The other day I was reading about how in ancient Greece bisexuality was a common thing. Men were expected to find other men beautiful and having sexual desire aimed at another man was considered a natural thing. In fact, the name lesbian is derived from"Lesbos" which is where Sappho was born. Sappho - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia In many Greek tales the protagonist at some point has gay sex, and sometimes sex with an animal. For me this contrasts the notion that homosexuality/bisexuality is a biological thing. Is it maybe possible that people are inherently bisexual, and that maybe we're all just boxing ourselves in? I've had "straight" friends make moves on me before, there are men who participate in mutual masturbation, and what about porn? "teen girl takes 10 inch d**k" is just about as common as every other category. Are they really just fantasizing that it's them that's that size, or is there more to it? What about the popularity of trans porn? That plus I see other guys staring at beautiful men at the gym all the time (I don't go to a gay gym). I asked myself the other day that if I were to be stranded on an island blue lagoon style would I have sex with a woman? My answer was yes. I strongly, strongly prefer men, but the thought of being with a woman seems just as natural as a man. What does this make me? Open minded? What does this make everyone else?
It's an interesting idea, although if I were stranded on an island I think I would avoid sex with everyone. I don't think about women sexually, certainly not romantically ... I'm probably as much "purely homosexual" as it is possible to be.
Why would you avoid sex? I don't think about women sexually, but that's because there are men in this world who I find considerably more attractive. That being said I added "blue lagoon style" (the movie) because it was a teenage boy and his female cousin. If I were stranded on an island with only a woman, would I begin to feel sexually attracted to her because my primary preference was out of reach?
I know I've heard this also ancient Macedonians I believe I was told. I watched that movie Alexander the Great with sexy Colin Farrell playing Alexander and as they portrayed at least in the movie was that he was gay or bi.
It's a similar story all over the world. The spread of Christianity and Islam is what killed any sort of gay acts.
Yep, I've heard that bisexuality and pederasty were normal and even expected in ancient Greece. Despite the line in 300 insulting Athenian "boy lovers", the Spartans did the exact same thing in a fairly organized fashion. This is also the culture which competed in sports totally naked. Prudishness was not even a thing, and I sort of wish we went back to that. I think I could deal with the scads of heinously ugly fat people if shame for sexuality and the human form went away. I wouldn't recommend abolishing clothes altogether, but acknowledging humanity independent from religious conservatism would do us a world of good.
The problem with it is that sexuality is based on who we can be forced to have sex with, rather who is sexually appealing to us.(Personally, even on a island I wouldnt have sex with a women, not simply because of my uninterest in her, but also because of my likely lack of 'ability to preform'). The mind is adaptive. If one gender were to be wiped clean form the earth, the surviving gender would indeed start to become more and more drawn to the same sex as the years and generations went on. However, this does not mean that the brain is naturally bisexual, just adaptive. Similiar to how it will make us crave foods that it knows carries the nutrients we lack. Sexual cravings are inherit( in most) organism as way to continue reproduction. So bottom line, it is understandable that you believe you would have sex with a women if you were standed on an island for long enough.(Though that doesnt mean that will apply to all gay men). However, it does not mean that you were inheritly bisexual. Just that your mind would have the possibility of making those around you more appealing in order for you to keep having sex.
wait what, can you elaborate the sexual comparison juxtapose to nutrients craving? I am a bit lost haha. I know that eating chocolate helps stress or something lol
Lol. Our minds our quite bright, as we obviously know. If your body needs water....you get thirsty. If your body need food/energy...... you get hungry. Well in times of need the mind can be a little bit more tactical if necessary. For instance, if we continuously eat something high in Vitamen ____, the next time our bodies are in need of Vitamen ____ and we grow hungry, it is likely that we will have a taste for the food our body knows it will get it from. The reason why animals/humans have sexual cravings, probably even the reason why our brains interpret it to 'feel good', is all insentive for them to continue to have sex. Sex=Reproduction=Survival. We, of course, know sex to not necessarily mean reproduction, but chemicals arent very specific ^-^.
I'm currently halfway through reading a book called 'The Song Of Achilles'. it's an interesting take on homosexuality in Ancient Greek Mythology. Apparently the half-god prince Achilles and his companion Petroclus were life-long friends who did everything together from a very young age, although many historians believed that this mythological duo were actually believed to be a homosexual couple. I also read somewhere recently that in Ancient Greece sexual acts contained 'a dominant, masculine partner' and 'a submissive feminine partner' rather than just a man or a woman. There is evidence of homosexual acts between men who were older masculine men had sexual relations with submissive, usually adolescent, boys.
Interesting concept. I definitely think far more people would explore their gay side if it wasn't for the social stigma. I don't know if I'd go so far as to say everyone is inherently bisexual but I think there are a lot of people who suppress that side of them, whether consciously or subconsciously.
