No sacred place existed without us then; no woodland, no dance, no sound.
ROMANCE c.1300, "story of a hero's adventures," also (early 14c.), "vernacular language of France" (as opposed to Latin), from O.Fr. romanz "verse narrative," originally an adverb, "in the vernacular language," from V.L. *romanice scribere "to write in a Romance language" (one developed from Latin instead of Frankish), from L. Romanicus "of or in
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Uh-huh. Like many other cultures - but unlike our own - the Greeks and Romans differentiated between practice and preference, and didn't necessarily tie the two together, definitely not exclusively. (Neither, interestingly enough, did the old Chinese, which is kind of a headfuck to think about, considering the intense homophobic culture of today. It's amazing how many undesirable elements of what we think of as "foreign" cultures actually came from us.) Though it seems that while they didn't have the word, they had somewhat of the concept - from literature, mostly, we know that they were definitely clear that there were some men who had a strong preference for the same sex - but again, it's a language thing. Labeling people as "men who prefer women" and "men who prefer men" is much less otherizing as labeling people "homosexuals" and (the mostly silent, normalized) "straight people / heterosexuals / normal".
Much like the things they're labeling, I don't think our - fetish, as you say - for labeling things really has one clear root, or is even that simple in and of itself. There's a lot of things that go into this, especially in terms with sexuality: there's thousands of years of history - most prejudice, ironically, originating as a backlash against the Romans - and religion, and that good old Judeo-Christian dualism, and the fact that the English language - probably more than any other language on earth - really does lend itself to precise, detailed description. We find security in labeling. Personally, I think it's because our culture is so focused on the tangible reality of things - think gender, for instance, with the emphasis on biology & physiology rather than that of spirit, like a berdache culture - and labels are as close to tangible reality as we can get. It... solidifies them, in a way? Reinforces.
Not depressing, no! Infinitely fascinating. Think of all that's included in a single moment in time. A single moment includes billions of people, noise, light, thought, movement, existence, sex, first words of children, prayers rising past millions of roofs and canopies, bodies being blown apart by bombs, mitochondria churning, stars exploding, universes expanding into a black empty space, and you, in all your complexity, detail, nuance. If it's anything bad it's terrifying, because that's a single moment. We live trillions of them.
But yeah, mindfuck on perspective. It does lead me to be more sympathetic to the old guard, you know, the people permanently stuck fifty, sixty years ago. Because, yeah. No wonder.
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