The Encyclopedia

The Encyclopedia ABERRATION,SEXUAL medical pathology the term "abnormal" The notion of sexual aberration refers to conditions which interfere with had some currency in the literature of the physical well-being and functioning of psychiatry during the first half of the twen- a living body. Applied to social life, such tieth century. Although the expression an approach entails subjective judgments encompassed a whole range of behaviors about what the good life is. Moreover, regarded as abnormalities, it is probably insofar as homosexual and other variant safe to say that it was used more with lifestyles can be considered "maladjusted," reference to homosexuality than for any that assumption reflects the punitive in- other "disorder." In due course it yielded trusion of socially sanctioned prescriptions to deviation, and then to deviance-some- rather than any internal limitations im- what less negative concepts. posed by the behavior itself. In otherwords, The term derives from the Latin once the corrosive element of self-con- abenare, "to go astray, wander off." It is tempt, which is introjected by the social significant that the first recorded English environment, is removed, homosexual use of the verb "aberr" (now obsolete), by men and lesbian women would appear to John Bellenden in 1536, refers to religious function as well as anyone else. Another heresy. For nineteenth-century alienists difficulty with the concept is that the pair and moralists, theword aberration took op normal/abnormal suggests a sharp strong connotations of mental instability dichotomy. Kinsey's findings, however, or madness. Thus, in its application to suggest that sexual behavior is best under- sexual nonconformity, the concept linked stood as a continuum with many individu- up with the notion of "moral insanity," als falling between the poles and shifting that is to say, the nonclinical manifesta- position over the course of their lives. tion of desire for variant experience. The It is true but trivialthat in a purely notion of departure from a presumed sta- statistical sense homosexual behavior in tistical norm, and the prefix ab-, connect our society is abnormal, since it is not with the concept of abnormal. The prolif- practiced by most people most of the time. eration of such terms in the writings of But the same is the case with such behav- psychiatrists, physicians, moralists, and ior as opera singing, the monastic voca- journalists in the first half of the twentieth tion, medicine-all of which are valued century reveals a profound ambivalence occupations, but ones practiced only by with regard to human variation, in which small segments of the population. Label- prescriptive condemnation struggles ing sopranos, monks, or physicians abnor- with, and often overcomes, descriptive mal would be tautological-it amounts to neutrality. sayingthat amember of agroupis amember of a group. Needless to say, we are not accustomed to refer to such pursuits as ABNORMALITY abnormal because they do not, as a rule, The lay public remains much incur social disapproval. Sometimes the concerned about the question of whether matter is referred to biology, by enquiring homosexual behavior is abnormal. In as to whether animals practice it . (See 4 ABNORMALITY animal homosexuality.) Once again, such ual (which by inference is not normal). cultural activities as religion and medi- Although Kertbeny's first word, in strik- cine are not practiced by animals, but this ing contrast to the second, gained no cur- lack does not compel us to condemn them rency, it did anticipate the twentieth- as abnormal. Because of thenegative freight century contrast of normal and abnormal that has accumulated over the years, aug- sexuality. mented by numerous courses in "abnormal psychology," it is best that the term be BIBLIOGRAPHY. Alfred Kinsey et al., "Normality and Abnormality in Sexual used very sparingly--if at all-in connec- Behavior," in P. H. Hoch and J. Zubin, tion with sexual behavior. eds., Psychological Development in The history of the word itself Health and Disease, New York: Grune reveals an interesting, if obscure inter- and Stratton, 1949, 11-32. change between linguistic development Wayne R. Dynes and judgrnentalism. As the Oxford Eng- lish Dictionary noted (with unconscious ABOMINATION irony) in 1884, "few words show such a In contemporary usage the terms series of pseudo-etymological perversions." abomination and abominable refer in a The process that occasioned this unusual generic way to something that is detest- lexicographical outburst is as follows. able or loathsome. Because of Old Testa- Greek anomalos ("not even or level") ment usage, however-Leviticus 18:22, produced Latin anomalus-and eventu- "Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with ally our word