Books on Homosexuality

Books by William A. Percy

Encyclopedia of Homosexuality

Wayne R. Dynes (Editor), Stephen Donaldson, Warren Johansson, William A. Percy

(Garland Publishing, 1990)

Description from Library Journal: Dynes ... has put together a superb reference tool. The encyclopedia contains 770 articles providing a broad range of information useful to both scholar and layperson. Coverage includes historical, medical, psychological, sociological, and transcultural and transgeographical information in biographical, topical, and thematic entries. A subject cross-reference guide begins the work. Biographies exclude living people, but they are often referred to in the text. The focus tends to be Western (because of the availability of information), but African, Eastern, and other groups are included. Variant viewpoints are discussed, and bibliographies (primarily covering book-length studies) are provided at the end of each article. Homosexuality is treated in the broad sense, including lesbianism, bisexuality, and homophobia. Most entries are readable at a high school level, but a few (e.g., "Social Construction," "Canon Law") require work and the use of a specialized dictionary. Highly recommended. — Robert Aken, Univ. of Kentucky Libs., Lexington

For the old-fashioned: Order it from ABCbooks or Amazon

Outing:Shattering the Conspiracy of Silence

Warren Johansson

William A. Percy

(Haworth Press, 1994)

Description from Haworth Press: Here is the most complete book on outing — the exposure of closet homosexual cases in high places. Outing: Shattering the Conspiracy of Silence is the first historicist treatment of the intolerance of homosexuality in any language. Authors Johansson and Percy analyze the subject from the perspective of the shifting religious attitudes toward homosexual expression. They do not blithely parrot the "right to privacy," but examine the dialectical meaning of privacy. This provocative book focuses on the irreconcilable opposition between the belief in privacy and the assumption of Christian theology that all homosexual activity is visible to the God whose wrath it provokes.

Order this book from Haworth Press or Amazon

Pederasty and Pedagogy in Archaic Greece

William A. Percy

(University of Illinois Press, 1996)

Description from University of Illinois Press: Combining impeccable scholarship with accessible, straightforward prose, Pederasty and Pedagogy in Archaic Greece argues that institutionalized pederasty began after 650 B.C., far later than previous authors have thought, and was initiated as a means of stemming overpopulation in the upper class.

William A. Percy III maintains that Cretan sages established a system under which a young warrior in his early twenties took a teenager of his own aristocratic background as a beloved until the age of thirty, when service to the state required the older partner to marry. The practice spread with significant variants to other Greek-speaking areas. In some places it emphasized development of the athletic, warrior individual, while in others both intellectual and civic achievement were its goals. In Athens it became a vehicle of cultural transmission, so that the best of each older cohort selected, loved, and trained the best of the younger.

Pederasty was from the beginning both physical and emotional, the highest and most intense type of male bonding. These pederastic bonds, Percy believes, were responsible for the rise of Hellas and the "Greek miracle": in two centuries the population of Attica, a mere 45,000 adult males in six generations, produced an astounding number of great men who laid the enduring foundations of Western thought and civilization.

Author’s afterthought: Late marriages (females at 16 to 18 rather than at 12 to 15 as in other societies) gave time to both sexes to mature physically and intellectually. This also helped spark the Greek miracle.

Order this book from University of Illinois Press, Amazon or Barnes and Noble booksellers.

• James Jope's Review from Classical Views
• Paul Cartldege's Review from International History Review

The Age of Marriage in Ancient Rome

Arnold Lelis

William A. Percy

Beert C. Verstraete

(Edwin Mellen Press, 2003)

Description from Mellen Press: First, this study provides a convenient review of the research done and various views held since the late 19th century on the age of marriage in ancient Roman society. It offers an hypothesis that explains the apparent discrepancy between the literary and epigraphic evidence. The age of marriage in Rome had important demographic implications. This study argues and demonstrates that, given the extremely high mortality rate in the Roman Empire, a very early age of marriage was desirable, especially for Roman girls, in order to ensure a reasonably stable population. This study will make a significant contribution to the area of Roman demography and social history.

