LHMP #461 Ragan 1996 The Enlightenment Confronts Homosexuality

In 18th century France, philosophy and pornography intersected to a degree such that “philosophical texts” became a euphemism for sexual content, including a regular interest in same-sex relations. Among critiques of society and politics, enlightenment philosophers debated traditional understandings and condemnation of homosexuality. This included the radical idea that all sexuality was natural and morally neutral, and that the state should not regulate it.

Moral traditionalists cited biblical references while being hampered by a suspicion that being too explicit about what they were condemning might induce people to try it. Sodomy was characterized as a type of heresy.

Legal authorities discussed sodomy in much more specific and detailed terms, focusing on same-sex relations, rather than the alternate definition of sodomy as anal sex regardless of gender. The traditional penalty for sodomy was death by burning.

The traditionalist philosophical position was that same-sex relations were “un-natural” because they were unique to human beings and not found in nature among animals. [Note: Of course, this was a flawed premise.] Another theme was the necessity of a contrast of difference in the participants for love and sexual reproduction.

Religious and legal prohibitions had less practical effect to discourage same-sex relations than theory would suggest, in part due to a French tradition of anti-clerical sentiment, and a disinterest by the courts in fully prosecuting the existing laws, especially against the nobility, where libertine attitudes were prevalent. A study of executions for sodomy indicates that many involved some other violent crime. To some extent, the courts were more interested in regulating m/f sex, especially around the consequences of illegitimate births. [Note: The author suggests that people deliberately turned to same-sex outlets as a strategy to avoid pregnancy, but this feels speculative.]

Examination of m/m behavior in France between the Renaissance and the 18th century shows a similar path to what is seen elsewhere. Such relations were common, though rarely exclusive, and required strict hierarchies of age and class to be considered acceptable. Information about women is less accessible. Reasons involve fewer court cases, a lower public profile, and an overlay of prurient interest on the part of those writing on the subject. During this era, women who engaged in same-sex activity were not perceived as being unfeminine.

The article embraces Randolph Trumbach’s model of the emergence of a “four gender” model across the 18th century. This included the idea of fixed preference in desired partners, and a shift away from age-based hierarchies. One eventual result was that exclusive sodomites became viewed as effeminate, and exclusive sapphists as masculine.

Among men, social subcultures emerged, focusing on pick-up locations already associated with prostitutes, such as the gardens of the Tuileries, Palais Royal, and Luxembourg. In-group jargon, rituals, and practices developed. This was the context for the emergence in the 18th century of a philosophical/pornographic genre of literature.

By the late 18th century, the idea of exclusive orientation had become well established, invoking Plato’s symposium for support. This distinction was less prevalent in pornography, which often celebrated bisexuality. Pornographic works often involved characters discussing and debating various sexual acts and experiences.

As pornography was primarily written by men, this affected how f/f relations were depicted. The women are presented as being focused on m/f sex even when in the middle of f/f acts, and m/f sex is usually presented as a preferred option, when available. The attraction of one woman for another is considered understandable and natural, because the authors themselves desired women, and the attributes that they described women as finding attractive in each other (in the texts) were those feminine attributes that men found attractive. These attitudes also underlay pornographic texts that treated f/f sex as desirable while deprecating m/m sex. As the trope of the “masculine sapphist” was not yet prevalent, f/f sex did not at this time challenge gender roles.

The association of philosophy and pornography also influenced an assumed association of philosophers and homosexuals, leading to euphemisms like “the philosophical vice” for homosexuality.

There is an extended discussion of how philosophers analyzed different sexual attitudes in other cultures. This consideration did not inevitably lead to promotion of tolerance, but some did conclude that morality was simply a matter of arbitrary social agreement. If the idea of the “natural rights of man” were extended to sexuality, there could be no basis for prosecuting acts that were consensual and affected no one else’s rights.