anomalous. Then, through womankind: it is abomination" (cf. Lev- confusion with norma, "rule," the Latin iticus 20: 13; Deuteronomy 225 and 23: 19; word was corrupted to anormalis, hence and I Kings 14:24)-the words retain a French and Middle English anormal. The special association as part of the religious parasitic "b" crept in as the second letter of condemnation of male homosexual be- the modem word through scribal inter- havior. In Elizabethan English they were vention rather than the natural evolution normally written "abhomination," "ab- of speech. (Comparethe intrusive "dl1 and hominable" as if they derived from Latin "h" in "adventure" and "author" respec- ab- and homwhence "departing from the tively .) human; inhuman." In fact, the core of the It is true that classical Latin had Latin word is the religious term omen. abnormis, "departing from the rule," but In any event the notion of it did not possess abnormalis. The pres- abominatioln) owes its force to its appear- ence of the "b" in our word abnormal ance in Jerome's Vulgate translation of the serves to create an unconscious associa- Bible, where it corresponds to Greek tion with "aberrant," "abreaction," etc. bdelygma and Hebrew t62bgh. The latter To summarize, the pejorative connota- term denotes behavior that violates the tions are enhanced by the intrusion of two covenant between God and Israel, and is consonants, "b" and "r," which-the ety- applied to Canaanite trade practices, idola- mology shows-do not belong there. try, and polytheism. The aversion of the Two rare anticipations of modern religious leaders of the Jewish community usage may be noted as curiosities. In a after the return from the Babylonian cap- harangue against sodomites, the French tivity to the "abominable customs" of thirteenth-century Roman delarose (lines their heathen neighbors, combined with 19619-20) refers to those who practice the Zoroastrian prohibition of homosex- "exceptions anormales." In 1869 the ual behavior, inspired the legal provisions homosexual theorist Kkoly Mkia Kert- added to the Holiness Code of Leviticus in beny coined a word, normalsexual (= the fifth century before the Christian era heterosexual], in contrast with homosex- that were to be normative for Hellenistic ABRAHAMIC RELIGIONS 9 Judaism and then for Pauline Christianity. century B.C. and the first century, when The designation of homosexual relations the writings of such Jewish apologists as as an "abomination" or "abominable Philo Judaeus and Flavius Josephus show crime" in medieval and modern sacral and it in a fully developed form. Thus the legal texts echoes the wording of the Old negative attitude of all three faiths has a Testament. single OldTestament source; itsreception The complex web of prohibitions in Christianity is secondary and in Islam recorded in the Book of Leviticus has de- tertiary, the Islamic tradition having fied full explanation from the standpoint mainly been shaped by Nestorian Christi- of comparative religion. Recently influen- anity of the early seventh century. All tial among social scientists (though not three contrast in the most strikingmanner amongBiblica1scholars) has been the inter- with the role that homosexual behavior pretation of the anthropologist Mary and the art and literature inspired by Douglas (Purity and Danger, London, homoerotic feeling played in Greco-Ro- 1967))who views the abominations as part man paganism-+ legacy that the medie- of a concern with the boundaries of classi- val and modern world has never been able fication categories, strict adherence to fully to suppress or disavow, but which which attests one's purity in relation to has driven scholars and translators to acts divinity. of censorship and artful silence when confronted with texts and artifacts be- queathed by the ancient civilizations. ABRAHAMICRELIGIONS The claim of homophobic propa- J According to the French Catholic gandists that the prohibition of homo- Orientalist Louis Massignon (1883-1962), sexuality isuniversalrestsessentiallyupon theAbrahamicreligionsarethethreemajor its proscription in the Abrahamic relig- faiths-Judaism, Christianity, Islam-that ions, which have primarily condemned look to the patriarch Abraham as their male homosexuality. Lesbianism is no- spiritual father. In their belief systems, where mentioned in the Old Testament, Abraham ranks as the first monotheist the New Testament, or the Koran. The who rejected the pagan divinities and their passage in Romans 1:26 that has often idols and worshipped the true God who been interpreted as referring to lesbian revealed himself to him. (Modem scholars sexuality actually concerns another Old have concluded that the book of Genesis is Testament myth, the sexual union of the a historical novel written only

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