It was frequent in ancient Greece. However, in later cultures influenced by Abrahamic religions, the law and the church established sodomy as a transgression against divine law or a crime against nature.

Many historical figures, including Socrates, Lord Byron, Edward II, and Hadrian,^] have had terms such as gay or bisexual applied to them; some scholars, such as Michel Foucault, have regarded this as risking the anachronistic introduction of a contemporary social construct of sexuality foreign to their times, though others challenge this.

A common thread of constructionist argument is that no one in antiquity or the Middle Ages experienced homosexuality as an exclusive, permanent, or defining mode of sexuality. John Boswell has countered this argument by citing ancient Greek writings by Plato, which describe individuals exhibiting exclusive homosexuality.