AHC: Have Homosexuality Seen Close To Modern Thought As Possible

Traditional Chinese views on homosexuality were apparently very liberal, but that began to erode with the influence of Christianity and Islam.

Tu Er Shen (Chinese: 兔兒神 or 兔神, The Leveret Spirit) is a Chinese deity who manages the love and sex between homosexual men. His name literally means "rabbit deity".

Tu Er Shen's cult may have been an attempt to mythologize a system of male marriages in Fujian, attested to by the scholar-bureaucrat Shen Defu and the writer Li Yu. The older man in the union would play the masculine role as a qixiong or "adoptive older brother", paying a "bride price" to the family of the younger man- it was said virgins fetched higher prices- who became the qidi, or "adoptive younger brother".
Li Yu described the ceremony, "They do not skip the three cups of tea or the six wedding rituals- it is just like a proper marriage with a formal wedding." The qidi then moved into the household of the qixiong, where he would be completely dependent on him, be treated as a son-in-law by the qixiongs parents, and possibly even help raise children adopted by the qixiong. These marriages could last as long as 20 years before both men were expected to marry women in order to procreate
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_Er_Shen)

Maybe under the right circumstances this system might spread, or at least not be suppressed. In a best case scenario some important homosexual Intellectual/future Emperor from this region might rise to prominence and legitimizes this tradition.
 
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I see a rather simple way to go about this: during the Renaissance, have the ideas found in Ancient Greek thought for homosexuality spread, because after all the Ancient Greeks were better judges of things than contemporary people. With that, where only the passive partner is considered problematic (and even then, only if he is of the same or higher social class), it becomes easy to have the problem vanish as social class becomes less important.

NOTE: it could still go the other way, with the submissive partner becoming demonized in all circumstances, however I think this would be a good way to go about it without making too drastic changes.
 
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