Gay Men

Gay men are male homosexuals. Some bisexual and homoromantic men may also dually identify as gay, and a number of young gay men also identify as queer. Historically, gay men have been referred to by a number of different terms, including '' inverts'' and '' uranians''.

Gay men continue to face significant discrimination in large parts of the world, particularly in most of Asia and Africa. In the United States, many gay men still face discrimination in their daily lives, though some openly gay men have reached national success and prominence. In Europe, Xavier Bettel currently serves as the prime minister of Luxembourg; Leo Varadkar serves as the Taoiseach and head of the Government of Ireland (he had previously served as Taoiseach (Prime Minister) from June 2017 to June 2020); and from 2011 to 2014, Elio Di Rupo served as Prime Minister of Belgium.

For a time, the term ''gay'' was used as a synonym for anything related to homosexual men. For example, the term ''gay bar'' still often refers to a bar which caters primarily to a homosexual male clientele or is otherwise part of gay men's culture. By the end of the 20th century, however, the word ''gay'' was recommended by LGBT groups and style guides to describe all people exclusively attracted to members of the same sex, (Reprinted from ) while '' lesbian'' referred specifically to female homosexuals, and ''gay men'' referred exclusively to male homosexuals.

Male homosexuality in world history

Some scholars argue that the terms "homosexual" and "gay" are problematic when applied to men in ancient cultures since, for example, neither Greeks or Romans possessed any one word covering the same semantic range as the modern concept of "homosexuality". Furthermore, there were diverse sexual practices that varied in acceptance depending on time and place. Other scholars argue that there are significant similarities between ancient and modern male homosexuals. The author has made adapted and expanded portions of this book available online a
''A Critique of Social Constructionism and Postmodern Queer Theory''
.

In cultures influenced by Abrahamic religions, the law and the church established sodomy as a transgression against divine law or a crime against nature. The condemnation of anal sex between males, however, predates Christian belief. Throughout the majority of Christian history, most Christian theologians and denominations have considered homosexual behavior as immoral or sinful. Many historical figures, including Socrates, Lord Byron, Edward II, and Hadrian, have had terms such as ''gay'' or ''bisexual'' applied to them. Some scholars, such as Michel Foucault, have regarded this as risking the anachronistic introduction of a contemporary construction of sexuality foreign to their times, though other scholars challenge this.

Africa

The first record of a possible homosexual male couple in history is commonly regarded as Khnumhotep and Niankhkhnum, an ancient Egyptian couple, who lived around 2400 BCE. The pair are portrayed in a nose-kissing position, the most intimate pose in Egyptian art, surrounded by what appear to be their heirs.Richard Parkinson: ''Homosexual Desire and Middle Kingdom Literature''. In: ''The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology (JEA)'', vol. 81, 1995, pp. 57–76. The 6th- or 7th-century Ashmolean Parchment AN 1981.940 provides the only example in Coptic language of a love spell between men. At around of 1240, the Coptic Egyptian Christian writer Abul Fada'il Ibn al-'Assal compiled a legal code known as Fetha Nagast. Written in Ge'ez language, Ibn al-'Assal referred his laws from apostolic writer and former laws of Byzantine Empire. Fetha Nagast was written in two parts: the first dealt with the Church hierarchy sacraments and connected to religious rites. The second concerned laity, civil administration such as family laws. In 1960, when the government enacted the civil code of Ethiopia, it cited the Fetha Nagast as an inspiration to the codification commission. More recently, the European colonization of Africa resulted in the introduction of anti-sodomy laws, and is generally regarded as the central reason why African nations have such stringent laws against gay men today. Three countries or jurisdictions have imposed the death penalty for gay men in Africa. These include Mauritania and several regions in Nigeria and Jubaland.

