The Biological and Sociological Phenomenon of Homosexuality Aliona Pitchkar History 245 Professor Banner October 11, 2007 Pitchkar, 1 Throughout the development and progression of human society there has never been an argument quite like that of nature versus nurture. This argument explores the proposed congruency of innate genetic predispositions (nature) versus acquired social predispositions (nurture). People have come to apply this ideology to various aspects of psychosocial behavior such as deviance, piety, and so-called sexual perversion, or homosexuality. Even amongst the best anthropologists, psychologists and doctors of the world there has been a strong lingering uncertainty about the true nature of homosexual behavior. The intrinsic meaning of homosexuality is something agreed upon by most to be the existence of strong sexual urges towards members of the same sex, usually accompanied by sexual aversion towards members of the opposite sex. The development of such sexual preferences is the issue which splits the theorists into two distinct groups: those who believe homosexuality is an innate biological phenomenon caused by genetic factors, and those who believe it is determined by cultural and social upbringing. Although contradictory, various examples can be brought up which equally accredit the two competing points of view. The materials surveyed in our lessons concerning the Zuni Berdache, the homosexual community of Rhode Island, the ideas of numerous famed sexologists, the Kinsey report, and the film Celluloid Closet clearly exemplify both methods of approaching homosexuality. The term Berdache was coined by white missionaries in the 18th century and was regarded by them to be a perverse form of institutionalized homosexuality. The Berdache lifestyle is a very common Native American tradition and thus it is not only highly acceptable but also extremely socially praiseworthy. In the Zuni tribe the Berdache, or lhamana, refers to a woman-man, spirit-man, or spirit-woman. The Berdache is a fluid third gender which serves to bridge the gap between male and female. According to the Zuni worldview being Berdache was not something individuals could aspire to become; it was an intrinsic quality they were born Pitchkar, 2 with. According to Zuni traditions when children were born although their sex was predetermined their gender was not; and they clearly differentiated between sex and gender. Sex was the biological endowments a child was born with; gender was the social niche the child would properly occupy for the remainder of his/her life. When children were born there was nothing to distinguish them from each other in terms of gender and sexuality. Unlike in American culture where children are given pink and blue accessories to differentiate between masculinity and femininity, in Zuni there were no sex-specific toys or articles of clothing until about the age of 5 or 6. Eventually, however, boys and girls distinguished themselves in a variety of ways and at that point Zuni families adapted their child-rearing practices accordingly1. If a boy displayed feminine tendencies then he was classified as a Berdache and was then socialized into the female gender by various Zuni rites of passage. In the Zuni view, the acquisition of a gender identity required cultural and ritual interventions2. The male Berdache would dress in female clothes, occupy female social roles and have sexual relations with men. The fact that the Zuni’s made conscious efforts to allow the child to display his/her own sexuality before they subdued them to cultural influences shows that they truly believed that homosexuality was an innate quality – not something people could choose to do. Another interesting point of view is offered by the Christian inquiry of numerous sailors stationed at the Navy of Newport, Rhode Island during the early 1920s. Decoys were dispatched to the naval community to seek out suspected homosexual men and bring them to trial. Since people were not prosecuted for having innate biological abnormalities, like mental illness for example, the fact that the sailors were indicted clearly says a great deal about the social worldview of that time. According to George Chauncey, the Newport evidence indicates that 1 Will Roscoe, “We’wha, the Celebrated Lhamana” in The Zuni Man-Woman, 32 – 33 (New Mexico: University of NM Press, 1992). 2 Will Roscoe, "The Rites of Gender" in The Zuni Man-Woman, 132 (New Mexico: University of NM Press, 1992). Pitchkar, 3 medical discourse played little or no role in the shaping of homosexual identities in the WWI era3. The trial showed that this behavior was regarded as something individuals were wrongfully choosing to do. This reading clearly demonstrates that before the last century homosexuality was regarded as simply another form of sinful behavior in which anyone might choose to engage4. Undoubtedly, ever since the advent of motion picture, Hollywood films have played a major role in the culture of American society. One of the most interesting surveys of homosexuality portrayed through movies was captured by the film Celluloid Closet. The following quote by the narrator of the film truly embodies what was going on within the culture as the first gay images appeared on screen: Hollywood, that great maker of myths, taught straight people what to think about gays and gay people what to think about themselves. The popular movies of the time which were surveyed in Celluloid Closet originally represented gay people as something to poke fun at. The “sissy,” for example, was the jolly effeminate man who could easily be put on screen for a good laugh. After the Catholic Legion of Decency expressed their utter abomination of homosexuality, the movie tycoons had to find ways to sneak gays into movies without upsetting the Legion. This meant that gays and lesbians on screen became ashamed villains who were sure to meet their doom by the films end. Homosexuals in the movies were often in deep agony over their sexual urges and were even suicidal. This depiction of people overcome with misery about being gay shows that movies were leaning towards the direction that homosexuality was an innate biological occurrence; because surely nobody would choose such a terrible fate for themselves if they could help it. The movie even shows clips of actors attempting to be “cured” of their homosexuality by electric aversion 3 George Chauncey, “Christian Brotherhood or Sexual Perversion” in USC Course Reader: History 245, 203 (Fall 2007). 