
In Han Dynasty China, Bisexuality Was the Norm - apollinaire
https://daily.jstor.org/in-han-dynasty-china-bisexuality-was-the-norm/
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wahern
The fact that all these stories are about the origin of _euphemisms_ should be
a strong clue about how normative homosexuality and bisexuality was in the
larger society.

There's a lot of ground between the extremes of brutal, sadistic repression
we've seen in modern times and a culture where everybody is bisexual, which is
basically what this article is whispering. There's an odd, even dissonant,
urge in contemporary liberal Western society to conflate "normal" with
"common", even while supposedly celebrating diversity.[1]

As an side, is it just me who doesn't think it's a coincidence that in both
imperial China and classical Greece (Athens in particular) where bisexuality
and, _specifically_ , male-male sexual relations were relatively more common
you also see a culture of repression of women? In cultures where women are
seen as dirty or unequal to men in the public sphere, it's entirely
unsurprising that homosexuality might become more common. That's a testament
to the power of culture--that culture _can_ shape sexual preferences to some
non-negligible degree.

Energy spent on trying to revise history to turn minorities into majorities is
energy not spent on teaching people to have open minds and to be more
accepting. Because minorities will never go away--some types of identities ebb
and flow into and out of minority status, while others, like the color of your
skin, never will--we can't fix everything by turning everybody into a majority
member. Indeed, in attempting to do so we reinforce the notion that legitimacy
and majoritarian status are intertwined. Which isn't to say we shouldn't teach
historical facts, like the bisexual practices of imperial Chinese nobility,
just that we should abstain from needlessly spinning them.

What do these sexual practices in imperial China and elsewhere tell us? That
sexuality is more fluid and adaptable than we assume, and that culture can
shape it. We just need to be careful how we extrapolate from those facts.
Admitting that culture can shape sexuality does _not_ imply that people like
Jerry Falwell are correct in their characterization of homosexuality. Ill
considered attempts at avoiding situations where a Jerry Falwell can say, "I
told you so", is part of the reason liberals end up with contorted narratives.
That's why we ended up, during the marriage equality debates, arguing in the
Supreme Court and the court of public opinion that being gay was never a
choice and always predetermined by biology. Not only did it leave many
bisexuals out in the cold, but it reinforced and perpetuated many prejudices
about sexuality that we'll regret for years to come.[2]

Can we just stick to the facts and stop spinning narratives? With enough facts
a narrative will emerge on its own. Or it won't, because there is none. For
example, the persistent practice of same sex relations would be much less
interesting absent sexual taboos as most human behaviors exhibit significant
diversity (including cultural meta-diversity) relative to other species. But
the surest way to end up with a _wrong_ narrative is to force it--it'll merely
be a reflection of existing prejudices.

[1] Conflating "normal" with "common" is a rather conservative mentality.
Since most people, even self-identifying liberals, tend to be rather
conservative, I guess the attempts aren't that surprising. And making the
argument that atypical case foo is _actually_ _everywhere_ is a provocative,
common rhetorical technique, making its popularity in academia also
unsurprising. (Unprovocative arguments don't usually achieve high "impact
factors", even if they're unintuitive and non-mainstream.) But none of that
justifies the dissonance, especially in intellectual debate.

[2] Much of the research, and particularly the reporting thereof, showing
homosexuality among, e.g., penguins and bonobos always seemed to me dangerous
flirtations with the appeal to nature fallacy; the same fallacy at the heart
of conservative arguments against same-sex marriage.

~~~
djaque
WRT the comment on whether being gay is a choice:

I am gay and I spent a solid decade of my life hating myself for it. I am
talking about hating myself to the point of considering suicide. When I was
younger I tried to force myself to become straight before I just ignored that
part of me until I began accepting myself. If I could choose not to be gay,
then I wouldn't be gay.

I understand the point you're making about culture's influence on sexuality,
but my life is not some sort of political narrative like you seem to be
suggesting. This is the experience of most gay guys I know.

~~~
RunningDroid
I'm unqualified to determine whether or not sexuality is a choice so please do
not interpret this comment as making any claims one way or another.

That said, your comment implies that it is not possible for someone to hate
themselves for decisions they've made and it implies that if sexuality is a
choice it would be simple to change. As far as I understand sexuality is a
core part of most people's identity and so, hypothetically, changing one's
sexuality would be a long process of teaching the brain to treat sexuality
differently. (Which would never pass an ethics board, so we may never know.)

~~~
djaque
It sounds like you are saying that some people choose to be gay when they are
younger and then let it become so much a part of themselves that they can not
change it later in life

I was ten or eleven when I first noticed that I was attracted to my male
friends. I had no idea what "gay" was, but I knew that I didn't want to be it
and I hid it. I felt so much shame over my attraction that I dated women,
tried to force myself to be "normal", and was generally in denial for
basically the next decade. I was in my twenties when I finally started to be
OK with who I am.

I am also not stereotypically gay and if you met me, you'd probably never
guess that I have a boyfriend. Most of the gay guys I know are like me in that
regard. The reason people still associate gay people with stereotypes is that
when you have been taught that gay people look and act a certain way, you'll
never register that people like me are gay.

My point is that I never built an identity around my big secret. I never made
a choice and then wanted to back out of it. I just started to be attracted to
men instead of women and I was taught to hate myself for it. This is something
that has been echoed to me by effectively all of my friends.

------
scarmig
As a bisexual guy, I enjoyed this article.

I'd like to point something out, though: the title contains an anachronism.
"Bisexual" is a thoroughly modern category, just as "gay" and "straight" are.
Most cultures have not categorized sexuality as we do, with "we" being the
post-Enlightenment West.

Propensities toward attraction were recognized, but it never formed a core
part of personal identity. Plato would have been very confused if you asked
him if he was straight, bi, or gay.

Another anachronism in the article: the West never practiced "racism" in the
modern sense until the sixteenth century at the earliest. Race was an
ideological lens to interpret and justify colonial and imperial expansion.

~~~
goto11
> Plato would have been very confused if you asked him if he was straight, bi,
> or gay.

Maybe for these particular terms, but the story told by Aristophanes in
Plato's symposium do present attraction toward either males or females as
something inherent to a person. It is the opposite of fluid.

~~~
scarmig
I'm not saying that Greeks were genderfluid: I'm saying that their tendencies
of sexual attraction ("orientation") weren't an abstraction they reached to to
interpret their own realities and identities. They share the same biological
territory as us, but a different map of it.

In the case of the Greeks, the abstraction they did reach to to organize
desire was not homosexual/heterosexual but penetrator/penetrated, with women
and young boys expected to be the penetrated and post-adolescent men the
penetrator. And for men, at least, there was an expected flow and
directionality from one to another; it wasn't expected to be immutable.

~~~
goto11
I'm pointing out a literary source which contradict your claims. Not that the
viewpoint of Plato was necessarily shared by everyone - Greece was not
monolithic. But you specifically mentioned Plato.

