smaller social groups, and they didn't have hierarchies in the same way modern western societies do, and were far more gender-egalitarian, then, well, there we go.
I do so love your articles and the stuff you come out with - you always, without fail, get my brain going, and that is something I value and appreciate more than I can say. Thank you xx
Wow... that Wikipedia entry is really useful, thank you!
Holy smokes, Evelyn, I think you might be right. According to the book I cited, homosexuality has been linked to mounting behaviour, which served double-duty in some mammals, such as dogs. It has to do with reproduction, but also dominance.
Your theory makes sense. You might have just solved the riddle.
5/ the nature of sexual attraction. The sexuality bit of the brain isn't really about 'male' or 'female'.
This is why there is such variety in the types to which people are attracted. Like, I don't know, gentleman prefer blondes.
Let's look at the varieties of sexual attraction in non-hetero types. Some (alleged) lesbians like butch dykes. I can't understand those people as lesbians because they're attracted to masculine characteristics. Surely a lesbian would be attracted to the feminine?
Gay boys - attracted to 'effeminate' type, or butch, buff type?
Hetero-blokes - attracted to plumptious child-bearing hips and fat-bottomed girls or lithe, athletic types?
How about 'sense of humour'?
See where I'm going with this? Likewise, because fMRI has shown that 'sexuality' and 'gender identity' are entirely unrelated (in terms of brain configuration), and both are subject to epigenetic influences, sexuality is unrelated to 'male' or 'female', but rather it's to do with 'attracted to a particular visual type' and, here we go with the REALLY SEXY BIT!!! it's either 'dominant type' or 'submissive type'. Under 'normal' circumstances 'males' are 'dominant' (penetrative) and 'women' are 'submissive' (receptive).
But!!! We know that 'sexuality' is different to 'gender' so what we're talking about here is a 'combination' hypothesis - you can have 'male + dominant type' (let's say 98% of males), 'male + submissive type', 'female plus dominant type' (very rare - maybe lesbian?) and 'female submissive type' (equally 98% of females? - I'm this one, btw, but that's different from being *socially* submissive - important point there). Those statistics seem ok to me.
Since proto-humans lost most of their hair, even 'males' would've appeared with female characteristics.
I'll make that one number 6/ when homo erectus (lol) started losing body hair, obviously women would've been the first to lose it by virtue of lack of testosterone levels, but then, gradually, the men do too, some more than others. So, they seem a bit 'effeminate' thus leading to...
Fucking fascinating stuff, though, I have to say!
And now I must have a pee-pee.
Ok - I have finally read the essay! Yay!
Obviously it's a little bit outdated by now, and most of it is utter rubbish because of points I have previously made. 1/ 'mutations' do not have a purpose or intention behind them.
That's the most important bit. But let's add another misconception in the essay. 2/ sexuality is not genetic. I can 'kind of' forgive the authors since they were writing 20 years ago so they (presumably) had no idea about cascade mutations or epigenetics (the word 'epigenetic' was not, I believe, mentioned one single time), although they did sort of imply it in their somewhat infantile discussion of the aetiology of non-hetero. But then they continue by assuming it has some genetic cause and also a 'purpose'.
So now let's go to 3/ Homo behaviour (i.e. sexual relations with another bloke). It seems a bit weird what they actually say here. I mean it's all so contradictory! Also, primate sexuality with intra-group dominance-roles doesn't apply at all to pre-historic homo sapiens (let's say between 300kya-10kya end of ice age). We have to remember Dunbar's number. 150. This number is a direct evolutionary adaptation to life within a group of 150 individuals. They will be evenly gender-distributed, they will not have a hierarchy, so there will be no 'struggle for internal dominance' (yeah - I think we both agree about the socio-anarchist/egalitarian view here, right? I bloody hope we do anyway). Therefore, there is ZERO evolutionary adaptation survival advantage explanation even remotely applicable for the existence of non-hetero sexuality. ZERO.
Imagine: let's say 20 tribes of each 150 members within a given area, meaning 3,000 people. They gather together at various times of the year to party, exchange information, knowledge, innovations, and of course the adolescents get high and mate. The elders notice and simply decide which group (his or hers) the couple live with. Homosexuality simply doesn't even register.
So now let's add 4/ the one thing they didn't think about!!! DIFFERENT HORMONE LEVELS BETWEEN MALES AND FEMALES AND DIFFERENT FUCKING CYCLES!!!
Male sexual desire is governed by something called 'testosterone'. It makes them want, physiologically, to shove their cock inside some channel and pump up and down until they ejaculate. But testosterone production is such that this happens - in adolescents at least - EVERY FUCKING DAY!!! That's why they masturbate.
Will they be *allowed* to fuck someone every day? I don't think so. Women, remember, have menstrual cycles. Like, 'it's my fucking period so don't you fucking come near me!!!'. Equally 'can't you fucking tell i'm in my third trimester!!!'
Hopefully something is clicking in your head by now. Yes - the existence of male homosexuality, I venture to suggest, is simply a product of the DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE MALE AND FEMALE REPRODUCTIVE CYCLE.
It doesn't serve any survival purpose at all, it just happens. A bloke has no access to a female so, well, that anus looks inviting, so, here we go.
Then again, we also have 5/ sexual attraction is not male or female, it's visual. To be continued...
total agreement about the socio-anarchist/egalitarian view. I believe that this matter is settled. The only people who argue against it seem to be sketchy political agendas, often non-specialists such as Harari, Pinker, and Diamond.
I will mention that female sexual arousal as it pertains to the menstrual cycle is not as clear-cut as you're making it out to be. Some women get super horny immediately before their period, possibly seeking a cascade of hormones to catalyze menstruation. This is something I've observed, seemingly inversely correlated with PMS.
Hmm.
*some* women - so not all women, then? Not in my experience, anyhow...
I get what you're saying, though. So maybe this is just another instance of 'variation' ??
Ok - I am one paragraph in to the essay and the underlying flaw sticks out like a pair of maternal boobies.
