Drag0nfly_Girl

Drag0nfly_Girl t1_j6b7n3z wrote

Jailed, usually, rather than murdered. Murder was illegal.

And you're attributing an argument to me that I haven't made, then arguing against it. At no point did I advocate any particular course of action. I simply presented a sociological reason for the decline of non-sexual same-sex physical affection that was omitted from the comment to which I was responding.

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Drag0nfly_Girl t1_j69fwdo wrote

Yes, I understand all that. My point wasn't that the words existed, or that it was considered an identity, because obviously it was not. But it was well understood that certain men and women were "queer" and preferred sexual intimacy with their own sex. It was considered a perversion.

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Drag0nfly_Girl t1_j690yao wrote

You're correct, but missing an important factor: there was no need to be "obsessed with not being perceived as gay" in Dickens' time, because homosexuality was closeted and considered unacceptable. Affection between men wasn't sexualized.

Fear of being perceived as gay only became an issue with the increasing visibility of homosexuality & its gradual social acceptance. Normal affection between boys was sexualized. The visibility of homosexuality had a direct negative effect on the expression of intimacy & affection between heterosexual men, just as it also put a damper on things like girlfriends holding hands while they walk (something I remember being normal & common when I was a kid but which gradually ceased when girls started getting called lesbians for doing so).

The sexualization of same-sex affection is what killed it.

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