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变异的性行为
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历史背景:
从罪过到疾病
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君士坦丁一世，
在临终受洗礼时，就是第一位（支持）基督教的古罗马皇帝。在他的帝国东部，当他移都到拜占庭时，创建了“新罗马”，被他改称为君士坦丁堡(君士坦丁市)。在他的继任者的支持下，基督教成为这个东罗马帝国的国教，并把东罗马帝国的性观念强行推行到了东欧和西欧。
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Constantine I, baptized on his deathbed, was the first Christian Roman emperor. In the Eastern part of his empire, he created a “new Rome” when he moved the capital to Byzantium, which he renamed Constantinople (city of Constantine). Under his successors, Christianity became the empire’s state religion and imposed its view of human sexuality on both Eastern and Western Europe. |
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公元4世纪，君士坦丁一世(“大帝”)成为第一位(支持)基督教的罗马皇帝，在他的继任者支持下，基督教成为罗马帝国的国家宗教。其结果是，欧洲逐渐接纳了基督教关于人类的性的观念。基于较悠久的犹太教的传统，并在某些古代禁欲修行的哲学家们的影响下，这种观念甚至盛行到古罗马帝国的末期之后，然后主导了西方世界的性观念，而且其衍生出的文化传统深刻地流传至当今时代。按照基督教的教义，性活动只有为了生殖的目的才是正当的。那些对这一目的不起作用的所有形式的性交都是有罪的。甚至，某些性交行为，像口交和肛交、与动物的性接触或男性之间的性交等等，都是如此令人憎恶，以至于数个世纪以来，它们都得要受到犯罪的严厉指控和惩罚。直到200年之前，某些欧洲国家开始从它们的刑法法典里消除这种宗教影响，并终止惩罚性的“可憎恶的事物”。如果对他人没有具体的伤害发生，法律对这种行为则不予理睬。
但是，在法律撤消对这些行为指控的地方，医学不久却插手干预了。崭露头角的精神病治疗专业把对这种行为的陈旧的罪过说转变成现在所称的精神病，因而，这种“可憎恶的事物”作为“性病态(sexual
psychopathologies)”而死灰复燃。精神病学家甚至使用陈旧的神学术语“倒错(perversion)”、“失常(aberration)”和“偏离(deviation)”来描述这些疾病的特征。在中世纪，这些术语就已经是指异教，即“错误的”宗教信仰，现在它们意指“错误的”性行为，因而，从前的异教徒和罪犯就变成了医学上的病人。病人就不必受到惩罚，但必须接受治疗。只有到了20世纪晚期，医学专业人员最终才步法理学家的后尘，终于把这些神学遗痕从精神病诊断手册中抹去(参见：“性学研究大事年表”1973年)。现在，再度”开明的“医生们发觉，他们对宗教观念和术语不加批判的采纳，已经成为道德说教，而且是科学启蒙之前的见识。因此，他们就设法去找到判断性行为的客观标准。他们不再愿意谈及什么“倒错”等等的术语，并寻求一种更新的、纯粹出于描述性的和道德中立的术语体系。
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Variations in Sexual Behavior |
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Historical Background: From Sin to Sickness |
In the 4th century A.D.,
Constantine I
(“the Great”) became the first Christian Roman emperor, and under his successors Christianity became the empire’s state religion. As a result, Europe gradually adopted a Christian view of human sexuality. Based on an older Jewish tradition and influenced by certain ascetic ancient philosophies, this view prevailed even after the fall of the Roman Empire and then dominated the Western world and its colonies well into the modern age.
According to the Christian doctrine, sexual activity was justified only for the purpose of procreation. All forms of sexual intercourse that could not serve this purpose were sinful. Indeed, some of them, like oral and anal intercourse, or sexual contact with animals or between males, were so abominable that, for many centuries, they were severely punished as crimes. It was not until about 200 years ago that some European countries began to remove religious influences from their penal codes and ceased to punish sexual “abominations”: If no concrete harm had been done to another person, the law simply ignored the behavior.
However, where the law retreated, medicine soon stepped in. The emerging specialty of
psychiatry turned the old sins into new mental illnesses, and thus the “abominations” were reborn as “sexual psychopathologies”. The psychiatrists even used the old theological terms
"perversion", "aberration",
and "deviation" to characterize these illnesses. In the Middle Ages, the terms had referred to heresies, i.e. “false” religious beliefs, now they meant “false” sexual behaviors, and thus the former heretics and criminals turned into medical patients. These did not need punishment, but therapy. It was only in the late 20th century that the medical profession finally followed the example of the jurists and removed the theological vestiges from their diagnostic handbooks.
(see:"
Chronology of Sex Research", in 1973) The newly “enlightened” doctors now discovered that their uncritical adoption of religious ideas and terms had been moralistic and prescientific. Therefore, they tried to find objective criteria for judging sexual behavior. They also no longer wanted to speak of “perversions” etc. and looked for new, purely descriptive, morally neutral terms Chronology
of Sex Research. |
