 One of the reasons for the historical review above is that it helps to give some background for understanding the claim that sexuality is socially constructed, rather than given by nature. Moreover, in order to not prejudge the issue of social constructionism versus essentialism, I avoided applying the term ‘homosexual’ to the ancient or medieval eras. In ancient Greece the gender of one’s partner(s) was not important, but instead whether one took the active or passive role. In the medieval view, a ‘sodomite’ was a person who succumbed to temptation and engaged in certain non-procreative sex acts. Although the gender of the partner was more important in the medieval than in the ancient view, the broader theological framework placed the emphasis upon a sin versus refraining-from-sin dichotomy. With the rise of the notion of ‘homosexuality’ in the modern era, a person is placed into a specific category even if one does not act upon those inclinations. It is difficult to perceive a common, natural sexuality expressed across these three very different cultures. The social constructionist contention is that there is no ‘natural’ sexuality; all sexual understandings are constructed within and mediated by cultural understandings. The examples can be pushed much further by incorporating anthropological data outside of the Western tradition (Halperin, 1990; Greenberg, 1988). Yet even within the narrower context offered here, the differences between them are striking. The assumption in ancient Greece was that men (less is known about Greek attitudes towards women) can respond erotically to either sex, and the vast majority of men who engaged in same-sex relationships were also married (or would later become married). Yet the contemporary understanding of homosexuality divides the sexual domain in two, heterosexual and homosexual, and most heterosexuals cannot respond erotically to their own sex.