Posted: Sep 02, 2010 9:16 pm
So how did this change happen? Which groups were responsible for it?
Interesting question.
Now my knowledge of history was gay sex was often used to enforce superiority in ancient societies. A master could rape a slave or someone lower down the social scale. Ancient Greece was different though as they had theories on having and seeking pleasure so gay sex could just be for pleasure. So gay sex wasn’t always performed by homosexuals, it was also cultural so heterosexuals sometimes did it as well.
Taking the above paragraph as a rough idea of the world cultural situation then the first groups to demand change would have been the religions that called it a sin. I think I sort of understand the reason why. If homo rape was happening as a social one-upmanship well you’re not going to get a religion that says one form of gay sex is wrong, but consensual is ok, the religion is going to ban all forms to keep it simple.
Changes to the attitudes of a society to homosexuality has had its minor periods of acceptance in small localities. However it hasn’t been until the start of the 1970’s that real progress has been made. It doesn’t seem to be localized but more a western change in attitudes at more or less the same decades.
Second important foundation of change was women’s suffrage. Huge concept where women were starting to have the same equality of rights as men. It must have started with education, followed by female self awareness and then female politics. This opened up the average westerner to more education. The first foundation could have been a turn against slavery, but as education wasn’t tied in with that it took a long time before woman’s suffrage came along.
So in the end I think it came down to education that allowed self awareness, and in turn realising there was no us and them, but the knowledge we are the same. It just seems a logical progression that after slaves and females gaining freedom from societies and religious rules that homosexuals said we are normal too so give us the respect we deserve as we are not raping anyone.
All I’ve written might be utter garbage, but it sort of makes sense too me as a chain of events.