There was homosexuality all throughout Rome.

Because Christians were and are stupid. It is a mythology, poorly written fables.

No wonder, Catholics didn't want it translated into English. Why give up on their monopoly of the translations.

What crap.

The menu at Denny's is more factual.

Saul of Tarsus made the Arsenokoiati the first Christian culture war after his decree that you didn't have to first be a Jew to be a follower of the risen Christ. The Christian Church was founded on excluding homosexuals/gays.

I agree r1.

Christianity deified a guy who lived with his mother, a mother who followed him everywhere, and he hung out with a group of 12 other guys. Constant companions. He also had a foot fetish. Oh, the irony!!

Mike Johnson, is that you?

There still is. It's called The Vatican.

It's hilarious when you hear these Christian fundie fools say homosexuality caused the fall of Rome.

The exact opposite was true. Rome fell because it adopted Christianity and all the old traditions became sins.

Rome was unabashedly queer at its peak. The church killed it.

[quote] Because Christians were and are stupid.

Awesome root cause analysis. You should teach history at grad schools.

It’s true, though.

They wanted lots and lots of babies.

Besides, they are anti-sex in general. Only for purposes of procreation in marriage.

We weren't all THAT bad. Some of us were up for a good time.

Catholics are anti homosexual, except for the church where the clergymen are all gay and pederasts.

I believe it was the apostle Paul and then St. Augustine that wrote against homosexuality. It was okay as a Christian not to be a circumcised male, but don’t let a penis anywhere near your ass.

I’m always love reading about cultures where there was no such thing as homosexuality - you just had sex with whomever turned you on. Several of the Emperors slept with men if there weren’t exclusively straight out gay - like Nero or Hadrian. Hadrian was so devastated by his young lover’s (basically husband) death he dedicated an entire city to him and had countless statues made of his likeness and people worshipped him like a god.

Julius Caesar was a big bottom - the only controversy of that not being that he had sex with men but that as a nobleman he bottomed.

Wealthy men had male and female sex slaves. It wasn’t unheard of a father passing a male sex slave down to his son as a gift.

[quote] I’m always love reading about cultures where there was no such thing as homosexuality - you just had sex with whomever turned you on.

r13 Exactly. It's only a modern concept that sex is an identity, not an act in which anyone can engage. Roman men married to women often had male consorts.

I truly believe that Plato's concept of "Platonic love" referred to homosexuality. But the ancient Greeks were modest people and could never describe it as buttfucking (which it was).

Even the ancient Hebrews didn't believe there was such a thing as a "homosexual". They banned homosexuality as a sin - but a sin which anyone could and would do.

R14/PC, isn't OP a sock of yours? "The men wanted to have sex with the male angels but Lot offered up his daughters and the crowd of men refused." You've been framing that discussion in those exact terms for years.

[quote] I truly believe that Plato's concept of "Platonic love" referred to homosexuality.

Was it Platonic love among cavemen even if allegorically?

[quote] PC, isn't OP a sock of yours? "The men wanted to have sex with the male angels but Lot offered up his daughters and the crowd of men refused." You've been framing that discussion in those exact terms for years.

r15 Hahaha. PD, why do we always come back to this topic?

No, the OP is not me.

But yeah, I love the story of Sodom and the beautiful angel.

It's time we reclaim the word Sodomite!

Sodom was not about sexuality at all. The later repeat story in Gibeah makes that clear.

Rome didn't make homosexuality bad. That something that Xtians borrowed from Muslim culture much later.

Male sexuality is one of the things HBO's show Rome got right. It is dealt with in a very casual, straight froward way that was probably true to the time. There are times when Attia was applauding her son trying to seduce his own Uncle Julius Caesar to gain power. Attia mentions that her son (a young Augustus Caesar) not go up again Antony because he eats boys like you for "breakfast" with the meaning he fucks boys like you for breakfast. When August is taken to a brothel to lose his virginity, they line up women and men for him to choose from.

If you have ever been to Rome and been to the massive bath houses where men would meet, have sex, conduct the business of the city. People often forget what a death sentence for women getting pregnant could be up into very recently in human history. So casual sex existed between men for the most part.

[quote]R17/PC: PD, why do we always come back to this topic?

The last time we discussed it, on Filmboards, you walked away and didn't answer. It was bound up in your odd ideas about what constitutes "rape." I kept checking back for nearly a year to see if you'd answered. Now, the thread is gone - deleted, apparently .

[quote]R18: Sodom was not about sexuality at all.

I concur.

[quote]R18: The later repeat story in Gibeah makes that clear.

Ah, but the 'Gibeah' story in Judges 19 is the older of the two; Genesis 19 is the 'later repeat,' with fantastical embellishment.

[quote]R19: Rome didn't make homosexuality bad. That something that Xtians borrowed from Muslim culture much later.

No. Christian fulminations against homosexuality antedate Islam, e.g. 4th century Christian emperors Constantius II, Constans, Valentinian II, Theodosius I, and Arcadius decreed death for those men who married men, or who 'acted the part of a woman.' Islam borrowed from Christianity, not the other way around.

It was the middle east, its STILL THE SAME there today.

Leviticus famously has anti-gay laws, and that, together with the tale of Sodom and Gomorrah, are long pre-Christian.

Not saying St Paul et al didn't really run with it, but it IS there in the Pentateuch (first five books of the Old Testament).

[quote]R2: I agree [R1].

Oh, dear - 'trolldar' says you 𝑎𝑟𝑒 R1. Endorsing your own post while pretending to be someone else is bad form.

[quote]Saul of Tarsus made the Arsenokoiati the first Christian culture war after his decree that you didn't have to first be a Jew to be a follower of the risen Christ.

"Saul of Tarsus," huh? You seem to be confusing characters from the narratives with the anonymous authors, or church policymakers.

There was no such person.

Wtf did Lot have to do with Rome, OP? Several thousand years and 1500 miles away from Rome.

[quote]R24: Leviticus famously has anti-gay laws, and that, together with the tale of Sodom and Gomorrah, are long pre-Christian.

Leviticus does not have "anti-gay laws," nor is the story of Sodom and Gomorrah from Genesis 19 about homosexuality. Neither is Leviticus "long pre-Christian." 'Leviticus' was a meditation/commentary on other passages of scripture - Deuteronomy, Ezekiel, etc - outlining a kind of ideal Temple service (post-70 CE, after they'd lost the temple) which was never carried out in practice - sort of like Ezekiel's outline for a temple which was never built. What Leviticus proposes is simply preposterous, detailing ritual instructions that could never have been actually followed (sin offerings/animal slaughter on that kind of scale?), sort of like how Bishop John Colenso demonstrated through mathematics that the Jewish Wandering in the Wilderness accounts could never have happened. It is likely that Jews at large never knew about Leviticus until two or three centuries further on, when the radically sectarian writing, formerly intended only for the eyes of priests and scribes, entered the Masoretic and was copied and read, being given a place among the supposed 'Mosaic' corpus, once Jewish religion had transitioned from sacrificial ritual into a scripture-centric form.

Another reason for placing Leviticus later is how spare the New Testament is in citing it - clear quotes from it only occur in texts from the late 2nd/early 3rd centuries (i.e. 1 Peter 1:16). The reason it isn't cited is because it wasn't available at that point.

We’re assuming that Roman homosexuality was overt and accepted. Most research shows that homosexuality was tolerated but endorsed and accepted. There were plenty of writing where the writer condemn those that participated in same sex acts.

[quote] Oh, dear - 'trolldar' says you 𝑎𝑟𝑒 [R1]. Endorsing your own post while pretending to be someone else is bad form.

I think the whole thread is mostly one person chatting, because how many people are dumb enough to equate the Genesis Old Testament with Rome?

Lot, pillars of salt, sodom and Gomorrah … had nothing to do with Rome or Christianity.

[quote]R28: We’re assuming that Roman homosexuality was overt and accepted. Most research shows that homosexuality was tolerated but endorsed and accepted. There were plenty of writing where the writer condemn those that participated in same sex acts.

Some two millennia of textual transmission through Christian hands and Christian dominance of scholarship might render such conclusions less than reliable.

[quote]R29: Lot, pillars of salt, sodom and Gomorrah … had nothing to do with Rome or Christianity.

R29, the OP is poorly worded, but what he seems to be saying is that the Romans practiced homosexuality until Christians bearing religious texts (of which Genesis was one) gained political influence and suppressed it. Christians have generally regarded stories like Genesis 19 to be factual, and the interpretation that it condemned homosexuality seems to have crept into prominence around the same time Christians gained control of Rome.

the OP is poorly worded, but what he seems to be saying is that the Romans practiced homosexuality until Christians bearing religious texts (of which Genesis was one) gained political influence and suppressed it.

OP is just an arsehole.

r25, I must have been in a mood to post sock-puppet posts. No WONDER I agreed with R1.

Thank you for pointing this out, but it does not diminish my contempt for the fraud of frauds known as St. Paul.

I must be in good company, as Thomas Jefferson cut out all the writings of the fakest of fake apostles from his own bible.

And people never wondered how a guy could just show up, claim to have met the RISEN Jesus and then tell Peter, who actually KNEW the LIVING Jesus, what Jesus meant. Even Houdini's mother gave him a password? Didn't the LIVING Jesus know he would meet Saul of Tarsus? Wouldn't Jesus have mentioned HIS FUTURE CONFIRMING PROPHET?

Christians are stupid. But Paul opened up the "faith" to non Jews. Paul made it possible for there to be Italian Catholics, Irish Catholics, Spanish Catholics and whatever catholic in order for each Catholicism to burrow into the local culture and appropriate the local customs. A cultural parasite. Brilliant.

R32, what a way to tell me that you uncritically accept the New Testament narrative and everything that Christianity claims about itself, its origins, purveyors, and progress - Jesus, Peter, Paul, all of it. You claim to hate it, but you accept it nonetheless.

Dear Dumbass r33, you must be some special moron if I am giving you all kinds of reasons I left Christianity for Atheism.

I accept it as a badly written Iron Age narrative that Paul added to. Not even good as fiction, let alone the basis of a religion.

Paul would have been better hijacking the believers of Mithra. Mithra is more like the Republican Jesus of Southern Baptists.

I am not amazed that "believers" are leaving the gangrenous institutions of x-tianity.

Christians didn't suppress homosexuality. Oh there were occasional purges, but CHristianity didn't become antigay monolith (and there is certainly nothing in Genesis to support that) until after Mohammad declared it bad.

Augustus Caesar made gay men get married.

[quote]R34: you must be some special moron if I am giving you all kinds of reasons I left Christianity for Atheism.

You haven't. Why do you accept - to the point of insistence - that Jesus and Paul existed?

[quote]I accept it as a badly written Iron Age narrative...

Several different Common Era narratives would be more accurate.

[quote]Paul would have been better hijacking the believers of Mithra.

Somebody evidently did, considering how much of Mithraism Christianity absorbed (as well as the cults of Magna Mater and Attis). Why do you think it was 'Paul,' though?

By that reasoning, Kermit the Frog must have founded the Muppets, because that's the narrative imparted by The Muppet Movie' (1979).

[quote]R35: Oh there were occasional purges, but CHristianity didn't become antigay monolith... until after Mohammad declared it bad.

Yeah, you're just repeating the assertion you made at R19. It was answered at R22.

There's also no evidence Mohammad existed, either.

R20- ROME on HBO

That was such a good show. I wish they had 8 seasons instead of only 2.

Video or it didn't happen

I wish PoisonedDragon would take the gas pipe. He ruins interesting threads.

[quote]R26 / R29 / R31 / R36: Augustus Caesar made gay men get married.

Source for that?

[quote]R40: He ruins interesting threads.

A sock with no posting history. In what way do I do that?

OP, how do you know how widespread homosexuality was in Ancient Rome?

When in Rome...

PD's posts are always interesting and informative. He tends to favor sources which think all of the New Testament and large swaths of the Old are complete fiction without any basis in a historical reality, and he might be right, but there's not really enough evidence to say that unequivocally . However, there are enough holes in the traditional stories to make it reasonable to question them. The "winners" in history almost always get to write their history in a way to support their ascendancy and it's reasonable to assume that Jews of the end of the pre-Christian era could do that when they wrote down their scriptures, just as 2nd or 3rd century Christians in Rome could finally write down theirs. I often disagree with PD's opinions, but I always learn from him, and he has clearly devoted a lot of reading and study to these early Christian times. He always posts sources to support his arguments, and I really really appreciate that!

Funny how it's always been an issue of some sort over the last few thousand years. I suppose because it was seen from the perspective of homosexuality never leading to procreation.

I know I'm biased, but the fact that we can come up with all this modern technology yet many still can't accept that human sexuality naturally varies makes my mind boggle.

Veiificatia of sidemeat?

There’s the story of Herod the Great murdering his wife’s brother Aristobulus because Mark Antony wanted to fuck him and he was scared he’d be overthrown.

They all fucked each other. The End.

The real Mark Anthony, lest anyone forget.

