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Date Posted: 11:09:54 05/29/03 Thu
Author: James
Subject: GLBT in antiquity
In reply to: Bester 's message, "Please read the poem BEFORE you glaze over with boredom, lol. This is a topic that is important to me." on 06:44:28 05/29/03 Thu

Hey Bester, just to add some more GLBT literary figures from antiquity. As long as people have existed, so has being gay - and it wasn't always seen as something unnatural and wrong:

As you mentioned, Sappho was the original Lesbian in both senses of the word - she's really cool cos she writes a love poem and only one word - "you [in the feminine form]" - gives away the fact that she's addressing a woman. Then there are loads of gay poets - Baccylides, Simonides, etc. who write about their boyfriends (often in explicit detail!). The playwright Euripides portrays gay men, and one of the playwrights does actually portray Achilles as being gay. Pindar also writes in one of his poems about how gay relationships are as acceptable as straight ones.

Gay characters in myth include Ganymede (who was carried off for his beauty to be Zeus' "cup-bearer"!), Teiresias and Caesia (who both turned into women) and more, but I'm tired and can't think of any at the moment!

Then a little later on, Socrates himself is gay - he frequently interrupts his dialogues to comment on how handsome the men he is speaking too are - and the whole greek culture at the time was not only inclusive to gay relationships but actually fostered them.

In the Roman period, the poet Virgil was probably gay - certainly his famous epic poem, The Aeneid, features a gay couple, Nisus and Euryalus, who die fighting to protect each other. Another famous poet (one of my favourite) - Catullus - was bi, and writes about his various boy- and girlfriends. Then of course most of the emperors of Rome were gay/bi - Tiberius, Nero, Caligula, etc. Also there was Petronius, who wrote the Satyrica, centred around three bi/gay young men in a love triangle.

In these periods, being gay wasn't seen as something strange or scary - people just accepted it. Hopefully we're moving towards a similar age of tolerance.

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Replies:

Ed darlin... check with Lance or Serge and see if they still have the list of books I sent them. OH! and with what I have ADDED to that list I would be typing for a MONTH! But just for you I would do it.*wink* -- Kris, 12:06:34 05/29/03 Thu

I have a list of (gay) books that would be appropriate to donate to public school libraries. It also includes a few movies. I also have a list of famous GLBT people throughout history. I have most of the archives of crzy house stored away. It we get one of those super duper boards with all the catagories I will make information like that available in it's own catagory. (NT) -- Sergio, 13:13:30 05/29/03 Thu

I should update my list for you Serge... I lost the old letter I sent you when the computer crashed. I just have to find a day when I have nothing better to do, carpal tunnels feel fine, the beer is cold.. and prolly Aquarius is in the right house knowing the way I procrastinate! (NT) -- Kris, 20:22:06 05/29/03 Thu