Americas

As is true of many other non-Western cultures, it is difficult to determine the extent to which Western notions of sexual orientation apply to Pre-Columbian cultures. Evidence of homoerotic sexual acts between men has been found in many pre-conquest civilizations in Latin America, such as the Aztecs, Mayas, Quechuas, Moches, Zapotecs, the Incas, and the Tupinambá of Brazil. The Spanish '' conquistadors'' expressed horror at discovering sodomy openly practiced among native men and used it as evidence of their supposed inferiority.Mártir de Anglería, Pedro. (1530).
Décadas del Mundo Nuevo
''. Quoted by Coello de la Rosa, Alexandre. "Good Indians", "Bad Indians", "What Christians?": The Dark Side of the New World in Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés (1478–1557), ''Delaware Review of Latin American Studies'', Vol. 3, No. 2, 2002. The ''conquistadors'' talked extensively of sodomy among the natives to depict them as savages and hence justify their conquest and forced conversion to Christianity. As a result of the growing influence and power of the conquistadors, many Native leaders started condemning homosexual acts themselves. During the period following European colonization, homosexuality was prosecuted by the Inquisition, sometimes leading to death sentences on the charges of sodomy, and the practices became clandestine. Many homosexual men went into heterosexual marriages to keep appearances, and some turned to the clergy to escape public scrutiny.

During the Mexican Inquisition, after a series of denunciations, authorities arrested 123 men in 1658 on suspicion of homosexuality. Although many escaped, the Royal Criminal Court sentenced fourteen men from different social and ethnic backgrounds to death by public burning, in accordance to the law passed by Isabella the Catholic in 1497. The sentences were carried out together on one day, 6 November 1658. The records of these trials and those that occurred in 1660, 1673 and 1687, suggest that Mexico City, like many other large cities at the time had an active underworld.

East Asia

In East Asia, same-sex relations between men has been noted since the earliest recorded history. Homosexuality in China, known as the ''passions of the cut peach'' and various other euphemisms, has been recorded since approximately 600 BCE. Male homosexuality was mentioned in many famous works of Chinese literature. The instances of same-sex affection and sexual interactions described in the classical novel ''Dream of the Red Chamber'' seem as familiar to observers in the present as do equivalent stories of romances between heterosexual people during the same period. Confucianism, being primarily a social and political philosophy, focused little on sexuality, whether homosexual or heterosexual. Ming dynasty literature, such as ''Bian Er Chai'' (弁而釵/弁而钗), portray homosexual relationships between men as more enjoyable and more "harmonious" than heterosexual relationships. Writings from the Liu Song Dynasty by Wang Shunu claimed that homosexuality was as common as heterosexuality in the late 3rd century China. Opposition to male homosexuality in China originates in the medieval Tang Dynasty (618–907), attributed to the rising influence of Christian and Islamic values,Hinsch, Bret. (1990). ''Passions of the Cut Sleeve''. University of California Press. p. 77-78. but did not become fully established until the Westernization efforts of the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China.Kang, Wenqing. ''Obsession: male same-sex relations in China, 1900–1950'', Hong Kong University Press. Page 3

Europe

Classical period

The earliest Western documents (in the form of literary works, art objects, and mythographic materials) concerning same-sex male relationships are derived from ancient Greece. These relationships were constrained between "normal" men and their young male lovers. Relationships between adult men, however, were still largely considered taboo in Ancient Greek culture. Given the importance in Greek society of cultivating the masculinity of the adult male and the perceived feminizing effect of being the passive partner, relations between adult men of comparable social status were considered highly problematic, and usually associated with social stigma.

This stigma, however, was reserved for only the passive partner in the relationship. According to contemporary opinion, Greek men who took on a passive sexual role after reaching adulthood – at which point they were expected to take the reverse role in pederastic relationships and become the active and dominant member – thereby were feminized or "made a woman" of themselves. There is ample evidence in the theater of Aristophanes that derides these passive men and gives a glimpse of the type of biting social opprobrium and shame ("atimia") heaped upon them by their society.''Oxford Classical Dictionary'' entry on ''homosexuality'', pp.720–723; entry by David M. Halperin.

Some scholars argue that there are examples of male homosexual love in ancient literature, such as Achilles and Patroclus in the ''Iliad''. In Ancient Rome, young men's bodies remained a focus of male sexual attention, but relationships were between older free men and slaves or freed youths who took the receptive role in sex. The Hellenophile emperor Hadrian is renowned for his relationship with Antinous, but the Christian emperor Theodosius I decreed a law on 6 August 390, condemning passive males to be burned at the stake.