Here it is: "Clearly such genes [for homosexuality] must possess some adaptive advantage otherwise they would have disappeared from the genome."
And here we have the ENTIRE flaw in the whole of evolutionary theory. Namely, the idea that *only* genes or mutations which have an 'adaptive advantage' end up remaining in the genome.
No, no, and no again! Here is how it works. We can look at mutations in three different categories - 1/ mutations which do lead to a survival advantage (for the individual within its own lifetime, NOT for the species), 2/ mutations which have a distinct disadvantage, but more importantly 3/ mutations which have no effect whatsoever on survival.
Once you understand that, evolution becomes very clear. Adaptations/mutations do not happen with any purpose in mind. They just happen. Some turn out to be beneficial. Others, detrimental. But most, neither. Evolution, without a (conscious) external interference, has no teleological consciousness.
1/ it is obvious that 'survival advantage adaptations' are going to stand out. Likewise, 'survival disadvantage adaptations' will not be noticed (or they stand out equally obviously in a newborn, hence 'exposure to the elements, or crocodiles' or 'shoving out of the nest' etc.). But it's the number 3 category above which is often ignored. And it's this category which, I would say, is the most interesting, because that's what creates variety.
We can think about it this way: if evolution only produced 'survival advantages' then, given that there is always a logically 'best' option, then evolution would tend towards homogeneity, not variety (a master race, even). Take butterflies, for example. There would only be one colour and pattern of butterflies if that view of evolution was true. The reason there are so many varieties is not because there are so many varieties of 'optimum', but because so many of them do not create a survival *disadvantage*. So those varieties survive. Same for human beings - why do we have different eye colours? no reason. Different cultural identities and ways of doing society? no reason.
Any study of nature must take this into account. Fish is another one - why isn't there only one type of fish? Rhetorical question.
So, homosexuality is neither an advantage nor a disadvantage. Why? because such males can still fertilise women. Sterility as a mutation, now yes, that is clearly a survival disadvantage (but we do see a lot of males today with, say, lazy sperm or other defects. Same for some women, actually - it happens). But even these types are not a survival disadvantage from the social group's point of view (or the species, even), because they can still help the group to survive (and likewise, in alloparenting groups, look after children and teach them skills etc.).
There is, in other words, ZERO evolutionary reason for non-hetero (or even non-cis) mutations - 'it just happens'. Evolution does not have a *purpose* to it. It just happens. Some mutations turn out to be advantageous so they get reinforced and become prominent. Some die out. But all the rest - that's what creates diversity. One could say, overall, that it's never a case of 'survival of the fittest' but rather 'survival of anything that doesn't significantly impair survival chances'. Hence the variety of nature.
And as far as I am concerned, there really is far more grandeur in that view of life, than in some quasi-fascist view.
Obviously I haven't read the rest of the essay yet, but I felt compelled to get that out of my system.
You are on some next-level shit, Evelyn. Can I ask what your educational background is? You're well-informed about a very wide range of subjects.
Ok - my educational background. That requires quite a long and personal answer. I have some degrees (philosophy, German, and literary translation; then I did a PhD which I didn't complete because I had a shit supervisor; my thesis was going to be about ancient philosophy and reincarnation and ethics and stuff like that).
Since then, I have simply voraciously learned stuff on my own kind of thing. I just have a kind of pathological need to know. There's a lot of psychology involved.
Anyway - that's for another time.
Oh, dang! You ever heard of Antonia Mills?
Actually, now I think about it (and looked her up) my memory seems to have been jogged a bit - I'm sure I had heard of her. I have no memory of when though! Well, I've bookmarked some stuff, so I look forward to that.
I had not heard of Antonia Mills actually. I just looked her up, however, and I should thank you yet again for introducing me to her work - I am going to have to explore that in detail so it's now in my to-do list!
I can understand why I wouldn't have heard of her before, though, because my PhD was mainly looking at the (classical Greeks) pre-Socratic philosophers (with a bit of ancient Egypt thrown in). Pythagoreanism, that kind of thing. In other words I was confining myself to a sort of European/Mediterranean context. I am sure though that if I'd been able to complete my thesis and then start working in academia then I would definitely have encountered Mills at some point, as it's kind of obvious that there's a tradition of reincarnation beliefs outside of the European tradition. For a thesis though, you sort of have to confine it to one specific area or subject.
In particular I was going to relate it to ethics, in the sense of 'how does a belief in reincarnation alter a person's ethical outlook?' The obvious first response concerns a lack of a fear of death, and a continuous 'responsibility' beyond one's own lifetime - compared to the monotheistic view that you only have one lifetime, which does not, I would argue, lead to greater responsibility to the world around you or other people etc. Especially when they have 'cop outs' like 'follow these commandments and you'll go to heaven'.
Anyway, there's obviously an entire thesis in there! I get the impression that first nations people, in general at least, do have a more spiritual view of the world and that this provides the kind of responsibility to look after the land and each other, and treat other lifeforms with respect etc. - this is the sort of thing that I was ultimately wanting to highlight - namely the importance of a belief system in shaping one's ethical and moral decisions. Clearly the European tradition has not led to decency!
Oh I now have so much to read!
I've actually interviewed Antonia Mills!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gWmCKQGGUw
I finally got round to watching your interview - what a lovely woman. That's so very sad about her diagnosis - but, well, given the fact of reincarnation, I am sure she will be fine (and young again soon enough).
Maybe you should've left the phone off the hook!
The next thing I was going to ramble on about was that I think you're definitely onto something there with the epigenetics.
Another fairly new/emerging understanding in evolutionary theory is that 'mutations' in genes actually happen as a 'cascade' - and this is how complex changes can take place in an organism. Also, the more complex the organism, the more cascades there are. The reason is because, for example, each of the organs in a human body (or parts of the brain, if we're talking neuroscience) are governed by an entire sequence of genes (thousands of them) - so if one of them mutates, it causes a kind of domino effect, because each of those genes in that specific sequence is 'interdependent'. So this is how something as complex as the human eye, for example, can evolve. Human sexuality would probably be similar to that, because it's not a simple thing - plus of course, the less simple something is, the more variety there can be.
