Classical views of homosexuality

"I see there is an implication that while sex between free Roman men was condemned, that there is no record of condemnation of a Roman man having sex with his (male or female) slaves.[Correct me, Heather, if I have got this wrong, please:-)]." Well, I didn't mean to imply that no Romans ever condemned sex with slaves (there may be some anti-slave-sex treatise out there somewhere), only that it wasn't generally condemned. So yes, your summary of my thoughts is essentially correct, except that you should say "freeborn Roman males," since the big difference between the Greeks and the Romans was that the Romans condemned sex with freeborn boys (again, generally; there were exceptions) and the Greeks didn't. There was indeed pagan condemnation of all homosexuality from some Neo-Platonists; you can find a Greek example at the link below. It's just not clear how widespread it was. The way that classical people thought about sex in general was that it was hierarchal: there was a predominant partner (called "active") who led the relationship and a subordinate partner (called "passive") who was led. If you think of the way marriage is described in the Epistles, you've got it in a nutshell: it's just that this predominant/subordinate division was extended by other classical people to relationships between males as well. That's why you couldn't have two freeborn citizen men going to bed together (at least in theory; we know it happened in practice): because one of them would have to take the subordinate role, which was considered humiliating. It was okay for anyone else to take the subordinate role: women, slaves, prisoners, prostitutes, and (in Greece but not in Rome) freeborn boys. So you can see how the opponents of homosexuality tied their opposition to arguments that homosexuality oppressed the weak and corrupted the strong. The proponents of homosexuality, on the other hand, argued that homosexuality was beneficial to both partners. The other big difference is that everyone - and I'm including the Christians - assumed that an attraction to boys was common. Imagine going to your minister and saying, "I'm attracted to boys," and him replying, "Oh, sure, we all are. You just need to control your desires . . ." That's the biggest difference between the classical world and ours in its view of homosexuality. Other than that, it's much the case of plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose. The debates over homosexuality haven't changed much. Heather [E-mail]   [Home Page] Different Desires: A Dialogue Comparing Male and Female Love