Why were romans so gay
A Brief History of Homosexuality in Italy from Ancient Rome to Today
Postwar Italy, politically dominated by the country’s Catholic party, didn’t accomplish much against the diffused homophobia of those years. Population cared about male lover people only for the wrong reasons, as it happened in 1960 when an investigation on the “homosexual scene” in the northern town of Brescia turned into a massive media case with endless plot twists and unfounded accusations (which included one of human trafficking). When the so-called “Scandalo dei Balletti Verdi ” (“Green Ballets Scandal”) reached TV personalities like Mike Bongiorno, the entire territory turned its morbose attention to it.
In 1971, Fuori! (Out!), the first lgbtq+ organization in Italy, was founded. Mario Mieli, the most famous Italian Queer activist, took part in the movement before founding his own organization. A year later, a group of homosexual people publicly demonstrated for their rights for the first time in the history of the country.
Since then, the Italian queer group has been keeping an active role in manifesting and demanding rights. Minute by little, and always at a much slower pace than most other European countries, It
Homosexuality in ancient Rome
During the time of the Republic, Roman citizens had the right (libertas) to protect their bodies from physical coercion, including both corporal punishment and sexual violence. Roman society was typically patriarchal and masculinity was based on the principle of governing not only oneself but also other persons, especially those from the lower class.
Roman cup representing a homosexual sex scene.
It was socially acceptable for a free-born Roman to have sex with a woman or a bloke assuming a dominant role. Both women and fresh men were perceived as natural objects of craving. Outside of marriage, a man could have sex with slaves, prostitutes (who were usually slaves) and the so-called infames (the restricted man). It did not matter with which gender the Roman indulged in until he did not exceed certain social norms. For example, it was immoral to include sex with another citizen’s free-born wife, his daughter by marriage, his underage son, or the guy himself.
During imperial times, the fear of losing political freedom and submitting to power to the emperor led to an grow in the frequency of free-born men assuming a passive position du
In honour of LGBTQIA+ history month, Ancient History alumni Ollie Burns takes a closer look at the social, political, and cultural implications of homosexuality in ancient Rome.
Trigger Warning: sexual violence, homophobia, paedophilia, nudity.
The presentation and perception of homosexuality in the Roman world was vastly diverse than how it is today, and gives us an example of how homosexuality has been indelibly linked with communications of power and authority in antiquity. The Latin language has no word for either heterosexual or lgbtq+, and instead partners in a sexual relationship would be presented as either active, synonymous with masculinity, or passive and therefore, feminine, regardless of the gender of the individuals involved. Freeborn male Romans had the civil liberty to do as they pleased when it came to sexual activity, and as such, the idea of a Roman guy engaging in homosexual sex was in no way controversial or taboo to the Romans, as lengthy as it fell within certain parameters.
Rome was a deeply militarised state, with conquest and dominance deeply ingrained as desirable masculine traits. As a consequence of this, men were free to engage in h
Why the Romans Are Essential in the Debate About Gay Marriage
Continuing legislative measures attempting to ban male lover marriage show that this issue, so critical in our last national election, remains a controversial topic. Since many of our political institutions are derived from ancient Roman precedents, a quick look at Roman laws regarding homosexuality serves to illustrate what may be driving some of the current controversy surrounding gay unions in the United States.
While the world of the ancient Greeks seems to contain tolerated homosexuality (as seen in the poems of Sappho and the dialogues of Plato), that of the Romans was more cautious. Romans in the period of the Roman Republic and early empire tended to perceive the Greek acceptance of male homosexuality as less than male and, thus, literally unvirtuous (Vir being the Latin word for man). Indeed, a Roman word for effeminacy was “Graeculus”—“a little Greek!”
The earliest Roman law regarding homosexuality appears to have been the Lex Scantinia that was passed by the Roman assembly at some show in the Roman Republic (perhaps in the second century BC). Although the text of this regulation itsel
In Rome of the early Empire, there were many men who threw off the conventions of traditional Roman manhood and instead assumed an “effeminate” appearance and manner, thereby, in the usual case, advertising their eagerness for sexual encounters with other males. These were the “softies” ( molles), the cinaedi.1 Their numbers cannot even be guessed, but, in a city of a million persons, they might easily possess numbered in the tens of thousands; Juvenal saw them flocking into Rome on every free transport (9.130-133). And golly, were they ever conspicuous. The Apostle Paul, with his usual provincial primness, adduces overt homosexual behavior as his chief example of the capital’s decadence ( Rom. 1.26-27).2
Roman sources on cinaedi, though abundant, are also almost invariably hostile, and they illuminate only a fraction of the social landscape. Who were these men? In usual cases, what was their background? How did they endure in an adverse environment? What did they think about their world, and what were their aspirations? We own some tantalizing clues. By far the most singular is the speech that Juvenal gives to the jaded libertine