Homosexuality and Civilization [Paperback]

While the book is highly academic and authoritative, it is also very accessible and enjoyable to read. Here is a very brief summary:

The book begins with a chapter on Early Greece (776-480 BCE). Crompton points to the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus (in the Iliad) as "exemplars of male love." He goes on to point out:
· Greek poets sang of male love from almost the earliest fragments down to the end of classical time.
· Mythology provides over 50 examples of homoerotic love, especially love by Gods of male youths
· "Man-boy relations played a significant part in the social organization of such Dorian communities as Crete and Sparta"
· In some Greek communities it was the boy's physical beauty that was desired, in others it was his character that was admired
· In nearly every classical Greek community, the homosexual relationship between an older man and a younger boy was not only accepted, it was admired and held as a civic virtue and a bulwark against tyranny.
· Man-boy love was used in many communities (e.g., Sparta) as a means of military training and indoctrination

In the second chapter, on Judea, he points out that the early Jewish customs and laws were strongly opposed to homosexuality, though he does show that the destruction of Sodom was originally attributed to failure of the city to live up to its obligations of hospitality, and only much later (in Catholic teaching) was Sodom's destruction associated with homosexuality.

The third chapter focuses on Classical Greece (480-323 BCE) and shows that here too, Homosexuality and bisexuality were not only considered perfectly natural, but were acclaimed at every level of society. Many Greek writers, playwrights and philosophers not only practiced homosexuality and pederasty, they praised it and held it up as an ideal. Plato was a notable exception who held boy-love as an ideal as long as it was not consummated.

In Thebes, a general argued that pairs of man/boy lovers would make great warriors because they would fight for one another's safety and would fear cowardice in the eyes of their beloved. He created the "Sacred Band of Thebes" which became the most powerful army on earth, and which made Thebes the greatest military power.

Chapter 4 turns to Rome, where homosexuality was more constrained: it was considered fine to have homosexual sex with a slave so long as the free man was dominant, but it was shameful to have homosexual sex with a free born person or as the passive partner. Crompton notes that homosexuality was seen as part of the "will to power" and a type of dominance. He also notes that the famous Roman poet Ovid wrote many homoerotic poems, though he decried Lesbianism as unacceptable.

Chapter 5 turns to the early Christians, and here everything changes. While homosexuality was not a central issue in early Christianity, Paul's Epistle to the Romans began 2000 years of virulent prejudice against homosexuality.

Clement of Alexandria created the "Alexandrian rule" which held that "pleasure sought for its own sake, even within marriage, is a sin..." He also held that it is a sin for men to shave.

For the first two centuries of Christianity, however, Roman custom continued to accept homosexuality, and Plutarch wrote that the "mortal reflections of the divine [derive from] young men radiant in the prime of their beauty."

Beginning with Constantine, however, Roman law changed, and became much harsher in its persecution of homosexuals. It was around this time (390 CE) that the understanding of the story of Sodom changed and in the City of God Augustine described Sodom's destruction as a result of homosexuality among the populace.

Saint John Chrysostom "ranks as the most influential of (Christian) Greek fathers, second only to Augustine" and he instituted organized persecution of homosexuals as a Christian obligation. He denounced male love as "monstrous, Satanical, detestable, execrable and pitiable." (He also denounced Jews as "sensual, slippery, voluptuous, avaricious, possessed by demons, drunkards, harlots and breakers of the law.")

Chapters six and seven focuses on the medieval period Throughout this period homosexuals were persecuted and murdered relentlessly in Christendom. Medieval Islam, however, held a more ambivalent attitude. Like Judaism and Christianity, it prohibited homosexuality, but Moslem cultures were pervaded by homoerotic poetry and art. Nonetheless, the theologian Malik of Median whose "school of jurisprudence became the dominant one in Spain and North Africa, endorsed the death penalty" for homosexuality. Crompton states, "Muslim religion paradoxically forbade, allowed and exalted homoerotic desire... sexual contact was forbidden, but the man who admitted to love for another male might still be respected."

