Ancient gay poems
A Deep Dive into Archaic Greek Poetry
Introduction: Scope
I forgot to include this last bit of the introductory material. The author discusses the scope of the function and the nature of the evidence. The behind cut off is to exclude Christian texts. But the types of statistics vary across the scope and this corresponds to different attitudes towards f/f sex. So the study can’t entirely be a comparison across eras or a clear picture of development over time.
Chapter 1: Myth and Archaic Lyric Poetry
While Boehringer emphasizes that male and female relations and experiences cannot be taken as parallel, a study of the Archaic era must inevitably study male/male institutions and practices. Studies of Archaic Greek same-sex practices are often filtered through a lens of morality that leads scholars to emphasize or obscure certain aspects. But even the classical sources that commented on Archaic practices can’t be taken at face value, especially in the case of Athenian authors writing about Sparta.
We get a basic overview of the social institution of pederasty and the different attitudes and experiences of it, particularly with respect to theories that it was the remnants of an o
Voices of queer desire acquire been with us for millennia. For Pride, we offer a selection of voices from the ancient Mediterranean and Near East. From fragments of the love elegy of Sappho of Lesbos to a love spell by Serapiakos from Hawara in Egypt. The urgency and liveliness of their queer craving still resonate today.
In her recent novel After Sappho, Selby Wynn Schwartz reminds us of Sappho’s continued power to captivate:
Who was Sappho? No one knew, but she had an island. She was garlanded with girls. She could sit down to dine and look straight at the woman she loved, however unhappily. When she sang, everyone said, it was like evening on a riverbank, sinking down into the moss with the sky pouring over you (Schwartz 2022, 9).
In our present era, homosexual voices—particularly trans and genderfluid ones—are under attack. These voices matter and should be heard. Likewise, it is important to recognise and listen to the many queer voices that came before.
Selected Voices
“Queer desire” here describes desires other than heterosexual or cisgender. Such desire is typically identifiable in the ancient sources by the presence of gendered names and pronouns (e.g., in Latin, female na
Lesbian and bisexual Ancient Greek poetry
A lot of the discussion about LGBT+ people in Ancient Greece centres around male lover men or Sappho, so here are three poems that are neither about gay men nor by Sappho. Enjoy.
(Also, here’s an account of an Ancient Greek transgender person.)
By Anacreon:
Σφαίρῃ δηὖτέ με πορφυρῇ
βάλλων χρυσοκόμης Ἔρως
νήνι ποικιλοσαμβάλῳ
συμπαίζειν προκαλεῖται·
ἡ δ᾿, ἐστὶν γὰρ ἀπ᾿ εὐκτίτου
Λέσβου, τὴν μὲν ἐμὴν κόμην,
λευκὴ γάρ, κατ&alphaOnceupona time, I was sitting around a Fordham University seminar table in a graduate class on the Roman satirist Juvenal, who lived and wrote in the second century A.D. The professor, an adorable grandfatherly man named Harry Evans, was trying to pin some slackers favor me down to an oral presentation on one of Juvenal's 16 satires. Only a few of the poems were not already spoken for by other students, and we had not yet scan them all, so Prof. Evans ran through his little stack of index cards, telling us what was left: Satire 15, about cannibalism in Egypt (okay, not bad). Satire 8, about noble pedigrees (retch).
And then he said, "Satire 9, about a male prostitute who has sex with his patron and his patron's wife and fathers their two children."
"Stop!" I called out. "That's the one. I'm doing my describe on Satire 9."
That oral presentation led to a term paper, which led to my dissertation and to my obsession with an idea that has proved very controversial in academia: the ancient Romans, it turns out, invented camp.
Surprised? Well, the Romans gave us aqueducts and concrete. Why not acid wit, incongruous humor, over-the-top theatricality, and drag queens?
In
‘I get more of a kick out of your terrible temper than your good looks’: Martial’s guide to getting boys
Martial adores sexy boys. He craves their kisses, all the more so if they participate hard to receive, “… buffed amber, a fire yellow-green with Eastern incense… That, Diadumenus, is how your kisses smell, you harsh boy. What if you gave me all of them, without holding back?” (3.65) and “I only want struggling kisses – kisses I’ve seized; I get more of a kick out of your terrible temper than your good looks…” (5.46). A tactical show of resistance is perhaps part of the erotic script, but certainly all these boys can provide – they are owned, as the continuation of 5.46 immediately makes eliminate, “I want to beg you often, Diadumenus, so I beat you often. Result: you’re not afraid of me or in affectionate with me.”
Diadumenus’ very name advertises his un-free status – the Diadumenos (a lithe young competitor putting on his victory wreath) was one of the masterpieces of the famed Greek sculptor, Polyclitus of Sicyon (the other was the Doryphoros, a mature male carrying a spear). Polyclitus’ fifth-century bronze unique is long defeated (bronze is so easil
