Block, SkipCaptcha, Automoderated users, edit
2,415
edits
Changes
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
mLine 147:
Line 147: + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
homosex in China
Among the Hittites, Law 189 states, ''If a man violates his daughter it is a capital crime. If a man violates his son, it is a capital crime''. However, the violation here may be more due to its incestuous nature, than the homosexual aspect.<ref> H. A. Hoffner, 'Incest, Sodomy, and Bestiality in the Ancient Near East' in (Orient and Occident: Essays in Honor of C. H. Gordon, Neukirchen, Neukirchener Verlag [1973]), 83.</ref>
Among the Hittites, Law 189 states, ''If a man violates his daughter it is a capital crime. If a man violates his son, it is a capital crime''. However, the violation here may be more due to its incestuous nature, than the homosexual aspect.<ref> H. A. Hoffner, 'Incest, Sodomy, and Bestiality in the Ancient Near East' in (Orient and Occident: Essays in Honor of C. H. Gordon, Neukirchen, Neukirchener Verlag [1973]), 83.</ref>
====China====
Art, poetry, historical and legal documents infer or attest to the practice of homosexuality in China (the type or degree of which is often somewhat dependent on the bias of the researcher, with most major works today being by by pro homosexual writers0. The earliest references to such are from the period of the Hans Dynasty (Western: 202 B.C. to 9 A.D; Eastern: 25 to 22 A.D.) The ''Da-le-fu by Bo Xingjian (775-826) in an official ancient medical text ''History of the Former Hans Dynasty'' is seen by some to speak of homoeroticism, especially among emperors, in highly euphemistic language.
During the Song dynasty (960-1279 A.D.), Tao Gu noted in his ''Records of the Extraordinary''
Everywhere people single out Nanhai for its 'Misty Moon Worshops, a term referring the custom of esteeming lewdness. Nowadays those in the capital those who sell themselves number more than ten thousand . As to the men who offer their bodies for sale, then enter and leave place shamelessly. A law later enacted during Xhenghe reign (1111-1118) which punished male prostitutes with "one hundred strokes of a bamboo rod and a fine of fifty thousand in cash." However, it seems to have fallen into disuse over time.
Male prostitutes were known to have their own god, Tcheou--Wang.<ref>The Construction of Homosexuality By David F. Greenberg, pp. 161-62</ref>
During the latter part of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644 A.D.), Xie Zhaozhe, (1567-1624) - a contemporary of Shakespeare - recorded in his encyclopedia, the Wu za zu (Fivehold Miscellany),
In today's Peking, there are young boys singers who go to all the gentry's wine parties, and no matter how many official prohibitions there are, everybody uses them.
A fuller description of homosexual relations, and one that may be likened to [[same-sex marriage]], is found in the writings of Ming commentator Shen Defu (1578-1642), which tells of homosexual relationships which sometimes were part of the family order in the southern province of Fujian. He states that among all social ranks and physical attractiveness, Fujianese men found a same sex partner of their status, with the older becoming a "brother" to the younger (a custom termed ''nanfeng'') and paying for his later marriage to a female. "And that at the age of thirty they are still sleeping in the same bed like husband and wife." However, this is not known to have lasted more than twenty years, as they were to later marry a female.
In the latter part of the 16th century Roman Catholic missionaries commented on the perverse homosexual practices they saw in China. In a book published in 1569, Dominican Gaspar da Cruz attributed the [[earthquakes]] which had recently shaken China (its most fatal earthquake in history was in 1556[http://www.drgeorgepc.com/EarthquakesChina.html]) to being due to their indifference to [[sodomy]]. Shortly after his arrival in 1583, noted Jesuit astronomer Matteo Ricci found that male [[prostitution]] was lawful and practiced openly:
there are public streets full of boys dressed up like prostitutes. And there are people who buy these boys and teach them to play music, sing and dance. And than, gallantly dressed up and made up with rouge like women, these miserable men are initiated into this terrible vice.<ref>Spence (1984: p. 220)
He also wrote to his superior lamenting "the horrible sin to which everyone here is much given, and about which there seems to be no shame or impediment." No long before his death in 1610, he grieved that such was "neither forbidden by law nor thought to be illicit, nor even a cause of shame. It is spoken of in public, practiced everywhere, without there being anyone to prevent it."
An official Chinese historian named Mao Qiling (1623- 1716) wrote in a supplementary historical account regarding Emperor Wuzong (1491-1521), that had a passion of military uniforms and maneuvers, and broke precedent by sleeping at his new Leopard House, which accommodated his generals. He had so close friendship with one general in particular,that is recorded that they sleep and rose with together (tong wo-qi).
Under the Ming Dynasty (1368 1644 A.D.) increasing moral disorder, and invasion by warriors who captured Peking in 1644, worked to somewhat morally awaken China, and resulted laws for moral reform. Chinese conservatives labored to restore the more chaste values of orthodox Confucianism, while the Manchu conquerors sought to discourage fornication, including sexual offenses between males. The second Qing Emperor, Kangxi, was an esteemed ruler who was hostile to pederasty and child prostitution, and declared that he himself was not waited on by "pretty boys." In 1679 extensive legislation was written and confirmed in the Qing code of 1740, which made the abduction and rape of boys under twelve a capital crime, and penalized consensual sodomy with one hundred strokes of the heavy bamboo, and the wearing of the cangue (a flat wooden board) for one month. As in Biblical law, it appears that actually being caught in the act was required. Kangxi's own son and heir to the throne was found to be sexually involved with palace officials, and was executed.
Despite these reforms, later some Qing rulers are said to have engaged in homosexual relationships, and China saw a resurgence of homosexuality. Englishman John Barrow, secretary to the Macartney Embasy of 1793, wrote in his "Travels in China" that the exclusion of women had the effect of
"promoting that sort of connexion which, being one of the greatest violations of nature, ought to be considered among the first of moral crimes - a connexion that sinks a man many degrees below the brute. The commission of this detestable and unnatural act is attended to with so little sense of shame, or feeling of delicacy, that many first officers of state seemed to make no hesitation in publicly avowing it.
In contrast, a commentator of Napoleonic France provided commendation for such.<ref>Homosexuality & Civilization, pp. 224-228,237-239, by Louis Crompton (pro homosexual)</ref>
==Lesbianism==
==Lesbianism==