Mark Antony facial reconstruction

Caligula facial reconstruction

Cleopatra and Mark Antony

R45 The Hebrews had no issue with being gay. It was forbidding of anal sex because of its contribution to disease spread in a world without condoms, blood tests, and antibiotics. It's given the same level of condemnation as eating shellfish and pork or fucking a woman while she's bleeding. A large portion of Jewish law was just concerned with keeping Jews from dropping dead or diseasing their genitals to the point of infertility or insanity. This is why no Jewish sect other than the fundamentalists still observe it--because it's no longer a relevant concern.

Heterosexuality and Homosexuality as we understand it...an identity....did not exist in the ancient world.

A Roman could put his dick into an orifice of a person who was not his equal...slaves, women, younger males, non-Romans.

Did Roman men engage in same-sex acts with other Roman men of equal status? Probably (I'd venture to answer no doubt, even), but those relationships were not accepted by Roman standards. Indeed, the Romans could be quite puritanical in their attitudes.

The more forceful condemnation of sodomy in the later empire came in equal measure from Stoic philosophy as it did from Christian ideas. Even thereafter, for many centuries men engaging in sex acts with women and younger males was tacitly acknowledged, although sodomy was condemned. The prevailing attitude in medieval and early modern Europe was that anyone could fall into sodomy.

Our notions of a heterosexual majority and homosexual minority developed in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Then, you had the appearance of distinct subcultures in urban settings like London, where there were men who engaged in sex acts exclusively with other men (Mollies).

[quote]R53: The Hebrews had no issue with being gay. It was forbidding of anal sex because of its contribution to disease spread in a world without condoms, blood tests, and antibiotics.

So, that's your expressed opinion of the meaning of Leviticus 18:22/20:13 on 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 thread. Yet on the '𝐖𝐡𝐲 𝐝𝐢𝐝 𝐡𝐨𝐦𝐨𝐬𝐞𝐱𝐮𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐛𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐚 𝐬𝐢𝐧?' thread, back in April of this year, reply 229, you validated Matt A's opinion (see link):

[quote]Also, [R158] is exactly right about the mistranslation of זכר in Leviticus 18 which originally referred to the practice of Pederasty (pedophilia) in this region of the Mediterranean. Its intended meaning was 'young man' or 'male child'.

Asked to support that opinion, at reply 257, you referred me to K. Renato Lings' 'Love Lost in Translation: Homosexuality and the Bible', which you claimed informed your opinion. You further added of Matt A, whom you called "the Hebrew", that "he does appear to know his shit when it comes to Halakhic law and Hebrew grammar, where I suspect you may be out of your depth." (This was something only Matt would say, which was why I held you to be a sock of his. As a proclaimed newcomer to the discussion, you would not have known enough about our respective positions to be able to make that statement. It's an Anscher opinion.)

At reply 261, I recently remarked, "I've since bought and read K. Renato Lings' 'Love Lost in Translation: Homosexuality and the Bible', and it does not support your claim at [R229] about "the mistranslation of זכר in Leviticus 18 which originally referred to the practice of Pederasty (pedophilia) in this region of the Mediterranean." Wherever you got that idea, it didn't come from Lings." I called your bluff about the book. Anscher's opinion (and yours) remains unsourced.

But here, today, at R53, suddenly you've decided to proclaim it was about disease prevention (an absurd claim, since Hebrews of that time knew nothing of disease or its causes, attributing sickness instead to God or spirits), something you're also attributing to other ritual prohibitions in the Holiness Code.

So, which is it? Pedophilia, or disease prevention?

^^oh just STFU you mentally ill freak

[quote]R45 The Hebrews had no issue with being gay. It was forbidding of anal sex because of its contribution to disease spread in a world without condoms, blood tests, and antibiotics.

I don't know about that, R53. The straight male majority was probably creeped out by the thought of having sex with another man and their prejudices show up in the Hebrew Bible. Leviticus was written thousands of years. The Jews of the time had very different priorities. Life expectancy must have been very low. People died from hunger, disease, as victims of war, etc. Women died in childbirth. Many children died of various diseases. The priority then was to marry young and have many children so your tribe or society would survive. Men who had sexual relations with other men did not contribute to these goals.

R57 Halachic law is extremely concerned with hygiene. Over a thousand years before the West linked bacteria with disease, Jewish law mandated the washing of hands before and after every meal, after being in the presence of a corpse, after going to the bathroom, after scratching the head (and in-between haircuts of different people) after touching footwear, before and after all food preparation and handling of animals. Ritual baths were taken after a woman finished bleeding for the month before being allowed to be touched by her husband. Nails were to be trimmed once a week and nail trimmings were to be disposed of immediately afterwards. Nail biting is forbidden as is bringing the hand to the mouth before washing. Men were forbidden from shaving their faces with razor blades. And don't forget circumcision. Jewish dietary laws are a whole other mountain of restrictions.

The halachic obsession with bodily cleanliness and safe, hygienic food preparation (as well as safe and hygienic handling of animals in general) is the reason the Jews of medieval Europe were the only ones to come out of the Black Plague relatively unscathed. Christians, of course, decided that the more logical reason was because they were secretly poisoning the wells of all Christians, and so burned them alive. Then they went back to wiping their asses with their hands.

Homosexual relationships in Ancient Rome were OK as long as you fucked a slave and/or someone much younger and less powerful than yourself. The other way round was considered. Shameful..

R58, that still doesn't mean straight men weren't turned off by gay sex and effeminate gay men, ie any sexual activity between people of the same sex, not just anal intercourse. Maybe straight men were also worried about being sexually assaulted by a person of power. I have a problem with revisionist historians who come to the conclusion that this or that ancient culture had no problems with homosexuality. I seriously doubt there is enough clear information about attitudes toward homosexuality. Maybe some didn't but most probably did. Didn't the ancient Celts drown gay men in marshes? I don't believe in going back to the original text and trying to reinterpret passages that appear to condemn gay men in a positive way. I just take it as a given that the men who wrote the Bible had all kinds of prejudices.

R58, can you link to a source that says the Black Plague had much less of an effect on the Jews of Europe? This is the first time I've heard that.

The celts didn’t sacrifice gay men per se, but these gay men were actually druids with high social standing. that were meant to be the link between both realms, as they were thought to be more in connection with the spirits and the gods. The marshes were sacred places in celtic religions. No real evidence show that human sacrifices performed in the marshes were meant for punishment.

R60 It's a somewhat debated subject amongst historians, as the only remaining written history of Jewish death during this time was that which documented the pogroms of medieval Jews in persecution for the Bubonic Plague (as all of their belongings, including birth, marriage, and death records were either destroyed or looted by the Christians as well). The theory seems to come from the sheer number of Jews that were murdered during this time compared with the estimated populations of their ghettos prior to the plague. I think some historians may doubt the assertion because they feel it could in itself be an antisemitic one. Some biological anthropologists believe there may have been a gene unique to Jews that made them less susceptible to the bacteria responsible for the Black Death.

From JewishHistory.org:

"And even if Jews died at a lesser rate, it can be attributed to the sanitary practices Jewish law. For instance, Jewish law compels one to wash his or her hands many times throughout the day. In the general medieval world a person could go half his or her life without ever washing his hands."

"The sanitary conditions in the Jewish neighborhood, primitive as it may be by today’s standards, was [sic] always far superior to the general sanitary conditions."

Anna Foa, The Jews of Europe After the Black Death (2003):

"There were several reasons for this, including, it has been suggested, the observance of laws of hygiene tied to ritual practices and a lower incidence of alcoholism and venereal disease"

"What we know about the evolution of mortality, indicates that throughout it appears significantly lower than that of the Christian populations. The causes of this more favorable situation — very well documented from the end of the eighteenth century — are certainly many, ranging from compliance with hygiene standards prescribed by religion, rooted in moderate customs for eating and drinking, the low incidence of venereal diseases, and an economic level on average higher than average. "

[quote]R58: Halachic law is extremely concerned with hygiene.

Halakhic law is extremely concerned with ritual purity, not hygiene.

People hearing about the handwashing and ritual baths, the mikveh, assume that these rituals conferred cleanliness. They did not. "Handwashing" was a small amount of water poured over the fingers from a cup, and the mikveh was performed in a cistern from which the water was never changed between baths, only added to as needed to maintain the level of water. Mikveh basins contained greenish-brown water from accumulated dirt and bacteria. Again, the point was to satisfy ritual considerations, not cleanliness.

[quote]The halachic obsession with bodily cleanliness and safe, hygienic food preparation (as well as safe and hygienic handling of animals in general) is the reason the Jews of medieval Europe were the only ones to come out of the Black Plague relatively unscathed.

From a review of '𝐉𝐞𝐰𝐬, 𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐬, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐃𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡,' By Kathryn A. Glatter and Paul Finkelman:

"This is the version of history that many of us heard in Hebrew school. We call it the Jewish cultural exceptionalism hypothesis: Jews were saved from the plague by handwashing, kashrut, and burying their dead quickly—and then were scapegoated and murdered in large numbers by their neighbors due to their relative health...

"None of these or similar claims are scientifically plausible...

"If the Jews avoided this fate at a significantly higher rate than their Christian neighbors, it could not have been because they washed their hands more. No amount of handwashing could have prevented the flea bites through which the disease was spread, and neither would a kosher diet. As for Passover cleaning, rats can eat matza as well as bread, and, in any case, even if they were scared away by a good Passover cleaning, wouldn’t they just come back?

"For these and other reasons, some scholars have concluded that Jews didn’t really survive at higher rates than non-Jews during the plague and that contemporary claims they did were merely paranoid fantasies of medieval anti-Judaism. The cultural anthropologist and physician Leonard Glick, for example, has concluded that “it is likely that [the Jews] were afflicted as much as anyone else.”

[quote]R62: Some biological anthropologists believe there may have been a gene unique to Jews that made them less susceptible to the bacteria responsible for the Black Death.

From the same link:

"We believe that the answer lies in a recessive genetic mutation—familial Mediterranean fever (FMF), which is found mostly in people of Middle Eastern ancestry. In 14th-century Europe, the most prominent and visible group of such people would have been Jews. FMF causes recurrent fevers and painful inflammation of the abdomen, lungs, and joints. However, as a 2020 study at the National Human Genome Research Institute showed, it also makes its carriers resistant to the bubonic plague."

[quote]R58: Then they went back to wiping their asses with their hands.

This was as much a common practice among the Jews as with everyone else in pre-modern times. There are halakha prescribing which hand to use (the non-dominant hand) as well as which fingers of said hand.

[quote]R61: The celts didn’t sacrifice gay men per se, but these gay men were actually druids with high social standing. that were meant to be the link between both realms, as they were thought to be more in connection with the spirits and the gods. The marshes were sacred places in celtic religions. No real evidence show that human sacrifices performed in the marshes were meant for punishment.

Linked support:

I am now fast forwarding through tl:dr posts, and am happily relieved to see practically all are PoDr posts.

^^ R1, R2, R32, R34, and R65.

Bitter.

Where R65 does most of his reading:

[quote]R57: Leviticus was written thousands of years. [ago?]

Relative to us, sure - about two thousand years. But it wasn't written by Moses, and it wasn't written in the Bronze Age.

A lot of books in the bible have tells which reveal they aren't as old as claimed. The Book of Daniel exhibits 𝑝𝑜𝑠𝑡𝑑𝑖𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛, having been written after the events it supposedly predicts. The same thing occurs with the Gospel of Mark, which 𝑝𝑜𝑠𝑡𝑑𝑖𝑐𝑡𝑠 the destruction of the Temple (and the way it does this, in Mark 13, per Hermann Detering, gives away that it was written after the Bar Kochba Revolt, after the first third of the 2nd century). Matthew 18:17's instruction to "tell it to the Church" speaks to a much later period, when a sufficiently organized and empowered church existed (the term 'church' is an anachronism for what's purported to be the time of Jesus). Both Luke and The Acts are dedicated to Theophilus, bishop of Antioch in the late 2nd century. The First Epistle to Timothy 6:20-21 mentions 𝑏𝑦 𝑛𝑎𝑚𝑒 'The Antithesis' - a book written by Marcion of Sinope in the 2nd century.

And Leviticus? At 16:8, it mentions 'Azazel,' a character from the pseudepigraphal Book of Enoch, a fallen angel held responsible for corrupting mankind. This places Leviticus squarely in the company of 1 Enoch and other such 'intertestamental' works (Genesis 6:1-4 has the same dependency). It's not ancient.

be happy podr

Chrissy Metz is a pseudepig!

R69 The fuck is "podr"?

Some blacks and Indians (Asians) delude themselves that POC homos only exist because of debauched, predatory white influence "misleading" their boys.

Fine. Many ancient cultures loved the homos 🙄. Sounds like revisionist history to me.

[quote]R73: Fine. Many ancient cultures loved the homos 🙄. Sounds like revisionist history to me.

To what are you referring, R73?

Poisoned Dragon, it seems like the ancient Hebrews and Celts had no problem with gay men. The former only had problems with anal sex.

And here I thought persecution of gays and lesbians was as old as time.

[quote]R75: The former only had problems with anal sex.

Based on what? Medieval and Renaissance interpretations of Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13? There's nothing about anal sex in those passages.

