DiscussionNew Age Queer Mythology

submitted by JulienMayfair from self.LGBDropTheT

Along with the myths surrounding Stonewall, another of my pet peeves over the last several years is these claims without evidence that LGBTQ+ individuals have had important "spiritual roles" across many cultures. Here's an example:

Queer, intersex, and transgender people have long held positions of spiritual leadership in many earth-based spiritual practices. Spiritual shape shifting through drag, costume, and clowning, carrying the knowledge of sacred traditions and healing, and walking between worlds have been the purview of the queers for millennia across cultures.

The people making these claims usually present them as though they're self-evident with no proof to support them. To me, it all sounds like recycled Rousseau and the fantasies people have long entertained regarding pre-contact, non-Western cultures when the fact is that often very little is known about these cultures, especially how homosexual or gender non-conforming individuals fit into them.

Twenty-five years ago, this stuff had some appeal to me, but as I've grown older and more suspicious of grand claims unsupported by data, it just gets on my nerves.

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[–]IridescentAnacondastrictly dickly 22 insightful - 2 fun22 insightful - 1 fun23 insightful - 2 fun -  (3 children)

The "two-spirit"/berdache thing was mostly about finding a role for men who were perceived to have failed at manhood. While at least they were not stoned to death, it was hardly an honor.

On a side note, the only irl person I've ever met who seriously identified as "two-spirit" was a ginger white guy, at best minimal Native American blood.

[–]JulienMayfair[S] 12 insightful - 1 fun12 insightful - 0 fun13 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

There is even some evidence that the whole two-spirit concept was made up in the twentieth century, and the word 'berdache' probably comes from Arabic where it was a term associated with slaves used as prostitutes.

[–]TovasshiDefinitely a house plant 10 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 0 fun11 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Berdache (bardache) was a word used by the French colonists. It means passive homosexual. It was often used to describe boy prostitutes or boy lover of a pederast.

https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/bardache#:~:text=Noun,obsolete)%20passive%20homosexual%20Synonym%3A%20giton

[–]JulienMayfair[S] 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Yes, but the word is thought by linguists to have been imported into French via French contact with Arabic speakers.

[–]KingDickThe2nd 20 insightful - 1 fun20 insightful - 0 fun21 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

Some people feel the need to have magical history where male homosexuality was fully accepted without any repercussions.

The reality is that homosexuality between men was not fully accepted anywhere, that taking the passive role of a sex partner for men was incredibly shameful and morally considered wrong.

However some societies created loopholes that allowed men to have sex with each other so long as it wasn't socially considered sex between two men.

The most well-known loophole was from Native American people and in Polynesia, where some individuals took on or were forced to take on a female gender role and become a non- man. Thereby making the sex between a man and a non-man and making it somewhat palatable by the society.

The other loop-hole is the one traditionally practiced in Southern Europe, North Eastern Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, North East Asia and Australia. This loop-hole took advantage of the societal idea that an adolescent boy (12-17) is not yet an adult man and so therefore technically any sex between an adult man and an adolescent boy would not be sex between two men. This is the root of the Afghani practice of Bacha Bazi, but is also the root of the ancient Greek practice of pederasty. When people talk of the acceptance of male homosexuality in ancient Greece, they're not talking about the acceptance of sex between two adult men.

[–][deleted] 12 insightful - 1 fun12 insightful - 0 fun13 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Pretty much people also over fetishize what pre Christian Europe was like as well for LGB individuals. You had some vague tolerance in that way but in some Germanic tribes Tacitus reported they executed gay men on the spot.

[–]Neo_Shadow_LurkerPronouns: I/Don't/Care 11 insightful - 1 fun11 insightful - 0 fun12 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

When people talk of the acceptance of male homosexuality in ancient Greece, they're not talking about the acceptance of sex between two adult men.

Yes, the people who refer to ancient Greece as a 'gay society' are just ignorant of history.

What was widely acceptable was pederasty, not same-sex relationships between two adult men. Also, most pederasts were married to women and their relationships with boys were framed as master-student affairs, so pretty far from our modern understanding of homossexuality.

