I don't necessarily think of the Roman empire as suffering from rampant homophobia, but maybe a few homophobes here and there got loose with chalk?
The thing is, there wasn't really a stable concept of homosexuality to get homophobic about. There was plenty of shaming people who received penetration, so I suppose it's plausible someone being shamed in that way might want to turn the tables a bit. Hmm, also, it was always one of the 'weird' things about Emperor Claudius that he would only sleep with women, so presumably there were some people around who felt exclusively heterosexual (in our terms) - but whether the conditions would be right to let that manifest as homophobia, I don't know.
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Date: 17/05/2010 06:57 (UTC)I don't necessarily think of the Roman empire as suffering from rampant homophobia, but maybe a few homophobes here and there got loose with chalk?
The thing is, there wasn't really a stable concept of homosexuality to get homophobic about. There was plenty of shaming people who received penetration, so I suppose it's plausible someone being shamed in that way might want to turn the tables a bit. Hmm, also, it was always one of the 'weird' things about Emperor Claudius that he would only sleep with women, so presumably there were some people around who felt exclusively heterosexual (in our terms) - but whether the conditions would be right to let that manifest as homophobia, I don't know.