A History of Gay Sex
June 26, 2015 5:08 PM Subscribe
"What sorts of things did gay men get up to in the past, and how much did these differ from what we get up to today? Does gay sex have a history, or do the forms of pleasure remain the same across centuries? Have some tastes declined, and new tastes arisen?!" (NSFW for olde style (and slightly hilarious) descriptions of gay sexual activities.) Homosexuality in the ancient Greco-Roman world: "Most of us know that the ancient pagan world was more tolerant of homosexuality than the one god religions that would follow. But how tolerant were the ancient Greeks and Romans? It turns out they weren’t nearly as tolerant as you might like to think." (The next one is a Daily Mail link, but its not their usual fare) "Hidden history of homosexuality: New British Museum guide explores past of gay love hidden among its exhibits."
Where sex between males was deemed acceptable to occur was between men and youths, and in theory it was only supposed to be intercrucial [sic] (where one partner grips the other’s penis between his thighs) though from the writings the Greeks and Romans have left to us, it was often not.
I thought this claim about intercrural sex was primarily promulgated by fussy modern classicists who couldn't abide the thought that ancient Greeks and Romans were engaging in homosexual anal sex. Is it actually correct? It was definitely my understanding that the shameful thing was being an adult receptive partner, but that being an adult penetrative partner was just fine.
(Also, it's really a stretch to say that "pathetic" derives from "pathic".)
posted by kenko at 5:25 PM on June 26, 2015 [4 favorites]
I thought this claim about intercrural sex was primarily promulgated by fussy modern classicists who couldn't abide the thought that ancient Greeks and Romans were engaging in homosexual anal sex. Is it actually correct? It was definitely my understanding that the shameful thing was being an adult receptive partner, but that being an adult penetrative partner was just fine.
(Also, it's really a stretch to say that "pathetic" derives from "pathic".)
posted by kenko at 5:25 PM on June 26, 2015 [4 favorites]
So much frottage.
posted by PMdixon at 5:29 PM on June 26, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by PMdixon at 5:29 PM on June 26, 2015 [1 favorite]
Are they going to show the cups with all the butt stu-- and there they are.
In the Daily Mail, of all places.
posted by Artw at 6:02 PM on June 26, 2015
In the Daily Mail, of all places.
posted by Artw at 6:02 PM on June 26, 2015
"The Homosexuals": Mike Wallace's CONTROVERSIAL 1967 CBS Report (FULL VIDEO)
posted by robbyrobs at 6:09 PM on June 26, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by robbyrobs at 6:09 PM on June 26, 2015 [2 favorites]
It helps if you warm up first.
posted by mittens at 6:52 PM on June 26, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by mittens at 6:52 PM on June 26, 2015 [4 favorites]
Does anyone know the source of the illustrations in the first link? I don't recognize them and they seem remarkably homo-explicit for the presumed period.
posted by Nelson at 7:08 PM on June 26, 2015
posted by Nelson at 7:08 PM on June 26, 2015
Surveys of diaries, news reports, and the gay media have established that fisting was invented in the summer of 1971, in the "backroom" of a gay bar in New York City.
I can see that that contemporary fisting could come from that source, but surely it was discovered before, probably many times.
I thought this claim about intercrural sex was primarily promulgated by fussy modern classicists who couldn't abide the thought that ancient Greeks and Romans were engaging in homosexual anal sex.
Intercrural sex sounds unappealing and not really believable in terms of the claims that it was the default for so many ancient Greeks and Romans, but I don't know if that is factual or simply because I am looking at it with modern eyes, where it is no longer a common sexual practice (in my limited and anecdotal experience, at least).
posted by Dip Flash at 7:30 PM on June 26, 2015 [1 favorite]
I can see that that contemporary fisting could come from that source, but surely it was discovered before, probably many times.
I thought this claim about intercrural sex was primarily promulgated by fussy modern classicists who couldn't abide the thought that ancient Greeks and Romans were engaging in homosexual anal sex.
Intercrural sex sounds unappealing and not really believable in terms of the claims that it was the default for so many ancient Greeks and Romans, but I don't know if that is factual or simply because I am looking at it with modern eyes, where it is no longer a common sexual practice (in my limited and anecdotal experience, at least).
posted by Dip Flash at 7:30 PM on June 26, 2015 [1 favorite]
But in real life, hardly anyone in the 17th or 18th centuries, male or female, prostitute or otherwise, gay or straight, ever engaged in oral sex.
This is like learning that everyone in the world was too stupid to make nachos until 1943.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 7:31 PM on June 26, 2015 [105 favorites]
This is like learning that everyone in the world was too stupid to make nachos until 1943.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 7:31 PM on June 26, 2015 [105 favorites]
Artw: "In the Daily Mail, of all places."
Which means the "don't read the comments" rule applies at least triple, perhaps quadruple.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 7:52 PM on June 26, 2015
Which means the "don't read the comments" rule applies at least triple, perhaps quadruple.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 7:52 PM on June 26, 2015
I can see that that contemporary fisting could come from that source, but surely it was discovered before, probably many times.
Fisting was invented in 1971
(Rather early for me)
After the _Tropic of Cancer_ case was won
And the Buzzcocks' first LP
posted by kenko at 9:27 PM on June 26, 2015 [12 favorites]
Fisting was invented in 1971
(Rather early for me)
After the _Tropic of Cancer_ case was won
And the Buzzcocks' first LP
posted by kenko at 9:27 PM on June 26, 2015 [12 favorites]
Edward Perry Warren, the previous owner of the infamous Butt Stuff Cup, had an interesting life -- he owned a copy of Rodin's The Kiss, which was seen as too nakedly erotic at the time (Same thing happened to Degas, no actual sex in his painting of woodworkers stripping a floor it was just TOO HOT ) And there was that whole Edwardian gay upper class clique of aristocrats and art collectors leaving their poems and estates to farmer's sons. WW1 pretty much wiped them out.
posted by The Whelk at 10:01 PM on June 26, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by The Whelk at 10:01 PM on June 26, 2015 [3 favorites]
Meh. Anything interesting enough to be prohibited is interesting enough to be independently rediscovered.
