User:SeanP71/History of Christianity and homosexuality

Article Draft
History of Christianity and homosexuality

Text copied from article formatted as computer code, my additions left in standard format

Adelphopoiesis continued to be practiced throughout the Middle Ages, especially in the Greek-speaking Christian world. The Byzantine emperor Basil I was purported to have been a participant in such a same-sex union prior to his rise to power according to several biographies dated to within a century of his life, but the evidence of such a union occuring is disputed. The exact nature of these same-sex unions has been debated by scholars, as although they share parallels to the contemporary Christian understanding of heterosexual marriage, homosexuality was not considered acceptable. Despite this, they continued to be performed throughout the Middle Ages, often in churches.

"Though all the beauty of man humbles itself before the fairness of woman, being always inferior to her glory; though the face of the daughter of Tyndaris is brought into being and the comeliness of Adonis and Narcissus, conquered, adores her; for all this she is scorned, although she speaks as beauty itself, though her godlike grace affirms her to be a goddess, though for her the thunderbolt would fail in the hand of Jove, and every sinew of Apollo would pause and lie inactive, though for her the free man would become a slave, and Hippolytus, to enjoy her love, would sell his very chastity. Why do so many kisses lie untouched on maiden lips, and no one wish to gain a profit from them?"

Due to a lack of evidence, it is impossible to know the specifics surrounding the societal understanding of female homosexuality. The primary source of thought on lesbianism appears to have been Thomas Aquinas, who considered homosexual acts between women to be sins against nature, much the same as male homosexuality. Aside from Aquinas, mentions of homosexuality between women are very rare. Some scholars interpret this as a sign that lesbianism may have been almost intentionally ignored; the popular belief at the time seemed to be that women were not capable of wanting another woman more than a man, and that sex between a man and a woman was intrinsically superior to sex between two women, as women could not make up for the lack of a phallus.

Direct references to sodomy between women or to the persecution of homosexual women were rare, but there were some concerns regarding the behavior of nuns. The councils of Paris and Rouen, for example, disallowed nuns from sharing a bed or forming particularly close bonds of friendship with each other. Although these decisions do not explicitly mention concerns of same-sex attraction between nuns, Judith C. Brown argues in Immodest Acts: The Life of a Lesbian Nun in Renaissance Italy that they imply an awareness of potential homoeroticism.

There were, however, some writers who recommended penalties for homosexual acts between women. In most cases, these penalties tended to be more lenient than those levied against men involved in homosexuality. Theodore of Tarsus, for example, recommended 3 years penance for women who were guilty of homosexuality, as opposed to 10 years for men. This leniency was not true in every case, however. As the 16th century began, it became more common for lesbian acts to be prosecuted on the same level as male homosexuality, often punished with death.

Leading up to the Reformation, Western European views on homosexuality became increasingly hostile, although the exact reason for this change is uncertain.

""As sodomy became more of a concern, it began to be punished harshly. When uncovered, cases of sodomy were investigated thoroughly, and were often punished with death or banishment. In some Swiss cases, there was communication between cities to alert each other to locations of homosexual activities. In others, arrest warrants were distributed in order to catch suspects. This communication continued even after the Reformation.

Same-sex relationships between men occurred between a wide variety of partners. Some were adolescent, other cases involved both partners belonging to a lower social class, and others were between one higher class partner and one of a slightly lower social standing. The occurrences which included class-disparity were often accompanied by opportunities for the partner with a lower social standing, including gifts, monetary compensation, or favors from the upper-class partner.

In many cases, sodomy was seen as a sin which represented treason against God, as same-sex activities were believed to oppose the natural order of the world. Because of this, accusations of sodomy were frequently used as tools to defame or delegitimize political opponents. As sodomy was viewed as a lustful sin which anybody may fall prey to, nobody was safe from accusations of sodomy, and because of the seriousness of such accusations, they were an incredibly powerful weapon to use against political opposition.

Premodern female homoeroticism
Benedetta Carlini (1590-1661) was one of the only women whose homosexual activities were documented. Benedetta was a nun, later an abbess, in Pescia, Italy, where she experienced many visions which she believed to be messages from God. They culminated in a vision which directed her to decorate the church in preparation for a marriage ceremony, in which Benedetta would be married to Christ. Following this event, there was an investigation which determined her visions to be true. A second investigation was later conducted between which determined her visions to be false and uncovered a sexual relationship between Benedetta and another nun, Bartolomea. The relationship was revealed during interviews between Bartolomea and the investigators, in which she gave detailed descriptions of their encounters, which took place over several years. She described how Benedetta would be possessed by an angel during the encounters, and claimed to have been forced to participate. Benedetta was imprisoned in the convent for 35 years until she died, while Bartolomea appears to have been punished to a much lesser degree.

Same-sex relationships between women have not been as well-documented as male homosexuality. There are very few existing references to the prosecution of women for homosexuality, as opposed to the prevalence of prosecutions for male homosexuality. There are several theologians who wrote on the topic of homosexual activity between women. The sources tend to agree that female homosexual acts constitute as sins, but disagree on specific points, resulting in a wide variety of beliefs. These ranged from classification of female homosexuality as a sin against nature — "in which the sexual act was directed solely at pleasure and did not permit procreation" — to the complete opposite, classifying them as fornication, or sins of lust that were not unnatural.

Although same-sex attraction and relationships did occur, the term lesbian was not in use until the 20th century, and earlier discussions of same-sex attraction between women approach the topic from a "radically different" framework than in the modern era. In some areas, such as France, women were punished under sodomy, while in others, such as England, they were not. There was also further debate about what constituted sodomy between women, such as medical texts which posited that only women with particularly large clitorises could commit sodomy, in order to make up for the lack of a male participant. The most common views tended to constitute the idea that women's same-sex relations were a problem specifically when it defied gender roles, allowing a woman to assume the role of a man. The existence of independent lesbian desire which is commonly accepted in the modern era was not possible to understand in this framework.

The European view of sex could be described as phallocentric, as the male sex organ was considered to be central to the act of sex. From this perspective, sexual acts between women only existed to substitute for a lack of availability of sexual relationships with men. Pre-modern European society tended to have the view that women were more susceptible to promiscuity than men, as they were considered to be more lustful than men. Accusations of witchcraft, which often included allegegations of seduction by the devil, sometimes to the point of intercourse, were much more common than accusations of sodomy between women.