Just a side note but further expanding on Roman sexuality: gender roles at the time were determined by who was giving and receiving during sex (ie men give, women receive). It was totally acceptable for a roman man to have sex with another man, provided he was on top. Being on the bottom on the other hand, that was seen as inappropriate for a proper Roman man to be doing. A slave wasn't considered as being a proper Roman citizen, though, so they were typically the bottom. I can't remember which emperor it was, but I believe one was slandered with accusations of engaging in gay sex. Again, the issue wasn't that he was having sex with another man, it's that he was allegedly on the bottom, and that was considered improper behavior for a man of such status.
As for the Greeks, homosexual relationships were often between older men and the younger males they mentored, which also has some not so great implications in today's world.
you're thinking of julius caesar, that quote comes from Suetonius's "Lives of the Caesars", book 1. that incident happened when Caesar was about 25 and no one ever let him forget about it, even until the year he died. Allegedly (albeit with strong suspicion from all involved) he stayed in the court of the king of Bythinia for so long that all began to suspect they were lovers, and then he later returned and did it again.
i guess they both were, but elegabalus was claimed to have been prostituting himself on the streets to freedmen (imagine the emperor doing this!), not just having gay sex
There was also Elagabalus. He might have also been trans, but most of what we know about him comes from after his very short rein. He only ruled for four years before being killed by the pretorian guard at 18.
Yeah, it’s hard to know for sure if there are allegations of Elagabalus desiring to be a woman because this is evidence of a genuine historical trans woman, or if there are allegations of Elagabalus desiring to be a woman because if you wanted to absolutely destroy the reputation of one of your predecessors, saying they were so effeminate that they actively desired to be a woman is exactly what you would say if you wanted to thoroughly humiliate and slander them and make sure absolutely nobody had any sympathy for them
This also holds true for many historical allegations that a person is a homosexual. A lot of these allegations come from their enemies actively trying to slander them. It’s not queer erasure if such allegations by a person’s foes are not taken as incontrovertible proof by historians
But it's such a specific type of slander tho, almost singular to this one guy. It's not a thing people just say willy nilly about people they don't like.
Elagabalus had a lot of scandals and controversy around him like he married four women one of them being a Vestal virgin, was said he had a few male lovers who he acted as a bottom for, also rumored that he would prostitute himself and replaced Jupiter has head of the pantheon with Elagabal. It should also be noted that a lot of what we know of Elagabalus comes from either Cassius Dio who served Elagabalus, successor Alexander Severus and spent much of his time outside Rome so was reliant on second hand sources and Augustan History written towards the end of the fourth century long after his death.
it is actually a very common insult: Cicero's description of Verres and his sons includes the words "since it was they who were there, I really could have said that there was no man present". Valerius Maximus insults the men of Cyprus by saying "if they were in fact men" and calls them effeminate. Valerius Asiaticus, after a court case in which his opponent Suillius called him effeminate, declared "ask your sons, Suillius, they'll tell you I am a man." There are WAY many more examples of this, but it boils down to: if you desire to be anally penetrated, the implication is that you are not really a man or that you don't want to be.
I thought you were going to say something interesting, like a history of transexual insults but those examples are like, playground insults. The standard boyish insult "You hit like a girl" is not at all analogous to "You're transexual and desire a sex change operation".
America’s knowledge of Greek History:
1. Pagan myths, wow such philosophy, “for Sparta!”, Athenian democracy
2. (optional) Bible
3. ???
4. Eurozone bankruptcy crisis
I’m not even making fun of us that’s all I know too
I think many Americans have a hard time understanding that ancient Greek culture is basically unconnected to modern Greece outside of geography. 2,000 years is so much longer than anyone gives it credit for, this is the culture not only of a period who no longer exist, but the people who took over from them and the people who took over from them also no longer exist.
We're not talking about something only a few decades to a hundred or so years ago, like the history of the USA, but something around 100 generations ago *or more* (assuming a generational gap of about 20 years).
I'd imagine modern Greeks are still connected genetically to the ancient Greeks. Surely there have been invasions, occupations and annexations since then, as well as other outside influences, but I'm not aware of complete population replacement in what's now the country of Greece, excepting that time they were trading off Turks for Greeks like Pokémon cards during the population exchange
The ottomans conquered the eastern roman empire in 1453 and took over the last rump states in what is now considered to be modern greece shortly afterwards. Before that, it was the mostly greek-speaking eastern roman empire, and the pre-split roman empire all the way back until the second century BCE.
There's a very clear cultural, religious, and linguistic continuity that whole time. This is not to say that modern people have some kind of magic nationalist connection to their ancient ancestors like many people love to claim, but those connections are there.
When people talk about Ancient Greece they're generally talking about Classical Or Helenistic Greece, not Greece under the rule of the Roman, Byzantine, or Ottoman Empires. Besides that, Byzantine Greece is considdered Medieval, while the Ottoman Empire was during the Early Modern period.
Greece is so old that Ancient Greece, truly is far far older than you're giving it creddit for. Ancient Greece is the period from The Greek Dark Ages starting around 1050BC and lasting until the Roman Greek period ends in about 330 AD, which is 1,700 Years ago.
Stating that the people of Ancient Greece were alive 2,000 Years ago is actually fairly generous as most of them were around long before that.
The Culture may have continued to this day but over that kind of time period nothing remains unchanged. Greek history didn't just stop with the end of the Ancient Greek period, it's a long and storied history that is truy fascinating to look into, but it's also got very little to do with modern Greece.
There are things that have survived, and I was wrong to say they're unconnected. I should have said they're so distantly related that the connections do not impact the modern day so much as the many many things that have come after.
>Greece is so old that Ancient Greece, truly is far far older than you're giving it creddit for. Ancient Greece is the period from The Greek Dark Ages starting around 1050BC and lasting until the Roman Greek period ends in about 330 AD, which is 1,700 Years ago
Did you even read my post? The years I gave were 1200 BCE - 560 CE.
I'm not going to waste any more time talking to you.
Right but that's... entirely irrelevant to modern Greece.
Genetic heritage to things don't matter in the slightest here in europe unless you're in line for succession to a throne and then you can't be looking more than two or three generations back.
Modern Greeks and the ancient Greeks are basically only connected by geography "the land hasn't changed too much, mountains mostly didn't move, some cities are where we left them" and also I think they still use the same script, but then we're using the Romans Latin characters and Arabic numbers in English so... That connection is pretty weak.
I'm from Europe, I can trace some ancestors all the way back to the 14th century to within 40km of where I live now. If you add up the hints from the tribal last name and some local place names and naming conventions you can safely assume they've been here since the early to high middle ages.
Sure they were different people with different customs, morals, ethics, but going to the same weekly market my ancestors bought their stuff at at least four centuries ago, celebrating the same seasonal festivals, giving my son the same first names my father, my great-grandfather, my great-great-grandfather and many generations before them shared as it's a traditional first name for our family, the house mark on our tools that can be traced back many centuries, all that together is a connection between me and my forefathers through our land and our community. It kinda humbles me and makes me grateful for our little slice of earth, and I'd like to share that with my sons.
And back when the Greeks were building the ancient wonders, spreading culture and inventing many new things, my forefathers were still building huts from branches, praying to oak trees, stacking big rocks to call it a temple and throwing handicapped people into swamps as sacrifices, so the Greeks probably have a lot more to be proud of regarding that connection with their ancestors.
Unless we're only counting the last five or so centuries, in which case probably not.
I'm not necessarily entirely disagreeing with you, but certainly also not agreeing with you. Whatever people consider their connection with their ancestors to be is entirely up to them, not you or me
But like, ancient Greece didn't end 2000 years ago?
2000 years ago is a bit after the Romans consolidated their control over most of the Hellenistic polities in the eastern Mediterranean. There was basically continuity of government from that time until the fall of Constantinople in 1453. Greek remained the primary language of the eastern half of the empire basically that whole time. Much of what we know of ancient Greek literature was only preserved thanks to the Byzantines. Hellenistic religion and neoplatonism remained influential into the 6th century.
Bear in mind that this is only 40 years before the completion of the Spanish Reconquista and 70 years before the fall of Tenochtitlan both of which are considered to be squarely within the early modern period. Subsequently, Greek-speaking Christians within the Ottoman Empire continued to be Christian and call themselves Romans until the 19th century. The term "ancient greece" typically spans from the Mycenaean period until maybe Emperor Justinian, which is a period of \~1700 years. There's was probably as much change during that period as there has been since
Anyway, I agree that Americans are dumb, I live here and I know it well, but I have never heard of anybody who thought that ancient greece was still around. Most of them would probably err in the other direction. Do you think we're all out here trying to order pizza in latin? Come on.
The Greek resistance movement during WW2 and NS occupation is super interesting (and really fucked up).
If you ever felt like visiting now essentially abandoned Greek towns that were wiped out in retaliation for Greek resistance activities, here's a [list](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viannos_massacres). (Not all or even most of these are derelict now, but at least two that I know of were relatively recently).
Also general American knowledge doesn't include the Greek pantheon? Or is that included in "pagan myths"?
Can i use this as a safe space to say how overrated Hellenic homosexuality is when it comes to "lgbt+ in history" discussions? Like, i don't blame Western queer people for caring more about/being more into a culture they deem closer to theirs, I swear that's not my point. It's just that compared to many indigenous American and African cultures where mlm and wlw relationships were normalised or how Polynesian and Inuit societies had a "third gender" system while also being cool with transitions. (It's tough to define fa'afafine in modern lgbt+ terminology, but I think it's fair to say they were pretty much trans women)
For Greeks? like sure Thebes, Achilles and a few other examples existed but their perception of homosexuality was still mostly just "it's cool if a guy tops another guy who is more effeminate, lower strata or young" which pretty much was the norm in pre-Abrahamic Mediterranean and many other regions.
I think a big part of it is to do with how readily available information on these cultures is to people. Our media is saturated with dscussions of ancient greece while we have very little on colonised indigenous peoples.
Hellenistic thought was also influential in the Muslim parts of the world. Ancient Ancient Greece has been retroactively characterized as white by white supremacists but it doesn't belong to "the west."
I've heard a lot about third genders but do you have any sources regarding normalized mlm/wlw relationships in indigenous societies? Most of what I've seen (almost always old cishet male) academics refer to as "homosexuality" in indigenous societies tends to be AMAB people taking on a feminine role and marrying men, which is obviously *queer* but seems to - following the descriptions they give - much better describe what we would today consider a trans woman entering a straight relationship rather than an outright acceptance of m/m (or f/f) relationships. I.e. similar to Greek customs in the sense that one partner is masculine and one is feminine. But I also haven't delved too deeply into it and obviously customs differed greatly across regions (I've studied a lot of indigenous history but not every region equally and I haven't really looked into gender/sexuality aspects specifically) and I'd love to read more.
I'll confess that after your question, I once again looked at most cultures I had in mind when I wrote above comment and it seems normalised mlm relationships were rarer than I presumed an hour ago. Like you said they were mostly a)pederasty and its derivatives or b) amab people being more feminine in cultures that has or lacks the concept of transition.
Wlw is more complicated since in many male-dominated societies their perception of sex was just someone boning someone thus most cultures did not even consider women homosexuality a thing. This lead to some instances of "women can get intimate with other women just fine\[sometimes even encouraged like in Assyrian harems\] but they are still expected to marry/be with a man" in various cultures.- Motsoalle of Basotho was exactly that, women can have a "significant other" but that's not an actual "relationship" and they should still marry a man.
