Illuminattile said:
That's not true. You're implying that people weren't gay, they just had gay sex.
Yes, I am saying that their homosexual acts were not constitutive of their overall identity. Whereas, now we have the creation of a 'normal' sexuality and hence the acts committed are expressive of an 'abnormal' sexuality.
There are massive bodies of art - paintings, poems, stories - which depict homosexual relationships. There's historical evidence of people being persecuted for forming relationships with people of the same sex.
Cite where I said that homosexuality was not looked down upon, or people existed in a gay, utopian orgy...I never said that it was socially accepted at all, all I said was that people did these acts and it wasn't the salient part of their identity, but the creation of a binary (normal/abnormal) sexuality, led these acts now to express that abnormality and become the dominant factor in the way one idenifies him- or herself.
It might be the case, as some psychologists have argued, that our natural state is bisexuality and that hetero- and homosexuality are restraints created by society. To argue that homosexuality is a relatively new 'creation' is ignorant, though.
I hope you didn't misunderstand my point, because in your first sentence you just stated it. It is a
newly created way of looking at sexuality, the actual thing that is being looked at has not been recently created though.
Your point about pride doesn't really make sense either, as pride is something we can control. It's a character trait which can be changed. Homosexuality is not.
It was a terrible example, I admit. But my contention still remains that if there were something that is considered 'not so bad' now, and it eventually gets looked at as if it is as bad as homosexuality, then the same thing will happen. Social Constructivism.