Renaissance

During the Renaissance, wealthy cities in northern Italy—Florence and Venice in particular—were renowned for their widespread practice of same-sex love, engaged in by a considerable part of the male population and constructed along the classical pattern of Greece and Rome. But even as many of the male population were engaging in same-sex relationships, the authorities, under the aegis of the Officers of the Night court, were prosecuting, fining, and imprisoning a good portion of that population.

From the second half of the 13th century, death was the punishment for male homosexuality in most of Europe.
The relationships of socially prominent figures, such as King James I and the Duke of Buckingham, served to highlight the issue, including in anonymously authored street pamphlets: "The world is chang'd I know not how, For men Kiss Men, not Women now; ... Of J. the First and Buckingham: He, true it is, his Wives Embraces fled, To slabber his lov'd Ganimede" (''Mundus Foppensis, or The Fop Display'd'', 1691).

Middle East

In ancient Sumer, a set of priests known as '' gala'' worked in the temples of the goddess Inanna, where they performed elegies and lamentations. ''Gala'' took female names, spoke in the '' eme-sal'' dialect, which was traditionally reserved for women, and appear to have engaged in homosexual intercourse. The Sumerian sign for ''gala'' was a ligature of the signs for "penis" and "anus". One Sumerian proverb reads: "When the ''gala'' wiped off his ass e said 'I must not arouse that which belongs to my mistress .e., Inanna In later Mesopotamian cultures, ''kurgarrū'' and ''assinnu'' were male servants of the goddess Ishtar (Inanna's East Semitic equivalent), who dressed in female clothing and performed war dances in Ishtar's temples. Several Akkadian proverbs seem to suggest that they may have also engaged in homosexual intercourse. In ancient Assyria, male homosexuality was present and common; it was also not prohibited, condemned, nor looked upon as immoral or disordered. Some religious texts contain prayers for divine blessings on homosexual relationships. The ''Almanac of Incantations'' contained prayers favoring on an equal basis the love of a man for a woman, of a woman for a man, and of a man for man.

Gay men in modern Western history

The use of ''gay'' to mean a "homosexual" man was first used as an extension of its application to prostitution: a ''gay boy'' was a young man or adolescent serving male clients. Similarly, a ''gay cat'' was a young man apprenticed to an older hobo and commonly exchanging sex and other services for protection and tutelage. The application to homosexuality was also an extension of the word's sexualized connotation of "uninhibited", which implied a willingness to disregard conventional sexual mores. In court in 1889, the prostitute John Saul stated: "I occasionally do odd-jobs for different gay people."

''Bringing Up Baby'' (1938) was the first film to use the word ''gay'' in an apparent reference to homosexuality. In a scene in which Cary Grant's character's clothes have been sent to the cleaners, he is forced to wear a woman's feather-trimmed robe. When another character asks about his robe, he responds, "Because I just went ''gay'' all of a sudden!" Since this was a mainstream film at a time, when the use of the word to refer to cross-dressing (and, by extension, homosexuality) would still be unfamiliar to most film-goers, the line can also be interpreted to mean, "I just decided to do something frivolous."

In 1950, the earliest reference found to date for the word gay as a self-described name for male homosexuals came from Alfred A. Gross, executive secretary for the George W. Henry Foundation, who said in the June 1950 issue of ''Sir'' magazine: "I have yet to meet a happy homosexual. They have a way of describing themselves as gay but the term is a misnomer. Those who are habitues of the bars frequented by others of the kind, are about the saddest people I've ever seen."

Gay men in the Holocaust

Gay men were one of the primary victims of the Nazi Holocaust. Historically, the earliest legal step towards the Nazi persecution of male homosexuality was 1871's Paragraph 175, a law passed after the unification of the German Empire. Paragraph 175 read: "An unnatural sex act committed between persons of male sex ... is punishable by imprisonment; the loss of civil rights might also be imposed." The law was interpreted differently in Germany until 23 April 1880, when the '' Reichsgericht'' ruled that criminal homosexual acts involved either anal, oral, or intercrural sex between two men. Anything less (such as kissing and cuddling) were deemed harmless play.

Franz Gürtner, the ''Reich'' Justice Minister amended Paragraph 175 to address "loopholes" in the law after the Night of the Long Knives. The 1935 version of Paragraph 175 declared "expressions" of homosexuality as prosecutable crimes. The most important change to the law was the definitional shift of male homosexuality from "An unnatural sex act committed between persons of male sex" to instead "A male who commits a sex offense with another male." This expanded the reach of the law to persecute gay men as a people group, rather than male homosexuality as a sexual act. Kissing, mutual masturbation and love-letters between men were now seen as legitimate reasons for the police to make arrests. The law never defined a "sex offence", leaving it to interpretation.