The Hebrew of Leviticus 18:22 isn't as clear as commonly rendered in English bibles. A word-for-word translation runs something like this: 'And with male not lay/lyings beds of woman; abomination it.' The exact meaning of this is inscrutable, likely that of an idiom now lost to us, in the same way the meaning and context of Deuteronomy 14:21b ('not do boil a young goat milk of his mother') was lost to the medieval rabbis who eventually concluded - almost certainly mistakenly - that it was somehow banning the mixture of meat and dairy products.

Anyone who tells you that Leviticus clearly condemns homosexuality is handing you a load of bull.

Overall, Leviticus chapter 18 is a halakhic meditation¹ on other passages of scripture, specifically Ezekiel 22-23 and Deuteronomy 23:17-18.² The Deuteronomy passage condemns temple functionaries who served the larger Hebrew/Canaanite pantheon, gods besides just YHWH, and Ezekiel chapters 22-23 inveigh against political alliances with nations that worshiped other gods. (In Ezekiel chapters 22-23, the whole spiel from Leviticus 18 is on display - different types of illicit sexual unions, bestiality, and even human sacrifice - for example, compare Ezek.23:37 to Lev.18:21). To the mindset of the Deuteronomist, all such worship was characterized as 'prostitution,' even though there was no literal sexual activity involved; the invective in Deuteronomy and Ezekiel was metaphorical. This was how the 𝘲𝘦𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘮 ('holy ones') of Deut.23.17³ and 1 Kings 14:24 wound up mischaracterized as "shrine prostitutes," which in turn led to the mistaken impression that, since the actors were male, some kind of same-sex sexual activity was in view. The Leviticus passages are really an abstruse prohibition of idolatry. Nothing about them has anything to do with homosexuality.

And "abomination"? The Hebrew word 'tō-w-‘ê-ḇāh' merely denotes a ceremonial or ritual taboo which one must avoid in order to remain a Jew in good standing. It's most typically used of idolatry (Deuteronomy 7:26), but can also mean a violation of the Jewish dietary laws (Deuteronomy 14:3). Practices labeled 'abomination' were characterized as being done by gentiles, hence impure or unclean.

¹ Halakhic commentary is where sages studied passages of scripture (in this case, Ezekiel 22-23 and Deuteronomy 23:17-18), and articulated what they felt were the issues as discrete laws. The overall effect was to translate what had been metaphorical language (for example, Ezekiel 23:20) into a literal precept (Leviticus 18:23).

² How can Leviticus be commentary upon Deuteronomy and especially Ezekiel? Because books of the bible were not composed in the order in which they are placed, nor were they written by those to whom they are attributed. Leviticus is a priestly work from as late as the 1st century BCE/CE, as much an unrealized hypothetical as Ezekiel's temple; its precepts were never actually put into practice, until much later, when Rabbinic Judaism placed the book among the writings of Moses, the Torah, when it began to be read, memorized, and recited by Jews.

³ Deuteronomy 23:17-18: "“None of the daughters of Israel shall be a 𝘲𝘦𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘢𝘩 ('holy one,' feminine), and none of the sons of Israel shall be a 𝘲𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘴 ('holy one,' male). You shall not bring the fee of a prostitute or the wages of a dog into the house of YHWH your God in payment for any vow, for both of these are an abomination to YHWH your God.'" Again, it bears repeating that the only sense in which the 'holy ones' were "prostitutes" was metaphorical, the Deuteronomists' way of referring to idolatry or of political alliances with nations considered idolators.

Could you repeat that please, PoDr?

[quote]Some blacks and Indians (Asians) delude themselves that POC homos only exist because of debauched, predatory white influence "misleading" their boys.

It is total delusion, even hypocrisy, because these are the communities where sexual abuse of boys tends to be much more frequent than in white communities. Perhaps they meant living life as openly homosexual that certainly came as white liberal influence. They don’t consider down low or predatory behavior towards minors as homosexuality.

Dr Idan Dershowitz has identified peculiarities in the wording of Leviticus 18 sexual prohibitions which seem indicative of redaction, of an editorial hand, adding commentary, as well as altering the gender of whose nakedness is being uncovered, in Leviticus 18:7 and 18:14:

[quote]Lev 18:7 The nakedness of your father and the nakedness of your mother, you shall not uncover; she is your mother — you shall not uncover her nakedness.

[quote]Lev 18:14 The nakedness of your father’s brother you shall not uncover: do not approach his wife; she is your aunt.

Both of these passages began with a prohibition of same-sex incest, then an editor altered the gender of what's being prohibited. But why would prohibitions of same-sex incest be significant? Because it implies that same-sex relations with non-relatives might not originally have been prohibited.

Dershowitz remarks:

"The reason why a redactor might have adjusted the meaning here is clear: Forbidding a man from having sex with his father and his uncle implies that sex with other men is not forbidden. The logic at play is “the exception proves the rule.” In other words, the presence of a specific exception betrays the existence of a general rule.[16]

"The parallel Talmudic term is מכלל לאו אתה שומע הן: Out of a “no” you hear a “yes.”[17] If sex is forbidden with one’s father and uncle, that could be taken to mean that it is permitted with other men. In fact, this is what scholars deduce from the Hittite prohibition against sex with one’s son. Thus, as Harry Hoffner notes:

"A man who sodomizes his son is guilty of ḫurkel because his partner is his son, not because they are of the same sex. […] [It] would appear that homosexuality was not outlawed among the Hittites.[18]"

𝐑𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐋𝐢𝐬𝐭

"But if this is what the original versions of the father and uncle prohibitions in Leviticus 18 imply, then it would be in tension with the categorical prohibition later in the chapter against male-male sex:

ויקרא יח:כבוְאֶת זָכָר לֹא תִשְׁכַּב מִשְׁכְּבֵי אִשָּׁה תּוֹעֵבָה הִוא.

Lev 18:22 You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a woman; it is an abhorrence.[19]

The verse prohibiting male-male intercourse is not part of the core “uncovering nakedness” list (vv. 7–17) and was likely added at the same time that the core list was revised with the expansions.

"In the process of rewriting and expanding the original list of terse dicta, the redactor decided to eliminate the two injunctions against male same-sex intercourse by “clarifying” that they refer to females, not males, thus bringing the unit in line with the new material. Only heterosexual pairs were now included in the list of forbidden unions, and the categorical prohibitions of male homosexual intercourse no longer faced internal competition.

𝐒𝐞𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐜 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐑𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐞𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐇𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐑𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧

"The core text upon which the expanded Leviticus 18 is built lacked any categorical prohibition against male-male relations. Instead, it merely listed two examples of such pairings that it forbade as incestuous.

"But when the Holiness editor decided to include this ancient list in his text, the singling out of certain male-male pairings as forbidden became problematic, as it suggested that other male couplings might be sanctioned. Rather than remove the offending laws, however, he supplemented and reinterpreted the existing text, to bring the list in line with this school’s new prescription of male homosexual intercourse.

"This revision changed the meaning of the text while at the same time complicating the semantics of the phrase, “uncover nakedness.” One can hardly overstate the impact that this editor had upon sexual laws and norms in the Judeo-Christian world and beyond."

If this is correct, Leviticus 18:22 can be seen as an interpolation, not a part of the original text.

Dershowitz offers a recreation of what the original passage of Leviticus 18 said:

The nakedness of your father and the nakedness of your mother you shall not uncover.

The nakedness of your father’s wife you shall not uncover.

The nakedness of your sister you shall not uncover.

The nakedness of your son’s daughter or your daughter’s daughter you shall not uncover.

The nakedness of the daughter of your father’s wife you shall not uncover.

The nakedness of your father’s sister you shall not uncover.

The nakedness of your mother’s sister you shall not uncover.

The nakedness of your father’s brother you shall not uncover.

The nakedness of your daughter-in-law you shall not uncover.

The nakedness of your brother’s wife you shall not uncover.

The nakedness of a woman and her daughter you shall not uncover.

Does someone need a Blog?

Well, it would probably be an interesting Blog, but regardless, I'm glad PoisonedDragon still posts here r82. You could probably learn something if you allowed yourself to do that.

I'm going to open a Fresca.

I'm as liberal as can be but even I want to put a firecracker up PoisonedDragons ass and blow his body parts to oblivion. JFC what an exhausting cunt.

R85 I agree! He tried to argue with me when I said that the Sabbath is usually Sunday in the West. Fucking freak.

Sorry, Poisoned Dragon / R77. I don't think it's a huge leap to interpret that passage as a man shall not lie with another man as he lies with a woman. It's an abomination. It wouldn't surprise me if the person or people who wrote that passage thought of homosexuality as a serious sexual perversion. I truly don't understand why some people use the approach that every passage in the Bible must be correct and you have to use tortured, elaborate linguistic arguments to reinterpret them in a gay positive way. The Bible didn't fall from heaven fully written. It was written by men so why can't it be full of the prejudices of the time and the societies these men lived in? We understand slavery is immoral. I'll bet most ancient cultures accepted slavery as a fact of life and never questioned its morality. We know some people suffer epileptic fits and the reasons behind it. A person from ancient times would probably think the epileptic was being possessed by a demon. Too many people are so invested in the Bible being perfect and without errors and think the Bible should never be questioned. They really take the Holy Scriptures thing very seriously. I completely disagree with that attitude.

Fucking Christians and theologians just seem to endlessly engage in casuistry to try to convince people of how they want to read the Bible.

How about all of them understand that the Bible is bullshit and is man-made fiction of its time.

[quote]How about all of them understand that the Bible is bullshit and is man-made fiction of its time.

That's basically my attitude, R88.

I guess when you question one passage in the Bible, then it's like pulling on a thread and having the whole thing unravel. So many people want to believe every passage in the entire Bible is valid.

It's all about authority. God forbid (no pun intended) that a person should study a moral issue and come up with his own opinion, based upon common sense, knowledge of biology and psychology, logic, compassion, comparisons with the animal kingdom, etc. No, the right or wrong of a moral issue has to be based upon authority, and for Jews, Christians, and to a much lesser extent, Muslims, the Bible provides that authority. But as we have already learned, the Bible verses used to justify discrimination towards and criminalizing of homosexuality are very obscure in the original Hebrew, and no one knows what the hell they actually mean. However, people get around that by claiming inerrancy. God would never allow his words to be mistranslated, thus translators into modern languages were divinely inspired to make up shit that wasn't in the original text. (Never mind that the translations in different versions don't agree with one another.

[quote]But as we have already learned, the Bible verses used to justify discrimination towards and criminalizing of homosexuality are very obscure in the original Hebrew, and no one knows what the hell they actually mean. However, people get around that by claiming inerrancy. God would never allow his words to be mistranslated, thus translators into modern languages were divinely inspired to make up shit that wasn't in the original text. (Never mind that the translations in different versions don't agree with one another.

You seem to still believe that the Bible is some kind of God-authorized or written thing. It's not.

The sin of Sodom was inhospitality toward the visiting strangers (the angels) not homosexuality.

Furthermore, angels are sexless.

r91, I think you misunderstood my post completely. Please reread my second sentence. I'm trying to explain WHY various groups turn towards the Bible as a source for moral guidance and refuse to look at alternative ways to create a moral landscape. I'm not justifying that use of the Bible at ALL.

[quote]R86: He tried to argue with me when I said that the Sabbath is usually Sunday in the West. Fucking freak.

That was in '𝐋𝐞𝐭’𝐬 𝐛𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐢𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐂𝐡𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐚𝐧𝐬 𝐢𝐠𝐧𝐨𝐫𝐞.' It was an exchange that you lost. You posted replies 60 and 64; you said nothing whatsoever about "in the West."

[quote]Reply 60: How many Christians work on Sundays or use other people's labor on Sundays? That's forbidden.

I responded:

[quote]Reply 61: the 4th Commandment prohibits breaking the Sabbath. Where/when was the Sabbath changed to Sunday?

[quote]Reply 64, you: Sabbath, Sunday, whatever you want to call it, dimwit. "According to the Book of Exodus, the Sabbath is a day of rest on the seventh day, commanded by God to be kept as a holy day of rest." What's the seventh day in our culture that Christian churches use as the Sabbath? That's Sunday.

[quote]Reply 72, me: Look at your calendar. Sunday is the first day of the week, and Saturday is the seventh. Pretty much only the Puritans tried to call Sunday the 'Sabbath'; most of the rest of the denominations argue some form of saying that the Sabbath was abrogated by Christ ('tho they cannot identify where and how this took place, scripturally).

Did you ever bother to look at the calendar? I'm guessing not.

What Christians observe is not the Sabbath (Saturday), but what they call "The Lord's Day" (Sunday). And there is no equivalent 'commandment' in Christianity not to work on 'The Lord's Day'; in fact, Christians accused Jews of 'idleness' for not working on the Sabbath. And I pointed out, only sectarians like the Puritans called Sunday the Sabbath, something more the exception than the rule. It didn't take.

I'm surprised you're still crying about it. Namecalling doesn't help your argument. You should have looked it up and learned about it before bringing it up again.