Most of the gay acts in Acient Greece were pedophilic in nature. It was shameful for a grown man to have a sexual relationship and basically be "the woman" for another man. Only man/boy relations were seen as ideal.
I don't know... It'd seem odd that such a vast amount of people would believe themselves to be strictly hetero or homosexual if they really had bisexual feelings. But I really have no clue as to how others think... Sometimes I hear people say things about someone from the gender they're not attracted to, things that I don't understand how they can say if they're not attracted to them. Is it just joking around? Or is it just like recognizing attractiveness without being attracted yourself? Or what? For example that thread "who would you go straight for?" I'm curious of other posters on here's view on this. What is it you find attractive about the gender you don't consider yourself attracted to? And what is it that you don't at all? For me, I feel really sexually aroused when I fantasize about either gender. It's like I'm specificly attracted to their individual gender's different sexual characteristics. Sometimes I hear people say they're attracted to their best friend or someone they really like/respect as a person even though they're not normally attracted to that gender, I'm just trying to clarify that's not what I'm talking about for me.
Speaking personally, I wouldn't say I find women sexually attractive so much as I find certain ones physically attractive, sort of in a general, overall way [hairstyles, clothing, figure, etc.] To use a comparison I've seen other guys on the site use, it's like looking at a work of art whose beauty you can appreciate. And in line with that, there are women I undoubtedly find beautiful, even sexy, but I don't see myself jumping into bed with them.
That's why I said "are we just boxing ourselves in?" Most societies didn't have words for "homosexual" or "heterosexual"... They simply had words like "masculine/dominant" and "effeminate/passive". There seems to be too much evidence to support my theory, and what you all have to remember is that we, although LGBT, are still subject to society and possibly "tainted". We build these little identities around being "LGBT" so it's hard for us to imagine not being gay or bisexual or whatever. ---------- Post added 25th Dec 2012 at 10:11 AM ---------- Just because a lot of people think a certain way doesn't mean it's the only way of thinking. Most people used to be racist, but now we're not. (in the U.S. at least) Most people used to be homophobic, but now gay marriage is supported by at least 50% of the population. The idea that we're all just suppressing something about ourselves isn't all that crazy. We're all subject to societal inhibitions. ---------- Post added 25th Dec 2012 at 10:15 AM ---------- Actually they were ephebophilic which means an attraction to teenagers. Pedophilia is pre-pubescent. Women in ancient greece were seen as essentially worthless. It was believed that love between two men was the ideal because they were of equal stature in society.
Love between two men, with one of those "men" being decades younger than the other and inexperienced with sex. I sure that if there were 15 year olds having sex their were prepubescent patnerships as well. Most homosexual relationships were between partners that were not at all equal in society. Young teenagers were not equal to grown men in many obvious aspects of life. It wasn't about two equals sharing love, it was about "mentoring" a young man which meant having sex as well.
I think you're right. The ways in which we identify ourselves can be limiting--which isn't to say we shouldn't identify as gay or straight (or bisexual or this or that), just that we should be aware of the ways in which these identities were created, historically, to delineate deviance and against that deviance, a norm. I would recommend checking out Michel Foucault's History of Sexuality Volume 1 if you're interested in the subject--basically he wrote about the invention of the homosexual as a "species"--his words, not mine, as he was writing about how sexuality, in the West, was made into a science--but if you want to think about it in another way, the homosexual was created as a "type of individual". Before the invention of the homosexual, there were only "homosexual acts". The homosexual was delineated as a type of person--categorized as a type of individual--that was deviant, and then its opposite category, the heterosexual, was created and defined against its opposite as normal / the norm. So these identities we've invested so much in are constructed by all sorts of power relations--as Foucault put it, in "various institutions, discourses, and practices." (It's scary how much of him I can quote off the top of my head... that's when you know you've read too much Foucault!) So these identities aren't inherent or innate--they were constructed and we adopted these terms to describe ourselves. Which isn't to say that the way we describe ourselves--gay, lesbian, etc., whatever term you want to use--are inaccurate, we just have to keep in mind that they're constructed identities that weren't exactly created to benefit us. And they can be limiting... I think it's why some people prefer to identify as "queer" rather than gay or lesbian or bisexual, since queer is as nonspecific as possible. I used it to identify myself for a while, but I feel it's inaccurate, since I have 0 attraction to men--so, yes, while I can go on a spiel of however long I want about how identities are constructed or limiting or this or that, I still describe myself as a lesbian. Still, I'm still very much interested in how that category was created historically, why it was created, by whom, etc. etc. If you're interested in Ancient Greek sexuality, check out Foucault's History of Sexuality Volume 2, which is all about sexuality as the Greeks perceived it. I haven't read it yet, but I got it for Christmas and it's all about that, apparently.