St. Aquinas endorsed Augistine's opinion that homosexuality is the "worst" of sexual sins, and specifically stated that consensual homosexuality is worse than the rape of a woman (because such rape might lead to procreation). By the same logic, he held that masturbation was worse than rape, because of the loss of the seed.

France at this time began to consign homosexuals to the flames and mutilation was common. English law was severe but not as barbaric as France or Spain.

Chapter 8 turns to Imperial China (500 BCE to 1849 CE). Crompton shows that homosexuality was a central aspect of Chinese culture for nearly 2,000 years.

He traces canonical anecdotes about homosexual love through Chinese history, and tells three famous anecdotes (the story of the peach, the story of Lord Yang and the story of the cut sleeve). Each of these involve emperors with male lovers. The first emperor confirmed by historians to take a male lover was the "Yellow Emperor" a central figure in Taoism. The first ten Han emperors also had male lovers according to the famous historian Sima Qian.

During the Ming dynasty, homosexuality was a central part of the culture. Xie Zhaozhe wrote in the 16th century CE, "in today's Peking there are young boy singers who go to all the gentry's wine parties... everyone uses them." He goes on to describe rampant, explicit male prostitution at every rank of society.

A shocked Portuguese missionary wrote that for the Chinese "unnatural lust was neither forbidden by law, nor thought to be illicit, nor even a cause for shame." Crompton writes "Chine, indeed, provides us with the longest documented period of tolerance in human history - two thousand years extending from 500 BCE to the fall of the Ming dynasty in 1644.

Chapter 9, Italy in the Renaissance shows that "Greek Love" became more fully understood, at least among the intellectuals of the Renaissance, ,but this came at the same time as an increase of efforts to suppress homosexuality, and a surge of unprecedented violence against offenders. Crompton states "In the end, more men and women fell victim to homophobia in the three centuries from 1400 to 1700 than in the Middle Ages."

At the same time that a record number of homosexuals were being tortured, beheaded and burned, Donatello was creating his homoerotic sculpture of David that stands as a landmark of Renaissance art; the first free-standing nude in a thousand years. "For the first time since antiquity we are asked to admire the beauty of a naked image." This was followed by homoerotic art by Botticelli and Michelangelo.

Michelangelo attempted to "present himself as a lover of male beauty who was Platonically chaste" but the record documents that he was an active bisexual, as were Cellini and Carvaggio.

Chapter 10 turns to the Inquisition. This is, of course, the most painful part of the book to read. While the horrific deeds of the Spanish Inquisition are detailed, there is little that is surprising. What is interesting is that the disgust for homosexuality was used by Spanish leaders to justify persecution of the American Indian tribes, some of whom tolerated or actively incorporated homosexuality.

Chapter 11 discusses France from 1517 to 1715 and chapter 12 is on England from 1533 - 1702. Crompton states that legal oppression was "fiercest in Spain, severe in France and Italy and rare in England, and seem to have been almost totally lacking in such northern states as Russia, Denmark and Sweden. The myth in England, for over two hundred years, was that homosexuality did not exist in Britain and was entirely a Continental phenomenon. While this drove homosexuals underground, it did avoid the persecution seen in Spain and France.

The final chapters discuss homosexuality in ancient Japan and then provide an historic overview of the role of homosexuality in civilization.

Homosexuality and Civilization is a monumental yet compendious book. The fruit of decades of scholarship in primary documents, it is written in Louis Crompton's customary, classy style: easy, open, colloquial. Some of you may know his excellent book on Shaw. Especially interesting is this book's focus on various cultures' laws concerning homosexuality because it enables Crompton to get around the claims of certain cultures that homosexuality barely exists within them. Belknap Press has done itself great credit in providing enriching (and expensive) art work illustrations yet keeping the book's cost very reasonable.

Louis Crompton has produced in HOMOSEXUALITY & CIVILZATION a definitive book about same sex relationships from the beginning of civilization to the present. Not only is this 624 page compendium thoroughly documented with copious footnotes, bibliography, valuable indices on both written content and illustrations, it is presented in an elegant format by Belknap Press of Harvard University Press - all of which become s additive but secondary to the brilliance of Crompton enlightened writing style. No dry treatise this, though the scholarly ethic is always in evidence. Crompton relates his reportage and commentary in a fluid, highly readable fashion, a fact that makes this book read like the great historical novel.