Poisoned Dragon refuses to see the reality of how the Sabbath is typically interpreted and practised in the West. He's typical of theologians and Christians who can twist anything in the Bible to mean anything they want.

[quote]R87: Sorry, Poisoned Dragon / [R77]. I don't think it's a huge leap to interpret that passage as a man shall not lie with another man as he lies with a woman. It's an abomination. It wouldn't surprise me if the person or people who wrote that passage thought of homosexuality as a serious sexual perversion.

[quote]I truly don't understand why some people use the approach that every passage in the Bible must be correct... The Bible didn't fall from heaven fully written... Too many people are so invested in the Bible being perfect and without errors and think the Bible should never be questioned. They really take the Holy Scriptures thing very seriously.

None of that has ever been my argument. Like menluvinguy observes, "I think you misunderstood my post completely." It seems instead that it's you that needs the bible to mean exactly how it appears to read. It's what you've been arguing, and the more I try to demonstrate that the texts don't mean what believers claim, that they've been altered, and it's unsuitable as a guide for living, the more infuriated you seem to get. You're gaslighting about what's being said here.

[quote]R95: Poisoned Dragon refuses to see the reality of how the Sabbath is typically interpreted and practised in the West. He's typical of theologians and Christians who can twist anything in the Bible to mean anything they want.

No, babe. Read the Wiki article I linked.

I'm not a Christian, or a believer of any sort. Nor can I be smeared as such. I'm an antitheist.

You know, if you wanted to show that what you're claiming is the truth, you could find a source and link it. You could cite the passages from the bible which you think support your point of view.

[quote]R93/menluvinguy: I think you misunderstood my post completely. Please reread my second sentence. I'm trying to explain WHY various groups turn towards the Bible as a source for moral guidance and refuse to look at alternative ways to create a moral landscape. I'm not justifying that use of the Bible at ALL.

I'm pretty sure this is the same account which stormed the '𝐅𝐨𝐫 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐲 𝐍𝐞𝐫𝐝𝐬 𝐎𝐧𝐥𝐲' thread (replies 50, 52, 54, 57, 59, 62, 63, and 66), screaming that I was a Christian, a believer in Jesus Christ, and insisting that there's no such thing as Christ Mythicism, that I was making it all up (even in the face of a linked source). Pretending that we're arguing in favor of belief is an established part of this sock's shtick.

R97 Wiki?

Poisoned Dragon / R96, I'm familiar with your linguistic arguments. I've read books about them.

No one is trying to gaslight anyone. You have an overactive imagination. Too bad you have no imagination when it comes to looking beyond your linguistic arguments.

Of course, we can't be 100% sure of what the author of the Leviticus passage was really saying. We'd have to travel back in time and interview him to be certain.

But, Poisoned Dragon, can you explain to me why it's impossible that modern translations of that Leviticus passage are very close to what the original author intended and why it's impossible that the priest(s), or whoever it was that wrote that passage, were very homophobic? I'm positive you can't because those are distinct possibilities.

Poisoned Dragon, you're as invested in your linguistic arguments as some people are in the Bible being the inerrant word of god.

R101 I can't see what Poisoned Dragon is writing as I've had him blocked for some time, but I think you need to understand that for Jews, interpretation of the Hebrew bible is not some static, one-and-done thing like it is for Christians and Muslims with their respective holy texts. Talmudic sages and scholars have spent millenia debating interpretations of the tanakh and that will never end. One of the foundational Jewish principles is "argument for the sake of heaven"—debate for the well-intentioned pursuit of truth. Not arguing to be right, but to seek truth. This is where the old saying, "Ask two rabbis a question, get three answers" comes from. Judaism is as much a progressive, living religion as it is one of tradition. It would be anathema to a Jew to say "this is exactly what this scripture means—what it has always meant, and will always mean". Jews (perhaps with the exception of fundamentalists) understand that God never meant for humans or society to stop evolving and for things to remain exactly as they were when the tanakh was written. So how those verses were interpreted thousands of years ago does not and should not define how they're interpreted now. They believe God wants them to continually question the way our own biases and social/moral frameworks are reflected back to us through our interpretations, and to challenge that with healthy debate.

Does that make any sense?

Well, maybe not in theory but certainly in practice Christianity has been pretty damn argumentative about the Bible r102. I think Islam has been too, but I know much more about the history of Christianity, and there is no end to arguing about pretty much everything. Of course, you throw four gospels together plus a whole lot of other mess and then start looking for this or that Old Testament prophecy to "interpet" them all, you're just begging for a lot of "heresies." And that's before you start inventing all sorts of crazy ass doctrines about Trinities and dual natures and the exact nature of the Virgin Mary.

[quote]R99/pristine sock: Wiki?—ffs what a tool

What's your issue with Wikipedia? Its articles are as sound as its sources. The article I linked is based upon 120 footnoted sources.

Typically, the ones who have always had the most grievance against Wikipedia have been fundamentalist Christians and those who hold unsupported views (i.e. anti-climate science, antivaxxers, etc) over the fact that it contradicts their special worldviews.

[quote]R100: I'm familiar with your linguistic arguments. I've read books about them.

I sincerely doubt that, since, if you had, your arguments would reflect a grasp of them.

[quote]No one is trying to gaslight anyone. You have an overactive imagination.

The gaslighting is you attempting to misrepresent me as a religious fundamentalist supporting the bible. You've also done it to menluvginguy.

[quote]Too bad you have no imagination when it comes to looking beyond your linguistic arguments.

It's not my responsibility to try to 'imagine' other arguments. Rather, it's incumbent upon you to present them, which you haven't - other than to claim that the passages mean what conservative believers have insisted they mean.

[quote]Of course, we can't be 100% sure of what the author of the Leviticus passage was really saying.

I haven't evinced anything like 'certainty.' I've only presented some of the various possibilities offered by what critical scholarship has demonstrated about Leviticus and the passages in it. All you've done is ridicule them and insist that the passages mean only what conservative Christians say they mean, without offering support for those views.

[quote]We'd have to travel back in time and interview him to be certain.

You seem pretty sure that that would be one person, and since you characterize the book as ancient (R57, "Leviticus was written thousands of years") , you probably think it was written by Moses in the late Bronze Age, even though critical scholarship has demonstrated that's not the case.

[quote]But, Poisoned Dragon, can you explain to me why it's impossible that modern translations of that Leviticus passage are very close to what the original author intended and why it's impossible that the priest(s), or whoever it was that wrote that passage, were very homophobic? I'm positive you can't because those are distinct possibilities.

I have already shown, in arguments that you've never indicated that you've even read, much less engaged, that it's highly unlikely. There's no 'contemporary' evidence for the homophobia you're claiming, regardless of when one thinks Leviticus was written, in the late Bronze Age, or on the cusp of the Common Era. Scholarship has shown how interpretations slowly evolved, century by century, until medieval expositors eventually reached the homophobic viewpoint to which you allude. It's just not an ancient view. And critical scholarship has demonstrated that Leviticus has been altered by scribes, so you cannot claim that "modern translations" reflect what an ostensible "original author" wrote.

[quote]R87: I truly don't understand why some people use the approach that every passage in the Bible must be correct... Too many people are so invested in the Bible being perfect and without errors and think the Bible should never be questioned... R89: So many people want to believe every passage in the entire Bible is valid...

And yet, incredibly, that's been the basis of your argument.

[quote]R101: Poisoned Dragon, you're as invested in your linguistic arguments as some people are in the Bible being the inerrant word of god.

See? Gaslighting. I'm not the one arguing biblical inerrancy here. That would be you.

What you characterize as my "linguistic arguments" comes from critical scholarship. If you want to engage that, you're going to have to wade into the actual arguments, which so far you have not done. Why don't you start with Dr Idan Dershowitz, at R80/R81?

[quote]I have already shown, in arguments that you've never indicated that you've even read, much less engaged, that it's highly unlikely. There's no 'contemporary' evidence for the homophobia you're claiming, regardless of when one thinks Leviticus was written, in the late Bronze Age, or on the cusp of the Common Era. Scholarship has shown how interpretations slowly evolved, century by century, until medieval expositors eventually reached the homophobic viewpoint to which you allude. It's just not an ancient view.

You have got to be joking, Poisoned Dragon. We don't even know when the passage in Leviticus was written. Whatever era it was written, I'm sure there is tons of detailed literature about contemporary attitudes toward homosexuality. You like to make these pronouncements about things you can't possibly know.

[quote]I sincerely doubt that, since, if you had, your arguments would reflect a grasp of them.

I have read them and I don't buy them, Poisoned Dragon. I'm sure your head exploded right now. How could anyone dare question your precious linguistic arguments?

[quote]It's not my responsibility to try to 'imagine' other arguments. Rather, it's incumbent upon you to present them, which you haven't - other than to claim that the passages mean what conservative believers have insisted they mean.

I have presented other arguments. I have mentioned that ancient cultures had unenlightened attitudes about slavery but to you it's impossible that they had a strong prejudice against homosexual behaviour. There are all kinds of attitudes in the Bible that we find offensive, eg that the husband is the master of the house and his wife should obey him. I think most people today would say that it should be an equal partnership. But heaven forbid the ancient Hebrews were prejudiced against men who had sex with men. That's impossible in your world.

[quote]There's no 'contemporary' evidence for the homophobia you're claiming, regardless of when one thinks Leviticus was written, in the late Bronze Age, or on the cusp of the Common Era. Scholarship has shown how interpretations slowly evolved, century by century, until medieval expositors eventually reached the homophobic viewpoint to which you allude.

Maybe that's because most of the literature didn't survive to this day. Isn't that possible, Poisoned Dragon?

[quote]See? Gaslighting. I'm not the one arguing biblical inerrancy here. That would be you.

What are you talking about, Poisoned Dragon? I'm an atheist. I sure as heck don't think of the Bible as the inerrant word of God. I sure as heck don't think God was speaking through the men writing the Bible. I don't believe in God. I'm saying that the authors were pouring their prejudices and those of the society they lived in into their writing. That's a valid point of view. the Bible is full of cultural attitudes that people today find distasteful. If you disagree with me, you're just plain wrong.

The only good thing I can say about Poisoned Dragon is that he primarily restricts himself to the religious threads and doesn't infect others. He is a sad, sad case of a life gone by. Terrible. It's over for him.

Obviously someone was getting some in the Church.

R111 He stinks up Star Trek threads as well.

Just FYI, there is still Homosexuality all throughout Rome. This is from Roma Pride this past June. I lived in NYC for a long time and Rome's Pride parade reminds me of the ones in NYC back in the 90s when the parade hit 14th St. and wound it's way through the village. The Rome Pride parade is VERY long. It comes from Piazza Repubblica up into Esquilino and down past the colosseum, trough the Roman forum to Piazza Venezia. Everyone can join and walk along the route. It feels like a huge party.

I love this hot daddy here who was enjoying the parade much more than his wife and two sons that he brought with him. They are like what did Dad drag us too? I wonder what great times Dad is remembering.

[quote]R106: We don't even know when the passage in Leviticus was written.

Perhaps 𝑦𝑜𝑢 don't, but critical scholars have a pretty good idea when. Leviticus itself is helpful in that regard, as I pointed out at R68.

[quote]Whatever era it was written, I'm sure there is tons of detailed literature about contemporary attitudes toward homosexuality.

There is! In the law codes of the ancient Near East, there is no blanket condemnation of homosexuality. 𝐼𝑓 Leviticus 18 did not already exhibit signs of alteration surrounding 18:22, 𝑖𝑓 the current version were original, and 𝑖𝑓 it meant what you and conservative Christians claim it does, it would be utterly unique.

[quote]You like to make these pronouncements about things you can't possibly know.

𝑌𝑜𝑢 make pronouncements about things 𝑦𝑜𝑢 can't possibly know. I offer evidence.

[quote]I have read them and I don't buy them, Poisoned Dragon. I'm sure your head exploded right now.

"I don't buy them" is not an argument. Nor do I care whether you do or not. I have no burden to convince you. You're trolling with the least amount of effort; just phoning it in.

You're incapable of 'exploding my head.' I don't do outrage.

[quote]I have presented other arguments.

What you've proposed amounts to nothing more than 'evangelical Christians are right,' without any support at all.

[quote]There are all kinds of attitudes in the Bible that we find offensive, eg that the husband is the master of the house and his wife should obey him.

Yes, in New Testament pseudepigrapha, anonymous material written well outside the period of claimed authorship, late 2nd century/early 3rd century. If that's all you can compare Leviticus to, then you're not making the point that you think you are.

[quote]But heaven forbid the ancient Hebrews were prejudiced against men who had sex with men.

Not only are there obvious signs of textual tampering with Leviticus, but 18:22 and 20:13 are the only examples of their kind, the barest minimum to constitute 'in the mouth of two witnesses.' If the passages were genuine, there would be more references speaking to a larger tradition with this issue. But there aren't.

[quote]R109: Maybe that's because most of the literature didn't survive to this day. Isn't that possible, Poisoned Dragon?

If, as you claim, it was supported by a robust homophobic tradition, that would be highly unlikely; it would have been propagated. You remind me of fundamentalists who, confronted by the lack of attestation for Moses in Egyptian records, claim he was deliberately erased, rather than the truth, that he never existed to begin with.