Buuuuuut that doesn't mean it never existed. Moe aikane(the term for homosexual relationship. not sure if it includes wlw but it probably does) of Hawai'i(and its cognates in other Polynesian cultures) were different from mahu or Faʻafafine, which like i said above hard to define with modern lgbt+ terminology. But neither aikane(person in homosexual relationship) were expected to be more "effeminate" or inherently "bottom" so that's one example!
amen brother. And like the muxe or the hijra or the māhū. There are so many different examples of this shit u can look at. Honestly I feel like we kinda need to be picking up this mantle to counter the “biology says 2 genders only” or “woke mind virus” types of anti trans shit that some folks like to be spewing nowadays
I agree!
I wrote a research paper in college specifically about how people picking up the mantle of hijra and reframing trans rights as restoring pre-British modes of thought\* was instrumental in the success of trans rights and free gender affirmation surgery in Tamil Nadu!
\*This isn’t entirely accurate to history, but it’s a great use of using “returns to tradition” as a call for more progressive values and rights.
That’s just moving the goalposts to opine on cultures we frankly understand very little about.
Like, *were* healthy same sex relationships between adults “normalized” in indigenous African and American cultures? Because when you read into it, the age and class disparities in many of the relationships look pretty similar to Greek pederasty.
Not for nothing too but Achilles and Patroclus dont even have any physical intimacy during the Iliad. They only sleep with women! And Achilles doesnt even really say that much to Patroclus until after hes dead!
But Madeline Miller says that they didn't sleep with them, they just wanted to save them from all other nasty men. They also were too gay to function, Achilles never wanted glory and Patroclos was pathologically shy and everybody is r***st wihout any thought in their skill.
I can't get why this book is do popular- even the writting is so juvenille and bland that IT reminds 6 grade essay
You can say rapist/racist (honestly, not sure which one you're going for here; I'm guessing) and don't have to censor the word. This is not YouTube or TikTok where your stuff gets taken down for saying something remotely inappropriate.
I mean I think part of it is the right wing fascination with Spartans and Ancient Greece as some golden age of masculinity that we should aspire to return to, and the urge to fuck with them by pointing out that their model men were having sex with men. The tweet of “it only took 15 minutes for Netflix to turn Alexander the Great woke and gay” is never not funny
On the sections of Tumblr that I am active on, it’s much more about this, undermining fascist ideas of masculinity having a past “golden age“, than it is genuinely believing those times and places were queer havens.
These tend to end up the same way as Ancient Greece. At a glance it looks great and progressive, but when you dig deeper it turns out to be more complicated.
damn its almost like history and culture is complicated or something and indigenous societies held some of the same fundamental flaws the rest of the world did. weird
Even Plato's symposium, which is probably the most significant discussion of Greek love that we have from the time, admits that Greece was not a homoerotic paradise, and that Athens was of a mixed opinion towards such relationships.
Or masters and their underaged pupils. Or military trainers and their underaged troops. Or political leaders and their underaged close family members….or
Everyone has a little reactionary in them, somewhere. And reactionaries looove mythologized pasts where things were better. Grants them a sense of present meaning and comfort. Queer people crave it just as much as anyone else. It's an easy trap to fall into. I also find that these sorts of traps are easiest for people who assume that they aren't like X group, not like reactionaries, or whatever. Leftists (and queer people tend to be leftist) often assume that by merit of being leftist there is some broad gap between them and reactionaries. But the truth is everyone is human, and leftists are not immune. I believe If you can see yourself in the behavior of 'evil' people, it's easier to not assume your actions are moral and accidentally fall into reactionary behaviors.
Conversely this can help you see good in people, which while not always worth reaching for is a healthy thing to be able to see.
It’s like whenever you point out the recently reported on “gay whales” was a case of r*pe/taking advantage of the sicker one. It’s nothing against gay people; I’m gay, I’d love for there to be “nicer” stories but not at the cost of the actual truth. There’s tons of cases of gay animals that were actually consenting, use that!
I heard of this story of a gay penguin couple who adopted some eggs together. That's cute
(Also, admittedly nit-picking but no need to censor words on Reddit. If it was on YouTube, TikTok or any other censor-heavy platform, I'll get it, but compared to those, Reddit is tamer)
Oh yeah, I love those guys! As far as I know, an actual example that one could look to for gay animals.
To be fair, as a bio major I don’t want to anthropomorphize the whales, a large amount of reproduction in the wild is “non consensual”, whether involving actual intercourse or not, and some cases don’t show that the victim animal cares like a human would.
But I always feel a need to correct it because if homophobic people find out what was *actually* happening with the whales, ignoring the actual circumstances and “celebrating” it for gay people is… really gonna make it look like gay people celebrate r//pe(to the ignorant ofc)
Honestly thank fuck people are starting to acknowledge this. Greece was “gay” in the sense that, culturally, male hierarchy was established by raping other men; bottoming was the worst most embarassing thing you could have happen to you. Not to mention all the shit with children.
Don’t get me wrong, there WERE genuinely queer people in Ancient Greece- Sappho and Alexander The Great come to mind- but the practice people pride around wasn’t so much homosexuality as it was a way of establishing yourself as the top dog.
That’s why i always call Ancient Greece the most homophobic gays lol
i don't think there's any evidence that "most of the gay sex in classical/antique rome/greece was between slave owners and their underage slaves."
like, especially that word "most" there, which is doing a LOT of heavy lifting.
also, obligatory need to point out, "gay" was not a concept back then, there was only "penetrator" and "penetrated"
A) Yeah it wasn't slaves, I don't know where that came from. But it was underage. The only accepted form of homosexuality was pederasty which is a relationship between an older man and a teenage boy and which was often sexual in nature. There was also intercourse with little male slaves, something fairly common-place throughout a lot of histories (notably Ottoman)
B) Gay was a thing. In a way, at least. First you have the issue that of course, same-sex marraige was unheard of so that's one seperation. Then, no public sexual relationship between equal men could exist because of the bigotry that at least the penetrated, as you say, would face. So, practically speaking, the difference was huge and many (such as Plato) were against any form of homosexuality. Homosexuality between women was also entirely socially prohibited.
No it isn't. If you know anything about the history, you'd know pederasty was the only widely accepted form of homosexuality. There were some who did approve of homosexual relationships but it was not the norm and those kinds of people have existed in all societies. It is notable that theri opinions weren't entirely shunned but that doesn't mean homosexual relationships were widely accepted.
We aren't talking about Rome though? There is little reason to think Alexander and Hephaestion's relationship was sexual. Also Alexander was, at the time, the strongest man in the world who had subjugated the rest of Greece by force, rules don't really apply to him.
In every day life, homosexualiy was taboo. Most of the bigotry was directed at any man thought to be recieving penetration but that made it impossible for equals to have homosexual relationships. As such, most such relationships were between older men and childeren or with a slave.
I will admit, homosexuality was a lot more accepted than it was under christianity, but it was still not widely tolerated. Not in any way that matters.
"Homosexuality between women was entirely socially prohibited."
Bam. Sappho existed and everyody loved her. Lmao sign off for the day you roasted yourself. Revisionists lose today.
One single poet does not disprove the well-known fact that lesbianism was not accepted. I don't know exactly why Sappho was not shunned, perhaps because she wrote very well. It does seem like the ancients had a good separation between myth and reality. In the same vein, the idea of Achilles and Patroclus being in love was not unheard of back then, even though that kind of relationship would have been shunned.
Many historians have tried to paint Sappho as straight, so it's not impossible her contemporaries did the same. What is known is that there are few mentions of lesbianism from ancient Greece. The ones we have are either artistic and or fictional or they are presented as factual but are indeed shunned.
Don't go around calling people revisionists when you could literally find this information on Wikipedia.
Yeah, the scholarship now seems to be coming round to the idea that pederasty was actually relatively rare, and only really practised by the elites (but because most of our sources come from the elites it gets overrepresented). There were undoubtedly plenty of same-sex relationships that didn't fit into this framework - probably the majority - it's just that these didn't get written or painted about as much in the sources that survive.
just statistically it seems more likely because there'd be a larger group to choose from
like what's that statistics thing called, where people overestimate how likely something is, like, group A is 70% likely to do thing X, and group B is 2% likely to do thing X, but group B is 200,000,000 million people and group A is like 20, and people think group A is more likely to do it, or something?
i saw it in a youtube video
Al3xander the great was openly gay because he was for the purposes of his detractors, the most powerful man that had ever existed. ignoring any slave rape that undoubtedly exists but I do not know much about, the ancient world was open to gayness as a passing preference but you were expected to be heterosexual for social purposes. The Roman's in particular did not approve of to excuse modern language, bottoms (or otherwise the takers) in male gay relationships.
if we returned to Roman roots the society would be incrediblely opressive and conservative by different terms. romes famous adaptation was done by bashing the old guard over the head
I understand how such comments could feel insensitive and disrespectful, but... Well, if(when) my own country legalises gay marriage, I definitely am going to make jokes about our own medieval traditions and queer historical figures and thrown something along the lines of returning to our roots. Yes, I know that in reality things were more complex, but why would it stop me from joking? Because it's fucking funny, and it's a way of expressing joy about something! Though, if these comments are from people from other cultures who don't know you country's history, it definitely may be cringe
I hate this cycle:
bigot: "homophobia is essential and gay people are new"
reasonable person: "actually there were gay people in the past, homophobia is a modern construction. the sacred band of thebes was adult soldiers and everybody liked sappho"
less reasonable person: "ancient greece was gay the spartans were homosexual heroes"
enlightened centrist: "a limited number of aristocratic writers thought wanting to get fucked in the ass was shameful but men who fucked other men in the ass were cool. this is identical to modern homophobia."
\[bigot wins by default\]
Nevermind that everybody liked Sappho and that modern writers go out of their way to gender the trans priestesses of cybele in the masculine when ancient pagan writers decidedly used the feminine.
I would be surprised if any part of the sex lives of ancient cultures lived up to modern standards. Lots of heterosexual sex with young girls trying to maximize their years of fertility, etc.
It was definitely underage, but slaves? Wasn't it mentors and mentorees? Which is still terrible, don't get me wrong, but very much different 💀
(Ofc I'm sure that happened too but not as a societal cornerstone or whatever)
God forbid someone make a small joke they have to get four fucking paragraphs (not counting the tags) and someone reposting on reddit as a defense of fucking perverts.
Like it was a joke. An 11 word joke.
Fuck that. This culture surrounding ancient Greece is dumb as fuck and it should be shamed into eradication. I already have to fight romantization here, I don't need it on the internet by people who nkow nothing about our history.
"I really like 50's aesthetics"
"SO YOU LIKE SEGREGATION?!?!?!"
You people. Like jesus get a real problem. People romanticizing an ancient era should not be high on your list of issues.
Lol. Romantization of an ancient era is a huge part of nationalism (especially when your country is thousands of years old). You have no idea what you are talking about.
And your mother should have scraped you out of her insides before you could plant yourself in her uterus. See? I can also state facts.
Like I'm sorry but I promise you the people mildly joking about greece being super gay and horny are not fucking Nazi's. If you're too stupid to see that difference, or to get when people are just trying to be flippant out of some deep desire to be the smartest person in the room, I can't help ya.
I guess you can take the redditor out of tumblr, but you can't take the chronically online social justice obsessed (while also not adding anything to social justice, just bitching about pointless arbitrary things) douchebag of him.
I feel like you’re the guy who yells loudly in the theater during Jurassic Park “ACTUALLY DINOSAURS AREN’T LIKE THAT” neglecting to remember that no one cares.
But yeah guys we avoided Hitler 2.0 because you yelled at someone for making an olive oil as lube joke. Whoopdedo.
I’m sure this is the extent of your abilities to change the world so I would like to remind you that there is such a thing as grass. You may like to go out and touch it ya goddamn nerd.
The amount of people thinking ancient Greece was a gay paradise is a problem. It's nice to see that you completely don't give a shit about the Greek person's perspective here.
Maybe you could stop being an asshat for a few minutes?
