Kate Aaron's Blog, page 13

The History of Homosexuality: Therapy and Cure

Science is, at its heart, the pursuit of pure knowledge. The earliest sexologists were scientists, working towards an understanding of human sexuality. They were remarkable, in a period now best remembered as oppressive and puritanical, for the objectivity with which they approached their subject. Sexologists like Ellis and Symonds took pains not to cast moral […]

People in Fiction: Maurice

Following his death in 1970, a manuscript was discovered in E.M. Forster’s house with a brief note scrawled on the cover: “Publishable, but worth it?” Somebody evidently believed it was, because the following yearMauricewas published. Written in 1913 and dedicated “to a happier year”,Mauriceis the tale of the protagonist’s coming of age as a queer […]

People in History: Havelock Ellis

One of the earliest and most influential of the English sexologists was the unlikely figure of Havelock Ellis. Born to a family of sea captains, Ellis emigrated to Australia at sixteen, and spent the next four years working as a teacher (not very successfully: when his first employer discovered his complete lack of qualifications to […]

The History of Homosexuality: Sexology

Pretty much everything we know and think we understand today about human sexuality has its origins in the science of sexology, which emerged in Europe in the mid-to-late-nineteenth century.While books about sex have existed through the ages, they generally took manual form — like theKama Sutra— and were concerned only with the act of sex, […]

People in Fiction: The Picture of Dorian Gray

Oscar Wilde’s only novel,Dorian Graywas published first byLippincott’s Monthly Magazine in 1890, and then as a revised and lengthened book in 1891. The taleis a unique blend ofcomedy of manners, love story, acerbic social commentary, supernatural suspense, and artists’manifesto. The premise is simple: the dandyish Lord Henry Wotton introduces his protege, the beautiful young Dorian […]

People in History: Lord Byron

George GordonByron (1788-1824), sixth Baron Bryon, was a Romantic poet today best remembered for his long works Don Juan and Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage,and one of history’s most famous libertines. Byron was born in London (or maybe Dover) to an unconventional family, Bryon inherited his title at only ten years old. He came from a long […]

The History of Homosexuality: Fops, Coxcombs, Libertines, and Dandies

Although we’ve already discussed that “homosexuality” as a concept didn’t exist prior to the 1860s,queer men have been noted across all countriesand societies since the dawn of recorded time. Often, those men migrated towards each other, forming their own subcultures. Whilethe idea that a person’s sexual orientationpredisposes them to conform toa certain overall type is […]

People in Fiction: Ancient and Modern Pederasty

The last page ofThe Gentleman’s Magazinecomprised a “Register of Books” published the previous month. The April 1749 issue listed the text“Pederasty investigated and exemplified, 1s.” No author or publisher was listed. Three other references to the text — full title,Ancient and Modern Pederasty Investigated and Exemplify’d — were discovered by eighteenth century scholars in the […]

People in History: The Burney Collection

As part of my Master’s dissertation, I examined instances of the word “sodomy” in the Burney Collection, a database of seventeenth and eighteenth-century newspaper archives named for its curator, the Rev. Charles Burney. My studies focused on the years 1730-1770, and left me with a wealth of short, fascinating articles which I’ve kept hold of […]

The History of Homosexuality: The Napoleonic Code

The Napoleonic Code is the name for a new code of lawintroduced in France under Napoleon I in 1804, the purpose of which was to replace the patchwork of feudal laws which had previously existed and unify the French legal system under a more democratic form of rule. Most notably, the code prohibited birthright privileges, […]