Some evolutionary theorists have posited the idea that evolution itself 'evolves' to become more 'intelligent' in terms of these cascades and the interdependency of genetic sequences. In the sense that evolution becomes more 'efficient' with these mutation-sequences. I tend to concur. There are some papers on this but I'd have to go on a hunt to find them (and I seriously doubt you'd want to wade through them).
So, with regards to epigenetics, this is where the 'social environment' influence on evolution happens. How this relates to non-hetero stuff, however, is an interesting quesion, and I would suggest that 'social bonding' is a perfectly reasonable explanation, as you have yourself suggested.
In this, what we have to distinguish here is 'how it manifests itself socially' - bonding, after all, doesn't have to mean 'sex'. Really close male friendships are a good example. Likewise, as you said, girls practicing kissing. We sort of see this kind of thing in primates too don't we, in the form of 'grooming'.
So, if we distinguish 'same sex intimacy' from the more modern (and western world) manifestation of 'gay' then we may have solved our question I think. You see, my kind of instinctive objection comes from the knowledge that non-hetero sexuality is simply a product of brain development, not a choice. fMRI scans do show specific areas of the brain associated with sexuality, for example. As such, there should be a fairly uniform prevalence of non-hetero brain development across human social groups (and animals too, for that matter - that's one thing I forgot to mention before - there are indeed examples of homosexuality in the animal kingdom!) - what is different, however, is the way in which that manifests - and that's a social question, not an evolutionary question. Unless of course we say that social evolution is an epigenetic phenomenon.
I do think you are right about the anal sex thing - there would be a taboo about that simply because it's gross and unhygienic and, well, because it hurts, basically (yeah, I know some people like that but hetero-sex can also cause some 'nice' pain given the relative penis-vagina sizes - but not in the same way as anal sex, which is a different kind of pain). In such a case of social taboo, the naturally homosexually inclined would not express it in the distinctly modern (or classical) way of gay sex (let alone gay pride marches ffs!). It would be expressed in some more, perhaps subtler, social bonding way.
Lesbians are another matter entirely. I think it's always probably been much easier to be a lesbian than a gay bloke. Here's another fun fact about the Victorians - there was no law against being a lesbian because Queen Victoria refused to believe that lesbians existed! Totally true! Honest!
This is such a long article I'm going to have to tackle it in stages. I'm about a third of the way through, after your conversations with ChatGPT (I've done that too, by the way, and I've got a cool article about it lined up - I basically got it to be in full support of conspiracy theorists questioning the epistemic authorities for the purpose of preserving a free democracy! - it's so wonderfully childlike and innocent).
Could you ask it the same questions about 'documented cases of homosexuality' amongst European cultures in the past? All the variants of British and European Celts, for example. How about ice age peoples? How about the Maori? or Australian Aborigines? How about medieval social groups? Dark ages groups? The Hun? The Mongols? And so on, and so on. The point being that ChatGPT's point about 'absence of evidence' is a very good one, and can be applied to any illiterate society that doesn't really document itself. Here in the developed world we are used to having copious historical records - but even then, you would be hard-pressed to find documents relating to, say, instances of homosexuality in twelfth century London or Prague or Paris or Rome or whatever. You might find the odd one or two, but it's the fact that it's only one or two that makes it stand out - and it's nearly always associated with some 'other' transgression, not about homosexuality per se (sexual assault on a child, for example, or some clergyman caught with his frock down). Then there's that English King's lover who got the red hot poker up the arse treatment. That's definitely gonna put you off mentioning any non-hetero tendencies in public, eh?
The point being that it's not really the existence of non-hetero relationships which is being questioned here, but the different cultural attitudes towards documenting their own social history. And that is indeed a really interesting historiographical question. Likewise, there are so many social behaviours that are simply so taken for granted, without prejudice, that it simply wouldn't occur to anyone to document them. How about asking ChatGPT to tell you about documented cases of something else entirely. Like, I don't know, people claiming to be from another planet. Or men singing falsetto. Or a woman with a beard. Or, I don't know, my brain's not in the mood to think of decent examples right now.
In the same way, at this present time, we are perhaps suffering from a surfeit of social documentation regarding non-hetero stuff! Go back a hundred years and you don't get that. Ironically you'd have to go to Berlin if you wanted to find out what a trans person is. Talk to anyone in Quebec, say, a hundred years ago they'd look at you funny, and may not even believe it. 'You must be making it up!'.
Anyhow, I've still got two-thirds left, and other work I have to do, so I'll just say to be continued...
The sexual practices and attitudes of Australian Aboriginal societies prior to 1960 are not widely documented in detail, and much of what is known comes from the accounts of early anthropologists and missionaries. However, there are indications that homosexuality was present and practiced in various Aboriginal communities, though the specifics varied widely among different groups due to the diversity of Aboriginal cultures across Australia.
Cultural Diversity: Australian Aboriginal societies were (and still are) incredibly diverse, with hundreds of distinct language groups and cultural practices. This diversity means that attitudes towards and practices of homosexuality likely varied significantly from one community to another.
Anthropological Accounts: Some anthropologists and ethnographers who studied Aboriginal communities in the early 20th century documented instances of same-sex relationships and behaviors. For example, anthropologist Donald Thomson recorded instances of what could be described as homosexual relationships among the Yolngu people of Arnhem Land. Similarly, reports from other researchers indicate that ritualized homosexual behavior sometimes occurred in the context of initiation ceremonies or other rites of passage in certain Aboriginal groups.
