Homosexuality in the ancient world

[ecco]

Africa
Women in Lesotho engaged in socially sanctioned long term, erotic relationships, named motsoalle. Male Azande warriors in the northern Congo routinely took on boy-wives between the ages of twelve and twenty, who helped with household tasks and participated in sex with their older husbands.

Americas
Homosexual and transgender individuals were common among other pre-conquest civilizations in Latin America, such as the Aztecs, Mayans, Quechuas, Moches, Zapotecs, and the Tupinambá of Brazil.

Ancient Asyrria
In the ancient Assyrian society, homosexuality was present and it was also not prohibited. Religiously, there was nothing amiss with homosexual love between men. Some ancient religious Assyrian texts contain prayers for divine blessings on homosexual relationships.

Ancient China
Homosexuality has been acknowledged in China since ancient times. Nearly every emperor in the Han Dynasty had one or more male sex partners.

Ancient Greece
The ancient Greeks did not conceive of sexual orientation as a social identifier as Western societies have done for the past century. Greek society did not distinguish sexual desire or behaviour by the gender of the participants, but rather by the role that each participant played in the sex act, that of active penetrator or passive penetrated.

Ancient India
Kama Sutra, the ancient Indian treatise on love talks about feelings for same sexes. The Laws of Manu, the foundational work of Hindu law, mentions a “third sex”, members of which may engage in non-traditional gender expression and homosexual activities.

Anient Rome
The “conquest mentality” of the ancient Romans shaped Roman homosexual practices. In the Roman Republic, a citizen’s political liberty was defined in part by the right to preserve his body from physical compulsion or use by others; for the male citizen to submit his body to the giving of pleasure was considered servile.

Homosexuality in the Ancient World

What's your point?

 

[ecco]

I can't believe that @columbus and I posted the same thing at exactly the same time!

You and I have probably heard many of the same gay jokes.

Quantum entanglement?

 

[Stanyon]

Probably by age.

You might want to look up Greek philosophers and their penchant for pedestry. One whose name escapes me at the moment once wrote that having sex with prepubescent boys made him a better thinker (or something along those lines) Funny thing is among some Afghans there is a saying that goes "women are for children and boys for pleasure".

 

[sooda]

What's your point?

That it's been around forever.

 

[sooda]

You might want to look up Greek philosophers and their penchant for pedestry. One whose name escapes me at the moment once wrote that having sex with prepubescent boys made him a better thinker (or something along those lines) Funny thing is among some Afghans there is a saying that goes "women are for children and boys for pleasure".

Yeah, the pashtuns. They claim the are the lost tribe of Benjamin.

 

[ecco]

ecco said: ↑
What's your point?

That it's been around forever.

Oh. I thought everyone knew that.

 

[sooda]

ecco said: ↑
What's your point?

Oh. I thought everyone knew that.

There is a thread running about gender dysphoria causing collapse of civilization.

 

[Father Heathen]

You know that the christian argument against this would be that they were godless, pagan cultures lost in sin.

 

[sooda]

You know that the christian argument against this would be that they were godless, pagan cultures lost in sin.

Not exactly.. Every group has laws or rules they agree on.. Its the social contract that makes it possible for people to live together in peace. But, even by that measurement I don't see the justification for burning St Joan or thousands of witches.. unless the witch owned some prime bottom land and good milk cows.

 

[Stevicus]

Not exactly.. Every group has laws or rules they agree on.. Its the social contract that makes it possible for people to live together in peace. But, even by that measurement I don't see the justification for burning St Joan or thousands of witches.. unless the witch owned some prime bottom land and good milk cows.

What if the witch turned me into a Knute?

 

[sooda]

What if the witch turned me into a Knute?

You mean a salamander? A newt?

 

[Skwim]

"Transgenders" in pre-conquest Americas? How did that work?

trans·gen·der
/transˈjendər,tranzˈjendər/
adjective
adjective: transgender; adjective: transgendered
denoting or relating to a person whose sense of personal identity and gender does not correspond with their birth sex.
​

Maybe you're thinking of gender transitioned, wherein people have their body physically modified to resemble that of the opposite sex.

.​

 

[Fool]

"Transgenders" in pre-conquest Americas? How did that work?

Two-spirit - Wikipedia


A Third Gender Identity Has Existed for Centuries



what is even more interesting is the fact that the intersexed community is often and vastly ignored.


Intersex Organizations | interactadvocates


Intersex Society of North America | A world free of shame, secrecy, and unwanted genital surgery

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

That it's been around forever.

