Ancient Roman and Greek Sexuality?

[949-4-Fun]

Anyone know of some resources for investigating Ancients sexuality and behavior?

I have heard that Romans used boys in the baths for sexual release, and that females were for procreation/marriage only. The elites were able to fuck young men while the worker classes were resigned to the female prostitutes?

Anyone know any good tidbits? This type of stuff fascinates me.

 

[NineOfClubs]

I'm sure the lower classes grabbed a boy, neighbor child, nephew, son, etc. for fun also.

It was a society devoid of "Judeo-Christian" mores. In some ways much freer than ours.

Anyway, a Google search will give you better information that JUB members will...

BTW, if I seem short or dismissive, I'm sorry. I actually love this very subject myself.

 

[TickTockMan]

You are right and wrong in the OP. There are many books on the subject though. It's interesting reading. You should also look up other ancient peoples. Others held some of the same views. It was actually quite common before Christianity came along.

Even for females for some ancient peoples.

 

[sk8ersho]

Not 'used' as you described but more 'courted'.

'Usued' is such a bad word it make it sounds like a crime/ the boy do not have choice. Just the opposite, the boy tend to have the say of the man he pick to form a bond with. It is considered an honor to be tutored by an experienced older guy. In turn the older guy provides for the younger partner but he has to win his heart first.

It's a much more sophisticated out look and freedom than the Christian view of the world.

If it were not for Christianity and the dark ages, human civilization and technology could have evovled at much faster pace.

 

[jstar5]

I love to read and learn about Greek/roman times. The best book I know about is out of print. However I should warn you that modern ideas like Homosexual\Bisexual do not apply. And there are differences between Greek sexuality and roman. Also the late roman world is Christian.

Anyway in general for both Greek and roman:

Every male citizen must be married to a woman by law. With few exceptions, two citizens asking to be married to each other would be stoned. The however did not care about what non citizens did so long as it did not interfere with anything.

I know that Romans had a law that you must have sex with you wife once a year this probably also applied to the Greeks.

No male citizen would ever allow himself to take the passive role in sex. Sex was about power and so he must take the active role. (No roman citizen bottoms). A citizen is the penetrater not the pentrated even if it is just oral sex.

You could have sex with wives, unmarried women, slaves and prostitutes. Sex with married woman is adultery and could be punished many ways. One way in roman times was to sodomize the adulterous man.

The Greeks and Romans did think some people preferred men over women but it was rather like preferring red wine over white. i.e. They didn’t spend time sitting on some sofa trying to figure out their sexuality.

Both the Romans and Greeks allowed prostitution, but any guy who hung around the baths or houses of prostitutes bobbing men (or women) all day to the expense of other things was not looked on kindly. Basically their attitude toward it was perhaps like our towards legal gambling (you may use the facilities). Their ideal was a man not ruled by his appetites.

To my knowledge both worker and upper classes were equally free with male and female prostitutes. Also prostitutes were not considered citizens. In fact women and children are also not citizens only adult men of roman\greek birth (or had it given to them). There may have been differences in terms of which houses of prostitution each socal class would or could use but don’t think there was a women for procreation only thing going on. I suspect that given the fact that there was a law requiring you to have sex with your wife that there may have been some men who just used their wives for procreation.

You could have sexual and emotional relationships with slaves and prostitutes, but that did not relieve you of your duty to marry and try to procreate for the state.

For the Greeks only:

The Greeks practiced pederasty. Many cultures have practiced this. Some Romans may have tried it after they took over Greece, but for the most part it is not a part of roman culture. The Romans had the custom early on but the roman form of it died out

In the Greek world this relationship was not purely sexual and there were rules/regulations on it. There are questions as to who could practice this. It is known that the upper class that did it, but do lower classes do it also? It seems to be mocked by the lower classes, so who knows.

Listed bellow is the ideals. What may have happed could be a bit different than the ideal (i.e. like the Christian ideal of no sex before marriage), but this is what is supposed to go on:

Basically the young boy is trading sexual favors to the older man in exchange for skills. It is sort of like marriage where the woman trades sexual favors for the man’s protection. There is more to it culturally (like marriage). The older guy was supposed to teach him something that his family did not posses(i.e. Pottery making, writing, how to debate ect.).

The boy had to be over six but under the age where he could grow a beard. To the Greeks adulthood was when you could grow a beard. The typical age of the boy was about 13-15 and the man 25. This had to be done with the permission of the boy’s father.

Both oral and anal sex was not allowed. They feared it would effeminate the boy who would grow up to be a citizen. They did it between the thighs. The man was supposed to be drunk with lust and they boy is really just doing it out of respect and duty (i.e. He wasn’t supposed to be doing it for pleasure). The relationship ended as soon as the boy could grow a beard.

However those are ideals and I suspect the reality was quite different. I.e. can you imagine being a heterosexual boy having to tolerate a homosexual man who’s always horny. There is evidence that some loathed it.

Or the other way around being gay and having a heterosexual man for a mate who was more interested in teaching than sex. And could you end any relationship just because of a beard? And there are a lot of depictions of oral and anal sex between youths and older men some of which show the youth with an erection. Also this particular custom was often debated in ancient times.

 

[bulge]

The beginning church has destroyed and deleted in the most barbarian way the precious homosexual heritage of Greek and Roman times. Still nowadays science is misled because of the massive cultural pogrom committed by the beginning church.

http://ancienthistory.about.com/library/weekly/aa011500a.htm

http://www.livius.org/ho-hz/homosexuality/homosexuality.html

 

[bulge]

It is urgent the homosexual heritage of Greeks, Romans, Persians, Ottomans, Chinese, Bantu's, Inca's, Japanese, etc, etc, etc,.... gets protected as cultural common heritage of humanity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Heritage_Site

 

[Thumper01]

jstar5,

Yo comments are interesting.

What is your source of information?

Thumper01