Analysis Of Homoeroticism In Roman Antiquity

Homoeroticism in Roman Antiquity

Sexuality, especially in terms of same-sex desire, is something that is extremely difficult to discuss, because often people use historical assumptions to build their own modern perspective concerning how they feel about modern homosexuality. Paraphrasing verses from the Bible or making broad generalizations about what modern individuals might assume they know about sexual desire between people of the same-sex during Greco-Roman antiquity is very common in arguing for or against this modern branch of sexuality. The purpose of this paper is to explore homoeroticism in the context of Roman antiquity, particularly between the years of 60 BCE and 300 CE, and to more thoroughly examine homoeroticism in the contexts

To begin, a differentiation between homoeroticism and homosexuality must be established. For the purpose of this paper, as is argued by scholar David M. Halperin in his essay One Hundred Years of Homosexuality, homosexuality is a much more modern concept which is far from a completion of sexual acts between members of the same gender, but instead implies certain lifestyles and viewpoints that are recognized by members of society today (Halperin

For the purposes of this paper female homoeroticism covers any sexual activity between one or more female partners, including business relationships such as prostitution or socially acknowledged relationships, which could include marriages in some situations according to scholar Bernadette J. Brooten in her work Love between Women Early Christian Responses to Female Homoeroticism. While the evidence does suggest that many elite men struggled, even in comedies, to understand female homoeroticism in their own culture, the extremely blurred line between social ideal and social reality remains difficult to navigate, even for scholars