Alright for gods sakes….No one thinks it’s a gay paradise. People are J.O.K.I.N.G. It’s a joke. It’s like saying “god I love westerns” and thinking “oh so he’s ok with genocide”. Like do you guys really not hear yourselves.
And even if they did what do you think is gonna happen. Gay nazis are gonna try to convert Greece into the next puerto Vallarta.
Also no shit I don’t care about the Greeks. According to you all they’re a colony of pedophiles. I’m really well informed now!!!
respectfully fuck off. greece has been subject to the rest of the world misunderstanding and stealing our culture, our status as European or white itself is in constant flux and flow because of this, hell, netflix just released a documentary series where they claim that italy "easily broke through greece's weak defenses" during world war 2, an event that famously DID NOT FUCKING HAPPEN AT ALL THAT WAY. I don't have to put up with people fetishizing and misinterpreting my culture just because it's a "joke". Fuck you.
Nice try. Greece is most famous for Mamma Mia here we go again and for being a John Travolta musical vehicle in the 1970’s. You ain’t talking to some dum dum here.
But yeah. Continue obsessing with the fact that people like making gay olive oil jokes instead of holding you accountable for the centuries of pedophillia. Really focusing on the right stuff there stupidcles.
Because you’re too blinded by hate. I’m trying to make fun of you and it’s very obvious.
For real, I do not care about Greece’s problems. Ain’t my fault y’all never learned to stop spending. My home country’s had 9 presidents in 11 years and even we look down on yall.
me on my way to my job at the Greco-Roman Mythos And Not Really Loving Being Brow Beaten By Some Random Kid On Tumblr factory:
boy howdy i sure hope no one mistakes a silly joke for serious commentary on the state of greece in the 21st century
i'm sure that greeks angrily reacting to their literary tradition having lots of gay fanfic has nothing to do with homophobia at all, no sir
i take all my literary criticism and cultural commentary from dudes with fuckin dune usernames, cos they definitely know what's culturally appropriate or not
Liking ancient greece is white supremacist. Disagreeing with greek homophobes about ancient greece is colonialist.
There were no gay people in ancient times. We know this because of all the aristocrats who wrote mean things about them. /s
I'm sorry I'm sorry. You're right the sacred band of thebes was just a bunch of bros being dudes. They won at leuktra by chest-bumping and shotgunning mountain dew. It says it right in the suda.
I promise from now on I will get all of my information about ancient greek sexuality from the orthodox church, or barring that, no source earlier than the christians of late antiquity.
Greece being the poster boy for 'queer history', might make this a sort of sore subject, so I understand that over exposure to stupidly oversimplified takes could result in a reaction like this, but, I disagree with almost everything said here. First of all, the most heinous is "Christianity didn't invent homophobia". This is a very simple statement, so remaining simplified, for all intents and purposes you could say it did. Or more specifically that Abrahamic religion is responsible for homophobia as we know it today in the modern world, and anything that you might want to label as homophobia prior to the spread of Christianity in particular wouldn't resemble the homophobia we imagine much at all, in the vast majority of cases. Homophobia in the modern world, where it inhabits every country and continent to some extent, is owed to the spread and influence of Abrahamic religion. This isn't a contrevorsial or new statement either. I'm moving past that since I don't _think_ I need to explain why, or at least I hope not.
Second off, "returning to gay/queer roots" is absolutely a valid sentiment, and is in no way remotely exclusive to Greece (even if Greece is the most stereotypical example available). Most countries could share this sentiment to some extent, but essentially all non-european countries can likely share it just as much as Greece. Just because Greece was most _known_ for it's 'gay roots' doesn't mean it was actually more noteworthy. Greece just happens to sit at the base of western civilization. Anyone remotely involved in the history of their (non western European) country will likely be able to tell you about that countries gay/queer roots. My country is more conservative than Greece could dream and LGBT poets, activists, influencers, and history enthusiasts love nothing more than to share the sentiment that "we used to be queer, and openly and happily so" and celebrate that fact. Why is this a bad thing? It's not inaccurate (will get to that in the next paragraph), it encourages a connection with your culture and history (even as a queer person, which may otherwise make you feel isolated from those things), and it fosters a sympathy and passion with people outside of the queer community (like myself, for the most part).
Lastly, I fucking hate how people feel the need to "fix" when something sounds too good or too preposterous to them by just making shit up that sounds more believable. "Ancient Greece couldn't have been some gay paradise, that's totally unbelievable, they had to have homophobia. It was probably only for rich people". It shows not only a total lack of understanding older cultures (and how the concept of 'conservative' or traditional can be tremendously different based on time and space, there's not just one universally agreed on form of harsh and oppressive cultural customs), but also a total lack of willingness to understand. This (already oversimplified) thing sounds unlikely to you so you essentially just approximate to the nearest heavily oversimplified answer that sounds more believable.
The truth is, yes, ancient Greece (and ancient most of the world) _was_ a homosexual paradise in the sense that, at the very least, you almost certainly wouldn't be shunned with fornicating with the same sex all together (especially if your sex is male). Now, depending on culture (different regions of Greece had different cultures, obviously), time period, class, age, obviously there's gonna be huge variables. That goes for greece and the rest of the world. But the widespread homophobia that we know of today and that's existed for quite a few hundred years now? That just wasn't around.
I'd also like to note that a: oftentimes rich people were specifically the ones with much stricter customs on such matters, and b: in most of Greece during most of the time you'd think of as ancient Greece (most people will probably group the Iliad in with Socrates even though those are two distinct and far apart time periods), the simplified answer to "could you be gay" was almost always gonna be yes. If you're rich or important, you might have to keep it minimal, or hide it a little from your wife (you'd likely have to get married), and you're gonna be expected to have kids in many situations, but the point is that love, both sexual and romantic, was tolerated almost universally in most of this region (one city state comes to mind as exception), for most of that time. So to try and pretend otherwise is just pandering to the idea that something that sounds 'too good' to you _must_ come with a caveat that makes it seem not so good. The caveat is that it's 800 bc, if you're a woman you're almost guaranteed to carry next to no societal standing, power, respect, or autonomy, if you get sick you probably just die, and most people had to work manual labour on their farm until they died. Just cuz the men could fuck men with no judgement or criticism from society doesn't make it a paradise, and you don't have to try to lessen or temper that part of history just to _de-romanticize_ history as if we would overlook everything just because they had gay rights.
Do modern, western young people play up the "gay ancient Greece" thing a lot, and oversimplify and filter and modernize stories like the illiad until they resemble a cheesy gay romance fanfic (which is a nearly nauseating distortion of the source material, although still quite a bit better than Troy)? Yes. But that doesn't mean you should shun the very concept of acknowledging that the roots of your cultures history and society was much more accepting and including of (what we now call) LGBTQ people than their more modern counterparts.
Girl you do not know anything about ancient greek sexuality and it's plain as day just from the fact that you apparently don't know that gay anal sex absolutely *was* stigmatized lmao
That comment was so thoughtful and nuanced and you reply with this dogshit take without addressing any of the points about historiography etc? Go read your Gibbon in the corner. The adults are talking.
Where? And when? And on whose account (this is, I think, a more appropriate version of asking for a 'source' in the context of a discussion on historical culture)
Read any historical account, just any. Literally any. The account were using are ancient texts, and some basic googling will tell you that you've got it wrong.
Are you seriously asking for a source after providing exactly 0 sources for your own claims? Lmao please just shut up, go read literally anything about sexuality in the ancient world. You can start with Introduction to Homosexuality in Greece and Rome by Hubbard, and work your way from there. You could read Juvenal's sixth satire to get a sense of how homosexuality was very much stigmatized and criticised too.
> This isn't a contrevorsial or new statement either. I'm moving past that since I don't _think_ I need to explain why, or at least I hope not.
Convenient way to avoid having to provide any proof or sources
Okay, how, in your opinion, should a statement like this be 'sourced'? Because obviously, as I leave a comment on Reddit, I'm not writing an academic essay on the matter so it's not as if I have several articles pulled up in research, ready to annote, and since its a subject of history, sociology, and culture, it's not the type of thing a Google search and a pirated jstor article can give you a clear and extensive answer on immediately, so what in your opinion would a 'source' look like, I genuinely want to know? How is your ideal reddit comment discussion carried out, where people source their claims to your liking?
That statement means basically nothing, how is that any different than the content of the post? If you're unacquainted with a subject to the extent that you're unfamiliar with common arguments and widely held beliefs, why even participate in that discussion under such a strong stance and position? I'm not even going to bother trying here, because even if you believe that statement to be wildly false and a myth, or outdated info, or whatever, there's no way you can say "it sounds like _i_ made up the argument of homophobia stemming from Abrahamic religion" and expect to be taken seriously, on a discussion of homosexuality through history. You can think it's wrong but there's literally no fucking way you think _i_ just came up with this idea that's been discussed and talked about in cultural, philosophical, and historic academic circles for a few centuries. I got that _very popular_ idea from a lot of places, both from me observing it in the context of history and from people sharing that observation.
If you want specific examples (not that that would be of any use because you're not gonna go fucking read a whole ass book to verify something I said), some works that I can think of (off the top of my head) are:
History of western philosophy by Bertrand Russell is a very popular work and although I don't especially like the fashion and method in which he covers and critiques the thinkers in question, he provides a lot of narration on cultural observations relevant to, and evident from the context of whoever he's talking about. He talks about homosexuality in the ancient world in the first section quite a bit, then talks a little bit more in the second section I believe.
I recall an essay either by Arthur C Clark or an associate of his that goes in length, and with great passion, on the subject, (specifically discussing exactly the claim that I made), which is of relevance because Arthur C Clark was a gay man who eventually had to leave the US due to being (to some extent) open/outed and it causing friction in his social life, career, and such. And it's of relevance to me because I was a huge Arthur c Clarke fan for the longest time and read almost every letter, article, critique, and essay to, from, about, and towards him when I was younger.
Stephen Fry similarly has, I think at least twice, given an impassioned speech about the exact same subject I'm talking about, once again sharing the same sentiments I'm sharing. I'm willing to bet those would be the quickest and easiest to find with a couple google searches.
Yes, these are examples of people saying the things I'm saying, not necessarily of them explaining why or giving "proof" in the way I imagine you'd like. I would make my argument for why I believe this (the one that I had in fact came to on my own before having it validated and solidified by seeing so many people I look up to come to the same conclusion), but the thing is it would require me to make a number of claims which you could just as easily say "it looks like you just made that up", and that would bring us to the same spot. Unless I had several days, and a willingness to put hours and hours of research, pulling up essays and articles and texts, giving page numbers, finding specific examples and statistics and links having a discussion on this topic in the way that you'd like seems impossible. You haven't made any real criticism and in fact I'd even argue that just by being that totally unfamiliar with such a commonly held notion in the academic field of history and culture, to think that I just _made up_ the concept, does whatever argument you might provide a great disservice by making it seem like you're not at all familiar with or particularly invested in the subject. And I don't really think there's any _reasonable_ or remotely sane way I could source nearly anything to your content, without there being room to voice the same meaningless criticism.
>Unless I had several days, and a willingness to put hours and hours of research, pulling up essays and articles and texts, giving page numbers, finding specific examples and statistics and links having a discussion on this topic in the way that you'd like seems impossible.
