Anomaly

From Homolexis Glossary

In ordinary usage an anomaly is an irregularity that deviates from the common rule. It is something unusual, abnormal, peculiar, or not easily classified. Etymologically, the noun represents the opposite of the Greek omalos, meaning “even, level.” (It is not derived from anomos, “unlawful,” though a link is often perceived.) The relevant trope is abnormality.

In sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe the category of anomaly was invoked to account for the so-called monstrous births, such as two-headed calves and hermaphrodites. Eventually this interest declined, but the concept remained, a precursor to the naming of psychic anomalies.

In 1877 the pioneering German sexologist Richard von Krafft-Ebing applied the notion to inverts, whom he also termed “step-children of nature.” Then, in 1927, a guilt-ridden British homosexual chose the pseudonym “Anomaly” for his book, The Invert. .(The writer's real name is not known.)

The term took its place in a baleful gallery with abnormal (which it formally resembles) and unnatural. Indeed, it may be said to combine the two, for an anomaly is an abnormality that challenges the rule of nature. In the sexual context, the word anomaly is now rare. The concept has not disappeared, though, for in demotic contexts it equates with weirdo, freak, and perhaps queer.

Curiously enough, the revival of the term in the sexual sense might be of some use. In his 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn posited an initial phase of the proposal of a new theory where the innovation seems to sweep all before it. Once this revolutionary phase is over, however, a period of consolidation, called “normal science,” sets in. During this second phase, glitches or anomalies may be discovered. As these become numerous and salient it becomes necessary to scrap the theory for another.

If one views nature as a normative system designed to produce only heterosexual behavior the continuation of homosexuality must seem an anomaly. The first reaction is to suppress the anomaly. But this has not been possible; hence it should be obligatory to scrap the theory of nature as a universal producer of heterosexuality.

Recent developments in sociobiology have addressed the apparent anomaly of homosexuality from a Darwinian point of view. Through the hypothesis of kinship selection and other theories these thinkers have sought to eliminate the seeming contradiction that exclusive homosexuality presents to evolutionary adaptationism.