The amount of people joining the parade all the way is massive. That's why I shake my head when people say gays are closeted in Rome. Not the case. There are just a lot gay guys, and a ton who ARE closeted on top of that. The Roman men now are definitely more Roman in their thinking than Catholic when it comes to sexual activity with other men. And much like NYC in America, Romans see themselves FIRST as Roman and second as Italian. They are very proud of their pre-catholicism roots.

^ BTW I am standing in Parco del Colle Oppio taking the video - the site of the beginning of Nero's Golden Palace, part of which was torn down to build the Colosseum. Also the site of some of the most debauched crazy orgies that Rome had ever seen and basically the area where he stood and watched Rome burn. Nero is rumored to not just be into sex with men, but straight up Gay - he had at least two public weddings where he got married to man - One taking the role of the Groom and the other taking the role of the Bride.

Good heavens, Poisoned Dragon. You are the world's most pompous, tiresome, conceited pedant. Since you're so full of yourself, why don't you write a book about the subject. I'm sure it will be universally acclaimed as the most brilliant book ever written on the topic. Or maybe not.

R119 And NOW I'm remembering why I had him blocked!

And now for something completely different...

An extremely bitter user, running at least five socks on this thread, all saying essentially the same thing, using ad hominem and death threats (R40, R85), none of them actually engaging the arguments. There's the Anscher sock who, on another thread, tried to bluff me out on Lings' book (as explained at R55), who began pushing Jewish exceptionalism here regarding the Plague at R53 and R58 ("Christians... went back to wiping their asses with their hands" is classic Anscher); at R60, another sock asks R58, "can you link to a source that says the Black Plague had much less of an effect on the Jews of Europe? This is the first time I've heard that."

In my opinion, these are all Anscher, who is otherwise holding back from using his prime account, with his usual mode of attack, boasting about being a natural speaker of Hebrew, posting his tagline, "Stick with Xtian topics. You'll look less like a complete idiot," and signing it —Vayikra 18:22. Any discussion of Leviticus 18:22 always draws him out. He thinks he owns it.

Poisoned Dragon, you may have studied many things related to religion and history but it's extremely obvious you have no common sense. You suffer from "I'm always right" syndrome, like Margaret Thatcher.

Scholars have a good idea when Leviticus was written, do they Poisoned Dragon? How do we know that the laws mentioned in Leviticus weren't passed down orally from one generation to the next long before they were written down? Didn't you mention upthread that parts of the Bible may be significantly newer than originally thought? So much for the accuracy of dating ancient writings. I wish you wouldn't contradict yourself, Poisoned Dragon. It makes you sound unreliable.

[quote]You're trolling with the least amount of effort; just phoning it in.

Oh dear, Poisoned Dragon. I see you have no idea when someone is actually trolling. That's a shame.

[quote]There are all kinds of attitudes in the Bible that we find offensive, eg that the husband is the master of the house and his wife should obey him.

[quote]Yes, in New Testament pseudepigrapha, anonymous material written well outside the period of claimed authorship, late 2nd century/early 3rd century. If that's all you can compare Leviticus to, then you're not making the point that you think you are.

Are you going to try to tell me that the society of the ancient Hebrews wasn't strongly patriarchal? Are you going to say something like that with a straight face ---- that women were empowered and were the equals of men?

[quote]There is! In the law codes of the ancient Near East, there is no blanket condemnation of homosexuality.

Are you talking about cultures other than the Hebrews in the ancient Near East? If so, why would you assume their law codes apply to the Hebrews?

True, R114, but the acceptance of gays and lesbians isn't the same in Rome as it is in the Netherlands or Scandinavia. Italians have a ways to go.

[quote]R119 And NOW I'm remembering why I had him blocked!

True, R120. Too bad there aren't other expert theologians on here who point out his mistakes. That would be entertaining. Or maybe there have been and they've figured out arguing with Poisoned Dragon is pointless.

So you're saying all reputable Biblical scholars are in agreement, Poisoned Dragon? They all buy the linguistic arguments and none of them think there is real homophobia behind the Biblical passages Christian evangelicals like to quote when condemning homosexuality? Interesting (and hard to believe).

It's kinda gay to force everyone to be straight. No, it's a closet case mass cover up.

No it can't be that. I still don't know.

Did anyone find out the root cause of biblical homophobia?

Therer isn't any biblical homophobia. It is all bad translation, dumbing down to children's level and trying to make a wildly inconsistent immoral stories consistent by dishonest translators.

Ok. What were they meaning to say?

Maybe Emperor Constantine, maybe the Popes, maybe this or that. Would have been nice if it wasn't poorly translated and full on accepted gays.

THey did fully accept gays. All sorts of Old Testament figures were full on gay.

Rome if you want to, Rome around the world

The original passage in Leviticus was "A man may lie with a man, as he does with a woman. It's perfectly acceptable. We ancient Hebrews love the gays."

Those devious medieval Christians gave it the opposite meaning. Never trust a Christian.

Israel got its name from a night of man-sex of Jacob with a male angel.

And the line in Genesis that supposedly defines marriage as between man and woman (no it doesn't "define" anything) actually used the Hebrew plural for woman i.e. polygamy.

[quote]R123: it's extremely obvious you have no common sense. You suffer from "I'm always right" syndrome, like Margaret Thatcher.

Ad hominem, and inaccurate. I've never claimed to be right, or evinced the kind of certainty others claim.

[quote]R124: How do we know that the laws mentioned in Leviticus weren't passed down orally from one generation to the next long before they were written down?

What evidence have you for that? (That's truly a new one on me; claims of "oral tradition" are usually deployed on behalf of the gospels, not for any part of the Torah. Christians have proposed it in order to bridge the evident decades between the purported ministry and death of Jesus and the 𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑢𝑠 𝑎 𝑞𝑢𝑜 of the earliest gospel, which Christian scholars have conceded must be at least 70 CE - but which critical scholars know was far later than that.)

[quote]Didn't you mention upthread that parts of the Bible may be significantly newer than originally thought? So much for the accuracy of dating ancient writings. I wish you wouldn't contradict yourself, Poisoned Dragon. It makes you sound unreliable.

There was no contradiction. You completely misunderstand what I was saying - or are deliberately misrepresenting it.

[quote]R126: Are you going to try to tell me that the society of the ancient Hebrews wasn't strongly patriarchal? Are you going to say something like that with a straight face ---- that women were empowered and were the equals of men?

No, that wasn't what I was saying. I was discussing the New Testament (you know, the Testament that insists women must be silent and obey men), not "the society of the ancient Hebrews." No non-sequiturs, if you please.

[quote]R127: Are you talking about cultures other than the Hebrews in the ancient Near East? If so, why would you assume their law codes apply to the Hebrews?

"The Hebrews" did not develop in a vacuum, but were influenced by surrounding cultures. In fact, Hebrews and Canaanites had a shared ethnicity, language, culture, and religion until quite late, around the time Rome took over.

[quote]R130: So you're saying all reputable Biblical scholars are in agreement, Poisoned Dragon? They all buy the linguistic arguments and none of them think there is real homophobia behind the Biblical passages Christian evangelicals like to quote when condemning homosexuality? Interesting (and hard to believe).

Nope. I've never claimed that. Stop wasting my time with nonsense.

What would be a "reputable Biblical scholar," though? Almost all "biblical scholarship" is faith-based, with a single objective: validating the views of believers. Critical scholarship is preferable.

[quote]How do we know that the laws mentioned in Leviticus weren't passed down orally from one generation to the next long before they were written down?

[quote]What evidence have you for that?

If the Iliad was passed down orally before it was written, why couldn't the laws in Leviticus have been? I assume the ancient Hebrews had priests before they had a written language.

Stop wasting your time? That's very funny. I see you have tons of times to argue with everybody.

Sir, this is a Wendy's...

[quote]R142: If the Iliad was passed down orally before it was written, why couldn't the laws in Leviticus have been?

What is the actual evidence that the Iliad was passed down by oral tradition, except as a saving throw by scholars to try to propose a link between the Bronze Age destruction of Troy and the supposed writing of the epic (generally placed in the 6th century BCE - but, like most of these things, probably much later)? One cannot overestimate the need of classical scholars for some part of the epic to reflect at least something of what happened.

[quote]I assume the ancient Hebrews had priests before they had a written language.

What "ancient Hebrews"? You mean, from when they were Canaanites, with a larger Canaanite pantheon, of which Yahweh was only one of the Seventy Sons of El, and had consorts? Leviticus wasn't around then; as late as the middle of the 2nd century BCE, the Jews were still polytheists practicing human sacrifice. A full stop wasn't put to human sacrifice until Rome assumed charge.

[quote]Stop wasting your time? That's very funny. I see you have tons of times to argue with everybody.

I spend a couple of hours here and there, every other day or so, with intermittent breaks of a few days. Thanksgiving is nearly here; I'm about to be quite busy.

I have lived in the center of Rome for nearly two years.

You can say what you want about the pride parade (and you’re not lying, it is HUGE) but gay men here are NOT out and proud. Most say they’re “bisex”. And many have fetishes (feet, spit, slapping). Some are super clean. Some smell like dogs.

Most are fucking gorgeous and horny.

But

It is like 1995 America here for gays.

The truth.

I agree with you R145. I lived in Rome as well. I was just referencing previous threads that mentioned how repressed Gays were in Italy in general. It is curious how MANY guys have foot fetishes here. It's like a thing. I always equate to growing up seeing all of these beautifully carved male statues. The first thing you see really as a kid are these beautifully articulated male feet at face level. Would you also say that men in general see more comfortable with sexual activity between men as compared to the US? There doesn't seem to be a gay panic over it here and most guys seem to appreciate male beauty and checking each other out. The standard of beauty in Italy seems to be male beauty. I always say the men are prettier than the women and the woman and stronger than the men.

What part of Rome are you in R145? I lived there for two and half years and I just recently moved to Florence.

Sodom was not about gays. ANd it certainly wasn't a moral story what with Lot's daughters drugging and raping him to reproduce.

Meanwhile Lot's wife just looks in the wrong direction and gets turned to a pillar of sale. Not a moral god at all. Also the verb "to know" in the Bible doesn't always or even usually mean sex.

Oh okay. So now you're an expert on the Iliad. You never cease to amaze me, Poisoned Dragon / R144.

Here you go, Poisoned Dragon. I'm sure these people are much greater experts on the Iliad than a pretend know-it-all such as yourself. One of them mentions the Iliad being passed down orally before being written down. I can't be bothered to listen to the whole program to find out exactly where.

Don't ignore my post at R138, Poisoned Dragon. According to you, that's how things really went down.

[quote]R126: Are you going to try to tell me that the society of the ancient Hebrews wasn't strongly patriarchal? Are you going to say something like that with a straight face ---- that women were empowered and were the equals of men?

[quote]No, that wasn't what I was saying. I was discussing the New Testament (you know, the Testament that insists women must be silent and obey men), not "the society of the ancient Hebrews." No non-sequiturs, if you please.

And the Hebrews at the time of Leviticus had the same strongly patriarchal society, one that we would find unacceptable. You really don't have any common sense, Poisoned Dragon.

R141 Two sentences in I knew is was PD. They find a problem with everything. They love to fight. There's nothing to win.

I wonder if a good therapeutic psychedelic trip would bring them happiness.

Lol, R151. He is a character all right. Arguing with him is pointless and I definitely don't have the detailed knowledge on this subject to catch him when he says something blatantly wrong. The part about Hebrews being polytheists and into human sacrifice was interesting though.

Well teh Bible clearly condones slavery and the persecution of women. But it doesn't say anything of this against gays? Why? Because it had no significance to them.

R152 I think he'd be alright if he didn't take offense to everything. He's so antagonistic and ready on the defense. It's like chill, homie.Lower that blood pressure.

I wouldn't say persecution of women, R153. Just a very old fashioned society where women are responsible for cooking, cleaning, looking after the children and keeping their husbands happy in the bedroom. Men would make all the important decisions. I once saw a documentary about rural Afghanistan. The husband was addicted to opium but he would still make all the decisions for his family because he was a man. I wonder if it would have been the same for Hebrew society thousands of years ago. The husband would make all the decisions regardless of how unfit he was to do so.

A question for r145 and r146. Are there any gay bars in Italy. I've visited a few times, Florence, Venice, and Rome and never could find one. There was one in Florence listed on some website, but it turned out to be an abandoned warehouse. It has been a few years, so maybe that has changed. Or maybe it is just not part of that scene, or maybe it's a bit more underground. If you go to this bar on this night you'll see other gay men.

Anyway, are there gay bars in the American sense?

[quote]Are there any gay bars in Italy.

