Not to mention that a sexual orientation and a paraphilia are not the same thing.  Perhaps you believe that because gay people were otherised in recent times that they were always persecuted throughout the whole of recorded history.  Historically, such persecution has been episodic and often correlated with times of religious power and oppression of sexuality in general.  The emergence of psychology as a field also created oppressive attitudes towards human sexuality for a very long time, with an increasing focus on "curing" what were regarded as sexual aberrations.  The "diseasing" of homosexuality (a term which was only coined in the late 19th century) helped entrench negative attitudes towards same-sex attraction.  It was no longer regarded as a chosen path but as an illness to be prevented if at all possible (and a lot of negative attitudes towards masturbation stem from the time when psychology believed that "excessive" masturbation would bring out "latent" homosexual tendencies) and to be "cured" if it couldn't be prevented.

We cannot now imagine a return to times when sexuality is oppressed - and yet throughout history that has happened time and time again.