A thesis being funded by the Academy of Finland and to be argued Jan. 24 at the Department of History of the European University in Florence, Italy suggests that men engaged in same-sex relations far more frequently and with far less reluctance than originally thought. According to a thesis by Sandra Hagman, “Finnish men were engaging in gay sex for a number of reasons, including curiosity, money, passion, a lack of women and drunkenness. The thesis is a culmination of more than 100 previously unexamined court cases, scores of newspaper articles, as well as letters and memoirs.
The report also devotes a portion of its thesis to examining the demographic and geographic components of the study. And while to Western sensibilities the notion of men and boys engaging in sexually activity seems immoral, many agrarian societies engaged in the practice without the shame and judgment reserved by many for such activities.
“The highest number of cases of homosexuality were unevenly distributed across the country,” the study reports. “The highest number of criminal sentences for homosexuality were handed down at the beginning of the 1950s. The highest number of sentences per capita occurred in northern Finnish cities. In the peak years in the 1950s half of the cases were in Helsinki, driven by the Olympics.
Many attitudes changed with the rise of right wing political opposition, most notably among the Nazis. The theory, highly accepted during its time, was that men would no longer desire women once they were seduced by another man.