Although others have written excellent 'justifications for homosexuality' on various platforms that usually seem to border on glorified gossip for a hungry audience of fellow travelers, Crompton relies on myriad quotaions from historical documents, poetry, stories, myths, histories, and intact evidence of teachings of the great minds from twenty-four centuries. He wisely begins with Early Greece then Classical Greece where love between males was glorified and honored, to Rome where same sex relationships were an integral part of the Roman warriors' lives. He quotes liberally from the poetry of Sappho, Homer, Plato, Ovid, Cicero etc and integrates the lyrical with the writings of Caesar and Alexander and other emperors and leaders.

Then comes the change. With the introduction of 'Christianity which was born when Rome was stood at the peak of its power and Greek culture still dominated the Mediterranean world.' The single most destructive concept of homosexuality as an abomination and a crime worthy of (and receiving) the death penalty is the brief story of Sodom and Gomorrah. Even though Crompton demonstrates that the inception of the hate campaign resulting from this Judaic story may have originated from an incorrect translation from the Bible, this Levitical evidence was the reference used to torture, imprison, slaughter, and burn at the stake countless men and women who were even suspect of same sex love or who engaged in the act of sodomy. The Story marches forward like a pestilence through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance with the Inquisition only an example of the fury that the Church used to destroy sodomites, considered to be the cause of all misfortune in battles, disease, and civic unrest because of God's fury at peoples who allowed this crime.

Make no mistake; Crompton does not march against the Church as the source of all evil in telling the story of the homosexuals' plight. He writes lyrically of the wonders of the Renaissance and the Papal patronage of the great master works of art in the history of Western Civilization. He quietly continues to demonstrate that these holy works were from the minds and hands of homosexual artists such as Michelangelo, da Vinci, Caravaggio, Botticelli, and Donatello. He talks about the Popes, the kings, the emperors, the famous men and women of the political and religious and artistic world who were known to be homosexual.

Crompton does not exclude Eastern Civilization in his massive book. As a matter of fact his beautifully written accounts of Chinese and later, of Japanese histories provide a welcome breath of dignity to the ongoing slaughter and genocide of the homosexuals in Western Civilization. Because the Judaic Bible was not part of the culture of these civilizations, there was no rule or law against same sex relationships. Influenced by the Oriental mind being at one with nature include being at one with all beings in nature, and while it was accepted that unions between man and woman were necessary for the proliferation of their civilizations, more often than not the purer 'love and passion' stories were those between men. The Samurai are shown to be deeply involved with male lovers who were the driving force for valour on the battlefield.

Once the atrocities of the Inquisition began to fade and the Age of Enlightenment and Reason altered man's view of the law as at least equal to the dogma of both the Papal authority and the Protestant Reformation, Crompton writes of the gradual decriminalization of homosexuality, examining the differences between the timelines of France, Spain, the Netherlands, England and the United States and leaves his thorough investigation in the Supreme Court ruling of June 26, 2003. "Our story concludes here, at the moment when executions finally cease in Europe. Looking back over twenty-four centuries, what pattern can we see in the dozen societies we have examined? Most striking, certainly, is the divide between those that called themselves Christian and those that flourished before or independently of Christianiy. In the first we find laws and preachings which promoted hatred, contempt, and death; in the second, varying attitudes, all of them (barring Islam, which, like Christianity, inherited the lethal tradition of the Hebrew scriptures) to a radical degree more tolerant."

This book is not a light read; reading one chapter a day is about all we can fully absorb and relate to our own knowledge of history. But Crompton is both knowledgeable and a thoughtful writer. His book is generously illustrated with examples of paintings, sculptures, images of the people under discussion, and extant documents. One could comfortably use this book as a text for the general study of Civilization. The fact that Louis Crompton has added the parallel history of homosexuality to his intellectual tracing is a welcome addition to scholars and to all readers who long for an understanding of a topic that has rarely been more relevant than it is today. This is a brilliant book and an extraordinary achievement. Highly Recomended!!!