Yes, R156 there are a lot of them. There are gay bars and dance clubs. And oddly enough, there are more Gay bath houses in Rome than there are in NYC. Romans still are infatuated with the idea of Baths. There were about three sex clubs within a 10 minute walking distance from where I lived. Half the gay parties in Rome it seemed like you had to strip down to your underwear to enter. There is Censured Club which is listed on google as a Gay Cruising Club, there is 101 CLub. There is My Bar and Coming out right by the Colosseum that is like the Gay Alley of Rome every weekend. Gays hang out there with friends and to see each other before going onto somwhere else. There is a huge gay dance club in Rome called Muccassassina that has been around for years and very popular. I never went because I don't have enough gay left in me at this point.

But here in Florence I go to this cute bar called Queer every once in a while when I in the mood to play the chicken hawk. There are other clubs here, parties. There are also a ton of American students here, and gay American students in Florence. The gay clubs and bars aren't hard to find.

Oh, and Rome goes very late, until the morning - 5/6AM

Censured Club Roma

In the late 1980s I traveled to Florence. I had a pocket international Spartacus guide (remember THOSE?) Anyway, they listed a gay bar for Florence in the center of the city. The name of the bar was DILDO. But Florence is an historic city with very strict rules, so I looked in vain for a big Neon sign. Nope - Just a relatively small engraved brass plaque, just like every other business in Florence. (Tastefully engraved with the name DILDO). Alas, my pensione had rules about how late you could stay out and still get back in. I think I had to be back by 11 pm. I thought that maybe it would be like a US bar and have a least a handful of people sitting around drinking, but no, almost deserted at 9 pm when I went. At 10:45 as I prepared to leave the patrons started to arrive in numbers, but alas, I had to go, like Cinderella at midnight. One of them yelled after me in strongly accented Italian, "Don't go, we like Americans". I was sad, because it was supposedly a backroom bar, but I didn't want to have to sleep in a ditch overnight.

[quote]R151: They find a problem with everything. They love to fight. There's nothing to win.

"They" is not my pronoun. It's 'he,' 'him,' 'his.' I'm not non-binary, and I'm not trans. More indication that you're an Anscher sock.

[quote]R154: I think he'd be alright if he didn't take offense to everything. He's so antagonistic and ready on the defense. It's like chill, homie.Lower that blood pressure.

Kindly cite the posts on this thread where I'm "antagonistic" and "take offense." I maintain a flat affect at all times, and offer no emotion. Everything I say is simply matter-of-fact. All the ad hominem, namecalling, and threats are coming from my respondents. They leave no mark on me.

Well thanks r157 to r160. I guess I was looking for lust in all the wrong places. And honestly not looking that hard. There's plenty else to do there. But thanks, and if I ever make it back I will check those places out.

[quote]R149: Oh okay. So now you're an expert on the Iliad. You never cease to amaze me, Poisoned Dragon...

I never said anything like that. When you brought up the Iliad at R142, were you claiming to be an expert? I have never made claims to expertise.

[quote]Here you go, Poisoned Dragon. I'm sure these people are much greater experts on the Iliad than a pretend know-it-all such as yourself. One of them mentions the Iliad being passed down orally before being written down. I can't be bothered to listen to the whole program to find out exactly where.

I cannot be bothered to listen to it, either. (I don't get my information from podcasts and videos, ever.) But the fact that classicists generally 𝑐𝑙𝑎𝑖𝑚 oral tradition was not at dispute; I don't need to listen to 48 minutes of voices in the act of claiming it. You're entirely missing (or evading) the point of what I wrote at R144. Because of the nature of oral tradition (it's spoken, and once the sound dies, it's gone), there can never be any evidence 𝑓𝑜𝑟 it, and proposing it is only ever a workaround in the absence of written transmission, attempting to connect one time period to another. In that sense, nearly all claims of oral tradition are alike.

[quote]Don't ignore my post at [R138], Poisoned Dragon. According to you, that's how things really went down.

I've never said anything like what you posted at R138. That's why, at R141, I asked you to stop wasting my time.

The point of the Dershowitz article at R80/R81 was that there never was a verse like 18:22 originally, that it reflects a later interpolation. You evidently misunderstood it, and that's assuming you read it at all. Part of the issue is that you've somehow got this notion that I'm trying to " reinterpret them" [passages like 18:22] "in a gay positive way" (R87). (I've suspected that you are a sock of PlatonicCaveman, because that's been his take on what I post for years. He has a deep-seated need for the bible to be correct as Christians represent it, as condemning homosexuality; it's bound up in his own personal sense of self.) Neither my take on 18:22 as pesher/commentary on Deuteronomy 23:17-18 (R77) or Dershowitz's as an interpolation do anything to make it "gay positive" - it simply makes it irrelevant to homosexuality at all.

Poisoned Dragon, if it was questionable whether the Iliad was passed down orally before it was finally written down, the other two professors would have taken her to task for making that claim. Funny how murky things are in the distant past, how there is a lack of solid evidence. But we do know exactly when Leviticus was written. Amazing.

[quote](I don't get my information from podcasts and videos, ever.)

What a silly thing to say, Poisoned Dragon. This is the BBC were talking about, not FOX news. They have certain standards.

[quote](I've suspected that you are a sock of PlatonicCaveman, because that's been his take on what I post for years).

Your paranoid mind is working overtime once again. I don't know who Platonic Caveman is. Don't ever become a detective. You'd be terrible at it.

[quote]R164: Poisoned Dragon, if it was questionable whether the Iliad was passed down orally before it was finally written down, the other two professors would have taken her to task for making that claim.

Not if everyone on the panel was following the general majority consensus among classics scholars that oral tradition occurred. Questioning oral tradition is a minority position, much the same as questioning whether Jesus existed. (Ask a Catholic bishop, a Muslim cleric, a rabbi, and an accredited historian whether Jesus existed. There's a 𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑦 high probability they will all say 'yes.')

[quote]But we do know exactly when Leviticus was written. Amazing.

Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that critical scholarship knows when it 𝑤𝑎𝑠𝑛'𝑡 written. Though they subscribe to different ballpark dates ranging from the middle to late Iron Age, or early Common Era, no one - and I mean 𝑛𝑜 𝑜𝑛𝑒 - outside of faith-based "scholarship" thinks it was written in the Bronze Age by Moses.

[quote]What a silly thing to say, Poisoned Dragon. This is the BBC were talking about, not FOX news. They have certain standards.

And that is supposed to mean something to me? BBC's "standards" are not such that they would or even could ever broadcast anything from higher criticism. Say on air that no part of the bible was written by its commonly attributed authors, or that Moses or Jesus didn't exist, and millions of people would instantly have a violent fit. Viewership would plummet. No, BBC never airs anything that real.

But you completely misunderstand the nature of my objection. I dislike taking in information through audio or video. It's painful to me. I won't put up with it, not even from sources with which I agree. Reading is my preferred method.

That we're having this discussion seems to underscore a difference between how you and I determine whether a piece of information is true. You're impressed by "experts" and tend to trust what they say because they're labeled "experts." For you, oral tradition is a fact because an "expert" said so. Majorities impress you. I tend to evaluate whether the argument/evidence is sound, and reserve judgement until I can make that determination.

[quote]Not if everyone on the panel was following the general majority consensus among classics scholars that oral tradition occurred.

Isn't that what you do, Poisoned Dragon, when it comes to the Bible? Look for the majority opinion.

[quote]R167: Isn't that what you do, Poisoned Dragon, when it comes to the Bible? Look for the majority opinion.

:D

That's funny.

Name one of my supposed 'majority opinions' regarding the bible.

[quote]But you completely misunderstand the nature of my objection. I dislike taking in information through audio or video. It's painful to me. I won't put up with it, not even from sources with which I agree. Reading is my preferred method.

Oh I see. You're on the autism spectrum.

[quote]Name one of my supposed 'majority opinions' regarding the bible.

I'm sure your dating of when Leviticus was written is the majority opinion among scholars (ie. critical scholars, not the ones who think it was written in the time of Moses). I proved you wrong again.

[quote]R169: Oh I see. You're on the autism spectrum.

No. I'm just old.

[quote]R170: I'm sure your dating of when Leviticus was written is the majority opinion among scholars (ie. critical scholars, not the ones who think it was written in the time of Moses). I proved you wrong again.

No, babe. I'm quite rare, even among the critical scholars. In fact, I've never found another who places Leviticus quite as late as I do.

[quote]No, babe. I'm quite rare, even among the critical scholars. In fact, I've never found another who places Leviticus quite as late as I do.

Oh I see. Then that means there's a good chance you're wrong. Checkmate.

R161 dude I didn't know for sure if you were a dude. But you have no sense of humor about yourself. You remind me of this guy I loved who was autistic.

I don't really want to answer because it's not fun. Calling everyone socks is just like why? We went at it and not in the good way on my other thread about movies.

[quote]R172: Oh I see. Then that means there's a good chance you're wrong.

It's possible.

[quote]Checkmate.

Not at all. It's not a settled issue.

[quote]R173: But you have no sense of humor about yourself.

It generally takes a sense of humor to recognize one.

[quote]You remind me of this guy I loved who was autistic... I don't really want to answer because it's not fun. Calling everyone socks is just like why? We went at it and not in the good way on my other thread about movies.

For example, the poster who suggested I was autistic (R169) is a different account from yours at R173, yet you converse as though both posts were yours.

Socks.

Hey OP- did you know that the world history of humans is a tad more broad and complicated than Rome and Christianity?

R174 You're fucking CRAZY dude! Blocked. Bye you headache

^^ If only...

I am convinced that Poisoned Dragon and Concerned European are twin flames. I pray they someday cross paths and it ends in a homo-horrifying walrus style fight to the death, five to eight days long.

There is LITTLE gay scene in Rome as it compares to NYC Chicago or even DC. Legit.

Two bathhouses that I know of but nothing like Chicago. Nothing.

The gay bars at the Colosseo? Two. And LAME.

Plus the gays here are all “hidden”. It kind of sucks.

If you live here, talk to the gays and you’ll see I’m correct. They’re not COMFORTABLE being gay as is enjoyed in the larger cities in the States.

Which European cities have big gay scenes? perhaps London, Amsterdam, Berlin

Can someone push R143 off of a rooftop please?

Ma’am, this is now reddit.

I assume Milan has a better gay scene than Rome.

JFC can somebody crucify Poisoned Dragon?

^^

^^ no seriously, just die.

Why, R185?

You could just put me on ignore, you know, instead of repeatedly putting your own account in jeopardy with threats. Sooner or later, an admin is going to notice you. Maybe you have so many socks, though, that one less doesn't matter to you.

You paranoid fucking lunatic and your sock obsession.

Here's a thought: maybe stop using them to have a go at posters you don't like?

The sock obsession is nuts. You're nuts.

Poisoned Dragon is the kind of eldergay a lot of younger gays are terrified of becoming.

Nobody 'likes' you.

R179 There is a gay scene in Rome, it’s just not as out in the open as it is in other cities. But that’s pretty much true for all nightlife in Rome. There are a couple of parties everyone knows about, but you have to dig to get into the belly of whatever you’re into. They are constantly advertised on Grinder and other hookup apps. Again as I said before they are more sex oriented, sex parties, clubs, saunas. There aren’t that many forward facing bars you can just hop from one to another.

I lived there and didn’t feel uncomfortable being gay at all. But I was never overtly gay, or one for PDAs, holding hands even when I was in NYC. I’ll say this much though, I felt more threatened in NYC at certain points because there is a hyper masculinity in America that is threatened by homosexuality. I never experienced that vibe in Rome, like I could possibly get beat up.

The gay scene is much lower key in Rome and half the guys you think are gay are married with kids, even if they just spent the last five minutes cruising you. It’s hard for Romans to come out. BUT if you are out there isn’t much resistance. Maybe the worst would be loneliness.

Rome is also VERY provincial. It’s like asking if there is a hot gay scene in Sacramento. I don’t think people realize this. I was debating on where to first move in Italy and I thought I might as well start in the capital. But the people are country. Not backwards, just not big city. It’s like the difference between a Cleveland Gay and a New York gay. It’s not very nuanced. It’s either barely there or crop-top, doc martins and painted nails gay in Rome. Hoop earrings a Michael Kors bag and platform sketchers.

Milan is like NYC gay on steroids when it comes to fashion. Just go to Zara by the Duomo on a Sunday. I never lived there but I imagine being gay there takes A LOT of energy just like NYC.

Check out the link below if you’re curious what goes on in Rome.

[quote]R189: The sock obsession is nuts. You're nuts. Poisoned Dragon is the kind of eldergay a lot of younger gays are terrified of becoming.

[quote]R190: Nobody 'likes' you.

Hilarious. Using socks to bitch about me for calling out sock usage.

Not a sock idiot, I only have one account. God, you're sad.

[quote]R193: Not a sock idiot, I only have one account. God, you're sad.

What's sad is how you've spent your entire participation on this thread attacking me. You have nothing to contribute to this subject.

^^sad old lonely crazy queen

Weren't you more the bored, 'sad old lonely crazy queen' when, out of the blue, you summoned me back to this thread at R183, and have spent this afternoon trying to bait me (R185, R187, R189, R193, and R195 - and a sock at R190)? What's wrong with you?

I've indulged you up to this point, but you really need to find something else, something constructive to do. Tomorrow's Thanksgiving. Go get ready.

