only legitimate
but even socially constructive, ancient Greece being the most
notable example. The
Iliad
does not mention that Thetis had any objection to her
son Achilles’ relations with Patroclus. Queen Olympias of Macedon was one of the
most temperamental and forceful women of the ancient world, and even had her
own husband, King Philip, assassinated. Yet she didn’t have a t when her son,
Alexander the Great, brought his lover Hephaestion home for dinner.
How can we distinguish what is biologically
determined from what people
merely try to justify through biological myths? A good rule of thumb is ‘Biology
enables, Culture forbids.’ Biology is willing to tolerate a very wide spectrum of
possibilities. It’s culture that obliges people to realise some possibilities while
forbidding others. Biology enables women to have children – some cultures oblige
women to realise this possibility. Biology enables
men to enjoy sex with one
another – some cultures forbid them to realise this possibility.
Culture tends to argue that it forbids only that which is unnatural. But from a
biological perspective, nothing is unnatural. Whatever is possible is by de nition
also natural. A truly unnatural behaviour, one that goes against the laws of
nature, simply cannot exist, so it would need no prohibition. No culture has ever
bothered to forbid men to photosynthesise, women to run faster than the speed of
light, or negatively charged electrons to be attracted to each other.
In truth, our concepts ‘natural’ and unnatural’ are taken not from biology, but
from Christian theology. The theological meaning of ‘natural’ is ‘in
accordance
with the intentions of the God who created nature’. Christian theologians argued
that God created the human body, intending each limb and organ to serve a
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