Tabu Homosexualität

Tabu Homosexualität: Die Geschichte eines Vorurteils (German: The Taboo of Homosexuality: The History of a Prejudice) is a standard work of Germanophone research into homophobia, written by German sociologist, ethnologist, and sexologist Gisela Bleibtreu-Ehrenberg, and first published in 1978.

Background

Bleibtreu-Ehrenberg used the better part of the 1970s in order to complete Tabu Homosexualität: Die Geschichte eines Vorurteils (reprinted in 1981, then leaving out the word Tabu from its title) as beside drawing from scholars such as Mircea Eliade, Marija Gimbutas, and Michel Foucault, she conducted sociological research on homophobia and homosexuality, and translated priorly unavailable or neglected artifacts and records from dead languages for the first time.

Authority

Tabu Homosexualität is considered a foundational standard work in Germanophone research into homophobia, misogyny, patriarchy, general repression of sensuality and particularly repression of sexual deviance (Leibfeindlichkeit).[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11] As recently as 2007, the Berlin Department of Education (Senatsverwaltung für Bildung, Wissenschaft und Forschung) officially recommended use of the book in high schools as part of homophobia awareness trainings in social studies classes.[12]

In spite of not having been translated into any other language as of 2008, since its first publication Tabu Homosexualität remains treated and quoted as a standard source internationally as well.[13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26] As of 2008, it is found in a number of Western European libraries, and in the US is even available in libraries in 13 different states.[27]

Content

Introducing chapters

In the prefacing Einführung, Bleibtreu-Ehrenberg deals with the post-WWII mitigation of German laws forbidding same-sex activities, and her motivations for researching the issue of homophobia, an undertaking whereupon she came upon increasingly earlier and earlier manifestations each inspiring countless cultural derivations of this hatred.

In order to give an idea of the old age of negative prejudices directed against same-sex activities in the West, in Chapter I, Alte Nachrichten über die ethische Bewertung der männlichen Homosexualität bei germanischen Stämmen ("Ancient sources on the ethical evaluation of male homosexuality by Germanic tribes"), Bleibtreu-Ehrenberg mainly discusses many ancient European writers (mostly Greek and Roman) denouncingly accusing other tribes and nations across Europe as tolerant towards same-sex activities as was a common form of slander in Classical Antiquity, the absurdity of which is emphasized by the fact that writers of accused groups often accused the accuser's nation of the same thing even if ignorant of the original accusation hauled towards themselves. Bleibtreu-Ehrenberg thereby also demonstrates the strong numinous taboo regarding same-sex activities making them a near-unmentionable vice, as no rational explanation for this ostracization is ever provided, these activities are invariably depicted as negative in themselves.

Only three exceptions are mentioned where the purpose of slander is not immediately obvious: Greek philosopher Sextus Empiricus in the third volume of his Outlines of Pyrrhonism mentioned a tribe of Karmans among whom "lewdness between men [...], as is said, is not regarded as abominable but just like any ordinary thing". Bleibtreu-Ehrenberg identifies it as one of many examples of Sextus Empiricus's often-used rhethoric device of applying the most absurd properties to people, places, and other objects simply for the purpose of demonstrating basic rules of logic. The second exception is a note by Posidonius, quoted in Diodorus Siculus's Bibliotheca historica, on Celtic sleeping customs which Bleibtreu-Ehrenberg attributes to a misunderstanding of traditional separation of the sexes in daily life.

The third is an analysis of the common modern scholarly debate around the ritual killing of criminals regarded as altogether ignavi et imbellis et corpore infames ("cowardly, unbelligerent, and perverted") by proto-historic Germanics as mentioned by Tacitus in his Germania, whereupon Bleibtreu-Ehrenberg first remarks that the complex issue of common Western homophobia as apparent in the presented material must be analyzed at a wider, more interdisciplinarian scope.

Ethnic and cultural background: The Three Strata of Indo-European society

According to Bleibtreu-Ehrenberg's socio-psychological, socio-historical interdisciplinary approach to the topic of homophobia, drawing from research fields such as cultural anthropology, religious studies, ethnology, philology, and linguistics, the ethnocentric prejudice towards particularly male same-sex attraction and activities in the history of Western, Indo-European cultures is intrinsically identical to misogyny, thus originally gave rise to, and until the modern age maintained, patriarchal structures of Indo-European society.