Ritual and Initiation: In some Aboriginal cultures, same-sex activities were part of initiation rituals. These practices were often embedded within broader social and spiritual frameworks and were not necessarily seen in the same light as modern Western conceptions of sexual orientation. For instance, among some Central Australian tribes, young boys might engage in sexual activities with older men as part of their initiation into manhood. These practices were ritualistic and symbolic, aimed at transferring knowledge and social roles rather than forming permanent sexual identities.
Gender and Sexual Fluidity: Aboriginal societies often had more fluid understandings of gender and sexuality compared to the binary views that became dominant with European influence. Some groups recognized individuals who did not conform strictly to male or female roles, which could include people who engaged in same-sex relationships.
Impact of Colonization: The arrival of European settlers brought new social, religious, and legal norms that profoundly impacted Aboriginal societies. Christian missionaries and colonial authorities often condemned and sought to eradicate practices they viewed as immoral, including any form of non-heteronormative behavior. This led to a suppression of traditional practices and a shift towards the norms imposed by the colonizers.
Contemporary Understanding: Today, there is a growing recognition and reclamation of traditional practices and identities among Aboriginal Australians. Efforts to revive and honor the cultural heritage include acknowledging the historical presence and acceptance of diverse sexual orientations and gender identities within many Aboriginal communities.
In conclusion, while detailed and comprehensive documentation is limited, there is enough evidence to suggest that homosexuality and diverse sexual practices were present and, in some cases, culturally embedded within various Aboriginal societies in Australia prior to 1960. The degree of acceptance and the specific nature of these practices varied across different groups, reflecting the rich cultural diversity of Aboriginal Australia.
The traditional Māori society of New Zealand had complex and varied attitudes towards sexuality, including homosexuality. While detailed historical records specifically focusing on Māori views of homosexuality are limited, there is evidence to suggest that pre-colonial Māori culture exhibited a degree of tolerance and fluidity in matters of sexuality.
Cultural Context: Māori society, like many indigenous cultures, had a holistic view of life and did not necessarily categorize sexuality in the rigid terms that Western societies often do. Relationships and sexual behaviors were considered personal matters, and the focus was more on community harmony and social responsibilities.
Same-Sex Relationships: There are accounts and oral traditions that indicate the presence of same-sex relationships among the Māori. These relationships were not necessarily labeled or stigmatized in the way they were in European societies at the time. The Māori word "takatāpui" is a traditional term that has been revived to describe LGBTQ+ identities, reflecting that such concepts were known and acknowledged in pre-colonial times.
Acceptance and Roles: In some Māori communities, individuals who engaged in same-sex relationships were accepted and integrated into society without significant discrimination. Gender roles were also more fluid, allowing individuals to express a range of gender identities and sexual orientations. Some Māori legends and stories feature deities and heroes who exhibit gender fluidity and same-sex attractions, further indicating cultural acceptance.
Impact of Colonization: The arrival of European missionaries and colonizers brought new religious and legal frameworks that imposed stricter norms regarding sexuality. Christian missionaries, in particular, promoted heterosexual monogamy and condemned what they saw as immoral behavior, which included homosexuality. This led to a decline in the open expression and acceptance of same-sex relationships among the Māori.
Modern Revival and Recognition: In contemporary New Zealand, there has been a resurgence of interest in traditional Māori understandings of sexuality and gender. The term "takatāpui" has been embraced by many Māori as a way to connect with their cultural heritage while identifying as LGBTQ+. This revival is part of a broader movement to reclaim and celebrate indigenous identities and practices.
In summary, while direct historical documentation is limited, evidence from oral traditions, cultural practices, and the use of traditional terms like "takatāpui" suggests that homosexuality was tolerated and integrated into Māori society prior to European colonization. The influence of colonization introduced more rigid and negative attitudes towards homosexuality, but modern efforts are helping to revive and honor the more inclusive aspects of traditional Māori culture.
I do so love ChatGPT! That (and the Australians) is really fascinating. Just goes to show how important the cultural context is.
Maybe we might also suggest that all this 'culture/identity war' shit (woke and anti-woke) could only really happen in this Western cultural context. Seems to me like these more spiritually/earthly-minded indigenous societies simply didn't see any problem with it. I had thought that might be the case actually - if it doesn't pose any threat to the social group then why bother even worrying about it!
Interesting about the ritual aspects (I think some of those nefarious secret societies like skull and bones have similar initiation rituals, although in an unhealthy way designed for humiliation, not maturation).
It's interesting about the effect of colonialism - in the sense that it's the missionaries, with their rigid 'moral' code who just project their own 'values', and say such non-hetero practices are 'immoral'. Once we remember that the patriarchal, monotheistic ideologies (along with Statism in the form of an authoritarian hierarchy) were, on the most basic level, simply a means to achieve and maintain social control and subjugation of a population (partly by assigning fixed gender roles to men and women), then it's easy to understand how anything that does not conform (so called 'deviant') will be labelled as 'immoral', because the existence of 'other options for social behaviour or social organisation' would be perceived as a threat to their social control system, because the population might start to question their own social order ('other ways are possible'). This 'animosity towards the other' clearly has a long history - and I guess my version of 'feminism' is very much focussed on understanding authoritarian social systems as simply a mechanism of social control by a small minority group - so in that sense it doesn't have a 'basis in nature', it's purely arbitrary.
This is one of the reasons why I feel the need to passionately defend 'the other' - because I see those others as a kind of resistance to the 'ordained' norm, which only exists to subjugate. Also, given that being LGB etc. is not a 'choice' (although the social expression of it certainly is a choice), one of my fundamental moral or ethical principles is that 'you cannot impose a moral judgement on something that is not a matter of choice'. It would be like saying 'people with brown eyes are morally bad' - obviously your eye colour is not your choice. In such a situation the authorities would presumably force all the brown-eyed people to wear coloured contact lenses! It's a good analogy I think.
So yeah - I think this woke/anti-woke stuff really should be understood in the cultural context. But I think where I am with you on the issue is about bad people manipulating 'woke' for their own nefarious purposes (partly just to sow discord), and of course it's innocent children in particular who suffer. But now, with two-spirit, maybe they are also using it to subversively attack indigenous cultures (almost 'westernise' them) - which could perhaps be seen as yet another example of 'western colonialism' - to which I would naturally have very strong objections!