ISBN: 0-7734-6665-7 Pages: 168 Year: 2003

Order this book from Mellen Press or Amazon.

Read James Jope's Review of the Book

Read the Review in Bryn Mawr Classical Review

Read My Rejoinder to the Bryn Mawr Review

Roman Marriage Age Revisited, by Percy and Verstraete

Geza Schay's Example referring to William A. Percy's The Age of Marriage in Ancient Rome (as pdf)

Articles by William A. Percy

Homosexuality in the Middle Ages

(as pdf)

Reconsiderations About Greek Homosexualities

(Part 1 - Part 5) (Part 6 - Part 9) (Part 10 and Notes)

The Earliest Revolution Against the "Modern State:" Direct Taxation in Medieval Sicily and the Vespers

(as pdf)

The Indirect Taxes of the Medieval Kingdom of Sicily

(as pdf)

Cornell Series edited by Edward W. Fox

Note: I coauthored Age of Recovery and helped revise Ancient Israel and Heirs of The Roman Empire, and recruited the author of Age of Adversity.

The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln

C.A. Tripp

edited by Lewis Gannett, Introduction by Jean Baker

(Free Press, 2005)

Second Printing by Thunder's Mouth (2006), with a new "Critical Overview" by Gannett and me.

• Read Charley Shively's Rejected “Afterword”

• Lincoln, Scholars, and Sex by Lewis Gannett & William Percy

Order this book from Amazon or Barnes and Noble booksellers.

Before Stonewall: Activists for Gay and Lesbian Rights in Historical Context

(Haworth Gay & Lesbian Studies)

Vern L. Bullough

Judith M. Saunders

Sharon Valente

(Harrington Park Press, 2002)

This book illuminates the lives of the courageous individuals involved in the early struggle for gay and lesbian civil rights in the United States. Authored by those who knew them (often activists themselves), the concise biographies in this volume examine the lives of pre-1969 barrier breakers, including Harry Hay, Henry Gerber, Alfred Kinsey, Del Martin, Phyllis Lyon, Jim Kepner, Jack Nichols, Christine Jorgensen, Jose Sarria, Barbara Grier, Frank Kameny, and nearly 40 more.

Order this book from Amazon or Barnes and Noble.

Same-Sex Desire and Love in Greco-Roman Antiquity and in the Classical Tradition of the West

Beert Verstraete and Vernon Provencal, eds.

Double Special Issue of the Journal of Homosexuality

Volume 49, Issue 3/4, 2005.

This book is intended to supplement, correct and challenge what has long been the standard work on the subject, Craig Williams' book on Roman homosexuality. Personally, I think that Williams handled the difficult interpretation of the Lex Scantinia better than Jim Boutrica, who contributed the longest aritcle to this collection and whose view the editors accepted, along with many others in the last decades, that the law outlawed sex between Roman citizens. Believing, as I do, in the great German scholars before Hitler and in Warren Johansson, that only the great Abrahamic religions inspired such laws, I cannot believe that the Romans ever had such a homophobic enactment. Because if they had, it would surely have been mentioned by Cicero and the other great lawyers and legislatures, whereas the best attestation that the modern scholars can cite is a prostitute's quip to a judge in Juvenal. The other most important work in this area, between Williams and Verstraete, is a brilliant anthology of translations, often made by the editor himself, and most astute commentaries, assembled by Thomas Hubbard. Eugene Rice, who is cannibalizing his great work - erudite beyond belief - by posting excerpts on the excellent online gay encyclopedia GLBTQ, of which there are seven Kabinettsstücke (each more scintillating the last: Hadrian, St. Paul,Patristic Writers, Sodomy, Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, Medieval Europe, Aelred of Rievaulx), in his Ancient Rome article writes, "The deep-seated prejudice against adult male passives distilled in formulas like servilis patientia (slave-like submission) and muliebris patientia (woman-like passivity) helps explain the provisions of the much debated lex Scantinia (mid-second century B.C.E.), the only Roman law directed against same-sex acts before the legislation of the Christian emperors in the fourth century C.E. Scraps of good evidence from Juvenal and Suetonius suggest that the law criminalized the two main prohibitions of the sexual code: the seduction of an underage freeborn boy [which I agree with] and the anal and oral submission of a Roman citizen to penetration by another male. [which I disagree with]"

