Before Homosexuality in the Arab-Islamic World, 1500-1800 (11 page)
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Authors: Khaled El-Rouayheb
BOOK: Before Homosexuality in the Arab-Islamic World, 1500-1800
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“He also said,” al-Kawkabānī continued, “on an occasion in which he had entered a bath and was massaged by an older, gray-haired associate of the owner, whereas he had hoped to be massaged by a handsome youth named S
alāh
”:
alāh”:I went to the bathhouse to remove the rust (
al-s
),
And succeed in being with my beloved.
But my hopes were belied; an old man massaged me,
And I had hoped that it would be S
145
The foregoing quotations are from a work by al-Kawkabānī devoted to advice, stories, and poems relating to baths and their use. In one section of that work, the author reproduced dated invitations to baths that he sent to, or received from, friends. Almost all of these include references to handsome young bath attendants as one of the attractions awaiting the invitee.
146
In a spirit similar to that of al-Kawkabānī, the Meccan scholar ʿAbbās al-Mūsawī (fl. 1736) gave the following advice in a poem:
146
In a spirit similar to that of al-Kawkabānī, the Meccan scholar ʿAbbās al-Mūsawī (fl. 1736) gave the following advice in a poem:
Do not shave except at the hands of someone willowy, who belittles branches with his figure and stature.For if you shave at the hands of a bearded fellow-he is as a butcher coming at you with his knife.And take your cup from someone from whose lips flows the water of life, Not from one whose hands are like snakes with visible poison [hair?], and at whose sight you’ll choke.And ensure that he who serves you during your bath is lithe, and puts to shame the moon with his appearance ...
147
The British sociologist Mary McIntosh, in an influential article first published in 1968, emphasized the distinction between homosexual behavior and the way a society conceives of those who indulge in such behavior. She argued that while practically all societies recognize that some individuals indulge in homosexual behavior, there was something peculiarly modern about the idea that only individuals of a certain type or constitution will willingly do so. Homosexuality is usually seen in the modern West as an innate and abnormal condition of a minority of humans which reveals itself in a regular desire to have homosexual intercourse, but also in various other ways. For example, a “homosexual” is widely assumed to be effeminate, promiscuous, and sexually uninterested in members of the other sex. McIntosh argued that such a homosexual “role” or stereotype only emerged in England in the late seventeenth century. Prior to that time, and in most contemporary non-Western societies, “there may be much homosexual behavior, but there are no ʿhomosexuals.’”
148
148
McIntosh’s thesis has been elaborated and defended by Alan Bray in his widely acclaimed study
Homosexuality in Renaissance England
(first published in 1982). Bray tried to show that there occurred a dramatic change in the homosexual stereotype toward the end of the seventeenth century. During the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, those who indulged in homosexual activity were conceived in primarily religious and moralistic terms, as rakes and libertines who committed the heinous sin of sodomy. In the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, this conception gave way to the stereotype of the effeminate “molly,” a peculiar kind of man who consorted with others of his kind in certain “molly houses,” and had his own subcultural mannerisms and jargon. The sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century “sodomite” or “bugger” had been someone who had given in to “a temptation to which all, in principle at least, were subject”
149
The late seventeenth- and eighteenth-century “molly” was perceived as a distinct type of person whose deviance was not confined to sexual acts but to his entire demeanor, his tone of voice, his gestures, his jargon.
Homosexuality in Renaissance England
(first published in 1982). Bray tried to show that there occurred a dramatic change in the homosexual stereotype toward the end of the seventeenth century. During the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, those who indulged in homosexual activity were conceived in primarily religious and moralistic terms, as rakes and libertines who committed the heinous sin of sodomy. In the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, this conception gave way to the stereotype of the effeminate “molly,” a peculiar kind of man who consorted with others of his kind in certain “molly houses,” and had his own subcultural mannerisms and jargon. The sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century “sodomite” or “bugger” had been someone who had given in to “a temptation to which all, in principle at least, were subject”
149
The late seventeenth- and eighteenth-century “molly” was perceived as a distinct type of person whose deviance was not confined to sexual acts but to his entire demeanor, his tone of voice, his gestures, his jargon.