But I would also say it's vitally important to distinguish between the bad guys who are doing the subversion and the manipulation, and the innocent LGBT etc. people who are caught in the middle, used as sort of political footballs, and who, I can assure you, do not have an 'agenda' or an 'ideology' - in fact, I would imagine they really hate all the attention and just want to be left alone! I would say that a healthy society would be perfectly capable of accommodating people who are different, and would just go about its usual business without batting an eyelid. Because in a healthy society 'the other' is never a threat, but rather seen as an example of the fascinating variety of nature.
I bet ChatGPT would agree with me too!
The historical record on the tolerance of homosexuality among the Huns is sparse and less documented than for some other ancient cultures. The Huns, a nomadic group that emerged in the 4th century and played a significant role in the decline of the Roman Empire, left few written records of their own, and much of what we know about them comes from the accounts of their adversaries and neighbors.
Sources and Historical Accounts: Most information about the Huns comes from Roman and Greek historians, such as Ammianus Marcellinus, Priscus, and Jordanes. These accounts focus primarily on the Huns' military activities, social structures, and interactions with other peoples, but they provide limited details about their sexual practices or attitudes towards homosexuality.
Cultural Practices: The Huns were a warrior society with strong emphasis on martial prowess, kinship ties, and loyalty. In many nomadic societies, social cohesion and alliances were crucial for survival. Sexual behavior, especially that which did not interfere with these social bonds, might not have been as rigorously policed as in some settled, agrarian societies.
Comparative Context: Looking at other nomadic and warrior cultures of the time can provide some context. For instance, some Scythian and Sarmatian tribes, who were also nomadic and had interactions with the Huns, exhibited a range of attitudes towards sexuality, often more relaxed compared to the strictures of Roman or Greek societies.
Lack of Direct Evidence: There is no specific evidence from the historical accounts that explicitly discusses the acceptance or rejection of homosexuality among the Huns. This absence of evidence means we must be cautious about making definitive statements. The silence in the records could imply that it was either not noteworthy to the Roman and Greek chroniclers or that it was not a significant issue in Hun society.
General Tolerance: Given the pragmatic nature of many nomadic societies and the primary focus on survival, loyalty, and martial capability, it is possible that personal sexual practices, including homosexuality, were tolerated as long as they did not disrupt the social order or the group's cohesion.
In conclusion, while there is no direct evidence detailing the attitudes of the Huns towards homosexuality, the broader context of nomadic societies suggests that they might have had a pragmatic approach to such matters. The lack of explicit condemnation or mention in the historical accounts could indicate that it was not a significant issue in their society.
Chat GPT:The historical record on the tolerance of homosexuality among the Mongols is not extensive, but there are some indications that attitudes towards homosexuality varied depending on the context and time period.
Social and Cultural Context: The Mongol Empire, which at its height in the 13th and 14th centuries was one of the largest contiguous land empires in history, was known for its relative tolerance and adaptability to different cultures and customs. The Mongols incorporated a wide range of peoples and traditions into their empire, often allowing local customs and practices to continue. This suggests a degree of pragmatism and tolerance in their governance, which could have extended to personal and sexual behaviors.
Historical Records and Sources: There are few direct references to homosexuality in primary Mongol sources. The Secret History of the Mongols, the oldest surviving Mongolian-language literary work, does not provide explicit references to homosexuality. However, other accounts, such as those by Persian historian Ata-Malik Juvayni and the 14th-century Moroccan traveler Ibn Battuta, offer glimpses into Mongol social life but do not explicitly discuss attitudes toward homosexuality.
Perspectives of Conquered Peoples: The Mongols were often described by the people they conquered. Some accounts from Islamic and Christian sources sometimes reflected the biases and moral judgments of those cultures rather than the actual practices of the Mongols. For example, the Persian historian Rashid al-Din mentions various aspects of Mongol life but does not provide specific details on their views on homosexuality.
Comparative Practices: In other contemporary cultures in Central Asia and among the nomadic Turkic peoples, attitudes towards homosexuality varied. In some Turkic and Persian societies, same-sex relationships were relatively common and at times celebrated in poetry and literature. It is possible that the Mongols, who had close interactions with these cultures, might have been influenced by similar practices.
Modern Interpretations: Some modern scholars suggest that the Mongols, like many other nomadic societies, may have had a more pragmatic and less dogmatic approach to sexual practices, focusing more on social cohesion and loyalty than on strict moral codes.
In summary, while there is no conclusive evidence that explicitly details Mongol attitudes towards homosexuality, the available historical and cultural context suggests that they might have been relatively tolerant, especially compared to the more rigid sexual mores of contemporary settled societies. The adaptability and pragmatic governance style of the Mongols likely allowed for a variety of personal behaviors, including those related to sexuality.
Yes, of course it's true that evidence of absence doesn't mean evidence of absence... perhaps it would be good to search for cases of incest, pedophilia and bestiality and see if there are reports of those in the historical record... it would be good to get a sense of how often accounts of prohibited sexual behaviour would have been written down.
I've heard that child prostitution was common during the Victorian era... was homosexuality also common? How about bestiality and incest? How much do we really know about how common such things are?
If bestiality is normalized in the future, will they look up on the 20th century and assume that everyone was fucking their pets? Will they assume that part of the reason people kept livestock was for sexual purposes? How would a future historian debunk this myth, if it came to be widely believed?
Listen, homosexuality is common in some cultures, that's a fact. It's huge in parts of the Middle East to this day, but people keep it hush-hush. Even if homosexual ideation is common, there's no reason to assume that homosexual behaviour is universal cross-culturally.
Agreed.
