Re: Were there lesbians or gay men in feudal Europe?

[Carrol Cox <cbcox@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Lou Paulsen wrote:

> This question is posed to Yoshie, Phil Ferguson, and everyone else who is
> defending the proposition that '*homosexuality* and  *homosexuals* did not
> exist prior to industrial capitalism', to quote Phil in a recent post.

Lou, let's approach the general question with a similar question in a
realm that does not arouse [:-)] so many distracting complexities. As I
said in my last post, "Juvenile Delinquent" is a category that came into
existence during my own lifetime. That is, no one really *thought* about
youthful crime or misbehavior as a separate social category demanding
independent attention before the 1940s. "Teenager" came into existence
during the first two or three decades of the 20th century. There are, for
example, several characters in the fiction of Jane Austen who today
would be "teenagers"; there is *no* distinction, in Austen, between
these characters and characters a decade or so older. Teenagers
simply did not exist in the early 19th century.

Some English king during the middle ages (I forget the particulars here)
led his army into a great victory when he was only 16. It would be utterly
absurd (anachronistic) to refer to him as a "teenage" general. There were
children and there were adults. Period.

Prior to the *invention* of homosexuality there were (as now) various
combinations for sexual acts. Those *acts* were classified, but the
people who performed then were (characteristically) *not* classified.
It would be safe here to use ther Whorf-Sapir hypothesis, which
often leads to nonsense but not always. How could people think
about homosexuals if the *word* homosexual did not exist? Further,
*why*, at a given historical moment, did the *word* "homosexual"
come into existence.

Or take an equally doubtful category that *has* existed in most or
all class societies: "murderer." Is it really correct to think with that
category? Actually, I think it is a false category which ought not
to be used. Traditionally, murder has been the crime least apt to
be repeated. That's why southern governors, in the days when
they used convicts as servants in the governor's mansion, often
chose "murderers" -- they were the criminals least apt to repeat
their crime. So we can say that Mary Smith committed murder,
just as we can say that you ate breakfast this morning. But we con't
classify you as a "breakfaster," and we shouldn't classify Mary
Smith as a "murderer." (Note: sometimes the word "murderess"
is used. That really raises sticky issues of classification.)

Another realm where we ought not to let our words dominate
us: consider the difference between "women's liberation movement"
and "feminism." The latter term has triumphed and we can't really
fight the language. But the triumph of the term was a defeat, a minor
one perhaps but still a defeat, for marxism.

Carrol