““This is an important point, difficult for the modern mind to grasp: homosexuality as a sexual orientation was unknown to the ancient mind. Let me be clear: intimate physical contact between people of the same gender was not unknown, of course, but everyone who engaged in it was presumed to be heterosexual. Therefore, any man who lay with another man as with a woman was considered a heterosexual man acting against his true nature. The psychological construct of a homosexual orientation was not posited until the late nineteenth century—the notion that a certain minority of humankind is affectionally oriented toward people of the same gender, rather than the opposite gender. For people so oriented, intimate physical contact with people of the opposite gender would be “against their nature.” There was no question that same-gender intimate behavior existed (and was therefore prohibited), but there was no understanding that such same-gender attraction might be “in the nature” of a certain minority of people. Such a possibility was simply never contemplated by the ancient mind.””