I think part of my point is that we need to keep in mind the difference between, say 'being' non-hetero, and 'socially expressing it'. Whilst the former is almost certainly pretty much the same small percentage throughout any human population (natural variation in brain development etc.) the social expression of it will massively vary (likewise 'repression' of it - such that one could go through their whole lives and never realise it, kind of thing, and get into marriages of convenience and such like).
Another thing which suddenly strikes me is that it may also depend on the size of the social group. If it's, I don't know, like 1% or something in terms of natural variance, then in a small tribe of say 1,000 people that's only 10 people (say, 5 gay boys and 5 lesbians - how awful for the one left out, eh!), and if it's socially unacceptable, then those 10 may not even be able to identify each other. In the modern world people just go to gay bars.
Similarly with 'trans' people - if the natural occurrence is only 1 in 10,000 people, then from a certain point of view you'd need a social group of at least 10,000 just to find one per generation. And no one would understand that person anyway (that person themselves might not either) - they probably wouldn't even have a word for it. They'd probably come up with some mystical (shamanic?) explanation for that person. So from that way of thinking it's likely we only end up seeing people who would be identified by modern anthropologists or historians as fitting into this 'LGBT-whatever spectrum' once we reach settlement sizes of, say, 100,000 - and that's relatively modern (in terms of human history). I think imperial Rome was the first city of a million people. 1 in 10,000 means 100 in the whole of Rome - and in Rome, they would've had ample opportunities for social expression (like prostitution or the theatre, darling). Eunuchs, yes, that's the chappie (or not, as the case may be).
I really like your point about the Victorians. With regards to bestiality and incest we're almost getting to the secret high level child abuse network. In the Victorian age (and earlier), there would've been zero protection from high level sexual predators or kidnapping and so on (just as any upper caste guy could rape a lower caste girl and never get prosecuted, let alone convicted). Then there's Freud saying 'it doesn't happen in middle class society, it's all in your mind' and muddying the waters when it comes to understanding sexual development.
I think the sickness of a society does have a big part to play in how non-heteronormative (I hate that word too, by the way, just so as you know) 'socially express themselves'. Perhaps from a certain point of view when we talk about these indigenous societies we're actually saying that they are more civilised and have a far healthier (psychologically) attitude towards human relationships. As such, maybe they didn't really ever think about non-hetero stuff. I don't know. I'm not an expert on those societies (I'm grateful for your articles about them by the way - I like knowing new stuff).
Ironically, I've just finished re-reading Brave New World, and there's a lot of sexuality in it of course, whereby promiscuity is seen as normal and civilised and monogamy is for 'savages'. It's interesting that there is zero mention of any non-hetero stuff in the book - I never noticed that before. Despite Aldous Huxley having gone to Eton! So he *must* have known about it!
the issue is nominalization of an action - like, can a person be straight and have homo-erotic encounters with members of the own sex? Depends who you ask. But a guy who has sex with men in prison isn't necessarily gay when he is released. Homosexuality, in this example, is an adaptation to a specific environment.
English is a very noun-based language, but indigenous languages were more verb-based. So even if a guy had sex with a guy, they wouldn't necessarily be considered gay, unless it became part of their identity.
Identity is really a function of the ego... and gay behaviour would need to nominalized (turned into a noun) before such a thing as a gay identity could exist.
In a verb-based language, it may have not occurred to people to base their identity on their sexual preference. Just saying. Gay identity isn't actually something heritable. Homosexual desires probably are, but identity-formation is its own thing, and is very culturally contingent.
All this made me think of that "only gay eskimo" song...: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwO33oUawM8
Realistically, ma
sorry, didn't catch that "Eton" reference... what are you referring to?
Eton College - it's the top toff private school in England. British private schools are historically notorious for aberrant sexual behaviour (no girls, you see). And, of course, child abuse (physical, emotional, psychological and sexual) - and this should be borne in mind when we psychoanalyse all those 'socially important people' like the prime ministers who went to that school. Well, the entirety of the British Establishment, for that matter. And equally so, all those 'academics' in the Victorian era who pretty much founded all the modern academic subjects. There's an entire thesis in that.
Ironically, George Orwell also went to Eton.
Hmm, as did James Bond 007 lol
wow! interesting! That's a juicy tidbit about George Orwell...
Residential schools definitely led to a lot of homosexuality amongst indigenous Turtle Islanders... Probably worth studying English boarding schools... seems like that would support my theory that homosexuality is caused by adaptation to certain environments.
Yes, Freud attributed female "hysteria" to "childhood sexual fantasies" involving father-daughter incest... Could it be that father-daughter incest was actually common amongst his clients in Vienna? AFAIK, this hasn't been disproven...
YES!!!
It's called the Freudian Coverup. I've written a little about this on my site with regards to Fairytales. Hold on, I'll get you some links...
This is a good place to start:
https://www.bps.org.uk/psychologist/sigmund-freud-and-penis-envy-failure-courage
I also touch upon this in my first Fairytale sunday post: https://inadifferentplace.substack.com/p/fairytale-sunday-14042024?r=2s9hod (you might like that one, as I go into pre-modern societies for the origin of fairytales; as well as the so-called feminist analysis).
But yes, there is a lot of scholarship which has shown that in Freud's social milieu child abuse was very prevalent, and that Freud didn't want to accept it so he projected it onto his patients saying 'you're fantasising'. Freud himself and his siblings were all victims of serious abuse at the hands of his father. Freud essentially repressed that, and tried to 'excuse' it by coming up with his 'family romance' theory (the Oedipus complex etc.), projecting 'sexuality' onto children. I'm sure I don't need to explain how relevant that is to some of the 'issues of today', eh?
It has been historically difficult to discuss this aspect of Freud because Freud was Jewish, of course. Some people have, but, inevitably, they will often get accused (falsely) of anti-semitism.
I have been intending to do a much fuller essay about the Freudian Coverup, but I've got so much going on in my head these days!
Oh boy this has "deep dark rabbit hole" written all over it... Question, though, have you looked into the multiple personalities disorder / age regression hynotheraphy / Satanic ritual abuse triangle?