R196 PoisonedDragon, please stop being so selfish. You’ve made your points and you’ve defender yourself. You don’t need to challenge every word. Please stop sucking the air out of an interesting thread.

r191, I’ve lived in Rome for nearly two years and I’ve met dozens of gays. And had sex with a lot of them too.

Hot yes.

But closeted. It isn’t exactly as you state. None feel comfortable being out. People DO judge you for it.

A butch lesbica is my barista and she is closeted yet looks like a dude. I asked if anyone knew and she said no, not even her co workers. And she married a chick.

I love it here. I do. And they are good in bed. But FILLED with issues. Fetishes.

It is like America in the 90s.

R198 what part of Rome are you in?

That is very interesting about the modern Romans, but of course it gets to the very issue. For moderns, it's a question: are you gay OR straight. For the ancients, it would be a nonsensical question. Nobody's gay. Nobody's straight. It's all about your position, your status, your actions, your exact sexual activities, not about the gender of some sex partner. Although eventually somebody is gonna need you to have kids, especially if you're a Roman patrician, and then you really should have sex with your wife sometimes. But other times, who cares?

R198 and R200, I was going to post this earlier about my comment at r191.

It’s a weird juxtaposition in modern Rome when it comes to the gay issue. When it comes to sex between men they are more OK with it as an activity than Americans, but less OK with it as a lifestyle. There is no “oh dude that’s so gay, or “sus” or “no homo.” Italian men are very comfortable being physical and close and showing their love for each other. Friends will grab your head and kiss the top, snuggle up to you putting their head on your shoulder, they’ll throw their arm around you leaning in the whole night, they’ll sit on your lap. And they don’t mind other men admiring them, they seek it out actually. They are peacocks and in the lockeroom you see them checking each other out. It is very sexual without sex. And the idea of men doing something sexual with each other isn’t hard to imagine. It happens a lot. Male beauty is the standard of beauty.

On the flip side family is so important in Italy, it seems they don’t care what activities you partake in, as long as you get married and have children. It’s what people do. And to not do that is a denial of the all important family and the future of the country. That’s the part that makes it hard for people who are out and who want to come out. It’s like, yeah my husband likes dick but he did the right thing by getting married and so should you.

R197, stop trying to be a hall monitor. It's not your job. Direct your remarks to the trollsocks who keep waving me down and summoning me back here for no reason.

[quote]For the ancients, it would be a nonsensical question. Nobody's gay. Nobody's straight.

I don't know about that. I think you're too influenced by today's nonsensical theories that everyone is gender fluid and sexually fluid. My guess is that there were plenty of straight guys in Ancient Rome who really weren't interested in having sex with men. They really weren't turned on by it. The only situation where they might consider it is if they were stuck in an all male environment for a long time, eg. a soldier. Of course, in ancient times they didn't think in terms of gay, straight, bi.

R201, I think that's a whole different thing. In southern Italy, where homosexuality is more taboo, men show their affection for male friends and relatives more openly than in the U.S. That doesn't mean they're sexually attracted to that person. You see the same displays of affection between males in some parts of Africa where homosexuality is a huge taboo.

I like that R200. Everyone was bi.

Was there any homophobia in ancient Rome?

Why and how did it get started?

[quote]Everyone was bi.

If I was the last man on earth and I was with an attractive young woman, I still wouldn't have sex with her. I'm attracted to men only. Good thing there weren't backward people like me in Ancient Rome. Everyone was sexually fluid 🙄.

Guys who today are considered 100% straight in our narrow minded, oppressive society would have been able to get an erection easily in Ancient Rome when around other men. Truly miraculous. Sexual attraction is completely society driven. That's why there are no gay men in Islamic fundamentalist countries.

They can just like, convincingly change their sex and exterior and how would you even know? Maybe it would be like the Crying Game.

What is a man, anyway? Can you define a man? It a man more than balls and genitalia? Is a man pheromones, testosterone and hormones? Is a man a Y chromosome?

Is it just the look? What if the soul left the body of a man. Then, you are only attracted to flesh?

What is a man?

Sorry, if a guy had to have his balls surgically removed for medical reasons, I wouldn't want to have sex with him. Yup, I'm that shallow. Intact, nice looking genitalia are a requirement.

[quote] What is a man, anyway?

An adult human male, Vern.

[quote]If I was the last man on earth and I was with an attractive young woman, I still wouldn't have sex with her. I'm attracted to men only. Good thing there weren't backward people like me in Ancient Rome. Everyone was sexually fluid 🙄.

R205, people did and do have sex just to procreate. It’s not all about attraction. Any man can have sex with a woman and make a baby.

R205

“ I hate pussy so much I would not fuck a woman to save the human race from extinction “

That is some serious pussy hate right there.

R210, my point is that sexual fluidity is hogwash. People who espouse sexual fluidity should be slapped silly. I spoke to a gay man from an evangelical family. He got married and had a child with his wife because that's what was expected of him. He thought that being gay was not an option at the time. He said that having sex with his wife made him want to throw up.

The only reason I could think of for straight guys in Ancient Rome to have sex with other guys is that they were poor and would get money and gifts in return. Kind of like many straight men in Italy were living in grinding poverty right after the end of WWII. Some of them were willing to do certain sexual things with guys in return for "compensation", so they could make ends meet. Wasn't Gore Vidal living in Italy at the time? I hear he had a fun time.

R212 your vision of the world is WAY too black and white. Human sexuality is as unique as a fingerprint, but you insist they have to fit into three brackets. And you sound like a two bracket man even - denying the majority of the human sexual experience.

And by the way your gay friend was able to achieve an erection and ejaculate inside of a woman. Personally I can’t achieve hardons if I have a compelling urge to vomit let alone ejaculate. Your friend must be made of something different.

My ancestors were German and Scandinavian pagans before they were Christians. I wonder what sodomy was thought of in those cultures?

So you can’t jerk off, R214?

An interesting article - The Vikings and Homosexuality.

Whatever do you mean, R214? Gay men have been getting married and having kids since forever because it used to be a huge societal taboo and a criminal offense and churches would reinforce that it was a shameful, disgusting perversion. That doesn't change the fact that these guys didn't enjoy the sex and were a million times more attracted to men. Not sure why a straight guy in Ancient Rome would have sex with another guy unless he was desperate or benefitting from it in a big way. Why have sexual experiences that really don't turn you on or maybe even creep you out?

Now are the wacky far left intellectuals who came up with the theory of sexual fluidity the same ones who say that people who argue with them about their woke ideology are committing literal violence? It wouldn't surprise me.

What is the word for someone only attracted to homosex regardless of gender?

[quote]R212 your vision of the world is WAY too black and white.

Just because your vision of the world isn't black and white doesn't mean it has any basis in reality. I'm sure there are people who are genuinely bisexual but they're probably a minority.

R220

If you have lots of sex with men and woman are you bisexual? Because millions of men have lots of sex with both men and woman. And they do it for sexual pleasure.

Really, R221? Maybe you could give me a link to a reputable study which shows a big chunk of the population is into that. Experimenting sexually when you're young doesn't count. I'm talking about people who are sexually attracted to both men and women throughout their adult lives. Can't wait for your "evidence".

[quote]Whatever do you mean, [R214]? Gay men have been getting married and having kids since forever because it used to be a huge societal taboo and a criminal offense and churches would reinforce that it was a shameful, disgusting perversion.

R218 I was responding to R212 who said he thought sexual fluidity was hogwash and that his gay friend was forced into having a kid with his wife due to societal pressures. Of course those societal pressures existed that forced gay men. But even still to have one child means he had to have sex to completion with a women. You don't usually have sex to completion with another human being UNLESS there is SOME aspect of it that is sexual arousing to you - whether through pure imagination or physical pleasure. You can't just dial up a hardon and ejaculation.

[quote]I'm talking about people who are sexually attracted to both men and women throughout their adult lives. Can't wait for your "evidence".

Here is where you are wrong. We are not talking about 50/50 attraction to both sexes. Gay and even Straight means that you predominantly prefer something and will seek that out. But even those ends of the spectrum aren't 100% for both. You can be mostly something of course, but that doesn't mean you are 100% that thing, and very few are 100%. R212 seems to think you aren't gay unless you vomit at the idea of a vagina.

R222, just for you. And this is just one...

Look up R.C. Savin-WIlliams and his research. I tried to link it here, but couldn't, just a quote from it. Here is an article from the Post that puts his research into bite-size chunks, and you can go from there. There are others coming to the same findings. But you just asked for one.

[Quote]Although sexual orientation is theoretically understood as existing along a continuum, in practice researchers usually place participants into three discrete categories: heterosexual, bisexual, and homosexual (Sell, 1997). There is increasing evidence, however, that this tri-category system has out- grown its usefulness and that more groups are necessary to accurately describe the sexuality of cur- rent cohorts of adolescents and young adults. Specifically, both qualitative and quantitative data suggest the importance of considering a group that is located between heterosexuality and bisexual- ity, designating a heterosexual core with a slight amount of same-sex sexuality.

Basically when you remove the religious stigma surrounding sex between men that has shaped sexual preference for centuries you are the Roman level of acceptance of homosexuality. When you remove the societal stigma the Romans had surrounding sex between men, you are at our most basic biological level of acceptance of human sexuality. There is no biological reason someone can't receive sexual gratification from either sex, a dog or a pumpkin. Even in ancient times, sex between ruling family members - brothers, mothers, fathers wasn't unheard of to keep bloodlines pure.

But a huge part of sexual preference is mental. So when you add back on top the idea of something being immoral, illegal, sinful, unethical, unhealthy - you arrive at where we are today with our narrow boxes of what we consider human sexuality to be. But that doesn't change our hundreds of thousands of years of biology and one of our most fundamental human drives of sexual gratification.

Open homosexuality was very much seen as a Greek thing, just look at what the elites at the time thought of Hadrian. And this was before Christianity took off.

[quote] You can be mostly something of course, but that doesn't mean you are 100% that thing, and very few are 100%.

You don't say. Very few are 100%?! Interesting. I can appreciate a beautiful woman with a great body but that doesn't mean I want to have sex with her. It doesn't make me bisexual. I didn't know 100% gay guys like me are so rare. I seriously doubt it's true but it doesn't fit in with the way young people think and their attraction to made-up theories.

I also have another acquaintance who experimented with women in college and decided he really did not enjoy it. I think he also felt like he wanted to throw up after the sex. Not positive if I'm remembering his words correctly. Well there's three gold star gays, including me, who think your sexual fluidity theory was dreamed up by flakes. I'm sure there are plenty more of us gold star gays out there but you think we're so incredibly rare.

Btw, R218 and R212 are the same person. One of your extremely rare gold star gays. As rare as unicorns.

R222

Many 100s of interviews with the sexually active. I am handicapped by my professional training and experience..

Lots of men have lots of sex with men and woman. Call it bi call it sex addiction call it whatever you want. It’s not about attraction , not IMO most of the time,

it’s about sucking and fucking. It’s about getting off. The excitement of the sex hunt.

It’s not about love except for the love of sex.

[quote] It doesn't make me bisexual. I didn't know 100% gay guys like me are so rare. I seriously doubt it's true but it doesn't fit in with the way young people think and their attraction to made-up theories.

This is EXACTLY what I mean about you seeing the world in very black and white terms. To be gay, that means sex with a woman makes you sick. I am a gold star gay, I have never even been in the same room with a naked woman. I have no desire to seek women out sexually. They do not pique me interest. BUT I would have sex with a woman to continue the species - which you said you wouldn't even do. And I would still consider myself gay. It doesn't mean that I am bisexual. There is nothing in my biology, or anyones actually biology that would prevent them from doing that, or finding sexual gratification in it. Even you have pointed out several instances of gay men getting erections and copulating with women. The very fact that they did it in the first place, and not at the end of a gun, (no matter how they felt after), shows there was a sexual curiosity on their part. I am not sure what you don't understand about it. It's just sex. Sex is not the only thing that defines one's homosexuality - obviously.

R230, to consider that kind of situation sexual fluidity is beyond ludicrous. Talk about grasping at straws. Gay men may try having sex with a woman, especially when they're in their late teens or early 20s and don't know themselves that well, because the overwhelming message from society still is that heterosexuality is normal. Then they figure out that they don't enjoy sex with women at all and only want to have sex with men. We can't say they experimented and figured out they were gay only. No, we have to pretend they're "sexually fluid". Truly laughable. I'm entertained by your desperate attempts to shore up your flaky theory.

Psychology isn't an exact science. It's not like Chemistry or Physics. Isn't the Psychology Department part of the Faculty of Arts at most universities, not the Faculty of Science. I'm sure many psychologists have come up with many wacky theories over the past century and supported them with poorly designed experiments.

You don't say, R229. Sex with a woman would be very hard for me because I wouldn't even be able to get an erection and I would never seek it out. I guess I'm a unicorn.

R229, what is your best guess at what percentage of the population has sex with both men and women? I hope you're not including people who experimented in their youth and then decided they only preferred one gender. I hope you're not including men in prison who either choose to have sex with a guy or have no sex at all. Surely I don't need to tell a professional such as yourself how to do a study correctly. I hope the people you interviewed were a good sample of the entire population.

