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UNITED STATES 9 the same] sex" or "sexual activity between to mass-media exposure; and the emer- members of onesex." Although unisexual/ gence of the modern homosexual move- unisexuel figures sporadically in English ment, followed by its spread throughout and French texts from the first half of the theindustrializednon-communist world. twentieth century, it could not in the long American Diversity. One abiding run maintain itself in competition with characteristic of the United States is that homosexual, and gradually disappeared it is an amalgam of very diverse ethnic from use. To determine its exact meaning heritages. Groups outside of the Protes- in a given work, one must analyze the tant northern European tradition (which context. has dominated the educated middle class Thus at the outset of the homo- and hence the public and official discus- sexual emancipation movement in the sion)have often retained more than traces 1860~~two sets of terms were proposed: ofthesexualattitudes andpracticespreva- Ulrichs' Greek-German coinages from lent in their original homelands, making classical mythology and Kertbeny's re- generalizations risky. Aspects of the working of the Latin-French ones, in- Mediterranean concept of homosexuality spired by the language of botany. Neither persist among working-class Americans set, it should be noted, was of medical whose ethnic heritage goes back to that origin; the notion that homosexual is a area; blacks have retained their own dis- medical term is false and unhistorical. tinctive cultural attitudes; Irish Catholics That homosexual ultimately prevailed is still display their propensity toward owing, more than anything else, to the homophobic ambivalence; and new waves extent to which Latin words (and new of sophisticated Asian immigrants are coinages using Latin roots) have become bringing their more relaxed perspectives part of the abstract and scientific vocabu- along with them. lary of the modern languages, in Germanic All generalizations about the and Slavic as much as in Romance. United States must also be qualified not Warren Johansson only with respect to chronology but also with respect to regional variations which UNITEDKINGDOM were quite pronounced untilvery recently. See England; Ireland. From the first settlements by Europeans on the eastern seaboard of what is now the United States in the later sixteenth cen- UNITEDSTATES OF tury to the rise to global power status in AMERICA the twentieth, growth and diversification The United States is a republic of have been phenomenal. In the 1970s and nearly 250 milli0n people the 80s the number of known primary sources continent of North America, but with for the earlier history of ~omosexu~~ty considerable cultural influence over much increased considerably, but the evidence of the globe. The history of is still so scattered that broad conclusions what is now the United States presents must be inferred from minimal evidence. several distinct features, including: the In due course many of the assertions pre- transplantation and adaptation of Euro- sented below will inevitably be modifiedi pean ideas and patterns of behavior; the some may be completely discarded. life ways of the frontier; the pcrsistence of The Colonial Period. Before the varied Amerindian patterns; the gradual arrival of Europeans (starting with the and irregularweakening~with numerous Spanish in Florida in 1565), the area counteroffensives, of the hold of Christian whichis now t~eUnite~~tateswaspeop~e~ norms over common public mores; the by Indians and Eskimos, many of whose transition from Victorian taboos of silence tribes had homosexual traditions of their 9 UNITED STATES own: the berdache, for instance. These tra- of crimes in this period, as in England.] ditions, however, had little if any influ- The situation about which there are the ence on the behavior of the European most data, that of Nicholas Sension of immigrants who established themselves, Windsor, Connecticut (tried for sodomy in mostly under British rule after 1607, by 16771, reveals alifetime of attempted homo- displacing the Indians along the Atlantic sexual seductions, but Sension was con- coastline; they survive in rudimentary victed only of attempted sodomy and given form only in scattered reservations. a sentence which was a type of probation. The British colonies from Maine Unless the informal social controls to Georgia were sparsely populated and (mores)were far more efficient than twen- largely isolated from each other and from tieth-century evidence could lead us to England. The economy was almost en- suspect, there was a great deal of same-sex tirely agricultural, and subject to devasta- erotic behavior which went unnoticed tion from crop failure and in many places and certainly unpunished. to counterattack from native Americans Toward the end of the seven- (Indians]. Education was rudimentary. In teenth century (and earlier in the southern these colonies, children were of great colonies), the legal term buggery began to value-useful from a very early age as replace the term sodomy in the statutes, agricultural workers. The colonists and gradually Biblical language yielded to stressed procreational sexual behavior more precise descriptions of the prohib- and family arrangements which were ited behavior. Pennsylvania under the likely to lead to that end. Quakers led by William Penn remains an Old Testament and New Testa- exception unique in the Western world ment passages describing non-procrea- at that time: in its "Great Law" of 1682, it tional sex as sinful were emphasized by reduced the penalty on a first offense for religious authorities, especially in New sodomy to six months hard labor and a England where rigid Calvinism was origi- second offense was punished by life im- nally paramount. Because these ideas prisonment. Various southern colonies served both secular and clerical goals, eliminated the death penalty later in the they were enshrined in colonial laws. In colonial pcriod. some cases literal Biblical language en- Little evidence has come to light tered directly into the early sodomy laws. beyond the legal documents, but it is clear Erotic conduct between males was only that there was no concept of the "homo- one of a series of non-procreative behav- sexual" or of a sexual orientation such as iors that werepunished. Masturbation and we have today. Homosexual behavior was sex with prostitutes received almost equal viewed as a sinful activity into which condemnation. With the possible excep- anyone might fall. Just how the partici- tion of a New Haven statute of 1655, pants perceived their own activities is sexual relations between women do not impossible to know. Only one detailed appear in the statutes. personal document survives from this Generalizations about the en- entire period plus some hints in the trial forcement of these laws are difficult. records in the legal prosecutions. While it From 1607 to 1740, the colonies provide is evident that the colonists had quite only nineteen recorded prosecutions (an clear gender roles (differentiation be- average of about one case every seven tween appropriate male and female activi- years). There were only four certain execu- ties] which led to considerable male bond- tions during that period (with three pos- ing, there is no indication that deep affec- sible others], despite the death penalty's tion between males overlapped with sex- beingmandated by all thestatutes. (Capital ual activity. There is not a single known punishment was required for a wide range record of the profession of erotic desire UNITED STATES 4 along with affection of one male for an- ual behavior or attitudes toward it. other. By the beginning of the nineteenth Britain was not the only colonial century, the area east of the Appalachian power to establish itself in the area which mountains was viewed as "settled," with eventually became the United States. The the frontier in the areas to the west. French briefly colonized the Mississippi However, the eastern seaboard was still River valley, leaving a lasting imprint on sparsely populated, and the largest cities New Orleans characterized by a much still had less than 50,000 persons. The more tolerant attitude toward homosexu- economy remained agricultural so that ality than that brought in by the British. the social need for population growth The Spanish occupied Florida, Texas, Cali- remained undiminished. But if a person fornia, and the Southwest, bringing with hadviolated the social norms of city life or them a tradition of macho masculinity wanted to, there remained a vast frontier and the Mediterranean style of homosexu- to which one could escape and in which ality, which has had lasting influence, one could be free from most social controls though more through immigration from in an anarchist (and in the deep frontier, other areas once colonized by Spain than all-male) setting. In the states south of by direct residue from the Spanish rule of Pennsylvania, chattel slavery still existed. what is now continental United States Piracy was common in coastal waters. territory; Puerto Rico, a Caribbean island It has been suggested by various whose Spanish-speaking inhabitants have writers that the isolation of the frontier American citizenship, is a clear exception. with its dominant population of males; The Dutch and Swedes also had American the inequality of blacks who were owned colonies for a brief time, but seem to have as property by white masters; and the all- left no trace on the sexual mores of the male

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