It's not that same-sex relationships between adults didn't exists, but that the ones who engaged in them weren't exacly paraded around by others.

Hell, there were pederasts who talked shit about men who had same-sex adult lovers, for crying out loud!

[–]JulienMayfair[S] 10 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 0 fun11 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Regarding pederasty, I read a description of it where the author claimed there were three genders: Men, women, and boys, and men could have sex with boys under a certain age. It was apparently fairly widespread around the Mediterranean till at least the end of the 19th C. It wasn't entirely respectable, but it was tolerated, especially, so I've heard among the Ottomans. The boys were often slaves, so it was highly exploitative.

Discussion of this cultural phenomenon seems to have been swept under the rug, but it was still a thing when people like gay playwright Joe Orton visited North Africa in the 1960s.

[–]Neo_Shadow_LurkerPronouns: I/Don't/Care 10 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 0 fun11 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

There's also a class dynamic in play here: the ones who engaged in pederasty were, on average, well off men who held positions of power.

As I said before, the whole thing was framed as a master-student affair, where the older men was responsible to teach the boy not only a profession but also various aspects of life, including sex and relationships.

Even so, it's impossible to deny there was a very 'creep' factor involved in this, as there's several written documents which describe in detail the attraction these pederasts had specifically for effeminate, delicate boys. They weren't after, let's say, the 'prototypical jock' so to speak.

It's unsettling to say the least.

[–]JulienMayfair[S] 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

the whole thing was framed as a master-student affair

Some of it was that, but much of it was simply prostitution. The children of the poor who couldn't support or educate them ended up in the streets surviving however they could, and that often meant finding their way into prostitution, especially if they were physically attractive. I saw a news report talking about how it's going on now with Syrian refugees in places like Greece and Italy. They hang out in parks at night, and men come, pick them up, and pay them for sex. They don't identify as gay, but they have no other way to feed themselves.

That's part of why I think the New Age romanticizers are so off-the-mark. I think it more likely that these early societies were more like what's described in Game of Thrones than they were like some fantasy of sexual/gender utopia prior to contact with Western Civilization. The less powerful have always been subject to exploitation.

[–][deleted] 18 insightful - 1 fun18 insightful - 0 fun19 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

"Third gender" people only existed in cultures with strict gender roles. We do not have strict gender roles, we do not need "third genders."

They also really weren't "third genders." They were separate social classes used to dump men that society deemed to be not manly enough, usually gay men. Women rarely got to be those aside from a few cultures like Albanian where women had to assume a different social role or be forced to marry a man.

[–]Q-Continuum-kin 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

They also really weren't "third genders." They were separate social classes

That's the literal definition of gender though. It's a sex based social caste. Failed male or failed female is still sex based even if it's a unique subset for a certain country.

[–]Rosefield 11 insightful - 8 fun11 insightful - 7 fun12 insightful - 8 fun -  (0 children)

Blah blah blah trans means spiritual spirity spirit stuff!1

That's why you have to give trans people all your money, date them, have sex with them, use all their pronouns every day & pray to them every hour. On your knees cis sinner!

[–]Neo_Shadow_LurkerPronouns: I/Don't/Care 10 insightful - 8 fun10 insightful - 7 fun11 insightful - 8 fun -  (0 children)

These fucks are so addicted to validation that they seek it from people who aren't even alive anymore!

Lmao!

[–]SerpensInferna 13 insightful - 1 fun13 insightful - 0 fun14 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Yep, pederasty was what was acceptable, not our construct of homosexuality. I give you the example of the Roman Emperor Sulla, who was married with children. It was scandalous not that he had a male lover, but that his lover was an adult.

What I despise most of all is their transing of history, and applying modern social constructs onto cultures of the past. It's the first sin of the historian; the queers are desperately grasping after some kind of legitimacy.

[–]Rage-Xion 10 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 0 fun11 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

There's also the myth that Eunuchs were the equivalents of transwomen when they actually were forcibly castrated slaves tasked to watch over sex slaves in harem. how glamorous. :/

[–]blargus 6 insightful - 5 fun6 insightful - 4 fun7 insightful - 5 fun -  (0 children)

Clowns are queer now? lol, sure, why not?