Just to be clear, I think the brouhaha about whether it is acceptable to eat dog is strong proof that “food” is more narrowly defined than “material capable of being consumed for sustenance by humans.”
I don’t agree. I think “food” has a broad definition that is context dependent, not culturally dependent.
Every human culture has language for food. Yes sometimes people say “that’s not food” when they mean “there’s a taboo against eating that” and sometimes they say “that’s not food” when they mean “that’s not edible.” Perhaps sometimes they mean something else. But to tell what they mean depends on context, not culture.
Of course taboos vary across cultures, as does knowledge about what is and isn’t edible.
I’m not trying to play games with definitions—if taboo is a more intuitive label for you, then that’s the word I’ll use. The modern usage of the label “homosexual” invokes a substantial number of social taboos.
Those taboos vary from culture to culture. Because cultures change over time, that statement implies that the relevant taboos have changed over time. In short, the concepts intended to be invoked by the word “homosexuality” depend on the cultural context.
Further, the historical record isn’t clear that any cluster of taboos related to the current homosexuality cluster existed until fairly recently in history.
Further, the historical record isn’t clear that any cluster of taboos related to the current homosexuality cluster existed until fairly recently in history.
This doesn’t sound right to me, but maybe only because it’s vague. Famously, ancient jews forbade each other from male-male sex. I agree with the rest.
And the Bulgarian Cathars gave us the word “buggery”, which was a slur even back then. But the thing that keeps me from dismissing this all as wishful thinking on the part of queer-friendly sociology professors is that all those old prohibitions that I’ve been able to find refer to same-sex intercourse, the act (and usually only male-male intercourse at that), rather than homosexuality, the state. That doesn’t exactly prove that sexual identity as such is a modern invention—frank discussions of sexuality are rather thin on the ground in European culture between the Romans and the early modern period—but it does seem to point in that direction: if a concept of sexual identity existed, I’d expect homosexual identities to be condemned if homosexual acts were.
I don’t agree. I think “food” has a broad definition that is context dependent, not culturally dependent.
Every human culture has language for food. Yes sometimes people say “that’s not food” when they mean “there’s a taboo against eating that” and sometimes they say “that’s not food” when they mean “that’s not edible.” Perhaps sometimes they mean something else. But to tell what they mean depends on context, not culture.
Of course taboos vary across cultures, as does knowledge about what is and isn’t edible.
I’m not trying to play games with definitions—if taboo is a more intuitive label for you, then that’s the word I’ll use. The modern usage of the label “homosexual” invokes a substantial number of social taboos.
Those taboos vary from culture to culture. Because cultures change over time, that statement implies that the relevant taboos have changed over time. In short, the concepts intended to be invoked by the word “homosexuality” depend on the cultural context.
Further, the historical record isn’t clear that any cluster of taboos related to the current homosexuality cluster existed until fairly recently in history.
This doesn’t sound right to me, but maybe only because it’s vague. Famously, ancient jews forbade each other from male-male sex. I agree with the rest.
And the Bulgarian Cathars gave us the word “buggery”, which was a slur even back then. But the thing that keeps me from dismissing this all as wishful thinking on the part of queer-friendly sociology professors is that all those old prohibitions that I’ve been able to find refer to same-sex intercourse, the act (and usually only male-male intercourse at that), rather than homosexuality, the state. That doesn’t exactly prove that sexual identity as such is a modern invention—frank discussions of sexuality are rather thin on the ground in European culture between the Romans and the early modern period—but it does seem to point in that direction: if a concept of sexual identity existed, I’d expect homosexual identities to be condemned if homosexual acts were.