The Spartans were queers, but they were hardly gay about it :p.
More serious, unfun comment : homosexuality and pederasty in Ancient Greece is a complicated subject, they weren’ gay in any sense of the word and it wasn’t really a question of sexual orientation to begin with - once you were an adult (and married), doing dudes was a huge no-no outside of narrow, specific contexts tied with education.
Even in those contexts, I believe there was no anal or oral involvedat all, rather the top fucked the bottom’s thighs. Basically it was less about the prurient interest of old satyrs and more about sex ed for teenagers and a bond of friendship between teacher & student. Taking it up the ass was a huge, unmanly shame - slave stuff, y’know.
(Though I must hasten to add that there are of course ongoing debates on what *really *happened versus what was written down/represented, what was written down but lost versus what was found and so on - as with anything that has to do with ancient, medieval or even renaissance history, historians can only see as through a Scanner, darkly…)
ETA : (I must also add that this all goes between free men, Greek citizens - it was perfectly OK to assfuck or get sucked by slaves or prostitutes of the same sex (so long as you also fucked your wife and had kids). That’s what they were here for.)
I think that was more how things went in Athens and its associated city-states. Spartans, as I recall, scoffed at Athenians as “boy-lovers”. Spartan boys grew up living together in barracks, and continued to do so even after marriage. I’ve read that Spartan brides were dressed up in military gear on their wedding night, to ease the transition of doin’ it with a girl.
Thebes presumably did not follow the Athenian customs, either, since the Sacred Band was pairs of fully-grown men as lovers (although one older).
And I’m not sure how acceptable it was among Greeks to have sex with your slaves. That was more of a Roman pastime.
Possibly (you sure this isn’t just *300 *?), but then again, within the context of the Peloponnesian Wars, both sides accused each other of… well, pretty much everything regardless of hypocrisy :). Spartans were most certainly involved in pederasty themselves.
I don’t think that is strictly correct. It’s true that Spartan boys lived in barracks away from family (and were educated in a kind of gang-like setting), however once they became bona fide adults and citizens/equals (homoioi) they moved away from that life. Although there still existed a drilling/community-building element to adult Spartan life, notably with daily (and mandatory) group meals with the dudes of your phalanx.
Yes, sort of, although that’s an exaggerated way of stating things.
But there indeed was a period where the girls shaved their heads and put on male-associated clothes for the wedding ; and the wedding night took place in a windowless room to boot (caveat : IIRC this particular tidbit was written by a non-Spartan Lacedemophile, so grains of salt must be issued). So the easing transition thing is probably correct, although a more charitable reading of the custom might be made - maybe it was also done this way so that males wouldn’t be made to feel the shame and embarrassment of something not going right for any reason.
Raise your hands, guys whose first time (with a girl) was just **the best **and you performed **awesome **? Yeah, that’s what I thought
Yes, very good point - of course, specific customs and views varied from autarkic city to autarkic city.
Hmm. Well, thanks asshole. Now I have to go and look that shit up, and during mock-finals cramming week too !
… this is kind of a huge fucking derail though, isn’t it ? :o
Well, crap. I was wondering what thread I’d replied to, and happened to see Stupid Ideas while looking around… Who could have expected a discussion about skeevy mansex in a thread about Republican ideas?
Well, comparing Republicans to Agean civilizations of twenty-three centuries ago, and they still come out looking stupid, it looks like just a little skip and a teeter, not so much even a whole derail.
Let us then resolve that pederasty is not a Stupid Republican Idea, as it predates their very existence by centuries. Put that over in the “Not Guilty” column. Fair’s fair.
The Senatorial election in Iowa deteriorated into a name calling match between the backers and anonymous money guys about the time LTC Ernst quit talking about castrating pigs, since then it has been a constant barrage of half truth and innuendo and the race is very tight. Now, our girl from Red Oak has decided that she isn’t going to talk to the news paper editorial boards – not the Des Moines Register, the newspaper all Polk County depends on, not the Cedar Rapids Gazette, the newspaper all of East Iowa reads for the obituaries, not the Dubuque Telegraph, not anybody. She and her handlers seem to have decided that the GOP candidate’s best chance is to keep her mouth shut. Maybe so in view of some pretty reactionary stuff that came out of her mouth during the primary and early on about the Department of Education, the Department of Natural Resources ( she’s again 'em both), Proposition 21 (which will destroy farming), a Personhood Amendment to the Iowa Constitution (just a statement of personal belief), her willingness to arrest federal employees implementing the Affordable Care Act (Obama Care) and a whole bunch of other stuff.
She might be right – apparently there is still a substantial fraction of the electorate that either hasn’t made up its minds or isn’t telling the incessant telephone pollsters if it has. It seems to me that anyone who has not decided after this six month or more ordeal is probably either demented or flat out stupid.
For the record, I know Bruce Braley and I like him. I have had cases with him, on both sides of the table. He is a good lawyer and a smart decent honest man. I don’t know LTC Ernst. All I know about her is what she and her handlers have put on the TV and what she has had to say in the debates. As far as I can tell her only ideas are talking points from the GOP Senate Committee and our boys from Kansas.
I see some cunning in LTC Ernst’s refusal to talk to the news papers, but Iowa is not served by that and the electorate is in the end more poorly informed – but that may be her strategy.
If you read to the last paragraph, you will notice mention of the ever lovely Michelle Malkin doing work for some obscure group called Citizens United.
Nah. It all ties into their current messaging agenda – liberal voters of no doubt dusky complexions are going to be printing off ballots by the wheelbarrowfull in Colorado and dumping them willy-nilly into ballot boxes. Because this is how we justify all that legislation to limit who can vote and when and with what paperwork.
