archeologia: Homosexuality in ancient Rome

Evidence: 100 • authority: 72

Homosexuality in ancient Rome is a subject of research and scholarly debate. Conceptions of homosexuality in ancient Rome differed from the contemporary West. Latin lacks words that would precisely translate "homosexual" and "heterosexual". The primary dichotomy of ancient Roman sexuality was active / dominant / masculine and passive / submissive / feminine. Roman society was patriarchal, and the freeborn male citizen possessed political liberty (libertas) and the right to rule both himself and his household (familia). "Virtue" (virtus) was seen as an active quality through which a man (vir) defined himself. In a lot of accounts from the Roman era, the conquest mentality and "cult of virili…

Evidence: 39 • authority: 88

Homosexuality (homoeroticism), female. Abstract “Homosexuality” is a modern medical category that is unsuited for the ancient Mediterranean world, whereas “homoeroticism,” while also contemporary, is more neutral. Sources from Archaic Greece through to Late Antique Egypt in Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Coptic, and Arabic attest to female homoerotic desire and to erotic contact between women and possibly between women and persons with ambiguous genitalia. Whereas such desire and contact were celebrated in Archaic Greece, by the time of the Roman Empire and into Late Antiquity, they were largely vilified, frequently defined as “contrary to nature.”

Evidence: 39 • authority: 72

Sexual attitudes and behaviors in ancient Rome are indicated by art, literature, and inscriptions, and to a lesser extent by archaeological remains such as erotic artifacts and architecture. It has sometimes been assumed that "unlimited sexual license" was characteristic of ancient Rome, but sexuality was not excluded as a concern of the mos maiorum, the traditional social norms that affected public, private, and military life. Pudor, "shame, modesty", was a regulating factor in behavior, as were legal strictures on certain sexual transgressions in both the Republican and Imperial periods. The censors—public officials who determined the social rank of individuals—had the power to remove cit…

Evidence: 34 • authority: 80

Sexual Venue Selection and Strategies for Concealment of Same-Sex Behavior Among Non-Disclosing Men Who Have Sex with Men and Women

Evidence: 34 • authority: 80

Chapter seven Glimpses through a Window An Approach to Roman Female Homoeroticism through Art Historical and Literary Evidence

Evidence: 34 • authority: 72

The history of bisexuality concerns the history of the bisexual sexual orientation. Although the term "bisexuality" was coined in the 20th century, there are recorded examples throughout history of people having both opposite-sex and same-sex relationships. A modern definition of bisexuality began to take shape in the mid-19th century within three interconnected domains of knowledge: biology, psychology and sexuality. In modern Western culture, the term bisexual was first defined in a binary approach as a person with romantic or sexual attraction to both men and women. The term bisexual was redefined later in the 20th century as a person who is sexually and/or romantically attracted to both…

Evidence: 34 • authority: 72

Lesbianism is sexual and romantic desire or relationships between women. Women have typically been underrepresented in history as both writers and subjects, and lesbianism has been correspondingly under-recorded. Since the 1970s, efforts have been made to gather together and preserve lesbian history.