There is good evidence that therapists can uncover invented "childhood memories"... So if you want to get to the bottom of whether Freud uncovered widespread father-daughter incest in Vienna, you would have to be aware of False Memory Syndrome.
Yes, I have. This is probably not the place to start elucidating, though.
With regards to your comment below about 'false memory syndrome' - this is linked to the child abuse network/satanic abuse, but not in a good way. There is a 'false memory syndrome foundation' which was clearly founded in order to discredit victim statements of the most serious child abuse (including satanic abuse). The same applies to the so-called 'satanic panic' in the 80s - it was a deliberate set-up in order to discredit victims of the network.
https://themighty.com/topic/trauma/false-memory-syndrome-foundation-folds/
According to Arthur Koestler, the Khazars viewed homosexuality as a great sin. Given that Khazars were very similar to Huns (culturally if not ethno-linguistically), I'm going to take a stab in the dark and say that the Huns weren't super-duper-Big Gay Al level tolerant... and that if there were gay Huns, they probably kept their cards close to their chests. Just guessing. If anyone's got proof of gay barbarian nomadic horse archers from the steppes of Central Asia, I'm all ears! No homo!
Speaking of No Homo, this is hilarious:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4VZcQU55CM
and the original Lonely Island No Homo song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0yFyW7Ysps
This one is quite possibly even funnier: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2uw9FTmMgY
That is indeed highly amusing. I liked the Only gay eskimo song as well, especially when they start lampooning people.
I can, however, offer you something even more hilarious which you will probably have never heard of - from a British comedy sketch show called Little Britain - this video is a compilation of sketches featuring 'the only gay in the village'. Trust me, you're gonna love it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMnWbNGbz38
After all, homosexuality is often more common in environments where there is a lack of sexually available women,
If so, why is there a propagation of homosexuality in the west? We have more women than men, or near parity. There has to be some other reason..
I think it's very multifactoral. I didn't cover hormones and drugs... that could have something to do with it too...
I think that's an important point actually, especially when it comes to epigenetics.
Example: we know that exposure to increased sex-hormones (like oestrogen) in the womb can be a cause of 'gender incongruence' ('trans') - so if there is increased sex hormones in the water and food supply etc. then, yes, one would expect to see a greater prevalence of children with gender incongruence. Similar thoughts apply to other chronic conditions, like allergies, autism and such like (it's not just 'vaccines', there's industrial farming and pollution and so on as well).
So I do think that's a very important consideration. Good point there, Sir.
On phytoestrogens in soy baby formula...
Excerpt:
The most serious problem with soy formula is the presence of phytoestrogens or isoflavones. While many claims have been made about the health benefits of these estrogen-like compounds, animal studies indicate that they are powerful endocrine disrupters that alter growth patterns and cause sterility. Toxicologists estimate that an infant exclusively fed soy formula receives the estrogenic equivalent of at least five birth control pills per day. By contrast, almost no phytoestrogens have been detected in dairy-based infant formula or in human milk, even when the mother consumes soy products. A recent study found that babies fed soy-based formula had 13,000 to 22,0000 times more isoflavones in their blood than babies fed milk-based formula. Scientists have known for years that isoflavones in soy products can depress thyroid function, causing autoimmune thyroid disease and even cancer of the thyroid. But what are the effects of soy products on the hormonal development of the infant, both male and female?
Male infants undergo a “testosterone surge” during the first few months of life, when testosterone levels may be as high as those of an adult male. During this period, the infant is programed to express male characteristics after puberty, not only in the development of his sexual organs and other masculine physical traits, but also in setting patterns in the brain characteristic of male behavior. In monkeys, deficiency of male hormones impairs learning and the ability to perform visual discrimination tasks-such as would be required for reading-and retards the development of spatial perception, which is normally more acute in men than in women.
It goes without saying that future patterns of sexual orientation may also be influenced by the early hormonal environment. Pediatricians are noticing greater numbers of boys whose physical maturation is delayed, or does not occur at all, including lack of development of the sexual organs. Learning disabilities, especially in male children, have reached epidemic proportions. Soy infant feeding-which floods the bloodstream with female hormones that could inhibit the effects of male hormones-cannot be ignored as a possible cause for these tragic developments.
As for girls, an alarming number are entering puberty much earlier than normal, according to a recent study reported in the journal Pediatrics. Investigators found that one percent of all girls now show signs of puberty, such as breast development or pubic hair, before the age of three; by age eight, 14.7 percent of white girls and a whopping 48.3 percent of African-American girls had one or both of these characteristics. New data indicate that environmental estrogens such as PCBs and DDE (a breakdown product of DDT) may cause early sexual development in girls and a study in Puerto Rico implicated soy feeding as a cause of early menarche. The use of soy formula in the WIC program, which supplies free formula to welfare mothers, may explain the astronomical rates of early menarche in African American girls.
The consequences are tragic. Young girls with mature bodies must cope with feelings and urges that most children are not well-equipped to handle. And early maturation in girls is frequently a harbinger for problems with the reproductive system later in life including failure to menstruate, infertility and breast cancer.
https://www.westonaprice.org/health-topics/soy-alert/the-tragedy-of-soy-infant-formula/#gsc.tab=0
I think that speaks for itself...
well.. most infant formula isn't soy-based... so maybe this isn't as clear a signal as it first seems.
Yeah, but there's a whole evil cocktail of shitty chemicals those cabal fuckers are putting into the water and food supply nowadays. And I wouldn't be surprised at all if they weren't shoving hormones in it too, precisely to 'pacify' the population, Brave New World style.
This is my two-thirds comment - I read what you wrote, but I've not read the essay you cited yet.
The first, and most obvious thing to say - which you do kind of obliquely accept - is that pretty much every evolutionary theorist has gotten the whole thing totally wrong. I don't just mean homosexuality. I mean evolution.