“[M]olly,” unlike “bugger” or “sodomite,” involved more than sexuality in the most immediate sense alone. In it we can see encapsulated the expansion of the meaning of homosexuality ... to encompass behavior that was not intrinsically sexual at all, to be the basis for a particular social identity.
150
Other historical studies have claimed that similar changes in the conception of those who engaged in homosexual intercourse occurred in early eighteenth-century France and the Netherlands.
151
151
Independently of McIntosh, the French philosopher Michel Foucault, in the first volume of his
Histoire de la sexualité
(published in 1976), drew attention to the difference between the traditional religious and legal concept of “sodomy” and the late nineteenth-century concepts of “homosexuality” and “inversion” developed by the emerging science of psychology. “Sodomy” was a sinful act that anyone could commit, whereas “homosexuality” and “inversion” referred to a psychological state possessed by a distinct type of person. In a memorable and much-quoted passage, he stated:
Histoire de la sexualité
(published in 1976), drew attention to the difference between the traditional religious and legal concept of “sodomy” and the late nineteenth-century concepts of “homosexuality” and “inversion” developed by the emerging science of psychology. “Sodomy” was a sinful act that anyone could commit, whereas “homosexuality” and “inversion” referred to a psychological state possessed by a distinct type of person. In a memorable and much-quoted passage, he stated:
As defined by the ancient civil or canonical codes, sodomy was a category of forbidden acts; their perpetrator was nothing more than the juridical subject of them. The nineteenth-century homosexual became a personage, a past, a case history, and a childhood ... The sodomite had been a temporary aberration ; the homosexual was now a species.
152
The conceptual break is dated by Foucault to the late nineteenth century. In this respect he differs from McIntosh and Bray, who place the break two centuries earlier. However, both agree that a conceptual break did occur. At some point, whether the late seventeenth or the late nineteenth century, the view that homosexual intercourse was a sin, akin to theft or adultery, gave way to the view that homosexual intercourse revealed the possession of an abnormal psychological or physiological make-up.
The McIntosh-Foucault thesis has elicited much interest and support, but is still controversial. Especially the idea that premodern sodomites were conceived as individuals who merely committed a certain act, and that there was no developed concept of the perpetrator as a peculiar type of person, has come in for criticism.
153
The premodern Arab-Islamic sources may lend some support to this criticism. As has been shown above, the
ma’būn
was not just someone who happened to commit a prohibited act, but an abnormal type of person, whose deviant behavior invited explanations that appealed to his psychological or physiological constitution.
154
As has also been shown above, the criteria for being a
ma‘būn
did not necessarily involve actually having been involved in sexual intercourse. It was enough to want to be anally penetrated, as is shown by the example of the
maʾbūn
who locked himself up in his room and satisfied his lust with a wooden dildo. Similarly, Abū Jahl, the infamous archrival of the Prophet Muhammad, was reputed to have had
ubnah,
but would not countenance being “topped” by another man and satisfied his craving with stones instead.
155
Arabic collections of erotic anecdotes, such as
Nuzhat al-albāb
by Ah
mad al-Tīfāshī(d. 1253), provide evidence-long before the eighteenth or nineteenth century-for the existence of a developed
maʾbūn
stereotype or role involving effeminacy and sexual voracious-ness, and for the existence of a belief that such individuals formed an almost guild-like subculture.
156
153
The premodern Arab-Islamic sources may lend some support to this criticism. As has been shown above, the
ma’būn
was not just someone who happened to commit a prohibited act, but an abnormal type of person, whose deviant behavior invited explanations that appealed to his psychological or physiological constitution.
154
As has also been shown above, the criteria for being a
ma‘būn
did not necessarily involve actually having been involved in sexual intercourse. It was enough to want to be anally penetrated, as is shown by the example of the
maʾbūn
who locked himself up in his room and satisfied his lust with a wooden dildo. Similarly, Abū Jahl, the infamous archrival of the Prophet Muhammad, was reputed to have had
ubnah,
but would not countenance being “topped” by another man and satisfied his craving with stones instead.
