Homosexuality in Greece ?

Ronaldo19

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So I've been reading a few essays and papers on how ancient Greece was full of homosexual men and was, surprisingly, the norm. Mostly men that were in the army whom rarely saw their wife's. these men would bond with other men, like lovers. It was more than just a physical thing, they actually had an emotional connection with one another. Sometimes they would meet each others wife's as well. I thought his was an extremely interesting thing especially considering that this was the norm back in the day. Apparently it was part of their society for a very long time. Im surprised history classes didn't tell us about these kinds of things. Just wanted to share this with you guys! what other ancient cultures shared the same view on such openness like that of Greece's? why did it stop being ''an acceptable thing"? was it religion that interfered?
 

Ronaldo19

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"Religion" that interfered? You are talking about a religious society here.

by religion I guess I meant more along the lines of christianity, and not their ideologies back in the ancient times. yes they were a religious society. but I was simply asking not stating either. Was it later religions that started to assimilate into their culture and therefore effected peoples views of homosexuality?
 

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What I assumed el Ronaldo meant, and as he confirmed while I was writing the first version of this post, is the CHANGE of religion, from polytheism to monotheistic early Christianity, a fairly sex-negative and totally gay-negative faith. And yes, that's what did it. It certainly wasn't the other way around--disgust or boredom w/ M4M sex leading to an overthrow of paganism! (Anybody think that inversion might make an interesting story hook?)

However, ancient Greece was NOT modern Castro Street! Check out the Wikipedia article for a guide to the realities: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_in_ancient_Greece It's preliminary, tho fairly thorough, especially if you follow up the various "Main article" linkes.
 

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Hmmm. I think that's an over-simplification. There is every indication that homosexual behavior continued as popular for quite a long time after the rise of Christianity and that it did not become a significant issue for the Church until the Late Middle Ages.
 

Ronaldo19

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What I assumed el Ronaldo meant, and as he confirmed while I was writing the first version of this post, is the CHANGE of religion, from polytheism to monotheistic early Christianity, a fairly sex-negative and totally gay-negative faith. And yes, that's what did it. It certainly wasn't the other way around--disgust or boredom w/ M4M sex leading to an overthrow of paganism! (Anybody think that inversion might make an interesting story hook?)

However, ancient Greece was NOT modern Castro Street! Check out the Wikipedia article for a guide to the realities: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_in_ancient_Greece It's preliminary, tho fairly thorough, especially if you follow up the various "Main article" linkes.

thanks for understanding what I was saying, and interesting link!
 

Ronaldo19

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Hmmm. I think that's an over-simplification. There is every indication that homosexual behavior continued as popular for quite a long time after the rise of Christianity and that it did not become a significant issue for the Church until the Late Middle Ages.

so what would you assume was the point in which things began to change? was it perhaps a specific ruler? king? or maybe the interpretation of the bible changed during the middle ages and thus had a much more profound affect on homosexuality? what about the middle ages would cause people to interpret the bible differently prior to the middle ages? ( assuming interpretation was the cause )
 

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For the most part, until Islam and/or Christianity spread into a culture, no one thought man/man or woman/woman sex was inherently bad. It wasn't that everyone was "gay" but that sex with the same just didn't have the negative connotation until one or both of those Abrahamic religions came into the picture saying so.

The way I look at it is this -- if it wasn't already so common, the torah/bible/koran wouldn't bother saying NOT to do it. It's a lot like other old proscriptions -- rules about diet, clothing, etc. They wouldn't make a point of saying "don't eat pork...or shellfish..." if they weren't already commonly-eaten food items by people outside the religion. As people grow to realize that all religion had to back up its threats was "because I said so", many of the rather idiotic proscriptions fell by the wayside -- well, by the intelligent people, anyway.
 

Ronaldo19

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For the most part, until Islam and/or Christianity spread into a culture, no one thought man/man or woman/woman sex was inherently bad. It wasn't that everyone was "gay" but that sex with the same just didn't have the negative connotation until one or both of those Abrahamic religions came into the picture saying so.

The way I look at it is this -- if it wasn't already so common, the torah/bible/koran wouldn't bother saying NOT to do it. It's a lot like other old proscriptions -- rules about diet, clothing, etc. They wouldn't make a point of saying "don't eat pork...or shellfish..." if they weren't already commonly-eaten food items by people outside the religion. As people grow to realize that all religion had to back up its threats was "because I said so", many of the rather idiotic proscriptions fell by the wayside -- well, by the intelligent people, anyway.

such a sad truth :(, even to this day people pick and choose what should be followed and what not. cute pics btw ;)
 

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The way I look at it is this -- if it wasn't already so common, the torah/bible/koran wouldn't bother saying NOT to do it.

