Homosexuality: It's about survival - not sex

[MikeW]

If I were to take a guess I'd say that Daddy has a little sugar in his tank.

Yeah, and I think all daddies do.

For SURE "gay" is a rather recent sociological invention. Equally for sure, same-sex erotic activity has always been apart of the human experience. Whether it was separated out as a "different" form of sexuality, that's a whole other question. I suspect that what Gunnora Hallakarva had to say about Viking attitudes toward such matters has been fairly universal across cultures: "One's sexual partners mattered little so long as one married, had children, and conformed at least on the surface to societal norms so as not to disturb the community." But, least you think this reflects some relatively 'enlightened' attitude toward sexuality manifest in Viking culture, she goes on to point out:

"Being used homosexually by another man was equated with cowardice because of the custom of sexual aggression against vanquished foes. This practice is documented in Sturlunga saga, most notably in Guðmundar saga dýra where Guðmundr takes captive a man and his wife, and plans for both the woman and the man to be raped as a means of sexual humiliation (Ok var þat við orð at leggja Þórunni í rekkju hjá einhverjum gárungi, en gera þat vi Björn prest, at þat þaelig;tti eigi minni svívirðing.) In addition to rape, defeated enemies were frequently castrated, again testified to in several places by Sturlunga saga. Grágás records that a klámhogg or "shame-stroke" on the buttocks was, along with castration, a "major wound" (hin meiri sár), ranked with wounds that penetrated the brain, abdomen, or marrow: the klámhogg was thus equated with castration as "unmanning" the victim, and classed with wounds that cause major penetrations of the body, strongly suggesting that the term refers to rape or forced anal sex such as was inflicted on a defeated combatant. It is not known how widespread the practice of raping defeated foes actually was, or if it existed before the advent of Christianity, but in other cultures which have had as strong an ethic of masculine aggression as existed among the Vikings, the rape of defeated foemen was obligatory. The attitude that homosexual usage of an enemy was a means of humiliation, in turn would have weighed heavily against men in homosexual relationships: if it was a shameful humiliation of an enemy, performing intercourse with a beloved friend would have been regarded as the worst sort of betrayal or lack of loyalty."

My guess, and that's all it is, is that human erotic experience has been as culturally unique throughout history as it is individually unique now. In fact, I'm of the opinion that we don't even have the correct language with which to discuss what we're trying to understand. Indeed, what IS the relationship between the ecstasy of erotic pleasure and orgasm and SEX... let alone the relationship between all that and the gender of any specific object of desire? In other words, I'm choosing to make a distinction between "erotic pleasure" on one hand and "sex" (limited to mean male/female coitus specifically) on the other. See what happens? If you divide it out that way, even anal intercourse IS NOT "SEX," much less any of the rest of it.