Science Forums 2

[CraigD]

Originally Posted by LaurieAG

It's interesting, in the social context, to see what the ancient Greeks thought of homosexuality…

Originally Posted by Michaelangelica

I guess (?) you are saying that those with the power, get the power to rape?

To a significant degree, I think cultural history says something very close to this, yes.

A few years ago, I took a touring vacation in Rome, a day of which was dedicated to Pompeii. Pompeii’s iconography was very big on Priapus, an minor Greek-Roman god best known for having a gigantic penis. Priapism, the medical condition of having an abnormal erection, is named for him. Interestingly, Priapus was considered by the Romans less of an erotic/fertility god than a police one. Stern-looking statues of him were placed at town entrances as a warning to criminals, the implication – not really implied, as in some cases, such warnings were literally written in stone – being that the god would punish criminals with … this translation of a period epigram states it clearly:

I warn you, my lad, you will be sodomised; you, my girl, I shall futter; for the thief who is bearded, a third punishment remains.
... If I do seize you . . . you shall be so stretched that you will think your anus never had any wrinkles.

While one might think women would consider a futtering from Priapus as something other than punishing, it’s important to note that during the period of his popularity, large penises were not considered preferable to small ones in terms of erotically desirability, but rather as very undesirable. How they came to be considered desirable in later times is the subject of much speculation among cultural historians.

It’s worth noting that this sort of punishment doesn’t appear to have had much to do with male homosexuality, per se. Priapus wasn’t seen as a homosexual god, nor criminals punished by sodomy as gay. It appears to have been viewed rather as a particularly uncomfortable and humiliating – but basically non-injurious - form of punishment, regardless of sexual orientation.