> Sure, there are examples of homosexually-inclined people and of social
> disapproval towards them (as well as total social approval/indifference)
> throughout written history. Check out the contested history of same-sex
> marriage in Early Christian and Middle Ages (John Boswell's Same-Sex Unions
> in Premodern Europe). But neither language nor communities that defined
> homosexuality as a meaningful social category,either for homophobic and
> homosexual purposes, existed much before this century. Urbanization made it
> more possible for all kinds of people to exist outside the nuclear family -- not
> only homosexuals but single people, particularly women, began to exist in a
> large-scale socially significant way. to provoke a hostility that they simply
> hadn't when there weren't that many of them.
>
> Liza
>
Besides the Boswell book there is a nice collection of essays dealing with pre-WWII same-sexing in the US. It is:
Hidden from History : Reclaiming the Gay and Lesbian Past edited by Martha Vicinus, George Chauncey, Martin Bauml Duberman Meridian Books; ISBN: 0452010675
--
Joseph Noonan jfn1 at msc.com