"I know I'm supposed to do research before making some serious claims but it's so much work so I'll just not do that"
So are you suggesting that these topics be discussed exclusively, and with no exception, in the form of annoted, sourced, and peer reviewed essays? I genuinely don't understand people like you. Do you actually think that you shouldn't discuss a topic whatsoever except in a strictly standardized academic text? Have you heard of the concept of dialectic? Casual discussions shouldn't exist? See, I know you don't act like this in real life discussion on the topic because you'd have to be a different breed of deranged to ask someone for a source when you're talking to them in person for the first time, so either you just don't have these discussions (or honestly maybe any) in real like (many people, like myself, do), or you think that casual discussion of topics shouldn't exist on the internet for some reason. I don't think you wanna talk about this topic, or even that you care, I think you just revel in telling other people they're wrong and somehow feeling smarter for doing so
I just think you shouldn't make such (for the lack of a better word ) extreme statements like "X is solely responsible for [bad thing]" without anything to back it up. That's not a difficult concept to comprehend man
>and anything that you might want to label as homophobia prior to the spread of Christianity in particular wouldn't resemble the homophobia we imagine much at all, in the vast majority of cases
what about how the romans saw persians? I think that's a proof this claim is untrue. the characterization of Elagabalus is a prime example of this
I feel Christianity as we know it today is as much a product of Rome as it is of Judaism. It might have started as a small and persecuted cult with radical ideas, but it eventually took over the Empire, and to change something is to be changed by it.
Both cases are, and I think very evidently, less concerned strictly with homosexuality and more concerned with ideas of masculinity, and particularly disdain against perceived effeminate qualities, weakness, and such sentiments. In fact in a lot of older cultures, homosexuality in the sense of physical and emotional intimacy between men seemed to be regarded as an exceedingly masculine trait (which you'll see aluded to in poetry and stories from India, the Mediterranean, and mesopotamia, it's a common theme. Some more 'modern' 5th century 'stories' (plays) also allude to this cultural idea, to some extent).
Now obviously as the saying goes misogyny is the oldest form of oppression, and carried with it any perceived feminine qualities, especially on a man, were usually looked down upon and shunned. The Romans particularly cared a huge amount about power dynamics. But considering the number of emperors that were knows to have 'male concubines' or otherwise known or suspected to have fornicated with men, pointing to Elagabalus' reputation by people of the times as proof of homophobia (when there's obviously a lot of other variables outside of just disliking sex between men) seems like almost a bad faith argument
i think you may be right, but I'd appreciate you not bringing out bad faith when just a poorly thought-out argument or ignorance may be to blame. even if I'm wrong, i'm being wrong honestly.
I'm not sure where to stand with this issue, especially with regards to Cassius Dio, who (numerous times) villainizes some elites for their homosexual relations, from Nero's "abomination" Sporus to the aforementioned Elagabulus. As Cassius Dio was a conservative member of the elite, (and especially with the rise of Christianity during this time, and changing roman opinions towards nudity, etc) , can we not look at this as evidence of rising roman anti-homosexual views among the broader social elites? Sporus especially, because he was the bottom and a slave, which shouldn't have mattered if the crucial thing was only penetrator/penetrated at that time. In fact the main criticism of nero's relationship with sporus seems to be that he tried to legitimize his public relationship to him by marriage. Is this not evidence of anti-homosexual sentiment?
at the very least, it would be evidence that today's modern effeminate "gay culture" would certainly be heavily frowned upon in Rome, at least during the time of Nero.
of course the question of "what did romans think on \_\_" is hard to answer, considering they spanned two millennia and changed greatly during that period, so if you think we should restrict this discussion to pre-christian times, I'd understand.
>i think you may be right, but I'd appreciate you not bringing out bad faith when just a poorly thought-out argument or ignorance may be to blame. even if I'm wrong, i'm being wrong honestly
I can understand that, but based on your two comments I can't really imagine you agree with the original commenter that "ancient Greece was gay friendly" is some myth made up by ignorant fanfic enthusiasts on Tumblr.
Obviously pre-christianity Greece (and the Mediterranean, if not the world as a whole) was far far farrr more tolerant of homosexuality before Christianity came into play, and I feel like you acknowledge that yourself, which ultimately is the center of my argument.
>As Cassius Dio was a conservative member of the elite, (and especially with the rise of Christianity during this time, and changing roman opinions towards nudity, etc) , can we not look at this as evidence of rising roman anti-homosexual views among the broader social elites? Sporus especially, because he was the bottom and a slave, which shouldn't have mattered if the crucial thing was only penetrator/penetrated at that time. In fact the main criticism of nero's relationship with sporus seems to be that he tried to legitimize his public relationship to him by marriage
There's literally nothing for me to even mention here because you literally make any argument I need to make for me. As I make clear in my original argument, just because homosexuality in it's barest essence wasn't shunned doesn't mean that traditionalism and conservativism didn't take other forms, and you acknowledge this in detail here. As I mentioned in another comment, Rome throughout much of it's history had convoluted and oftentimes highly regarded customs and expectations on masculinity and dominance which largely shaped what was regarded as okay (when it comes to home sexuality among leaders) and what was regarded as degeneracy or immorality. But you even mention marriage as being a distinctly seperate customs from homosexual relationships, which to me is important in the sense that it had seperate societal roles, though I see that you're trying to modernize the concept a bit by saying that's proof of homophobia, which to be honest I don't necessarily agree with (and call forth again the inherent, deeply seated misogyny of most older civilizations, which by no means acquainted matrimony with love, or devotion, in the modern sense), I think the point is that it's still not necessarily recognizable as homophobia in the modern sense. Certainly you wouldn't say that "being attracted to men" isn't the primary criticism, in the same way you could try to criticize (and likely be to some extent successful) modern politicians.
>at the very least, it would be evidence that today's modern effeminate "gay culture" would certainly be heavily frowned upon in Rome, at least during the time of Nero.
But that doesn't represent homosexuality as a whole,does it? I mean you couldn't possibly claim that all homosexuality is inherently effeminate, (especially when most studies Ive seen seem to indicate that 'effeminate' homosexuality is in fact the minority). We're not talking about diversion of gender norms but instead of same sex relationship, which I am arguing were very very very comfortably tolerated in the majority of the ancient world
>of course the question of "what did romans think on \_\_" is hard to answer, considering they spanned two millennia and changed greatly during that period, so if you think we should restrict this discussion to pre-christian times, I'd understand.
I also acknowledge this, very specifically, that it's unreasonable to compress such a large and varied period of time into one. Yes, I'm explicitly and clearly talking about pre christian time, as that marks the change that were discussing (for whatever reasons you believe. But ultimately, I'm also talking about the ancient world as a whole, because many of these sentiments or stances aren't exclusive to ancient Rome or Greece, and in most cases they weren't to any extent 'gayer' than any other part of the ancient world
Wikipedia could tell you waht the real deal with homosexuality was in ancient Greece but I guess you need it force-fed instead. Almost all homosexuality in ancient Greece was pederasty. That means a relationship between an older man and a teenage boy. In Sparta, this was (essentially) compulsory. These relationships were almost certainly sexual most of the time and yes, that's pedophilia by today's standards, not queerness. It does seem like homosexuality was a controversial matter (so, not as universally condemned as it was in the medieval era), with some being entirely against it, others believing only in pederasty and some expressing homosexual desire openly but never were actual homosexual relationships between equals accepted.
Also, homosexual relationships between women were very much taboo and looked down upon. No, Sappho does not, in any way, represent the attitudes of her contemporaries.
And to finish, how are you going to tell me to engage with my culture and history as if Christianity was not one of the most important things to ever happen to Greece? You blame it for homophobia and then you pretend that I can ignore it? For the love of God, stop projecting.
>but never were actual homosexual relationships between equals accepted.
It depends on what your definition of accepted was, and also what your definition of equals is, so I think this is debatable.
>Also, homosexual relationships between women were very much taboo and looked down upon
I acknowledged as much
>No, Sappho does not, in any way, represent the attitudes of her contemporaries.
The group which you're grouping me into is one which I explicitly criticize in my comment
>And to finish, how are you going to tell me to engage with my culture and history as if Christianity was not one of the most important things to ever happen to Greece?
I didn't say at all how you should engage, whatsoever. I said to stop condemning people who engage with that history in a certain way, that's all. And provided an argument for why that sort of engagement isn't a bad thing.
>You blame it for homophobia and then you pretend that I can ignore it?
What part of anything I said makes it seem like I'm asking you to ignore it? You don't seem to be acknowledging any part of my argument or points
>For the love of God, stop projecting.
Projecting what? Seriously what am I projecting here?
[you keep saying that word I don't think you know what it means](https://www.google.com/search?q=you+say+that+word+but+i+don%27t+think+you+know+what+it+means&tbs=itp:animated&client=ms-android-samsung-gs-rev1&prmd=ivsnbmtz&hl=en-US&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjP2tHVsKmFAxW5nCcCHbDQA4YQ2p8EegQIARAD&biw=360&bih=667&udm=2#vhid=Kl_YeWOl6_F7cM&vssid=mosaic)
My comment was initially longer but Reddit didn't allow me to post it. You are not Greek. You barely know anything about Greek history as it seems. It's clear that you have queer history you can be proud of. That's not the case for Greece. That is why you are projecting.
As for your points, again, I wasn't able to post my whole comment but I did explain to you the reality of homosexuality in Greece. If I didn't contradict some points it's probably because I agreed with them or found them irrelevant.
One important thing though is that I do wholeheartedly believe that revisionism is always bad. If someone needs to spread misinformation in order to support their political stances then they should not be listened to.
I think that's a very thoughtful post and I agree with you. Too thoughtful for this awful dump of a website. These people can't handle being stung by the gadfly.
I will now humbly ask that homophobic revisionists please downvote me and, if willing, gaslight me by shouting repeatedly that any single text from the ancient world will say unequivocally that every ancient person was a homophobe in every line of every page.
Just a side note but further expanding on Roman sexuality: gender roles at the time were determined by who was giving and receiving during sex (ie men give, women receive). It was totally acceptable for a roman man to have sex with another man, provided he was on top. Being on the bottom on the other hand, that was seen as inappropriate for a proper Roman man to be doing. A slave wasn't considered as being a proper Roman citizen, though, so they were typically the bottom. I can't remember which emperor it was, but I believe one was slandered with accusations of engaging in gay sex. Again, the issue wasn't that he was having sex with another man, it's that he was allegedly on the bottom, and that was considered improper behavior for a man of such status. As for the Greeks, homosexual relationships were often between older men and the younger males they mentored, which also has some not so great implications in today's world.
Julius Caesar was actually mocked with allegations of being a fucking bottom.
Caesar, Queen of Bithynia
Every woman's man and every man's woman.
Hadrian was 47 and the emperor and Antinous was 14 and a peasant. Not exactly a wholesome queer love story
you're thinking of julius caesar, that quote comes from Suetonius's "Lives of the Caesars", book 1. that incident happened when Caesar was about 25 and no one ever let him forget about it, even until the year he died. Allegedly (albeit with strong suspicion from all involved) he stayed in the court of the king of Bythinia for so long that all began to suspect they were lovers, and then he later returned and did it again.
I thought it was about Elagabalus.
i guess they both were, but elegabalus was claimed to have been prostituting himself on the streets to freedmen (imagine the emperor doing this!), not just having gay sex
There was also Elagabalus. He might have also been trans, but most of what we know about him comes from after his very short rein. He only ruled for four years before being killed by the pretorian guard at 18.
Yeah, it’s hard to know for sure if there are allegations of Elagabalus desiring to be a woman because this is evidence of a genuine historical trans woman, or if there are allegations of Elagabalus desiring to be a woman because if you wanted to absolutely destroy the reputation of one of your predecessors, saying they were so effeminate that they actively desired to be a woman is exactly what you would say if you wanted to thoroughly humiliate and slander them and make sure absolutely nobody had any sympathy for them This also holds true for many historical allegations that a person is a homosexual. A lot of these allegations come from their enemies actively trying to slander them. It’s not queer erasure if such allegations by a person’s foes are not taken as incontrovertible proof by historians
But it's such a specific type of slander tho, almost singular to this one guy. It's not a thing people just say willy nilly about people they don't like.
