The Queer Thing About Sin: Why the West Came to Hate Queer Love

In this impressive debut study, historian Tanner contends that homophobia arises in the wake of political instability and economic uncertainty. He shows how, as classical Greek society became more inegalitarian in the 4th century BCE, gay sex was lambasted as a prime example of the lack of self-control necessary to survive in a harsh world. He makes similar observations about the Romans—who, he argues, were more extreme in framing queerness as an assault on self-control, with alleged accounts of gay sex among Roman emperors likely serving as political propaganda to discredit them—and in both the Hebrew bible and the New Testament, where Tanner points to ways that anti-gay language was deployed to cope with instability. He bolsters these claims with brief jaunts through queer life and politics in later eras, including gender-bending monks in Byzantium, sodomy in Renaissance-era Florence, and cyclical waves of crackdowns on homosexual sex in England. Along the way, Tanner pokes holes in well-worn theories about the history of homosexuality, including arguing that pedophilia may not have been as rampant among the Greeks as presumed (he notes that the moniker “boy” for a male lover may just be a term of endearment), and points out that it was Aristotle who first “medicalized” queer desire, which is usually considered a 19th-century development. Expansive yet fast-paced, it’s a captivating reimagining of the politics of queer desire. (Jan.)