155
Arabic collections of erotic anecdotes, such as
Nuzhat al-albāb
by Ah
mad al-Tīfāshī(d. 1253), provide evidence-long before the eighteenth or nineteenth century-for the existence of a developedmaʾbūn
stereotype or role involving effeminacy and sexual voracious-ness, and for the existence of a belief that such individuals formed an almost guild-like subculture.
156
Once the distinction between perceptions of the passive and active sodomite is taken into account, the discontinuity between premodern and modern conceptualizations appears much less sharp. There may indeed be significant differences between the premodern Arabic concept of the
maʾbun
or
mukhannath
and the eighteenth-century English concept of the “molly” or the nineteenth-century psychological concept of the “invert” or “homosexual.” However, all these concepts marked out persons with what was thought to be an odd or pathological internal constitution that was reflected primarily in sexual behavior but often also in overall demeanor. In this respect, at least, there seems to have been no dramatic conceptual discontinuity.
maʾbun
or
mukhannath
and the eighteenth-century English concept of the “molly” or the nineteenth-century psychological concept of the “invert” or “homosexual.” However, all these concepts marked out persons with what was thought to be an odd or pathological internal constitution that was reflected primarily in sexual behavior but often also in overall demeanor. In this respect, at least, there seems to have been no dramatic conceptual discontinuity.
It is when one focuses on the active sodomite or pederast that the contrast drawn by McIntosh and Foucault seems defensible. In the premodern Arab-Islamic Middle East, active sodomy was indeed conceived as primarily a moral-religious vice, akin to adultery, theft, and drinking alcohol, rather than the predicament of a peculiar type of person. It is important to point out that the claim here is not that all individuals were thought to be equally likely to commit sodomy. After all, one has to search hard for a society which thinks that all people are equally likely to steal or commit adultery. Some critics seem to believe that any evidence for a perceived link between sodomy and the character of the sodomite before the seventeenth or nineteenth century will falsify the McIntosh-Foucault thesis. However, despite Foucault’s claim that the premodern sodomite was “nothing more than the juridical subject” of sodomy (and one ought to remember that Foucault is speaking specifically of legal or canonical codes), it seems very uncharitable to understand him as postulating a purely coincidental link between sin and sinner in pre-nineteenth-century mentalities, so that he would claim that someone who had committed sodomy regularly was thought to be no more likely to commit it again than a person of hitherto impeccable moral conduct. It seems unnecessary to saddle Foucault with such an implausible claim.
157
All that is needed to establish the contrast he postulates is the claim that the connection envisaged in pre-nineteenth-century mentalities between sodomy and its perpetrator was analogous to the connection envisaged between, say, adultery or theft or-in the case of Islamic culture-drinking alcohol and its perpetrator. All these acts could be seen as the consequence of a certain “vile” or “depraved” character, and hence would not be expected from someone who was thought to be “upright” or “pious.” However, there appears to have been no sustained or influential effort to delimit those who had the potential for committing such acts in terms of their psychological or physiological constitution. Rather, the criteria for being an adulterer, a thief, or an active sodomite remained closely tied to actually committing or trying to commit the acts in question.
157
All that is needed to establish the contrast he postulates is the claim that the connection envisaged in pre-nineteenth-century mentalities between sodomy and its perpetrator was analogous to the connection envisaged between, say, adultery or theft or-in the case of Islamic culture-drinking alcohol and its perpetrator. All these acts could be seen as the consequence of a certain “vile” or “depraved” character, and hence would not be expected from someone who was thought to be “upright” or “pious.” However, there appears to have been no sustained or influential effort to delimit those who had the potential for committing such acts in terms of their psychological or physiological constitution. Rather, the criteria for being an adulterer, a thief, or an active sodomite remained closely tied to actually committing or trying to commit the acts in question.
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