So the argument on the Lex Scantinia has two opposing viewpoints. In sum, for the opinion that the Roman law did not forbid a Roman citizen to ever take the passive role in a homosexual, sit all the old Germans including Kiefer and Hirschfeld, Lilja, Williams, Johansson, and myself. Believing the opposite are Richlin, Cantarella, Rice, and Verstraete. Boutrica seems to straddle the question. The best arbitrator would have been Theodore Mommsen, Sr., with his unparalleled Römische Strafrecht, but without his living presence, we would do best to scrutinize his work.

Order this book from Haworth Press

JUDAISM: the source of Western Homophobia

these are chapters from a book on Homophobic Judaism, a book in progress at the time of Warren Johansson's death:

Biblical Judaism 950.B.C.-40.B.C.

Hellenist Judaism from Herod the Great to the Mishnah 40 B.C.-200 A.D.

late-Hellenist Judaism from the Mishna to the death of Justinian 200 A.D.-565 A.D

The motto of the whole project is:
There was nothing left for St. Paul or St. Augustine or St. Thomas Aquinas to invent.

Other related books

===Behind the Mask of the Mattachine: The Early Movement for Homosexual Emancipation, the Hal Call Chronicles=== (tentative title)

James T. Sears

[Haworth Press, In Press]

ABC The Short Version (A only)

get the whole book for free as a file at http://www.stanpersky.de/TheShortVersion/20050603.Short%20Version2.pdf or order it as a paperback bound book from Amazon

Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2, by Havelock Ellis download the book at http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/13611

A Problem in Modern Ethics, by John Addington Symonds

download at http://www.sacred-texts.com/lgbt/pme/index.htm, The John Addington Symonds pages compiled by Rictor Norton at http://www.infopt.demon.co.uk/modern.htm

A Problem in Greek Ethics, by John Addington Symonds

found at http://www.sacred-texts.com/lgbt/pge/index.htm http://www.infopt.demon.co.uk/greek.htm

Love's Coming-of-Age, by Edward Carpenter

found at http://www.sacred-texts.com/lgbt/lca/index.htm

Intermediate Types among Primitive Folk, by Edward Carpenter

found at http://www.sacred-texts.com/lgbt/itp/index.htm

Offences Against One's Self, by Jeremy Bentham. Edited by Louis Crompton

found at http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/eresources/exhibitions/sw25/bentham/index.html

Reviews of Books on modern Homosexuals (and other GLBTQ people)

• Before Stonewall by Glover & Percy
• On Before Stonewall
• On The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln

Reviews of books on ancient Homosexuals & ancient history in general

• The Gay Haze in Ancient Rome - Review of The Mirror of the Self: Sexuality, Self-Knowledge, and the Gaze in the Early Roman Empire (as pdf)
• James Jope on Craig Williams' Roman Homosexuality: Ideologies of Masculinity in Classical Antiquity
• On Homosexuality in Greece and Rome by Thomas Hubbard
• Walter Scheidel's Debating Roman Demography
• Saller's Patriarchy, Property and Death

Other unrelated books and miscellaneous works

The Holy Roman Empire

Attached is an earlier working of the subject of consent by an anonymous writer. Consent: The Treatment Parallel (as pdf)

Historical Facts about the Origins of Islam by Anonymous writer

Eros Among Citizens (as pdf)