Yes it has. It has been around where it's been accepted, and it's been around where it has not been accepted. It has, so far as anyone can make out, occurred at approximately the same rate through recorded human history. And I think there just might possibly be something to be learned from that -- which is that it sure as heck seems to a naturally-occurring feature of human development.

By the way, for those who equate "naturally-occurring" with "God ordained," that presents a wee problem, doesn't it?

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I was thinking more along the lines of a transgender person taking the hormones and the operation, etc. The reason I asked (and please forgive my ignorance because many of us are not as smart as you) is because our transgender bass player is undergoing her final operation tomorrow. After spending more than a year around her I have learned much, but there will always be questions.

I don't know much about in the Americas, but in India the Hijraa (who are, roughly and approximately, a religious group composed of MtF members (I don't remember who their patron deity is)) have a rather crude form of sex change where there the genitals are removed. Definitely not as advanced as what we have today, but as a group MtFs are known for wanting to be free of their male genitalia, and to extreme ends that can include self-amputation and self-castration.
I do wonder myself if the full depth and degree of dysphoria brought on by genitals is entirely on the genitals, or that and how much emphasis societies have put on equating having male genitals to masculinity and being male. There presence is going to cause dysphoria regardless, but at the same time it's not too hard to find examples of this idea--in modern times and ancient--that having a penis and testicles is what makes someone a man/male. In ancient times, this is evidenced by things such as Biblical and Quranic passages that describe different rules between men and eunuchs; in modern times there are support groups for testicular cancer survivor because it's not unusual for a male's sense of identity to be shaken, if not shattered, after requiring an orchiectomy and/or penectomy to survive their disease.
With women the emphasis tends to be more on the breasts (and obviously I really can't speak for the FtM experience, but I suspect it's probably not too all that much different overall from the MtF experience).

 

[Shadow Wolf]

By the way, for those who equate "naturally-occurring" with "God ordained," that presents a wee problem, doesn't it?

Could you please be a bit more specific? Is it a problem for the Evangelic and Conservative community who is rigidly black-and-white in their world view, and who often say that being trans is to say god made a mistake? I'm wondering, because to many being trans can be naturally occurring, which means its something god ordained, which means it's his plan that we transition and be happy. And then their is those of a more moderate and liberal slant who kind of inadvertently imply that even though treatment is just fine and there aren't issues with acceptance, the idea that god's will and plans are still in control does suggest god wanted us to get stuck with this incredibly difficult life.

 

[Stevicus]

You mean a salamander? A newt?

Actually I meant Knute Rockne.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

Could you please be a bit more specific? Is it a problem for the Evangelic and Conservative community who is rigidly black-and-white in their world view, and who often say that being trans is to say god made a mistake? I'm wondering, because to many being trans can be naturally occurring, which means its something god ordained, which means it's his plan that we transition and be happy. And then their is those of a more moderate and liberal slant who kind of inadvertently imply that even though treatment is just fine and there aren't issues with acceptance, the idea that god's will and plans are still in control does suggest god wanted us to get stuck with this incredibly difficult life.

You know, of course, that I do not have any god belief at all, and so for me, everything is "nature." I consider, therefore, that by virtue of the fact that humans have been producing albinos, gays, transgendered, midgets, giants, geniuses, morons and so much more, that all of these things must be "natural." They may not all be desirable, especially to the individual afflicted, but at least natural.

You know the Bell Curve, where most everybody fits somewhere in the middle, but the outliers, rare though they may be, still exist. (Back in the early days of Rome, of course, you could be forgiven for taking those outliers as babies and letting them die by exposure. I don't think we do that sort of thing as much anymore.)

I think that we owe it to every other person, therefore, to accept as best we may their own nature. It may not always be easy to understand another person. It may be uncomfortable to deal with some. But it is not impossible to suppress our discomfort and offer at least acceptance.

I remember a long time ago, when I was in a Children's Aid home for disturbed kids, we were taken on a fishing trip outside of Ottawa, where the lockkeeper had a son with Down's Syndrome. I got in a terrible fight with the other kids from my group home, who thought it was funny to mock that boy. This is now sixty years ago, and I still get angry, it was so potent for me at the time.

See, I think we can't always help make it easier for people who are different, but we can sure as hell try not to make it harder.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

By the way, if I was going to have to be really, really different, this is the one I'd want (warning, do not go to the link if you are at all offended by sexual content.) Meet The Man With Two Functioning Penises

 

[The Emperor of Mankind]

I can't believe that @columbus and I posted the same thing at exactly the same time!

The more accurately you can pinpoint a joke's location, the less able you are to determine where it is going.