CarnalNation

There's something so darling cute about Hugh Grant's way of saying “Bugger it!” that I go to see his movies regardless of the reviews that say how inconsequential and silly they are. (Well, perhaps the fact that he was caught with a black prostitute might have something to do with it, too; it's such a naughty thing for a fine, aristocratic young Brit to do, isn't it?) But it's not a word we use in the States much and I was inspired to look into its etymology. This research has taken me down a rabbit hole chock full of queer words.

For example, “bugger” comes from the word “Bulgar” or “Bulgarian.” Yes, Bulgarian! The word morphed through translations and pronunciation differences as it traveled from one tongue to another. But how did it get today's meaning: “to sodomize”?

Well here we go, back to the Catholic Church again. Honestly, I wouldn't refer to the Church so often in this column if it wasn't ubiquitous in the (relatively) recent history of sex and religion. It would be nice to discuss sex and spirituality without referring to the Church so often, but it's just not possible as long as I care about historical accuracy. Unfortunately, the Church has centuries of history involving itself in the sex lives of almost everyone with whom it makes contact, directly or indirectly. And it has been probably the single most pervasive influence over human sexuality for centuries. So here we go again.

Using its time-tested technique of conquering peoples and their cultures by declaring them evil or heretical and then pillaging their assets, the Catholic Church turned its attention to Bulgaria in the 1300s. The Bogomils of Bulgaria shared some traits with the Cathars and other heretical Christian sects that made it easy to classify them as evil: openness to alternative sexuality, indifference to marriage, and acceptance of women as equals in their spiritual communities. Their practices included leadership roles for women in their respective churches. They held disdain for marriage and certainly didn't consider it a religious sacrament.

As for sexuality, well, that's where the history gets a bit murky. Much of the history comes from Catholic sources since, well, history is written by the victors. In this case they were also the ones who were more consistently literate and they kept extensive documentation of the Church's formal accusations and court cases of heresy and witchcraft. Their biases are clear in the documentation. For instance, these sources often merely mention the fact that marriage was rarely practiced by the Bogomils and leave it at that, assuming that the reader will, of course, recognize the obvious wickedness of any such religion.

The Bogomils, like some of the other heretical Christian sects, believed that the biggest sin a human could commit was to create another human life. To create a human child entrapped another divine soul in material form, which is a lower condition than its previous existence. Therefore, non-reproductive sex was preferable and there was no reason for marriage. Some of the transcripts of individuals' defenses presented to the ecclesiastical courts make it clear that proving one's heterosexuality, especially if it included marriage and children, might have been enough to avoid a conviction of heresy, which was punishable by death. Religious heresy and unhampered sexuality had become inextricably linked by the time the Bogomils drew the active attention of the Church.

Meanwhile, the words “Bulgars” and “Bogomils” had conflated in meaning (to non-Bulgarians, of course) and become “buggers” as the word morphed from one language to the next. Thus, the Bogomils became buggers, and the buggers were sodomites, because they were free to engage in sex with whomever they wanted, doing whatever they wanted (as long as they didn't make a baby).