Between 1933 and 1945, an estimated 100,000 men were arrested as homosexuals under the Nazi regime, of whom some 50,000 were officially sentenced. Most of these men served time in prison, while an estimated 5,000 to 15,000 were incarcerated in Nazi concentration camps. Rüdiger Lautmann argued that the death rate of homosexuals in concentration camps may have been as high as 60%. Gay men in the camps suffered an unusual degree of cruelty by their captors and were regularly used as the subjects for Nazi medical experiments as scientists tried to find a "cure" for homosexuality.

AIDS crisis in the United States

The HIV/AIDS epidemic is considered the deadliest period in modern history for gay men, and the generation of young gay men who died in the crisis is known as the "lost generation". At its start, the epidemic was particularly severe in the United States. In 1980, San Francisco resident Ken Horne was reported to the CDC with Kaposi's sarcoma (KS). He was retroactively identified as the first patient of the AIDS epidemic in the US. In 1981, Lawrence Mass became the first journalist in the world to write about the epidemic in the '' New York Native''. Later that year, the CDC reported a cluster of ''Pneumocystis'' pneumonia in five gay men in Los Angeles. The next month, ''The New York Times'' ran the headline: "Rare Cancer Seen in 41 Homosexuals". The illness was soon termed ''Gay Related Immunodeficiency'' (G.R.I.D.), because it was believed to only affect gay men. In June 1982, Larry Kramer founded the Gay Men's Health Crisis to provide food and support to gay men dying in New York City. During the early years of the AIDS crisis, gay men were treated pitilessly in hospital quarantine wards, left alone without contact for weeks at a time.

During the early years of the epidemic, there was significant misinformation surrounding the illness. Rumors swirled that being in the same room or being touched by a gay man could lead one to contract HIV. It was not until April 1984 that the U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Margaret Heckler announced in a press conference that the American scientist Robert Gallo had discovered the ''probable cause'' of AIDS, the retrovirus which would be named ''human immunodeficiency virus'' or HIV. In September 1985, during his second term in office, US President Ronald Reagan publicly mentioned AIDS for the first time after being asked about his administration's lack of medical research funding for the crisis. Four months later, Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, stated, "One million Americans have already been infected with the virus and that this number will jump to at least 2 million or 3 million within 5 to 10 years." Gay men, trans women, and bisexual men faced the brunt of deaths during the first decade of the crisis. Activists claimed the government was responding to the epidemic with apathy because of the perceived "social undesirability" of these groups. To address this perceived apathy, activists such as Vito Russo, Larry Kramer, and others, took more militant approaches to AIDS activism, organizing direct action through organizations like ACT UP in order to force pharmaceutical corporations and government agencies to respond to the epidemic with more urgency. ACT UP eventually grew into a transnational organization, with 140 chapters around the world, while the AIDS crisis ultimately became a global epidemic. By 2019, complications related to AIDS had taken 32.7 million lives worldwide.

Legal status of gay men in modern society

Africa

There are 54 nations in Africa recognized by the United Nations and/or African Union. In 34 of these states, male homosexuality is explicitly outlawed. In a 2015 report, Human Rights Watch noted that in Benin and the Central African Republic, male homosexuality is not explicitly outlawed, but both have laws which are applied differently for gay men than for straight men. In Mauritania, northern Nigeria, Somaliland, and Somalia, male homosexuality is punishable by death. In Sierra Leone, LGBT rights in Tanzania, Tanzania, and Uganda, gay men receive life imprisonment for homosexual acts, though the law is not regularly enforced in Sierra Leone. In Nigeria, legislation has also made it illegal for family members, allies, and friends of gay men to openly express support for homosexuality, and the country is generally recognized for its "cold-blooded" attitudes toward gay men. Nigerian law states that any heterosexual person "who administers, witnesses, abets or aids" male homosexual activity should receive a 10-year jail sentence. In Uganda, Christian fundamentalist organizations from the United States funded the introduction of ''Kill the Gays'' legislation to impose the death penalty for gay men. The bill was ruled unconstitutional by the Ugandan Supreme Court in 2014, but retains support in the country and has been reconsidered for implementation. Of all countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, South Africa has the most liberal attitudes toward gay men. In 2006, South Africa became the fifth country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage, and the Constitution of South Africa guarantees gay men and lesbians full equal rights and protections. South Africa is the only country in Africa where LGBT discrimination is constitutionally forbidden; however, social discrimination against South African gay men persists in rural parts of the country, where high levels of religious tradition continue to fuel prejudice and violence.