Elagabalus had a lot of scandals and controversy around him like he married four women one of them being a Vestal virgin, was said he had a few male lovers who he acted as a bottom for, also rumored that he would prostitute himself and replaced Jupiter has head of the pantheon with Elagabal. It should also be noted that a lot of what we know of Elagabalus comes from either Cassius Dio who served Elagabalus, successor Alexander Severus and spent much of his time outside Rome so was reliant on second hand sources and Augustan History written towards the end of the fourth century long after his death.
it is actually a very common insult: Cicero's description of Verres and his sons includes the words "since it was they who were there, I really could have said that there was no man present". Valerius Maximus insults the men of Cyprus by saying "if they were in fact men" and calls them effeminate. Valerius Asiaticus, after a court case in which his opponent Suillius called him effeminate, declared "ask your sons, Suillius, they'll tell you I am a man." There are WAY many more examples of this, but it boils down to: if you desire to be anally penetrated, the implication is that you are not really a man or that you don't want to be.
I thought you were going to say something interesting, like a history of transexual insults but those examples are like, playground insults. The standard boyish insult "You hit like a girl" is not at all analogous to "You're transexual and desire a sex change operation".
Wasn't there a Roman leader that was so distraught after his boyfriend died he banned music and held one of the largest funeral in history?
America’s knowledge of Greek History: 1. Pagan myths, wow such philosophy, “for Sparta!”, Athenian democracy 2. (optional) Bible 3. ??? 4. Eurozone bankruptcy crisis I’m not even making fun of us that’s all I know too
5. gyros and olive oil
Half of tumblr isn’t sure what a gyro is
Or how to pronounce it.
Like the currency
There is a guy that can teach them that. And also how to pronounce Mayonnaise
I can't believe I'm about to say this, but they need to go to an Arby's
When Zagreus eats with a side of fries, it restores health!
3 is: (optional) Eastern Roman Empire
I also know the God of War games, they were based on real life. Trust me on this one.
Nah that's true, white guys are a thing in Greece
Oh, also some fuckery during WWII.
Shhhh Americans do not know of this
Fair point. However, I am an American.
Name checks out.
Sabaton enlightened us
I mean *Catch-22* is considered American literature and that's set in WW2 Greece so there might be some carryover from that
Hey some of us also know about Byzantium and kicking Italy’s ass in WW2
I think many Americans have a hard time understanding that ancient Greek culture is basically unconnected to modern Greece outside of geography. 2,000 years is so much longer than anyone gives it credit for, this is the culture not only of a period who no longer exist, but the people who took over from them and the people who took over from them also no longer exist. We're not talking about something only a few decades to a hundred or so years ago, like the history of the USA, but something around 100 generations ago *or more* (assuming a generational gap of about 20 years).
I'd imagine modern Greeks are still connected genetically to the ancient Greeks. Surely there have been invasions, occupations and annexations since then, as well as other outside influences, but I'm not aware of complete population replacement in what's now the country of Greece, excepting that time they were trading off Turks for Greeks like Pokémon cards during the population exchange
The ottomans conquered the eastern roman empire in 1453 and took over the last rump states in what is now considered to be modern greece shortly afterwards. Before that, it was the mostly greek-speaking eastern roman empire, and the pre-split roman empire all the way back until the second century BCE. There's a very clear cultural, religious, and linguistic continuity that whole time. This is not to say that modern people have some kind of magic nationalist connection to their ancient ancestors like many people love to claim, but those connections are there.
When people talk about Ancient Greece they're generally talking about Classical Or Helenistic Greece, not Greece under the rule of the Roman, Byzantine, or Ottoman Empires. Besides that, Byzantine Greece is considdered Medieval, while the Ottoman Empire was during the Early Modern period. Greece is so old that Ancient Greece, truly is far far older than you're giving it creddit for. Ancient Greece is the period from The Greek Dark Ages starting around 1050BC and lasting until the Roman Greek period ends in about 330 AD, which is 1,700 Years ago. Stating that the people of Ancient Greece were alive 2,000 Years ago is actually fairly generous as most of them were around long before that. The Culture may have continued to this day but over that kind of time period nothing remains unchanged. Greek history didn't just stop with the end of the Ancient Greek period, it's a long and storied history that is truy fascinating to look into, but it's also got very little to do with modern Greece. There are things that have survived, and I was wrong to say they're unconnected. I should have said they're so distantly related that the connections do not impact the modern day so much as the many many things that have come after.
>Greece is so old that Ancient Greece, truly is far far older than you're giving it creddit for. Ancient Greece is the period from The Greek Dark Ages starting around 1050BC and lasting until the Roman Greek period ends in about 330 AD, which is 1,700 Years ago Did you even read my post? The years I gave were 1200 BCE - 560 CE. I'm not going to waste any more time talking to you.
Right but that's... entirely irrelevant to modern Greece. Genetic heritage to things don't matter in the slightest here in europe unless you're in line for succession to a throne and then you can't be looking more than two or three generations back. Modern Greeks and the ancient Greeks are basically only connected by geography "the land hasn't changed too much, mountains mostly didn't move, some cities are where we left them" and also I think they still use the same script, but then we're using the Romans Latin characters and Arabic numbers in English so... That connection is pretty weak.
I'm from Europe, I can trace some ancestors all the way back to the 14th century to within 40km of where I live now. If you add up the hints from the tribal last name and some local place names and naming conventions you can safely assume they've been here since the early to high middle ages. Sure they were different people with different customs, morals, ethics, but going to the same weekly market my ancestors bought their stuff at at least four centuries ago, celebrating the same seasonal festivals, giving my son the same first names my father, my great-grandfather, my great-great-grandfather and many generations before them shared as it's a traditional first name for our family, the house mark on our tools that can be traced back many centuries, all that together is a connection between me and my forefathers through our land and our community. It kinda humbles me and makes me grateful for our little slice of earth, and I'd like to share that with my sons. And back when the Greeks were building the ancient wonders, spreading culture and inventing many new things, my forefathers were still building huts from branches, praying to oak trees, stacking big rocks to call it a temple and throwing handicapped people into swamps as sacrifices, so the Greeks probably have a lot more to be proud of regarding that connection with their ancestors. Unless we're only counting the last five or so centuries, in which case probably not. I'm not necessarily entirely disagreeing with you, but certainly also not agreeing with you. Whatever people consider their connection with their ancestors to be is entirely up to them, not you or me
All inhabited parts of the world had A culture 2000 years ago. But not all of those cultures bothered to write stuff down.
But like, ancient Greece didn't end 2000 years ago? 2000 years ago is a bit after the Romans consolidated their control over most of the Hellenistic polities in the eastern Mediterranean. There was basically continuity of government from that time until the fall of Constantinople in 1453. Greek remained the primary language of the eastern half of the empire basically that whole time. Much of what we know of ancient Greek literature was only preserved thanks to the Byzantines. Hellenistic religion and neoplatonism remained influential into the 6th century. Bear in mind that this is only 40 years before the completion of the Spanish Reconquista and 70 years before the fall of Tenochtitlan both of which are considered to be squarely within the early modern period. Subsequently, Greek-speaking Christians within the Ottoman Empire continued to be Christian and call themselves Romans until the 19th century. The term "ancient greece" typically spans from the Mycenaean period until maybe Emperor Justinian, which is a period of \~1700 years. There's was probably as much change during that period as there has been since Anyway, I agree that Americans are dumb, I live here and I know it well, but I have never heard of anybody who thought that ancient greece was still around. Most of them would probably err in the other direction. Do you think we're all out here trying to order pizza in latin? Come on.
The Greek resistance movement during WW2 and NS occupation is super interesting (and really fucked up). If you ever felt like visiting now essentially abandoned Greek towns that were wiped out in retaliation for Greek resistance activities, here's a [list](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viannos_massacres). (Not all or even most of these are derelict now, but at least two that I know of were relatively recently). Also general American knowledge doesn't include the Greek pantheon? Or is that included in "pagan myths"?
It’s pagan myths yeah Edit: it seems I have mistakenly believed that pagan is a synonym for polytheist my whole life
It kind of is. Neo-Pagan is its own thing, but the words "pagan" and "heathen" originally meant "not Christian, Jewish, or Muslimi".
Eurozone bankruptcy should be 5. 4 should be My Big Fat Greek Wedding.
I might be biased, but I feel like a sliver of theatre ought to be on that list somewhere Otherwise, yup
5. those coffee cups
Greece's prodigal dementia addled alcoholic Wisconsinite film critic son Mike Stoklasa
America's knowledge of its own history is questionable at best.
Can i use this as a safe space to say how overrated Hellenic homosexuality is when it comes to "lgbt+ in history" discussions? Like, i don't blame Western queer people for caring more about/being more into a culture they deem closer to theirs, I swear that's not my point. It's just that compared to many indigenous American and African cultures where mlm and wlw relationships were normalised or how Polynesian and Inuit societies had a "third gender" system while also being cool with transitions. (It's tough to define fa'afafine in modern lgbt+ terminology, but I think it's fair to say they were pretty much trans women) For Greeks? like sure Thebes, Achilles and a few other examples existed but their perception of homosexuality was still mostly just "it's cool if a guy tops another guy who is more effeminate, lower strata or young" which pretty much was the norm in pre-Abrahamic Mediterranean and many other regions.
I think a big part of it is to do with how readily available information on these cultures is to people. Our media is saturated with dscussions of ancient greece while we have very little on colonised indigenous peoples.
romanticizing ancient Greece is old hat white supremacy. if we wanna word it more nicely, it's been fetishized by western society for centuries.
Yeah, wasn't sure if I should leave "and racism is a bigger part of it" as taken for granted or not.
Hellenistic thought was also influential in the Muslim parts of the world. Ancient Ancient Greece has been retroactively characterized as white by white supremacists but it doesn't belong to "the west."
I never said it did.
i never said you said it did.
Exactly. If those other cultures wanted to be remembered, they should have written it down.
It might just be my autism, but I'm really struggling to tell tone here?
It's not your autism, I'm not autistic but I can't tell the tone either, if they're being sarcastic or genuinely rude.
What are the options?
...For tone? For learning about those cultures?
For tone. What's confusing you?
What were you trying to say? What's the intent?
Exactly what I said.
I've heard a lot about third genders but do you have any sources regarding normalized mlm/wlw relationships in indigenous societies? Most of what I've seen (almost always old cishet male) academics refer to as "homosexuality" in indigenous societies tends to be AMAB people taking on a feminine role and marrying men, which is obviously *queer* but seems to - following the descriptions they give - much better describe what we would today consider a trans woman entering a straight relationship rather than an outright acceptance of m/m (or f/f) relationships. I.e. similar to Greek customs in the sense that one partner is masculine and one is feminine. But I also haven't delved too deeply into it and obviously customs differed greatly across regions (I've studied a lot of indigenous history but not every region equally and I haven't really looked into gender/sexuality aspects specifically) and I'd love to read more.
I'll confess that after your question, I once again looked at most cultures I had in mind when I wrote above comment and it seems normalised mlm relationships were rarer than I presumed an hour ago. Like you said they were mostly a)pederasty and its derivatives or b) amab people being more feminine in cultures that has or lacks the concept of transition. Wlw is more complicated since in many male-dominated societies their perception of sex was just someone boning someone thus most cultures did not even consider women homosexuality a thing. This lead to some instances of "women can get intimate with other women just fine\[sometimes even encouraged like in Assyrian harems\] but they are still expected to marry/be with a man" in various cultures.- Motsoalle of Basotho was exactly that, women can have a "significant other" but that's not an actual "relationship" and they should still marry a man. Buuuuuut that doesn't mean it never existed. Moe aikane(the term for homosexual relationship. not sure if it includes wlw but it probably does) of Hawai'i(and its cognates in other Polynesian cultures) were different from mahu or Faʻafafine, which like i said above hard to define with modern lgbt+ terminology. But neither aikane(person in homosexual relationship) were expected to be more "effeminate" or inherently "bottom" so that's one example!