Its roots and cultural elements can be traced back several millennia into Eurasian culture, and were originally based on the subsequent overlapping and conflict-ridden superimposition of the three basic ethnic and cultural strata (see stratification (archeology), social stratification, and archaeological horizon) underlying all modern Indo-European cultures. These three successive strata were the following:

See also Three-age system. Bleibtreu-Ehrenberg interprets these three strata as relating to the trifunctional hypothesis by Georges Dumézil, of classic Indo-European society consisting of three distinct classes, clerical (= Shamanic), agricultural, and warrior. Yet other than Dumézil, Bleibtreu-Ehrenberg does not regard all three of these components as genuinely Indo-European or Proto-Indo-European. Instead, in regard of the Kurgan hypothesis and what Gimbutas saw as "Old Europe", Bleibtreu-Ehrenberg considers these three components as the result of successive superimposition of what originally were the above-mentioned three different cultures, with Indo-European culture in Europe and the Middle East since the Iron Age as the result. See Proto-Indo-European society for details.

The immediate cause of Indo-European homophobia, misogyny, and patriarchy was an ethnocentric culture shock when Proto-Indo-European tribes encountered the highly sensual Maternal Megalith Culture in general, and particularly last traces of Shamanic ritual transvestism and sex change absorbed within this culture. In proto-historic Norse culture for instance, the resulting religious stratification emerged as the cultural strata of the subdued and marginalized Maternal Megalith Culture and the subsequently dominant Indo-European influence respectively transformed into maternal, fertility Vanir and belligerent, patriarchal Æsir religion, with the mythological Æsir-Vanir War as a distorted cultural memory of Europe's Indo-Europeanization, similar to the story of The Rape of the Sabine Women in ancient Italy potentially recalling the same proto-historical process.

Subsequent derivations within Indo-European societies

From there, Bleibtreu-Ehrenberg traces the genesis of homophobia via a number of historical derivations which exhibited increasing levels of rationalization:

Relations to other works, by Bleibtreu-Ehrenberg and others

In Mannbarkeitsriten (1980) and Angst und Vorurteil (1989), Bleibtreu-Ehrenberg further chronicles the re-enforcing influence of Western colonialism when Indo-European cultures began globally expanding from the Age of Discovery and Age of Conquests on, thus explorers and conquerors again came upon Shamanic cultures partly involving ritual fertility and sexual cults, and Europe simultaneously encountered the wide spread of syphilis through these new cross-cultural contacts just when modern science began to dawn.

These processes also fostered ethnocentric beliefs of Indo-European moral superiority over "uncivilized", sensual, and "filthy" "savages" (see for instance the saying of the White man's burden of being morally obliged to "civilize" non-Westerners), social and ethnic "aliens", and marginalized minorities in a complex process of interior socio-psychological, cultural structuring of human sensual desires on the one hand, and foreign political and military colonialism of these desires on the other hand. Thus, in all three books (Tabu Homosexualität, Mannbarkeitsriten, and Angst und Vorurteil) Bleibtreu-Ehrenberg alludes to cultural anthropology works such as The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt, Freud's Civilization and Its Discontents, Herbert Marcuse's Eros and Civilization, Critical Theory's Dialectic of Enlightenment and The Authoritarian Personality, or The Civilizing Process by Norbert Elias.

Finally, as Bleibtreu-Ehrenberg relates in Angst und Vorurteil, just as colonialism and the rise of syphilis had compromised the scientific Enlightenment approach to sexuality, the impact of HIV corrupted post-WWII progressive counterculture's influence on Western society's attitudes towards sexuality.