4 Ibid, 203. Pitchkar, 4 therapy, further implying the medical nature of the so-called disease. However, although Celluloid Closet and the Zuni tribe both attribute homosexuality to uncontrollable biological factors, the film shows that Hollywood was clearly not as accepting of this presumption as the people of Zuni. This is because in American society gender and sex are meant to be closely related, whereas in Zuni the two issues do not have a definite correlation to each other. Many scholarly intellectuals during the post WWI era were very intrigued by the occurrence of homosexuality. Amongst them was a biologist from the University of Indiana named Alfred Kinsey. He collected data from over 10,000 interviews concerning erotic behavior. When his findings were combined into the famed Kinsey report the American public was shocked. His statistics indicated that almost half of the male population had either participated in sexual acts with other males or at least had erotic responses to other males. Kinsey concluded that: Persons with homosexual histories are to be found in every age group, in every social level, in every conceivable occupation, in cities and on farms, and in the most remote areas of the country. He developed the famous Kinsey scale to show that people could have homosexual tendencies without being completely homosexual and vice versa. This clearly shows that Kinsey did not think of homosexuality as an innate biological factor. His construction of a continuum with 6 possible ranks confirms that he believed people could vary in their levels of homosexuality at different phases of their lives, and this was obviously attributable to free will and not genes. His data disputed the common assumption that all adults were permanently and exclusively either homosexual or heterosexual and revealed instead a fluidity that contradicted medical theories Pitchkar, 5 about fixed orientations5. Many other scholars were also paying a great deal of attention to the homosexual trends, which according to Kinsey were sweeping the nation. Although the sexologists definitely agreed that the occurrence of homosexual behavior was now an undeniable aspect of American society, they differed in their proposed justifications of its origin. Renowned German neuropsychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing, for example, catalogued homosexuality as a dangerous perversion produced by evolutionary degeneration6. The terminology he used to describe gays and the literature he produced about them clearly shows that in his view homosexuality was a hereditary abnormality. Although British doctor Henry Havelock Ellis agreed that being gay was a genetically predetermined phenomenon, he viewed it as more of a genetic anomaly, such as color-blindness, rather than a degenerative condition. Another famous doctor and sexologist, Magnus Hirschfeld, believed that the fetus was not gendered initially and concluded that each gender possesses attributes of the other and that humans are “bisexual” in sexual orientation at birth7; and thus develop homosexuality or heterosexuality later in life as a result of cultural and social influences rather than genetic predisposition. Perhaps the most interesting thinker of all the sexologists was German psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. He believed that everyone was born with “polymorphic perversion,” meaning that at birth all people were bisexual and un-gendered. He asserted that all infants had the potential to become heterosexual or homosexual and this was to be determined by cultural and social factors. Even though he believed that heterosexuality was the more mature phase of sexual development, he concluded that homosexuals were still capable of leading perfectly happy lives 5 Lois Banner, "Background Notes for ‘Homosexuality in the 1950s’," Blackboard Academic Suite, (November 2007). Blackboard Academic Suite, via USC, https://blackboard.usc.edu/6 Lois Banner, “Intertwined Lives: Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict, and Their Circle” in USC Course Reader: History 245, 120 (Fall 2007). 7 Ibid, 120. Pitchkar, 6 and that they were by no means invalids8. Clearly Freud did not hold the same negative view of homosexuals as many other people who lived during the early 1900s. Yet of all the prevailing theories about homosexuality the two which are probably most in line with Zuni beliefs are those of Karl Heinrich Ulrichs and Edward Carpenter. Ulrichs was the first to advance the idea that individuals who united both genders within themselves (homosexuals) were a third sex9. Carpenter – who was himself a homosexual – agreed with Ulrichs and even went on to conclude that by combining the genders of male and female, homosexuals were superior to heterosexual men and women. These two theories are closely related to the Zuni worldview which regarded the “homosexual” Berdache as a superior third gender. Ever since the emergence of homosexuality in the Western world, the themes of genetic predisposition and conscious socialization have been in direct conflict with each other about the true justification for homosexual behavior in human beings. Although they differ greatly in the ideals of stigma or spirituality which they attach to homosexual behavior, examinations of the Zuni culture and the film Celluloid Closet lead us to believe that gays and lesbians are not responsible for their sexual orientation, and that this behavior is instead a manifestation of predetermined biological factors. In fact several famous sexologists, such as Richard von Krafft-Ebing and Henry Havelock Ellis also share this point of view. Again varying in the stigma or acceptance with which they approached the issue, other sources such as the incidence of the Naval community of Newport and findings from Alfred Kinsey, Magnus Hirschfeld and Sigmund Freud contended that homosexuality was a social construction, not an innate predisposition. 8 Banner, "Homosexuality in the 1950s” 9 Banner, “Intertwined Lives,” 121. Pitchkar, 7 Bibliography Banner, Lois. "Background Notes for ‘The Berdache’." Blackboard Academic Suite, November 2007. Blackboard, via University of Southern California, https://blackboard.usc.edu/Banner, Lois. “Background to the History of Men” University of Southern California Course Reader: History 245 (Fall 2007): 1 – 8. Banner, Lois. "Background Notes for ‘Homosexuality in the 1950s’." Blackboard Academic Suite, November 2007. Blackboard, via University of Southern California, https://blackboard.usc.edu/Banner, Lois. "Background Notes for ‘The Sexologists and Prevailing Theories of Homosexuality’." Blackboard Academic Suite, November 2007. Blackboard, via University of Southern California, https://blackboard.usc.edu/Banner, Lois. “Women in the Depression and War Era, 1930 – 1945." In Women in Modern America: A Brief History. California: Thomson Wadsworth, 2005. Chauncey, George. “Christian Brotherhood or Sexual Perversion: Homosexual Identities and the Constructions of Sexual Boundaries in the WWI Era” University of Southern California Course Reader: History 245 (Fall 2007): 189 – 206. Roscoe, Will. “The Rites of Gender." In The Zuni Man-Woman. New Mexico: University of New Mexico Press, 1992. Roscoe, Will. “We’wha, the Celebrated Lhamana." In The Zuni Man-Woman. New Mexico: University of New Mexico Press, 1992. Russo, Vito. The Celluloid Closet. Brillstein-Grey Entertainment, et al. March: 1996.