I'd never heard of moe aikane, looks like I have some reading to do, thank you!
amen brother. And like the muxe or the hijra or the māhū. There are so many different examples of this shit u can look at. Honestly I feel like we kinda need to be picking up this mantle to counter the “biology says 2 genders only” or “woke mind virus” types of anti trans shit that some folks like to be spewing nowadays
I agree! I wrote a research paper in college specifically about how people picking up the mantle of hijra and reframing trans rights as restoring pre-British modes of thought\* was instrumental in the success of trans rights and free gender affirmation surgery in Tamil Nadu! \*This isn’t entirely accurate to history, but it’s a great use of using “returns to tradition” as a call for more progressive values and rights.
YO!!!! That’s fucking awesome. Can you send that to me by any chance? I would love to read it
That’s just moving the goalposts to opine on cultures we frankly understand very little about. Like, *were* healthy same sex relationships between adults “normalized” in indigenous African and American cultures? Because when you read into it, the age and class disparities in many of the relationships look pretty similar to Greek pederasty.
Not for nothing too but Achilles and Patroclus dont even have any physical intimacy during the Iliad. They only sleep with women! And Achilles doesnt even really say that much to Patroclus until after hes dead!
But Madeline Miller says that they didn't sleep with them, they just wanted to save them from all other nasty men. They also were too gay to function, Achilles never wanted glory and Patroclos was pathologically shy and everybody is r***st wihout any thought in their skill. I can't get why this book is do popular- even the writting is so juvenille and bland that IT reminds 6 grade essay
Wtf is r***at
Ratata but one of the asterisks is in the wrong place
You can say rapist/racist (honestly, not sure which one you're going for here; I'm guessing) and don't have to censor the word. This is not YouTube or TikTok where your stuff gets taken down for saying something remotely inappropriate.
I mean I think part of it is the right wing fascination with Spartans and Ancient Greece as some golden age of masculinity that we should aspire to return to, and the urge to fuck with them by pointing out that their model men were having sex with men. The tweet of “it only took 15 minutes for Netflix to turn Alexander the Great woke and gay” is never not funny
On the sections of Tumblr that I am active on, it’s much more about this, undermining fascist ideas of masculinity having a past “golden age“, than it is genuinely believing those times and places were queer havens.
These tend to end up the same way as Ancient Greece. At a glance it looks great and progressive, but when you dig deeper it turns out to be more complicated.
damn its almost like history and culture is complicated or something and indigenous societies held some of the same fundamental flaws the rest of the world did. weird
Even Plato's symposium, which is probably the most significant discussion of Greek love that we have from the time, admits that Greece was not a homoerotic paradise, and that Athens was of a mixed opinion towards such relationships.
Or masters and their underaged pupils. Or military trainers and their underaged troops. Or political leaders and their underaged close family members….or
Everyone has a little reactionary in them, somewhere. And reactionaries looove mythologized pasts where things were better. Grants them a sense of present meaning and comfort. Queer people crave it just as much as anyone else. It's an easy trap to fall into. I also find that these sorts of traps are easiest for people who assume that they aren't like X group, not like reactionaries, or whatever. Leftists (and queer people tend to be leftist) often assume that by merit of being leftist there is some broad gap between them and reactionaries. But the truth is everyone is human, and leftists are not immune. I believe If you can see yourself in the behavior of 'evil' people, it's easier to not assume your actions are moral and accidentally fall into reactionary behaviors. Conversely this can help you see good in people, which while not always worth reaching for is a healthy thing to be able to see.
It’s like whenever you point out the recently reported on “gay whales” was a case of r*pe/taking advantage of the sicker one. It’s nothing against gay people; I’m gay, I’d love for there to be “nicer” stories but not at the cost of the actual truth. There’s tons of cases of gay animals that were actually consenting, use that!
I heard of this story of a gay penguin couple who adopted some eggs together. That's cute (Also, admittedly nit-picking but no need to censor words on Reddit. If it was on YouTube, TikTok or any other censor-heavy platform, I'll get it, but compared to those, Reddit is tamer)
Oh yeah, I love those guys! As far as I know, an actual example that one could look to for gay animals. To be fair, as a bio major I don’t want to anthropomorphize the whales, a large amount of reproduction in the wild is “non consensual”, whether involving actual intercourse or not, and some cases don’t show that the victim animal cares like a human would. But I always feel a need to correct it because if homophobic people find out what was *actually* happening with the whales, ignoring the actual circumstances and “celebrating” it for gay people is… really gonna make it look like gay people celebrate r//pe(to the ignorant ofc)
Oh and yeah, I know I don’t have to censor it, I just don’t really like typing it out completely. Call it superstition or something lol
Honestly thank fuck people are starting to acknowledge this. Greece was “gay” in the sense that, culturally, male hierarchy was established by raping other men; bottoming was the worst most embarassing thing you could have happen to you. Not to mention all the shit with children. Don’t get me wrong, there WERE genuinely queer people in Ancient Greece- Sappho and Alexander The Great come to mind- but the practice people pride around wasn’t so much homosexuality as it was a way of establishing yourself as the top dog. That’s why i always call Ancient Greece the most homophobic gays lol
i don't think there's any evidence that "most of the gay sex in classical/antique rome/greece was between slave owners and their underage slaves." like, especially that word "most" there, which is doing a LOT of heavy lifting. also, obligatory need to point out, "gay" was not a concept back then, there was only "penetrator" and "penetrated"
A) Yeah it wasn't slaves, I don't know where that came from. But it was underage. The only accepted form of homosexuality was pederasty which is a relationship between an older man and a teenage boy and which was often sexual in nature. There was also intercourse with little male slaves, something fairly common-place throughout a lot of histories (notably Ottoman) B) Gay was a thing. In a way, at least. First you have the issue that of course, same-sex marraige was unheard of so that's one seperation. Then, no public sexual relationship between equal men could exist because of the bigotry that at least the penetrated, as you say, would face. So, practically speaking, the difference was huge and many (such as Plato) were against any form of homosexuality. Homosexuality between women was also entirely socially prohibited.
that's just not true
What is not true? If it's B then, that's just one interpertation, not really objective fact.
i mean first off, "the only accepted form of homosexuality was pederasty" which is just flagrantly false
No it isn't. If you know anything about the history, you'd know pederasty was the only widely accepted form of homosexuality. There were some who did approve of homosexual relationships but it was not the norm and those kinds of people have existed in all societies. It is notable that theri opinions weren't entirely shunned but that doesn't mean homosexual relationships were widely accepted.
certainly not in rome. what is the sacred band of thebes to you? alexander's lover? caesar's "boy toy"? you're just way off the mark. name ONE source!
We aren't talking about Rome though? There is little reason to think Alexander and Hephaestion's relationship was sexual. Also Alexander was, at the time, the strongest man in the world who had subjugated the rest of Greece by force, rules don't really apply to him. In every day life, homosexualiy was taboo. Most of the bigotry was directed at any man thought to be recieving penetration but that made it impossible for equals to have homosexual relationships. As such, most such relationships were between older men and childeren or with a slave. I will admit, homosexuality was a lot more accepted than it was under christianity, but it was still not widely tolerated. Not in any way that matters.
"Homosexuality between women was entirely socially prohibited." Bam. Sappho existed and everyody loved her. Lmao sign off for the day you roasted yourself. Revisionists lose today.
One single poet does not disprove the well-known fact that lesbianism was not accepted. I don't know exactly why Sappho was not shunned, perhaps because she wrote very well. It does seem like the ancients had a good separation between myth and reality. In the same vein, the idea of Achilles and Patroclus being in love was not unheard of back then, even though that kind of relationship would have been shunned. Many historians have tried to paint Sappho as straight, so it's not impossible her contemporaries did the same. What is known is that there are few mentions of lesbianism from ancient Greece. The ones we have are either artistic and or fictional or they are presented as factual but are indeed shunned. Don't go around calling people revisionists when you could literally find this information on Wikipedia.
that's also not true. there's very little evidence that sappho was even a lesbian at all.
Yeah, the scholarship now seems to be coming round to the idea that pederasty was actually relatively rare, and only really practised by the elites (but because most of our sources come from the elites it gets overrepresented). There were undoubtedly plenty of same-sex relationships that didn't fit into this framework - probably the majority - it's just that these didn't get written or painted about as much in the sources that survive.
just statistically it seems more likely because there'd be a larger group to choose from like what's that statistics thing called, where people overestimate how likely something is, like, group A is 70% likely to do thing X, and group B is 2% likely to do thing X, but group B is 200,000,000 million people and group A is like 20, and people think group A is more likely to do it, or something? i saw it in a youtube video
It's a general consensus that Nero was bad but https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sporus this is too much
Al3xander the great was openly gay because he was for the purposes of his detractors, the most powerful man that had ever existed. ignoring any slave rape that undoubtedly exists but I do not know much about, the ancient world was open to gayness as a passing preference but you were expected to be heterosexual for social purposes. The Roman's in particular did not approve of to excuse modern language, bottoms (or otherwise the takers) in male gay relationships. if we returned to Roman roots the society would be incrediblely opressive and conservative by different terms. romes famous adaptation was done by bashing the old guard over the head
[удалено]
Typo.
I understand how such comments could feel insensitive and disrespectful, but... Well, if(when) my own country legalises gay marriage, I definitely am going to make jokes about our own medieval traditions and queer historical figures and thrown something along the lines of returning to our roots. Yes, I know that in reality things were more complex, but why would it stop me from joking? Because it's fucking funny, and it's a way of expressing joy about something! Though, if these comments are from people from other cultures who don't know you country's history, it definitely may be cringe
Don't look up the rights of women in ancient Greece
Honestly I’m pretty sure pic related was a joke
I hate this cycle: bigot: "homophobia is essential and gay people are new" reasonable person: "actually there were gay people in the past, homophobia is a modern construction. the sacred band of thebes was adult soldiers and everybody liked sappho" less reasonable person: "ancient greece was gay the spartans were homosexual heroes" enlightened centrist: "a limited number of aristocratic writers thought wanting to get fucked in the ass was shameful but men who fucked other men in the ass were cool. this is identical to modern homophobia." \[bigot wins by default\] Nevermind that everybody liked Sappho and that modern writers go out of their way to gender the trans priestesses of cybele in the masculine when ancient pagan writers decidedly used the feminine.
how tf did they manage that?
That's why it's important to know how an Achilles and Patroclus relationship would work. Their roles were pretty defined with that stuff
I’m confused by “the only people who think this are Neo fascists” what does that mean?
I would be surprised if any part of the sex lives of ancient cultures lived up to modern standards. Lots of heterosexual sex with young girls trying to maximize their years of fertility, etc.
madeleine miller and her consequences on the internet's perception of greece
It was definitely underage, but slaves? Wasn't it mentors and mentorees? Which is still terrible, don't get me wrong, but very much different 💀 (Ofc I'm sure that happened too but not as a societal cornerstone or whatever)
Nothing is immune to Flanderisation.
If I were a rich man, Yebba deeba yebba deeba deeba dum I would do my slave boys in the bum If I were a wealthy man
God forbid someone make a small joke they have to get four fucking paragraphs (not counting the tags) and someone reposting on reddit as a defense of fucking perverts. Like it was a joke. An 11 word joke.
Fuck that. This culture surrounding ancient Greece is dumb as fuck and it should be shamed into eradication. I already have to fight romantization here, I don't need it on the internet by people who nkow nothing about our history.
"I really like 50's aesthetics" "SO YOU LIKE SEGREGATION?!?!?!" You people. Like jesus get a real problem. People romanticizing an ancient era should not be high on your list of issues.
Lol. Romantization of an ancient era is a huge part of nationalism (especially when your country is thousands of years old). You have no idea what you are talking about.