I heard one young guy talk about the whole sexual fluidity thing on a college radio station and then he later admitted that he only really enjoys sex with men. Some people are so easily influenced by the latest flaky theory.

R323

The people I interviewed were not at all a good sample of the entire population. Not remotely close. All my interviews were with the high risk.

Oh okay, R233. So your findings aren't really relevant to the discussion of society as a whole and its wonderfully sexually fluid nature.

You can tell by R231 bombastic use of the language - "beyond ludicrous" - "entertained by your desperate attempts to shore up your flaky theory," that he is a blowhard and it doesn't matter where he falls on the spectrum, he ain't getting NO SEX.

"Then they figure out that they don't enjoy sex with women at all and only want to have sex with men" - This is a preference, but you act as if it is written in stone in human biology, that doing so otherwise would cause grave bodily harm. Gay men are men who overwhelming prefer men to women romantically and sexually. But as even you yourself have pointed out, gay men can sire children and have done so for millennia. It is not an impossible, and they weren't on death's door doing so, as you paint the picture. You yourself said you'd rather the entire species die out than have sex with a woman. That sir, is ludicrous.

I don't get all of these gay men SO insecure in their homosexuality, their identities so fragile, that they have to play act at getting violently ill over the mere mention of a vagina. That is fake. You might not like it, but it's not going to make you sick. It's just like straight men so insecure in their heterosexuality saying that the thought of two men kissing makes them want to throw up. There is always more going on with those types of guys. And you say it over and over again, if this is indeed who you are, then YES, you are a Unicorn.

I just have way too much common sense to believe the latest flaky theory, R235. I'm sorry you don't.

I guess the percentage of men who are straight only and are only sexually attracted to women and only seek out sex with women is also minuscule. They're unicorns too.

Well, I'm not arguing with gullible flakes anymore. It's pointless. It's like trying to argue with a flat earther or an antivaxxer. A complete waste of time. Bye bishes.

R230 You would never have to do that. Even if you could, I'm not sure your wife would be happy.

[quote] They do not pique me interest. BUT I would have sex with a woman to continue the species - which you said you wouldn't even do.

I wouldn't have to. I'd look for a turkey baster.

[quote]Even you have pointed out several instances of gay men getting erections and copulating with women. The very fact that they did it in the first place, and not at the end of a gun, (no matter how they felt after), shows there was a sexual curiosity on their part.

An 18 year old can get an erection at the drop of a hat. It doesn't mean anything.

R234

I never implied I was any expert in society as a whole. My first hand experience is with the sexually active in most cases the very very sexually active.

So when I say that in a country with over 330 million people in it there are millions of men among that 330 million that have sex with both men and woman I feel I am on really strong ground.

Otherwise CDC would have stuck with homosexual or gay as an identifier instead of MSM. They went with MSM because it describes behavior it does not describe sexual attraction or how anyone self identifies.

And do you know who else has a lot of sex with people of the same sex? Female swingers. It's not 100% of them but it sure is a lot,

This bi stuff is hardly as rare as you think it is.

[quote]An 18 year old can get an erection at the drop of a hat. It doesn't mean anything.

Dude you said above you had a friend who had children with a woman even though he was gay. Was he 18?

Don't worry r239, I think this "Fluidity is Ludicrous" troll is just upset that anyone is having sex.

Yes, R240, he was very young. He didn't wait till he was 60 to get married and have a kid.

Was he 18 r242? That was the question.

[quote]An 18 year old can get an erection at the drop of a hat. It doesn't mean anything.

Was he 18 when he had his two kids?

A woman could hop on the erection of a man sleeping and get pregnant. It doesn't necessarily take the man taking an active role in sex. It just takes the ability to have an erection, period.

I don't remember his exact age but he was in his late teens or his twenties, R243. I don't remember mentioning that he had two kids. He had A kid.

It does not take sexual fluidity all it takes is sticking your dick into a willing Glory Hole that has a willing sucker on the other end.

Like getting a BJ in a local pickle park. All it takes is wanting to get off. And since the thread has started 1000s of marred and bi guys have gotten off because getting off was their main and only goal. Not love. Not dinner. Not a date.

It’s often not a life long sexual attraction. It’s the desire for a warm moist mouth and a happy ending at the finish.

It’s sex and nothing more. It’s men and boys doing what men and boys do.

I had an interesting Italian exchange last night when it comes to the whole gay issue. I was standing outside the laundromat (most Italian homes don't have dryers) completely minding my business in Florence and this guy comes up and starts talking to me. I am from NYC so immediately my guard goes up, but this is Florence, so nothing really bad is going to happen. So I entertained him as a way to practice my Italian. He asked me where I was from, what I was doing here, what I do for work. Italians go right in with the questions like this usually, very direct and kind of nosey. We got into a discussion about America and guns, and violence and the difference of both countries. He really wouldn't leave me alone but my sheets were still drying and I wanted to see what it is he really wanted, what his angle was. At one point he said we should go for a beer. My body language was definitely that of I could take or leave it, this conversation. He wasn't exactly flirty, but close and jovial, and who talks to a random stranger and invites them for a beer? I told him I had work to do, my sheets are still drying. He insisted. I finally told him my husband was waiting for me upstairs. And he cocked his head back giving me the strangest look, and says "husband?" They always think as a foreigner you've used the wrong word. I said, "yeah." He looked me up and down with this look of disbelief, said "I'm sorry," and walked away.

My husband said, I spoke the unspeakable. All of the male on male flirtation, hanging out, "will or won't something happen" is all ok as long as you're not gay, as long as you don't say it. Once you make it clear that you are actually gay, it's like you've crossed a line. They have nothing left to blame and they have to be honest about themselves. If his whole approach was just about wanting money, or even just wanting a beer, he would have strung me along to get it. But as soon as he heard I was gay, it was like he was too close to the truth of his real intentions.

The boy could have said "Ms. Johnson, you forgot to turn up your hearing aid." It gets the point across and is much more polite than STFU.

Wrong thread.

There were hearing aids all throughout Rome…

R247 so Italians can't be real and honest because of backwards church teachings.

What about Greeks?

I disagree, R246. There aren't many straight guys hanging out at glory holes where men are performing the oral sex.

I once saw a disappointing video on YouTube. This straight guy had figured out that the restroom in a certain park was a cruising spot for gay men. He would secretly film them, including their faces, going in and out of the restroom. He had this creepy giggling on the soundtrack to imply that he thought they were disgusting perverts. He clearly was trying to shame them by posting the video on YouTube. Too bad someone couldn't have dug up all the sleazy dirt on this self-righteous straight guy and made a video about it. It would have knocked him down a few pegs.

R251 they are either active or passive on this point

R246 never spent time at a porn video shop! Oh, poor dear!

Sorry for R252^^

246 did know if what he writes 👅

R3 Wait, what? Jesus had a foot fetish??

I always find it so funny that St. Augustine is held up as some virtuous person, when he admittedly spent his 20's and 30's in brothels and partying, having a child out of wedlock, etc.

Then supposedly he 'gave it all up' - which I do not believe at all. He just hid it when he became a priest.

I honestly do not understand how he got so much praise. And yes, I read City of God.

R252

Many are msm married or in relationships with woman. Call that whatever you want if labeling is so important.

If it’s a married guy sticking his dick into that GH or sucking dick thru the GH he s in fact a msm. So really simple.

St. Augustine's arguments were wrong as anyone would even a suspicion of logic would know.

He was a propagandist similar to Karl Rove.

Or Tucker Carlson. Everything had to be twisted and misrepresented.

R257

Was City of God a sequel to City of Night? I always get those two confused.

[quote] But even still to have one child means he had to have sex to completion with a women. You don't usually have sex to completion with another human being UNLESS there is SOME aspect of it that is sexual arousing to you - whether through pure imagination or physical pleasure. You can't just dial up a hardon and ejaculation.

Have you /never/ jerked off before?

R263, you missed the thread of the conversation completely. I suggest you start from the the beginning.

[quote]I disagree, [R246]. There aren't many straight guys hanging out at glory holes where men are performing the oral sex.

I am not sure about this. Ever since the CDC (THE CDC!) came out during covid and suggest Glory Hole sex, there has been crazy Boone. I follow about three Gloryhole Onlyfans and Justforfans. More men are discovering the amazing and discreet pleasures of anonymous head. And for the most part, most of them are straight identifying - because gay guys usually aren't satisfied with little to no physical contact.

R265 How is that a gloryhole? Because he hangs a sheet between them?

Those at gloryholeforurenjoyment.com have a nifty sales slogan that seems to be catching on

“Never have sex with ugly people ever again—-They are only ugly if you can see them”

Gloryhole is the generic name for an anonymous sex setup where there is a barrier between both people where they can't see them. He sometimes uses an actual hole, but guys like to sit down too.

This guy is great too.

Gloryholeswallowr

I have often wondered when I see a large obvious GH in a Dept store or other establishment restroom, as to how these were made.

Making a hole in a metal partition between stalls must have taken a lot of time and tools for the job. One person doing the job or more a community activity?

They were really common to come across in the 1970s.

Yes, well be careful when using gloryholes in public restrooms. There's the video of the gay guy who made a mistake and put his erect penis through the gloryhole, not realising the guy in the next stall was actually straight. The str8 guy could have just yelled "F**k off", but no, he wanted to teach the other guy a lesson. He lit his lighter and moved the flame back and forth under the guy's erect dick until things got hot enough and the guy withdrew. There are some true assholes in this world.

Roman Empire Glory Holes

R268 Come on, they are in a house/apartment, the guys are completely naked they most definitely saw each other faces. There's nothing gloryhole-ish about it. That's just having a hookup with a random person at your home. And hanging a towel between you, for some reason. My guess is so that we don't see that person's face so he can post videos on his Twitter

R727, I have set up the same thing at my home before. It is a Gloryhole. You maybe get a glimpse of the guy, just you as you would at a bookshop. But it is still pretty anonymous.

R727? Must be dyslexic.

R273 You have a gloryhole in your house? Jesus fucking Christ, some of you...

^ had, for shits and giggles. Yes. I tried it once. It was hot. Search Roger Bart on Datalounge...

How do people find out you have a gloryhole in your house? Personally, I don't think that's a gloryhole. Just whoring out at your house. Gloeryholes are in public places, and there are actual holes in the walls, not a sheet between two people. And guys aren't naked, they just pull their dick out. Nothing about that Twitter post looked like a gloryhole to me

US gays are mean

No. They. Aren't! Snap. Clap. Clap!

Everything in r277s post points to the fact he came of age probably around 1977. To be such a gloryhole purist to not knowing how people might find out you have one in your home. It’s called Craigslist in the olden days and Doublelist now, grinder, scruff, tinder, instagram, X, Facebook. .

There is some incredible naivete above. There are websites that tell you how to construct gloryholes for your home, how to advertise, but with the loss of Craigslist, a huge loss in potential visitors.

There were trans people too.

Craigslist = Doublelist now. It's like Just the the old personal's part of Craigslist.

But not as well known or well used.

^ used well enough by horndogs in the know

[quote]R228: Btw, [R218] and [R212] are the same person. One of your extremely rare gold star gays. As rare as unicorns.

R228, those two posts are by 𝑦𝑜𝑢.

You really are just trollsocking this thread, aren't you? Sixty posts using one account, and you can't keep track of what you've said with which account.

Ddi you know that the word Homosexuality did not appear in the New Testament until 1946? There were Greek words they were not sure of the translation of so boom they just used homosexuals. (Three are two words and both seem to mean morally corrupt and manipulators which translated into FAGGS!). Oddly enough it was just men they singled out and not gay women.

Weren’t the men having sex with 12 year old boys?

Pederasty was tolerated in Rome, unlike in Greece where it was encouraged. Homosexuality was frowned upon by both.

We're never getting to the bottom of this because these concepts before the modern era were never clearly delineated and there was no gay identity like there is today. It sucks, but the study of history is often frustrating like that. More often than not, actually.

Christian culture is based on Judaic principles and one of the precepts of Leviticus is that males shall not lie down with other males (it doesn't mention female-to-female, asaik).

[quote]R290: Christian culture is based on Judaic principles

Is it really, though? It's more like the gospels are populated with characters 𝑑𝑒𝑝𝑖𝑐𝑡𝑒𝑑 as Jews, but the material is overall written by Gentiles, and it shows. Lots of antisemitism there.

And the rite most central to Christianity, eating Christ's flesh and drinking his blood, symbolic or not, is inimical at its core to Judaism. It might have its origins in Mithraism, or in the worship of Dionysus, but never among the Jews.

[quote]and one of the precepts of Leviticus is that males shall not lie down with other males (it doesn't mention female-to-female, asaik).

Mmm, this thread has covered Leviticus. See R27, et al.

As iI understand it The elite in Greek and Roman society would have a wife and one or more male or female concubines. It was not just Greek and Roman, The ancient Vikings participated in male male relationships. It was considered the highest honor if you could make a Viking come before battle.

R1 is one of the best take downs I've seen for a long time. Touché.