In this tour de force of historical and literary research, Fone, an acclaimed expert on gay and lesbian history and professor emeritus at the City University of New York, chronicles the evolution of homophobia through the centuries. Delving into literary sources as diverse as Greek philosophy, Elizabethan poetry, the Bible, and the Victorian novel, as well as historical texts and propaganda ranging from the French Revolution to the Moral Majority to the transcripts of current TV talk shows, Fone reveals how and why same-sex desire has long been the object of legal, social, religious, and political persecution. “This sweeping introduction to homophobia throughout Western history offers an illuminating . . . way to survey the dimensions of acceptance.” ― Alison Shonkwiler, Out Magazine “At a time when the word 'homophobia' is dismissed by many as politically correct rhetoric, Fone's work remains a powerful introduction to the undeniable historical impact of the attitudes it describes.” ― Publishers Weekly “An important work, Homophobia: A History successfully records a portion of the often elusive past of a largely invisible and highly vilified minority.” ― David Massengill, Seattle Weekly “How did sex between men start out as an admired act of masculinity and end up as a shameful badge of effeminacy? How did homosexual love and sex, which were seen as important to the development of virtue, nobility, and the foundation of a strong society, become an enemy of the state? Fone answers these questions in exquisite detail with a masterful command of history, a balanced interpretation of contradictory documents, and an explosive set of assertions that fly against the conventional view of not just homophobes but of gay people themselves.” ― Michael Alvear, Salon Byrne Fone , a pioneer in the teaching of gay and lesbian studies, is the author of three previous books (including A Road to Stonewall ) as well as editor of The Columbia Anthology of Gay Literature . Professor emeritus at the City University of New York, he lives in Hudson, New York. HOMOPHOBIA PART ONE Before Homophobia? "Homosexuality" and "Homophobia" in Antiquity Chapter One Inventing Eros N early every age reinvents Greece in its own image. Rome appropriated Grecian glory to ornament Roman grandeur. The rediscovery of Greek literature and art gave the Renaissance a new aesthetic and propelled Europe from the medieval into the modern age. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Greece was the ideal upon which many modern nations modeled their systems of education, ethics, and government, and even their architecture. Now, at the turn of the century, ancient Greece is still popularly lauded as the ideal democracy, and the ancient Greeks as the best examples of physical and moral achievement, to which all men and nations ought to aspire.Figuring in the imaginative re-creation of Greek antiquity has been the perception of those centuries as a golden age in which homosexual behavior was not just condoned but associated with the highest social, spiritual, and moral values. The idea of Greece as a utopia in which homosexual love flourished without blame or censure has been central to the defense of same-sex love from the Renaissance to the present day. And that view contains much that is true. The reality, however, is more complex.Classical Greek had no word for "homosexuality" nor any word equivalent to our "homosexual," though a number of terms describedthose who engaged, frequently or exclusively, in homosexual behavior.1 Nor was there a Greek word to express the special concept of homophobia, at least not as we understand it today. But even without a word for it, antiquity may have known something very much like homophobia; men who engaged in certain homosexual acts sometimes became the objects of general derision and abhorrence. Indeed, as we will see, many believed that the sexual activities and the demeanor of such people were indubitable signs of a different--and contemptible--sexual nature.Locating Greek homophobia in antiquity means locating it in Greek writing. It is best to note, however, that the Greek texts available to us are only a small part of a literature now mostly lost. And as the classicist John J. Winkler cautions, the surviving Greek texts do not represent ancient society as a whole.2 Rather, they reflect the conventions of a small coterie of educated upper-class adult male citizens and the theories of a few philosophers whose ideas and writings may have been ignored or even ridiculed by most Greeks. When we say that we know what the Greeks believed about homosexual behavior, we are saying that we know what Plato and Xenophon, Aristophanes and Aristotle wrote about the matter. For the sake of brevity, I will refer to "the Greeks" when in fact I am usually concerned with those few writers whose texts have been taken over time to speak with that people's collective voice.The Greek voice is far from uniform. Much of the ex