Transcript Sexual Histories, Lecture 12 Colonial Sexualities

Sexual Histories, Lecture 12
New Worlds and Colonialism
1. Medieval Sexual Stereotypes of Muslims,
Welsh, and Irish
Crusade era, 1095-1291
Map of Crusader states, c. 1100
(Christian enclaves in the eastern
Mediterranean formerly held by
Muslim powers)
Crusade Propaganda Using Sexual Demonisation of Muslims
‘They have degraded by sodomizing
them men of every age and rank:
boys, adolescents, young men, old
men, nobles, servants, and, what is
worse and more wicked, clerics and
monks, and even . . . bishops! They
have already killed one bishop with
this nefarious sin.’ Quoted in John
Boswell, Christianity, Social
Tolerance and Homosexuality, p. 280,
this letter was probably a Christian
forgery composed c. 1095.
Saracens as devils, in a late medieval
manuscript
Saracens ‘burn with lust for them
[Christian boys]…like mad dogs’
(William de Ada, quoted in
Boswell, p. 282).
• Crusaders killing
Saracens (15thC
French manuscript)
Saracens ‘sexually abuse not
only both sexes but even animals
and have for the most part
become like mindless horses or
mules’ (Jacques de Vitry, Oriental
History, c. 1219)
Islam is an ‘abominable sect,
one suitable for fleshly
indulgences.’ Alan de Lille (c.
1128-1202), Contra paganos
Crusaders killing Saracens (15thC French
manuscript)
Queer Irish. Illuminations from a manuscript of Gerald of Wales’s History and
Topography of Ireland, 12thC
An Irish woman with a goat
Kingship ritual from Ulster. Following sex with
a mare the elected king bathes in her broth
and eats her flesh.
2. Medieval Sexual Stereotypes of
Jews
‘The Golden Haggadah’ (Jewish
service book, c. 1320), made by
Northern French artists; depicts
Jewish men according to
conventional anti-Semitic
imagery but the women as
elegant beauties
‘The Golden Haggadah’ (c. 1320), detail
3. Colonial America and Sexual Histories
Columbus encounters Native Americans, 1492
Spanish explorer Vasco de Balboa sets his dogs on men who have allegedly
committed same-sex acts, Central America, early 16thC
European authors of the
seventeenth century often
commented on the
‘nakedness’ of Native
American and African women
and found it remarkable that
some suckled babies over
their shoulders and felt no
pain in childbirth.
‘An oran-outang husband
would not be any dishonour
to an Hottentot female,’
Richard Long, History of
Jamaica, 1770s.
Early American colonists saw female slaves as sexually available to white
men. They were ‘luxuries’, as was the privilege of maltreating their black
slaves in general, as indicated in this undated, unsigned painting
Cheyenne ‘hetaneman’ or female two-spirit in a
ledger drawing ca. 1889
Christian settlers and
missionaries failed to
comprehend the
distinctive identity of
two-spirit people and
condemned them for
‘sinful’, ‘nefarious’ or
‘unnatural’ behaviours
He’emane’o, Cheyenne male two-spirits (on right), leading the scalp dance;
Charlie the Weaver (Navajo) with two-spirit partner, ca. 1895
Conclusion
Jeffrey Weeks said that ‘writing about sex can be
dangerous’. The more one studies the history of sexuality,
the more it seems that the danger is not in writing about
sexuality, it is in ignoring it.