When did sexual orientation begin in history?

[howfardoestherabbitholego]

When did sexual orientation become a thing in history?

I was really surprised when I did some googling to find out that in ancient times there wasn't heterosexuality or homosexuality but people just had sex with people without an orientation as such

It was seen as bad for an older man to be the submissive partner but fine for him if not the recipient and a younger male partner (think the word was pedantry)

I was really suprised (never studied history) that it seems in ancient times men could have sex with whoever they like - they just had to make sure that was a woman, slave, younger boy, foreigner etc for it be considered morally ok

I'm heterosexual but it seems so inbuilt in me and I always assume that homosexual people it's inbuilt to be homosexual... history (if what I've been reading is correct... Wikipedia mainly) seems to challenge that and suggest that we may have learned being heterosexual/homosexual???

I don't have an AIBU... just surprised and intrigued

Thank you I will look for Foucault and have a read

Do you think PIE came out of this idea? they were sick fucks and I certainly don't mean it was okay in the way we live now

But the ancient thing of older man/younger boy rite of passage

Other writers argue that there were instances in which people in the ancient world did indeed have sexual relations/rape children

I think I once read that the accepted age for pederasty in Japan was 9+ (in certain periods)

There's obviously also the still very real issue of forced (often underaged) marriage...

Also in America (which really surprised me) but I recently read an article of an 11yo that was forced to marry (legally marry!) her rapist...

www.google.ch/amp/s/mobile.nytimes.com/2017/05/26/opinion/sunday/it-was-forced-on-me-child-marriage-in-the-us.amp.html

It's so strange to find things we obviously now have very strong moral objection against being normal at one point in history. Where did it change? Why? Obviously I'm glad it did but why didn't it start off seen as a bad thing - pedophilia

From what posters are saying thoughout a lot of history sexual relationships based on ideas of property/ power imbalances/ negotiation of wealth and status have been the norm, as well as all the marriages based on economic partnership. What we regard as normal/legal, ie 2 equal adults acting freely out of choice, affection, desire and ideally commitment is a modern concept. Sounds like progress to me. Childhood, gender equality and human rights are also modern concepts.

Weren’t sexual relations between companions in Ancient Greece encouraged to forge stronger links in higher military classes wives were there to bear children. Isn’t this where the anachronistic misconception Alexander the Great was gay cane from for example. I’m a firm believer sexuality is a sliding scale with only a minority right at the extremes. But there seems to be a modern need to have a label for everything.

Does seem to have been a patriarchal thing always

@MeyYael that article is shocking!

Perhaps, as PP have said, it's more that our ideas of childhood/the age of a child has changed? (Wrt to paedophilia - I can't think of an instance in the ancient world where sex with an individual society at that time identified as a child was sanctioned, though I'm definitely open to being corrected on this)

Bear I've certainly heard that as an interpretation but don't think I've ever read it in a Greek source, though again, welcome to stand corrected on this.

Oh, and OP: yes to the influence of the patriarchy

marriage could be contracted with a child (mostly female) but that consummation would not take place until puberty.

I think one of the contemporary criticisms of King John was that he married a very young wife but didn't bother waiting until she was older before cracking on with the consummation.

Certainly the Spartans are beloved to have encouraged men to form strong bonds with each other. They lived with other boys as children away from their families from a young age, and later on they had syssitia which were like dining clubs where men would all eat (drink and be merry) together. Not like a gentleman’s club as they were organised meals you sort of had to go to. There seem to have been several different social habits which aimed at not allowing the bond between husband and wife or family in general become too strong, and some of that was probably to do with military advantage (as the Spartans were particularly obsessed with and good at martial activities). However most of our sources are from other societies (because Ancient Greece had so many different city states with different mores) and not totally reliable for many reasons.

I believe but do not know for sure that most societies up to fairly recently would see a child as ceasingto be child at puberty, and therefore sex with a 14 year old etc not seen as paedophilic.

Girls might be married at 13 ish (when periods started) and boys seen as attractive when starting to have facial hair (similar age). In Roman society the age difference between men and girls marrrying them, as men didn’t tend to marry til 30 ish, would also increase the inequality of power and serve the patriarchy, as posters have mentioned. I feel like there are sources which are critical of paedophilia below that age but my memory is rubbish.

Spartans are believed