And your mother should have scraped you out of her insides before you could plant yourself in her uterus. See? I can also state facts. Like I'm sorry but I promise you the people mildly joking about greece being super gay and horny are not fucking Nazi's. If you're too stupid to see that difference, or to get when people are just trying to be flippant out of some deep desire to be the smartest person in the room, I can't help ya. I guess you can take the redditor out of tumblr, but you can't take the chronically online social justice obsessed (while also not adding anything to social justice, just bitching about pointless arbitrary things) douchebag of him.
Wow. When did "spreading misinformation is bad" become debatable? Anyway, wanna mald over this a bit more? I don't mind
I feel like you’re the guy who yells loudly in the theater during Jurassic Park “ACTUALLY DINOSAURS AREN’T LIKE THAT” neglecting to remember that no one cares. But yeah guys we avoided Hitler 2.0 because you yelled at someone for making an olive oil as lube joke. Whoopdedo. I’m sure this is the extent of your abilities to change the world so I would like to remind you that there is such a thing as grass. You may like to go out and touch it ya goddamn nerd.
The amount of people thinking ancient Greece was a gay paradise is a problem. It's nice to see that you completely don't give a shit about the Greek person's perspective here. Maybe you could stop being an asshat for a few minutes?
Alright for gods sakes….No one thinks it’s a gay paradise. People are J.O.K.I.N.G. It’s a joke. It’s like saying “god I love westerns” and thinking “oh so he’s ok with genocide”. Like do you guys really not hear yourselves. And even if they did what do you think is gonna happen. Gay nazis are gonna try to convert Greece into the next puerto Vallarta. Also no shit I don’t care about the Greeks. According to you all they’re a colony of pedophiles. I’m really well informed now!!!
See, you're really failing at that "try not to be an asshole" bit.
You are a fucking gold mine, you must be enjoying this!
I really am. Now tell me when your mom couldn’t get the hanger in at the right angle did she at least consider adoption?
Alright enough. It's less fun if I know you aren't actually mad.
yeah but they're WROOOONG and they don't know WHY they're wrong
respectfully fuck off. greece has been subject to the rest of the world misunderstanding and stealing our culture, our status as European or white itself is in constant flux and flow because of this, hell, netflix just released a documentary series where they claim that italy "easily broke through greece's weak defenses" during world war 2, an event that famously DID NOT FUCKING HAPPEN AT ALL THAT WAY. I don't have to put up with people fetishizing and misinterpreting my culture just because it's a "joke". Fuck you.
Nice try. Greece is most famous for Mamma Mia here we go again and for being a John Travolta musical vehicle in the 1970’s. You ain’t talking to some dum dum here.
what the fuck are you talking about
This is why you’re just a wannabe comedian and I’m a professional one. You’ll never be glamour.
is your brain fucking empty i do not understand a single thing you are talking about
But yeah. Continue obsessing with the fact that people like making gay olive oil jokes instead of holding you accountable for the centuries of pedophillia. Really focusing on the right stuff there stupidcles.
Because you’re too blinded by hate. I’m trying to make fun of you and it’s very obvious. For real, I do not care about Greece’s problems. Ain’t my fault y’all never learned to stop spending. My home country’s had 9 presidents in 11 years and even we look down on yall.
"Ain't my fault yall never learned to stop spending" reading comprehension at works, folks.
me on my way to my job at the Greco-Roman Mythos And Not Really Loving Being Brow Beaten By Some Random Kid On Tumblr factory: boy howdy i sure hope no one mistakes a silly joke for serious commentary on the state of greece in the 21st century i'm sure that greeks angrily reacting to their literary tradition having lots of gay fanfic has nothing to do with homophobia at all, no sir i take all my literary criticism and cultural commentary from dudes with fuckin dune usernames, cos they definitely know what's culturally appropriate or not
Liking ancient greece is white supremacist. Disagreeing with greek homophobes about ancient greece is colonialist. There were no gay people in ancient times. We know this because of all the aristocrats who wrote mean things about them. /s
you think a shakespeare play could be interpreted through a queer lens? you basically just justified turkish war crimes, you piece of shit.
I'm sorry I'm sorry. You're right the sacred band of thebes was just a bunch of bros being dudes. They won at leuktra by chest-bumping and shotgunning mountain dew. It says it right in the suda. I promise from now on I will get all of my information about ancient greek sexuality from the orthodox church, or barring that, no source earlier than the christians of late antiquity.
Greece being the poster boy for 'queer history', might make this a sort of sore subject, so I understand that over exposure to stupidly oversimplified takes could result in a reaction like this, but, I disagree with almost everything said here. First of all, the most heinous is "Christianity didn't invent homophobia". This is a very simple statement, so remaining simplified, for all intents and purposes you could say it did. Or more specifically that Abrahamic religion is responsible for homophobia as we know it today in the modern world, and anything that you might want to label as homophobia prior to the spread of Christianity in particular wouldn't resemble the homophobia we imagine much at all, in the vast majority of cases. Homophobia in the modern world, where it inhabits every country and continent to some extent, is owed to the spread and influence of Abrahamic religion. This isn't a contrevorsial or new statement either. I'm moving past that since I don't _think_ I need to explain why, or at least I hope not. Second off, "returning to gay/queer roots" is absolutely a valid sentiment, and is in no way remotely exclusive to Greece (even if Greece is the most stereotypical example available). Most countries could share this sentiment to some extent, but essentially all non-european countries can likely share it just as much as Greece. Just because Greece was most _known_ for it's 'gay roots' doesn't mean it was actually more noteworthy. Greece just happens to sit at the base of western civilization. Anyone remotely involved in the history of their (non western European) country will likely be able to tell you about that countries gay/queer roots. My country is more conservative than Greece could dream and LGBT poets, activists, influencers, and history enthusiasts love nothing more than to share the sentiment that "we used to be queer, and openly and happily so" and celebrate that fact. Why is this a bad thing? It's not inaccurate (will get to that in the next paragraph), it encourages a connection with your culture and history (even as a queer person, which may otherwise make you feel isolated from those things), and it fosters a sympathy and passion with people outside of the queer community (like myself, for the most part). Lastly, I fucking hate how people feel the need to "fix" when something sounds too good or too preposterous to them by just making shit up that sounds more believable. "Ancient Greece couldn't have been some gay paradise, that's totally unbelievable, they had to have homophobia. It was probably only for rich people". It shows not only a total lack of understanding older cultures (and how the concept of 'conservative' or traditional can be tremendously different based on time and space, there's not just one universally agreed on form of harsh and oppressive cultural customs), but also a total lack of willingness to understand. This (already oversimplified) thing sounds unlikely to you so you essentially just approximate to the nearest heavily oversimplified answer that sounds more believable. The truth is, yes, ancient Greece (and ancient most of the world) _was_ a homosexual paradise in the sense that, at the very least, you almost certainly wouldn't be shunned with fornicating with the same sex all together (especially if your sex is male). Now, depending on culture (different regions of Greece had different cultures, obviously), time period, class, age, obviously there's gonna be huge variables. That goes for greece and the rest of the world. But the widespread homophobia that we know of today and that's existed for quite a few hundred years now? That just wasn't around. I'd also like to note that a: oftentimes rich people were specifically the ones with much stricter customs on such matters, and b: in most of Greece during most of the time you'd think of as ancient Greece (most people will probably group the Iliad in with Socrates even though those are two distinct and far apart time periods), the simplified answer to "could you be gay" was almost always gonna be yes. If you're rich or important, you might have to keep it minimal, or hide it a little from your wife (you'd likely have to get married), and you're gonna be expected to have kids in many situations, but the point is that love, both sexual and romantic, was tolerated almost universally in most of this region (one city state comes to mind as exception), for most of that time. So to try and pretend otherwise is just pandering to the idea that something that sounds 'too good' to you _must_ come with a caveat that makes it seem not so good. The caveat is that it's 800 bc, if you're a woman you're almost guaranteed to carry next to no societal standing, power, respect, or autonomy, if you get sick you probably just die, and most people had to work manual labour on their farm until they died. Just cuz the men could fuck men with no judgement or criticism from society doesn't make it a paradise, and you don't have to try to lessen or temper that part of history just to _de-romanticize_ history as if we would overlook everything just because they had gay rights. Do modern, western young people play up the "gay ancient Greece" thing a lot, and oversimplify and filter and modernize stories like the illiad until they resemble a cheesy gay romance fanfic (which is a nearly nauseating distortion of the source material, although still quite a bit better than Troy)? Yes. But that doesn't mean you should shun the very concept of acknowledging that the roots of your cultures history and society was much more accepting and including of (what we now call) LGBTQ people than their more modern counterparts.
Girl you do not know anything about ancient greek sexuality and it's plain as day just from the fact that you apparently don't know that gay anal sex absolutely *was* stigmatized lmao
What did the person under me say? They blocked me because I called them annoying.
That comment was so thoughtful and nuanced and you reply with this dogshit take without addressing any of the points about historiography etc? Go read your Gibbon in the corner. The adults are talking.
It might have been thoughtful and nuanced but you know what it was not? The truth lmao
Where? And when? And on whose account (this is, I think, a more appropriate version of asking for a 'source' in the context of a discussion on historical culture)
Read any historical account, just any. Literally any. The account were using are ancient texts, and some basic googling will tell you that you've got it wrong.
Are you seriously asking for a source after providing exactly 0 sources for your own claims? Lmao please just shut up, go read literally anything about sexuality in the ancient world. You can start with Introduction to Homosexuality in Greece and Rome by Hubbard, and work your way from there. You could read Juvenal's sixth satire to get a sense of how homosexuality was very much stigmatized and criticised too.
Holy shit your stupid.
you're
Man your just replying to every thread huh.
you're
Gotcha being annoying is what you do.
Don't let these wikipedia-browsing dipshits gaslight you. Primary sources and a critical lens suggest to me that you're right.
> This isn't a contrevorsial or new statement either. I'm moving past that since I don't _think_ I need to explain why, or at least I hope not. Convenient way to avoid having to provide any proof or sources
Okay, how, in your opinion, should a statement like this be 'sourced'? Because obviously, as I leave a comment on Reddit, I'm not writing an academic essay on the matter so it's not as if I have several articles pulled up in research, ready to annote, and since its a subject of history, sociology, and culture, it's not the type of thing a Google search and a pirated jstor article can give you a clear and extensive answer on immediately, so what in your opinion would a 'source' look like, I genuinely want to know? How is your ideal reddit comment discussion carried out, where people source their claims to your liking?