Editions

Further reading

References

  1. Jantzen, Wolfgang (1980). Die Entwicklung des Begriffs Imbezillität als Beispiel des gesellschaftlichen Umgangs mit Minderheiten - Ein Beitrag zur Ideengeschichte von Psychiatrie und Behindertenpädagogik, presented on the 17th annual conference of Germanophone social workers, Essen, 1980
  2. E. J. Haeberle (1984): Einführung in den Jubiläums-Nachdruck von Magnus Hirschfeld, „Die Homosexualität des Mannes und des Weibes“, 1914 (see footnote 51 and the sentence tagged by this footnote)
  3. Wolfram Setz. Preface, in: Erich Bethe (1988). Die dorische Knabenliebe: Ihre Ethik und ihre Idee, Berlin: Verlag rosa Winkel
  4. Karl Werner Böhm (1991). Zwischen Selbstzucht und Verlangen - Thomas Mann und das Stigma Homosexualität, Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg. ISBN 3-88479-558-9
  5. Blazek, Helmut (1996). Rosa Zeiten für rosa Liebe, Frankfurt/Main: Fischer, ISBN 3-596-12819-6
  6. Olaf Brühl: frauen männer geschichte in the Leftist weekly Junge Welt, August 15th, 2002
  7. Andreas Ismail Mohr. Seminar paper „Ich mache meinen Gesicht hart wie einen Kiesel!“ - Homosexuelle zwischen Ausgrenzung und Annahme in den abrahamitischen Religionen, presented on the German Ecumenic Church Congregation 2003, Themenbereich 3: Podienreihe „Und diese Liebe auch! - Homosexuelle und Kirche“ (Word file, see commented Literaturhinweise at the end)
  8. Bontke, Sarah (2007). Seminararbeit zur Rechtsgeschichte der Homosexualität, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, pp. 1-13
  9. Jakob Michelsen: Mannmännliche Sexualität im 18. Jahrhundert am Beispiel Hamburgs (PDF file, see footnote 2)
  10. Buchtipps ("Recommended reading") of the Swiss „Coming-Out-Gruppe“ Der Spot 25 for homosexuals up to 25 years of age
  11. Markus Bernhardt: Sein Kampf, in Gigi - Zeitschrift für Sexuelle Emanzipation, published by the new Scientific-Humanitarian Committee, on the gay neo-Nazi Michael Kühnen
  12. Lesbische und schwule Lebensweisen - Handreichung für die weiterführenden Schulen, Senatsverwaltung für Bildung, Wissenschaft und Forschung, January 10th, 2007, p. 139
  13. Dannecker, Martin (1984).Towards a Theory of Homosexuality: Socio-Historical Perspectives, Journal of Homosexuality, Volume: 9 Issue: 4, 1984
  14. Moormann, Eric M. (1985). "Een bron van tedere, innige ervaringen": Gedachten naar aanleiding van het hedendaagse onderzoek inzake homoseksualiteit in het oude Griekenland, in Hermeneus: Tijdschrift voor antieke cultuur, vol. 57, no. 5, December 1985, p. 278
  15. Greenberg, David F. (1988). The Construction of Homosexuality, University of Chicago Press, pp. 186, 242-246, 248-251, 253-255
  16. Gerard; Hekma (1989). The Pursuit of Sodomy: Male Homosexuality in Renaissance and Enlightenment Europe, Haworth Press, pp. 201, 204, 261
  17. Halsall, Paul (1989). Homosexuality in History: A Partially Annotated Bibliography, on Fordham University, the Jesuit University of New York
  18. Muxfeldt, Kristina (1993). Political Crimes and Liberty, or Why Would Schubert Eat a Peacock?, 19th-Century Music, Vol. 17, No. 1, Schubert: Music, Sexuality, Culture. (Summer, 1993), pp. 47-64 (see footnote 81)
  19. Gunther, Scott (1995). La construction de l’identité homosexuelle dans les lois aux État-Unis et en France, (Bibliographie: III. Histoire de l’Homosexualité - Ouvrages Généraux), DEA thesis, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris, France
  20. Noordam, D. J. (1995). Riskante relaties: Vijf eeuwen homoseksualiteit in Nederland, 1233-1733, Uitgeverij Verloren, ISBN 90-6550-513-X, pp. 26 (footnote 30), 31 (footnote 50), 32 (footnote 55), 46 (footnote 21), 68 (footnote 60)
  21. Senelick, Laurence (2000). The Changing Room: Sex, Drag and Theatre, Routledge, pp. 35, 37
  22. Berenbaum & Peck (eds.; 2002). The Holocaust and History: The Known, the Unknown, the Disputed, and the Reexamined, Indiana University Press, p. 343 (see footnote 10)
  23. Rydström, Jens (2003).Sinners and Citizens: Bestiality and Homosexuality in Sweden, 1880-1950, University of Chicago Press, pp. 5, 336-337, 341, 384
  24. Whisnant, Clayton John (2008). Introduction: Gay German History: Future Directions?, Journal of the History of Sexuality - Volume 17, Number 1, January 2008, pp. 1-10
  25. The University of Chicago Library Guide to Gay and Lesbian Resources: II History and Ethnology, 15. Ethnographic and anthropological works
  26. Halsall, Paul. Homosexuality and Catholicism Bibliography: Section III. Lesbian and Gay Religious History, on Fordham University, the Jesuit University of New York
  27. Entry on Tabu Homosexualtät (both editions) on Worldcat.org (any US state must be entered first in order to get results for availability of the book in the particular state's libraries)
  28. Note: Not all subsequent Indo-European or Indo-European-influenced cultures adopted or retained Indo-European languages. For instance, Semitic cultures never adopted an Indo-European language in spite of the obvious belligerent, sensually repressive Indo-European influence found in Abrahamitic and Semitic cultures. See Bleibtreu-Ehrenberg's 1990 work Vom Schmetterling zur Doppelaxt based in this respect mainly on Reinhard Schmoeckel's Indogermanistik research.

External links

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