Homosexuality
While "there have always been men and women who pursue erotic love with their own sex," it was not until the early eighteenth-century that some historians claim modern homosexuality began (Beachy). In Germany during the mid-nineteenth-century, medical scientists in Berlin collaborated with sexual minorities about issues of biological determinism and subjective expressions of sexuality to create the "homosexual species" (Beachy). Some German scientists and psychiatrists "concluded that same‐sex love was often a natural, inborn characteristic and not merely the perversion of a 'normal' sexual tendency" (Beachy). However, others thought that intimacy among members of the same sex was due to "vice and moral choice" and was "a symptom of perversion and sexual excess" (Beachy). Of course, just as with other sexual issues, homosexuality was not openly discussed, and oftentimes, young homosexuals found themselves alone and confused in a world filled with straight, albeit sexually repressed, people. Even when information regarding homosexuality was published, attempts to censor it and punish the writers were quickly made. Homosexual acts had been illegal in earlier times, but in 1848 in some areas of Germany, "same-gender sex acts" were "exempt from criminal prosecution" unless the acts were with children (Beachy). However, sodomy was re-criminalized after 1871. "Male 'sodomites' were generally understood as oversexed predators who simply grew bored with women and heterosexual intercourse" (Beachy). Although nothing was concretely decided about the issue of homosexuality, its origins and legality were up for debate, which shows the prevalence and importance of the issue, even in nineteenth-century Germany.
Sources:
Beachy, Robert. "The German Invention of Homosexuality." The Journal of Modern History 82.4 (2010). Web. 3 Oct. 2014
Sources:
Beachy, Robert. "The German Invention of Homosexuality." The Journal of Modern History 82.4 (2010). Web. 3 Oct. 2014