The thing is that these texts don't necessarily say anything generally about homosexuality. If you look into it there is a rather specific context in which homosexuality is addressed, and it is more so the context that was being condemned.
 

malakos

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so what would you assume was the point in which things began to change? was it perhaps a specific ruler? king? or maybe the interpretation of the bible changed during the middle ages and thus had a much more profound affect on homosexuality? what about the middle ages would cause people to interpret the bible differently prior to the middle ages? ( assuming interpretation was the cause )

I honestly don't know. All I know is that the 11th century is when certain writers of the Church started really addressing and condemning homosexual behavior in a way that clearly suggested condemnation of the act itself.
 
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I remember hearing that due to a decline in birth rates in ancient Greece, authorities started to outlaw and condemn homeosexuality with the use of religion. It's basic biology that a male and female are needed to produce offspring. Reproduction was critical to Greece at the time as people could only expect to live to the ripe old age of around 30 years old back then. When you add into the equation men being killed off by war, more people were needed. Thus men and women having more sex was encouraged by Greek authorities. I'm just going from memory here, so who knows if this is really true. I just remember hearing it when I was younger.

I also remember when I was a kid that if a guy was acting in a manner towards another guy that was considered gay, the guy would say the other guy was "Greeking him". I guess that's where the expression came from.
 
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B_underguy1

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There's plenty of gay life in modern Greece despite the power of the Orthodox church. In may places its pretty openly accepted.
 

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One thing I do remember hearing on a documentary about the male relationships in ancient greece was that it was acceptable. However, it wasn't without its down side. The top guy was unaffected by his status as a man lover. But the bottom guy, was looked down on- kind of as if dominated and shamed. Some of the lovers kept their activities more secret and neither suffered the shame, but this was the rarer of the two situations.
And then there were the "tutors". But that subject is not permitted here.
 

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Same-sex sexual behaviour in ancient Greece is an extremely complicated topic, and was expressed differently in just about every city state. It's also been variously erased, misinterpreted, or distorted by translators and historians throughout the millennia since - part of the same legacy of homophobia and hostility toward scientific knowledge that seemed to be endemic in early expressions of Christianity (the destruction of Sappho's works and the repeated attacks against the great libraries of Alexandria - not one-time events, but long term, concerted efforts to destroy knowledge - are particularly repugnant examples).

To see how poorly understood and affected by time and culture modern interpretations of classical Greek same-sex behaviour are, I suggest reading and comparing Dover's "Greek Homosexuality" (which came out in the 1970s) and Halperin's works on the same subject (particularly "One Hundred Years of Homosexuality", which came out in 1990). It's very interesting stuff.
 

AquaEyes11010

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I remember hearing that due to a decline in birth rates in ancient Greece, authorities started to outlaw and condemn homeosexuality with the use of religion. It's basic biology that a male and female are needed to produce offspring. Reproduction was critical to Greece at the time as people could only expect to live to the ripe old age of around 30 years old back then. When you add into the equation men being killed off by war, more people were needed. Thus men and women having more sex was encouraged by Greek authorities. I'm just going from memory here, so who knows if this is really true. I just remember hearing it when I was younger.

I also remember when I was a kid that if a guy was acting in a manner towards another guy that was considered gay, the guy would say the other guy was "Greeking him". I guess that's where the expression came from.


You're incorrectly assuming that those who engaged in homosexual behavior did so exclusively, eschewing heterosexual behavior. Typically, that was not the case. People married to beget offspring. Same-sex sex continued to occur "for fun".
 

AquaEyes11010

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The thing is that these texts don't necessarily say anything generally about homosexuality. If you look into it there is a rather specific context in which homosexuality is addressed, and it is more so the context that was being condemned.


That's really besides the point. People have been arguing about how to correctly interpret those texts for a very long time -- if not, there'd be just one "christian church". The simple fact is that people used the texts as a basis for saying "don't do this", and whether or not you agree with their interpretations is irrelevant to the fact that it happened. You could say, today, that burning people at the stake is a wrong interpretation of bible text, but that doesn't refute the fact that when it happened, the people doing it did so because they felt their texts supported the act.
 

rbkwp

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young Greek Gods aka men mmmmmmmmmmm such wonderful skin complexion
were some possibly homosexual .. damn
reminds me of slim spunky Italian & Finnish youths in the rage of the day / time, simple blue jeans, yummy!!!
 

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That's really besides the point. People have been arguing about how to correctly interpret those texts for a very long time -- if not, there'd be just one "christian church". The simple fact is that people used the texts as a basis for saying "don't do this", and whether or not you agree with their interpretations is irrelevant to the fact that it happened. You could say, today, that burning people at the stake is a wrong interpretation of bible text, but that doesn't refute the fact that when it happened, the people doing it did so because they felt their texts supported the act.

Well, interpretations of the religious texts aside even, I have not seen indications that there were truly generalized ecclesiastical or civil prescriptions against homosexual behavior before the Late Middle Ages.
 

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It seems that images were scribed on ancient caves showing male/male relations. If you watch the history channel they have shown documentaries that there was male2male sex thousands of years ago, even by the leaders of the tribes back then.