Caribbean

In the Americas (both North and South), male homosexuality is legal in every country (except Guyana). In the Caribbean, however, nine nations have criminal punishment for " buggery" on their statute books. These countries include Barbados, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Dominica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Grenada, Saint Lucia, Antigua and Barbuda, Guyana, and Jamaica. In Jamaica, sexual intercourse between men is legally punishable by imprisonment, though the law's repeal is pending. As in Singapore, sexual intercourse between women is already legal, though lesbians in Jamaica still experience a high level of social stigma.

In Jamaica, reports of vigilante violence and torture against gay men have been reported by the Jamaican police. In 2013, Amnesty International reported that "Gay men and lesbian women have been beaten, cut, burned, raped and shot on account of their sexuality. ... We are concerned that these reports are just the tip of the iceberg. Many gay men and women in Jamaica are too afraid to go to the authorities and seek help". As a result of this violence, hundreds of gay men from Jamaica sought to emigrate to countries with better human rights records. A 2016 poll from J-Flag showed that 88 percent of those polled disapprove of homosexuality, though since 2018, discriminatory attitudes have decreased slightly.

In the Caribbean, like in other developing countries around the world, homosexual identity is often associated with Westernization, and as a result, homophobia is believed to be an anti-colonial tool. Wayne Marshall wrote that gay men are believed to be "decadent products of the West" and "are thus to be resisted alongside other forms of colonization, cultural or political". Wayne cites the example of the Jamaican dancehall hit " Dem Bow" by Shabba Ranks, which calls for the violent murder of gay men alongside a call for the "freedom for Black people". Marshall notes the irony of this ideological position, considering the historical evidence that homophobia was introduced to colonies by European colonists. Nevertheless, Caribbean scholars have noted the importance of opposition to gay men for Jamaican male gender construction. Kingsley Ragashanti Stewart, a professor of anthropology at the University of the West Indies, writes, "A lot of Jamaican men, if you call them a homosexual, ... will immediately get violent. It's the worst insult you could give to a Jamaican man." Stewart writes that homophobia influences Caribbean society even at the micro level of language. He writes of urban youth vernacular, "It's like if you say, 'Come back here,' they will say, 'No, no, no don't say "come back".' You have to say 'come forward,' because come back is implying that you're 'coming in the back,' which is how gay men have sex."

Eastern Europe

In Eastern Europe, there has been a steady erosion of rights for gay men over the course of the last decade. In the Russian republic of Chechnya, gay men have been subjected to forced disappearances—secret abductions, imprisonment, torture—and extrajudicial killing by authorities. An unknown number of men, detained due to suspicion of them being gay or bisexual, have died while held in concentration camps. Independent media and human rights groups have reported that gay men are being sent to clandestine camps in Chechnya, described by one eyewitness as "closed prison, the existence of which no one officially knows". Some gay men have attempted to flee the region, but have been detained by Russian police and sent back to Chechnya. Reports have emerged of prison officials releasing accused gay men from the camps after securing assurances from their families that their families will kill them (at least one man was reported by a witness as having died after returning to his family). These imprisoned men are kept in extremely cramped conditions, with 30 to 40 people detained in one room (two to three metres big), and few are afforded a trial. Witnesses have also reported that the gay men are regularly beaten (with polypropylene pipes below the waist), tortured with electricity, and spat in the face by prison guards. In some cases the process of torture has resulted in the death of the person being tortured. As of 2021, the situation in Chechnya continues to worsen for gay men. In other countries in Eastern Europe, rights for gay men continue to deteriorate. Polish President Andrzej Duda has pledged to ban teaching about gay men in schools, forbid same-sex marriage and adoption, and establish " LGBT-free zones".

A 2017