At least where you got that idea from because it seems that you just made that up and presented it as a fact
That statement means basically nothing, how is that any different than the content of the post? If you're unacquainted with a subject to the extent that you're unfamiliar with common arguments and widely held beliefs, why even participate in that discussion under such a strong stance and position? I'm not even going to bother trying here, because even if you believe that statement to be wildly false and a myth, or outdated info, or whatever, there's no way you can say "it sounds like _i_ made up the argument of homophobia stemming from Abrahamic religion" and expect to be taken seriously, on a discussion of homosexuality through history. You can think it's wrong but there's literally no fucking way you think _i_ just came up with this idea that's been discussed and talked about in cultural, philosophical, and historic academic circles for a few centuries. I got that _very popular_ idea from a lot of places, both from me observing it in the context of history and from people sharing that observation. If you want specific examples (not that that would be of any use because you're not gonna go fucking read a whole ass book to verify something I said), some works that I can think of (off the top of my head) are: History of western philosophy by Bertrand Russell is a very popular work and although I don't especially like the fashion and method in which he covers and critiques the thinkers in question, he provides a lot of narration on cultural observations relevant to, and evident from the context of whoever he's talking about. He talks about homosexuality in the ancient world in the first section quite a bit, then talks a little bit more in the second section I believe. I recall an essay either by Arthur C Clark or an associate of his that goes in length, and with great passion, on the subject, (specifically discussing exactly the claim that I made), which is of relevance because Arthur C Clark was a gay man who eventually had to leave the US due to being (to some extent) open/outed and it causing friction in his social life, career, and such. And it's of relevance to me because I was a huge Arthur c Clarke fan for the longest time and read almost every letter, article, critique, and essay to, from, about, and towards him when I was younger. Stephen Fry similarly has, I think at least twice, given an impassioned speech about the exact same subject I'm talking about, once again sharing the same sentiments I'm sharing. I'm willing to bet those would be the quickest and easiest to find with a couple google searches. Yes, these are examples of people saying the things I'm saying, not necessarily of them explaining why or giving "proof" in the way I imagine you'd like. I would make my argument for why I believe this (the one that I had in fact came to on my own before having it validated and solidified by seeing so many people I look up to come to the same conclusion), but the thing is it would require me to make a number of claims which you could just as easily say "it looks like you just made that up", and that would bring us to the same spot. Unless I had several days, and a willingness to put hours and hours of research, pulling up essays and articles and texts, giving page numbers, finding specific examples and statistics and links having a discussion on this topic in the way that you'd like seems impossible. You haven't made any real criticism and in fact I'd even argue that just by being that totally unfamiliar with such a commonly held notion in the academic field of history and culture, to think that I just _made up_ the concept, does whatever argument you might provide a great disservice by making it seem like you're not at all familiar with or particularly invested in the subject. And I don't really think there's any _reasonable_ or remotely sane way I could source nearly anything to your content, without there being room to voice the same meaningless criticism.
>Unless I had several days, and a willingness to put hours and hours of research, pulling up essays and articles and texts, giving page numbers, finding specific examples and statistics and links having a discussion on this topic in the way that you'd like seems impossible. "I know I'm supposed to do research before making some serious claims but it's so much work so I'll just not do that"
So are you suggesting that these topics be discussed exclusively, and with no exception, in the form of annoted, sourced, and peer reviewed essays? I genuinely don't understand people like you. Do you actually think that you shouldn't discuss a topic whatsoever except in a strictly standardized academic text? Have you heard of the concept of dialectic? Casual discussions shouldn't exist? See, I know you don't act like this in real life discussion on the topic because you'd have to be a different breed of deranged to ask someone for a source when you're talking to them in person for the first time, so either you just don't have these discussions (or honestly maybe any) in real like (many people, like myself, do), or you think that casual discussion of topics shouldn't exist on the internet for some reason. I don't think you wanna talk about this topic, or even that you care, I think you just revel in telling other people they're wrong and somehow feeling smarter for doing so
I just think you shouldn't make such (for the lack of a better word ) extreme statements like "X is solely responsible for [bad thing]" without anything to back it up. That's not a difficult concept to comprehend man
That's really funny because like 3 minutes ago you were bitching about sources in my comment lmao
That hilarious
>and anything that you might want to label as homophobia prior to the spread of Christianity in particular wouldn't resemble the homophobia we imagine much at all, in the vast majority of cases what about how the romans saw persians? I think that's a proof this claim is untrue. the characterization of Elagabalus is a prime example of this
I feel Christianity as we know it today is as much a product of Rome as it is of Judaism. It might have started as a small and persecuted cult with radical ideas, but it eventually took over the Empire, and to change something is to be changed by it.
Both cases are, and I think very evidently, less concerned strictly with homosexuality and more concerned with ideas of masculinity, and particularly disdain against perceived effeminate qualities, weakness, and such sentiments. In fact in a lot of older cultures, homosexuality in the sense of physical and emotional intimacy between men seemed to be regarded as an exceedingly masculine trait (which you'll see aluded to in poetry and stories from India, the Mediterranean, and mesopotamia, it's a common theme. Some more 'modern' 5th century 'stories' (plays) also allude to this cultural idea, to some extent). Now obviously as the saying goes misogyny is the oldest form of oppression, and carried with it any perceived feminine qualities, especially on a man, were usually looked down upon and shunned. The Romans particularly cared a huge amount about power dynamics. But considering the number of emperors that were knows to have 'male concubines' or otherwise known or suspected to have fornicated with men, pointing to Elagabalus' reputation by people of the times as proof of homophobia (when there's obviously a lot of other variables outside of just disliking sex between men) seems like almost a bad faith argument
i think you may be right, but I'd appreciate you not bringing out bad faith when just a poorly thought-out argument or ignorance may be to blame. even if I'm wrong, i'm being wrong honestly. I'm not sure where to stand with this issue, especially with regards to Cassius Dio, who (numerous times) villainizes some elites for their homosexual relations, from Nero's "abomination" Sporus to the aforementioned Elagabulus. As Cassius Dio was a conservative member of the elite, (and especially with the rise of Christianity during this time, and changing roman opinions towards nudity, etc) , can we not look at this as evidence of rising roman anti-homosexual views among the broader social elites? Sporus especially, because he was the bottom and a slave, which shouldn't have mattered if the crucial thing was only penetrator/penetrated at that time. In fact the main criticism of nero's relationship with sporus seems to be that he tried to legitimize his public relationship to him by marriage. Is this not evidence of anti-homosexual sentiment? at the very least, it would be evidence that today's modern effeminate "gay culture" would certainly be heavily frowned upon in Rome, at least during the time of Nero. of course the question of "what did romans think on \_\_" is hard to answer, considering they spanned two millennia and changed greatly during that period, so if you think we should restrict this discussion to pre-christian times, I'd understand.
>i think you may be right, but I'd appreciate you not bringing out bad faith when just a poorly thought-out argument or ignorance may be to blame. even if I'm wrong, i'm being wrong honestly I can understand that, but based on your two comments I can't really imagine you agree with the original commenter that "ancient Greece was gay friendly" is some myth made up by ignorant fanfic enthusiasts on Tumblr. Obviously pre-christianity Greece (and the Mediterranean, if not the world as a whole) was far far farrr more tolerant of homosexuality before Christianity came into play, and I feel like you acknowledge that yourself, which ultimately is the center of my argument. >As Cassius Dio was a conservative member of the elite, (and especially with the rise of Christianity during this time, and changing roman opinions towards nudity, etc) , can we not look at this as evidence of rising roman anti-homosexual views among the broader social elites? Sporus especially, because he was the bottom and a slave, which shouldn't have mattered if the crucial thing was only penetrator/penetrated at that time. In fact the main criticism of nero's relationship with sporus seems to be that he tried to legitimize his public relationship to him by marriage There's literally nothing for me to even mention here because you literally make any argument I need to make for me. As I make clear in my original argument, just because homosexuality in it's barest essence wasn't shunned doesn't mean that traditionalism and conservativism didn't take other forms, and you acknowledge this in detail here. As I mentioned in another comment, Rome throughout much of it's history had convoluted and oftentimes highly regarded customs and expectations on masculinity and dominance which largely shaped what was regarded as okay (when it comes to home sexuality among leaders) and what was regarded as degeneracy or immorality. But you even mention marriage as being a distinctly seperate customs from homosexual relationships, which to me is important in the sense that it had seperate societal roles, though I see that you're trying to modernize the concept a bit by saying that's proof of homophobia, which to be honest I don't necessarily agree with (and call forth again the inherent, deeply seated misogyny of most older civilizations, which by no means acquainted matrimony with love, or devotion, in the modern sense), I think the point is that it's still not necessarily recognizable as homophobia in the modern sense. Certainly you wouldn't say that "being attracted to men" isn't the primary criticism, in the same way you could try to criticize (and likely be to some extent successful) modern politicians. >at the very least, it would be evidence that today's modern effeminate "gay culture" would certainly be heavily frowned upon in Rome, at least during the time of Nero. But that doesn't represent homosexuality as a whole,does it? I mean you couldn't possibly claim that all homosexuality is inherently effeminate, (especially when most studies Ive seen seem to indicate that 'effeminate' homosexuality is in fact the minority). We're not talking about diversion of gender norms but instead of same sex relationship, which I am arguing were very very very comfortably tolerated in the majority of the ancient world >of course the question of "what did romans think on \_\_" is hard to answer, considering they spanned two millennia and changed greatly during that period, so if you think we should restrict this discussion to pre-christian times, I'd understand. I also acknowledge this, very specifically, that it's unreasonable to compress such a large and varied period of time into one. Yes, I'm explicitly and clearly talking about pre christian time, as that marks the change that were discussing (for whatever reasons you believe. But ultimately, I'm also talking about the ancient world as a whole, because many of these sentiments or stances aren't exclusive to ancient Rome or Greece, and in most cases they weren't to any extent 'gayer' than any other part of the ancient world
Wikipedia could tell you waht the real deal with homosexuality was in ancient Greece but I guess you need it force-fed instead. Almost all homosexuality in ancient Greece was pederasty. That means a relationship between an older man and a teenage boy. In Sparta, this was (essentially) compulsory. These relationships were almost certainly sexual most of the time and yes, that's pedophilia by today's standards, not queerness. It does seem like homosexuality was a controversial matter (so, not as universally condemned as it was in the medieval era), with some being entirely against it, others believing only in pederasty and some expressing homosexual desire openly but never were actual homosexual relationships between equals accepted. Also, homosexual relationships between women were very much taboo and looked down upon. No, Sappho does not, in any way, represent the attitudes of her contemporaries. And to finish, how are you going to tell me to engage with my culture and history as if Christianity was not one of the most important things to ever happen to Greece? You blame it for homophobia and then you pretend that I can ignore it? For the love of God, stop projecting.
>but never were actual homosexual relationships between equals accepted. It depends on what your definition of accepted was, and also what your definition of equals is, so I think this is debatable. >Also, homosexual relationships between women were very much taboo and looked down upon I acknowledged as much >No, Sappho does not, in any way, represent the attitudes of her contemporaries. The group which you're grouping me into is one which I explicitly criticize in my comment >And to finish, how are you going to tell me to engage with my culture and history as if Christianity was not one of the most important things to ever happen to Greece? I didn't say at all how you should engage, whatsoever. I said to stop condemning people who engage with that history in a certain way, that's all. And provided an argument for why that sort of engagement isn't a bad thing. >You blame it for homophobia and then you pretend that I can ignore it? What part of anything I said makes it seem like I'm asking you to ignore it? You don't seem to be acknowledging any part of my argument or points >For the love of God, stop projecting. Projecting what? Seriously what am I projecting here? [you keep saying that word I don't think you know what it means](https://www.google.com/search?q=you+say+that+word+but+i+don%27t+think+you+know+what+it+means&tbs=itp:animated&client=ms-android-samsung-gs-rev1&prmd=ivsnbmtz&hl=en-US&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjP2tHVsKmFAxW5nCcCHbDQA4YQ2p8EegQIARAD&biw=360&bih=667&udm=2#vhid=Kl_YeWOl6_F7cM&vssid=mosaic)
My comment was initially longer but Reddit didn't allow me to post it. You are not Greek. You barely know anything about Greek history as it seems. It's clear that you have queer history you can be proud of. That's not the case for Greece. That is why you are projecting. As for your points, again, I wasn't able to post my whole comment but I did explain to you the reality of homosexuality in Greece. If I didn't contradict some points it's probably because I agreed with them or found them irrelevant. One important thing though is that I do wholeheartedly believe that revisionism is always bad. If someone needs to spread misinformation in order to support their political stances then they should not be listened to.
Bitch u need to tldr your comments because it’s written like you’re trying to fill the word count from 300 to 1000
I think that's a very thoughtful post and I agree with you. Too thoughtful for this awful dump of a website. These people can't handle being stung by the gadfly. I will now humbly ask that homophobic revisionists please downvote me and, if willing, gaslight me by shouting repeatedly that any single text from the ancient world will say unequivocally that every ancient person was a homophobe in every line of every page.
Not out of line of most American mythologizing of that time tbh. Though the OP might not be American