How to Do the History of Homosexuality + Chicago and Londen wat Wer:‘David M. Halperin W.H, Auden Collin Peofesrin the Department (ligated inate ie Uses binge Fe ‘ray eles in he School of Senlogy athe Universi 9f New South Wale He isthe author of + numberof books inclng Ove Hindred Yeo of Homoueaality and Other Esp on Greek Love and Saint Fou cat: Towarés.a Gay Magngraphy. He abo the cofounder and coedior ©1GLQLA Journal of erin and Cay Sue. of Chiao Pres, Lid, Londen ase by D2 Mc Halpern ‘Allighes esersed.Palshed 2003 Primed in the Unted Stier of America 11 10 09 08 07 6 os og os or Kad 4S san 0-36-51447°2 (oth) Leary of Conguess Cataloping-n-Palicacen Data pera, David M, r952- | Howto do te Hoy of homosexual / David M. Halen | ens Ince biblonaphcl elerences and index soesoas6-3r¢47 (lethal paper) 1. Homosexual, Male—Hisery. 2. Honoseualiy, Mak—Histo- waphy. 3. oman, Male—GreceeHaory.L Tile aye st 002 youre sros—err 1001017357 ‘the paper wed in ds plication ees he ninar cequeren of ‘the Arie NatinelStndad for Infomation Scene of Paper fee Pind Library Mail, at 21648-1993 Permanence lee ulssons9 wl 1-09 OM For Kirk Orman, ‘And for Ann Pellegrini.‘ wollihy : fee Dia wae emo wa wel 3 ita fab field © How to Do the History of Male Homosexuality The history of sexuality is now such a respectable ac demic discipline, ox a least such an established one, that its practtionere no longer feel much pretsure to defend the enterprie—to rescue it from suspicions of being a palpable absurdity. Once upon atime the very phrase “the history of sexuality” sounded ike contradiction in terms: how, after all, could sexuality havea history? Nowadays, by contrast, wwe are so accustomed tothe notion that sexuality does in- deed have a history thar we do not often ask ourselves what kind of history sexuality has. I such questions do come up, they ger deale with cursorly inthe course of the method: ‘logical throat clearing that historians ciually perform in the opening paragraphs of scholarly articles. Recent, this ‘exercise has tended ¢o include a more or less obligatory ref ezence to the trouble once caused to historians, ong long ago ina country fa far away, by theorists who had argued that sexuality was socially constructed—an incriguing idea in its time id place, or so we are reassuringly told, but ‘one that was taken to outlandish extremes and that no one such credits any longe." With the disruptive potential of ‘these mtahistorical questions safely relegated tothe past, the historian of sexuality cen get down, or get back, to the business at hand. ‘But this new consensus, and the sense of theoretical clo snare that accompanies it x prematute. | believe tha itis is more useful than ever to ask how sexuality cam hare a histone point of such « question, t0 be sur, is no longer to register the questione:s skepticism and incredulity (a be possible?") bur 10 say, “How on carth could such a thing ing closely into the modalities of histori cal being that scxualiy possess: to ask how exactly—in what ters, by a oa pepe Se eo Ue ee apes Bally haves histo? That question, of cours, has already been answered in a number of vways, each of them manifesting a diferent strategy for articulating the relation between continuity and discontinuity, identity and diference, in the history of sexual 1980s should bes ‘The constructionist-essentialist debate ofthe late asa particularly vigorous effort to force a solution to This question, but even alter constructioniats claimed to have woa it, and essentalists claimed to have exposed the bad scholarship produced by and exerybody else claimed to be sick and tired of i, the basic question. about the historicity of sexuality has remained. In fact, current work in the history of sex ity still appears to he poised in its emphasis herween ‘hea as abit and die crichinmy view eqreenimeely refoumulated versions ofthe olf sgentialit and constrivont porkfong- Nonetheless, it may be prudent to recast the question in less polemical seal experience. Grrentanalytic models at attempt odo thisby map- ft inthe categories or classifcarions of an otherwise unchanging, “sexuality,” or by insisting on a historical distinction berween premodern sexual acts and modern sexual identities, simply cannot capture the com> plexity of te issues at stake in the new histories of sexual subjectivity chat are available to us? ‘The tensions between interpretative emphases on continuity and di continuity, Kentity and difference, appear with almost painful intensity in the historiography of homosexuality. They reflect not only the high politcal stakes in any contemporary project that involves producing rep- resentations of homosexuality but alko the isee itional ‘tainty about what homosexuality itself realy ip. Pethaps the clearest and most explice articulation of the consequences ofthis uncertainty or his torians is found in the introduction to Hidden from History, the path: breaking anthology of lesbian and gay history published in 1989: "Same sex genital sexuality, love and friendship, gender non conformity, and s certain aesthetic oF politcal peespe ive are all considered te have some |