Part of the reason is because the modern subject of evolution arose at the height of the Victorian era by a bunch of overprivileged white Victorian men who thought that racism and fascism and the patriarchy and war and struggle for world domination etc. was 'normal'. Or rather, they needed to come up with a theory that said it was 'normal' and 'natural', so as to justify themselves and their way of life.
The same is true with their own sexually repressed nature (which, ironically, concealed an almost lurid obsession with sex and pretty brutal attitude towards it).
Today, this has morphed into the likes of Dawkins.
So here's the great colossal error made by 'evolutionary theorists' - it's the idea that there is a PURPOSE to every attribute or evolutionary development/change in an organism. Furthermore, the idea that 'the survival of the species' is paramount. In Dawkins' case he takes this to the extreme and thinks genes themselves have some kind of 'instinct' for self-preservation, some teleological consciousness.
Bollocks. A gene is just a complex set of chemicals (DNA - polynucleotides, I believe) which happens to produce a protein (another complex set of chemicals - polypeptides, I believe they're called) when triggered by another complex chemical molecule (RNA, also a nucleotide). And that's it.
Sometimes these chemicals change their structure on replication, in which case we get mutations.
Some of those mutations mean the organism dies before it reaches maturity (stage where it can reproduce) so it doesn't survive to become a new species.
Other times, some mutations do not hinder the maturation process meaning the organism can reproduce. If that mutation doesn't cause any problems then over time you have a species.
And remember - it's all about the survival of the individual organism within its own lifetime, not about the survival of the species. Individuals don't care about the species. Any mutation which doesn't endanger the survival of the individual organism's lifetime will 'survive', if reproduction happens. And reproduction is simply a logical necessity, not an imperative. Think about it this way - you can't have a 'species' without 'reproduction'.
But here's the point - there is zero purpose to any of these mutations. There is, in fact, no such thing as 'adaptation' - adaptation implies purpose - and that's nonsensical when we're talking about a bunch of chemical reactions. The entirety of evolution is a series of chemical accidents.
The rule is actually this: 'any mutation that does not prevent an organism from reproducing will survive'.
If you look at the sheer variety of characteristics of living organisms on the planet you'll see that the vast majority of those characteristics serve ZERO purpose. Especially not a survival purpose, whether for the individual or the species.
I would say non-hetero is just such a random variation that does not endanger the survival of the individual or the species. In some societies, sure, the expression of it will endanger their survival, but the 'being' of it (which they can't help and nature herself doesn't care about) is neither here nor there.
So that's the random lack of purpose aspect of evolution taken care of. Evolutionary changes 'just happen', they have no purpose. Any retrospective/hindsight appearance of purposeful adaptation is just that - appearance. Nothing more.
I've probably got more in my head...
Your understanding of evolutionary processes seems superior to my own. This came as a revelation to me :
"The rule is actually this: 'any mutation that does not prevent an organism from reproducing will survive."
That's actually a whole paradigm shift. You just helped something click into place for me.
I'm glad!
I think my basic point is that it only looks like evolution has an intention behind it when we focus on 'adaptations' (of the beneficial variety), rather than simply 'variety'. It's logical that some mutations will be really beneficial and stand out, whilst others which have only a neutral impact on survival will just kind of drift along, so to speak.
From the info you got from ChatGPT, it seems to me that the cultural context is key - if homosexuality isn't seen as a threat to the social order, then, if we assume it is simply tolerated and largely ignored, then we can see the homosexual mutation/variation as one of those 'neutral' varieties. Conversely, we can certainly imagine a cultural context in which it is seen as detrimental - in which case, we would expect to see such traits 'rooted out of the gene pool' so to speak (ostracism). Or at the very least, homosexuals would conceal themselves and 'act normal'. This was indeed largely the way things used to be in Western societies, say the Victorian era. So someone like Oscar Wilde really stands out, and then gets punished for it. So there's the deterrent effect.
I'd imagine that a lot of so-called trans people might feel the same today. 10 or 20 years ago no one seemed to make much of a fuss about it. Then, when the WHO finally re-categorised it so it's no longer seen as a mental illness/psychiatric phenomenon (disorder of sexuality), a lot of the radicals got upset, presumably because it fundamentally challenged their fixed ideas about gender. One might even say this was an entirely predictable consequence of the increasing ability to use fMRI (and other brain scanning techniques).
I think it's also kind of interesting from a social history point of view that the LGB issue in terms of 'rights' and 'tolerance' etc. was resolved, for the most part, before the advent of fMRI. Maybe also this is unfortunate, because rather than just 'continue in private', a lot of the LGB community have reacted to the previous prejudice and increased so-called 'liberalism' by demanding pride marches and all that silly stuff. I mean, I have nothing whatsoever against carnivals, but I'm not too keen on the in-your-face stuff.
"The first, and most obvious thing to say - which you do kind of obliquely accept - is that pretty much every evolutionary theorist has gotten the whole thing totally wrong. I don't just mean homosexuality. I mean evolution."
Ding, ding, ding, ding!!! We have a winner... maybe.
I am going to get into the weeds on this one eventually... The fact is that Darwinian ideas about Natural Selection will probably be partially overturned eventually... this is already happening with Sarah Hrdy's contributions (allo-parenting & cooperative breeding), which place more emphasis on kinship groups and less on the genetic fitness of individuals... this is nothing short of a revolution in evolutionary theory, and it isn't challenged by the Darwinians.
But there's more radical critiques as well... namely the Lamarckian heresy that individuals can pass on traits acquired in their lifetimes.
Lastly, there's the possibility that Dr. Lanka is right and genes serve metabolic functions and that we need to revisit our understanding of what DNA is.
I think we are definitely on the same page on this one. (Actually I just posted another comment about some new ideas in evolutionary theory). I do like what you have been saying about this Sarah Hrdy person - I think I'd like her very much.
Where I am though, on this side of the mighty Atlantic, it's getting to my bedtime again, so I shall bid you an adieu for now and do one of my classic 'to be continued's. I still have the third part of the article to read (the essay I mean) anyhow...