Sodomy, possessive individualism and godless nature: Eighteenth-century traces of homosexual assertiveness

When organized homosexual emancipation took root in the late nineteenth century, it was largely based on the then prevailing biomedical and psychiatric conceptualizations of homosexuality. These presented it as an innate inclination of a minority, while science-based knowledge was seen as the road towards societal acceptance. In this article it is argued that as early as in the eighteenth century, distinct efforts were made towards ‘homosexual emancipation’, if preliminary and less coherent perhaps, yet also quite radical in tone and contents. While the modern gay movement largely steered a defensive course way into the twentieth century, based on a clearly demarcated minority group’s sense of ‘being different’ and ‘having no other option’, in the eighteenth century there were voices that appealed to homosexual behaviour as a matter of self-determination and choice by deriving inspiration from early liberalism, libertinism, cultural history and literature. The examples provided in this article are derived from (mainly English and French) court archives, pamphlets, political-philosophical treatises, personal documents and (semi-pornographic) literary texts.