"This is like learning that everyone in the world was too stupid to make nachos until 1943." <-- The best line I've read today.
posted by effugas at 12:28 AM on June 27, 2015 [3 favorites]
"This is like learning that everyone in the world was too stupid to make nachos until 1943." <-- The best line I've read today.
posted by effugas at 12:28 AM on June 27, 2015 [3 favorites]
Every generation thinks they're the first people to discover gay sex.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 1:33 AM on June 27, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 1:33 AM on June 27, 2015 [5 favorites]
I wonder if the popularity for frottage and intercural sex among Edwardian poets was a kind of neo-classical desire to return to a kind of ur-queer state.
posted by PinkMoose at 4:52 AM on June 27, 2015
posted by PinkMoose at 4:52 AM on June 27, 2015
When you call it the Butt Stuff Cup, I imagine possession is determined annually by a league championship.
posted by condour75 at 5:34 AM on June 27, 2015 [15 favorites]
posted by condour75 at 5:34 AM on June 27, 2015 [15 favorites]
As a grail surely it must have mystical powers to produce otherworldly contents?
posted by Artw at 5:58 AM on June 27, 2015
posted by Artw at 5:58 AM on June 27, 2015
It helps if you warm up first.
That's what the fish and radishes are for. (Warning: Catullus.)
posted by chaiminda at 6:08 AM on June 27, 2015
That's what the fish and radishes are for. (Warning: Catullus.)
posted by chaiminda at 6:08 AM on June 27, 2015
I read 'Male Colors: The Construction of Homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan' for a Japanese history class in school, and it was an absolutely fascinating read that I would recommend to anyone. Homosexual behavior in Japan has a long and complex history on par with the more famous Greeks and Romans
posted by rosswald at 6:46 AM on June 27, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by rosswald at 6:46 AM on June 27, 2015 [2 favorites]
"Sirrah! what’s that to you, can’t I make use of my own Body? I have done nothing but what I will do again."
Story of my life.
posted by ostranenie at 8:50 AM on June 27, 2015 [4 favorites]
Story of my life.
posted by ostranenie at 8:50 AM on June 27, 2015 [4 favorites]
Every generation thinks they're the first people to discover gay sex.
Well, sure, like you do when you do something new in complete isolation from everyone who came before you.
“But unvented - ahh! One un-vents something; one unearths it; one digs it up, one runs it down in whatever recesses of the eternal consciousness it has gone to ground. I very much doubt if anything is really new when one works in the prehistoric medium of wool with needles. The products of science and technology may be new, and some of them are quite horrid, but knitting? In knitting there are ancient possibilities; the earth is enriched with the dust of the millions of knitters who have held wool and needles since the beginning of sheep. Seamless sweaters and one-row buttonholes; knitted hems and phoney seams - it is unthinkable that these have, in mankind's history, remained undiscovered and unknitted. One likes to believe that there is memory in the fingers; memory undeveloped, but still alive.” ― Elizabeth Zimmermann, Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitter's Almanac
posted by clavicle at 11:18 AM on June 27, 2015 [5 favorites]
Well, sure, like you do when you do something new in complete isolation from everyone who came before you.
“But unvented - ahh! One un-vents something; one unearths it; one digs it up, one runs it down in whatever recesses of the eternal consciousness it has gone to ground. I very much doubt if anything is really new when one works in the prehistoric medium of wool with needles. The products of science and technology may be new, and some of them are quite horrid, but knitting? In knitting there are ancient possibilities; the earth is enriched with the dust of the millions of knitters who have held wool and needles since the beginning of sheep. Seamless sweaters and one-row buttonholes; knitted hems and phoney seams - it is unthinkable that these have, in mankind's history, remained undiscovered and unknitted. One likes to believe that there is memory in the fingers; memory undeveloped, but still alive.” ― Elizabeth Zimmermann, Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitter's Almanac
posted by clavicle at 11:18 AM on June 27, 2015 [5 favorites]
Sex between women wasn’t illegal, but, like the Victorians, the Greeks and Romans simply refused to believe it happened.
Well...okay, unless you were a Greek or Roman woman having sex with another woman. You probably believed it happened.
posted by Ragini at 2:28 PM on June 27, 2015 [4 favorites]
Well...okay, unless you were a Greek or Roman woman having sex with another woman. You probably believed it happened.
posted by Ragini at 2:28 PM on June 27, 2015 [4 favorites]
Nice trolling of your readers Daily Mail. The mental image of a stereotypical DM reader drinking tea and seeing the Warren Cup for the first time made me snigger.
posted by GiveUpNed at 10:28 PM on June 27, 2015
posted by GiveUpNed at 10:28 PM on June 27, 2015
History tells us, time and time again, do not give absolute power to Anyone but ESPECIALLY NOT TO TEENAGERS
posted by The Whelk at 6:14 PM on July 1, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by The Whelk at 6:14 PM on July 1, 2015 [4 favorites]
Him being a scandal not for liking butt stuff but for LIKING BUTTSTUFF WRONG perhaps highlights that the Romans were perhaps not less hung up but differently hung up in some pretty screwed up ways.
posted by Artw at 7:52 PM on July 1, 2015
posted by Artw at 7:52 PM on July 1, 2015
« Older What's white and blind and hairy all over? | Barack Obama sings Amazing Grace Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by The Whelk at 5:18 PM on June 26, 2015 [4 favorites]