Let us take into account a fundamental nuance when delving into the sexuality of those times:our current modesty and congenital blush for some topics, such as sex, is imbued in our minds by the Judeo-Christian education that we have received since childhood and that some of our elders still profess. In fact, until 1990 the World Health Organization (WHO) did not exclude homosexuality from the International Statistical Classification of Diseases. But in Greco-Roman society the concept of "sin" and "homosexual" do not exist, nor is pederasty considered a moral attack. The important thing was not who you slept with, but what role you played in the relationship, active or passive. In Rome, sex is not a relationship between equals, but a power game, in which what is acceptable or unacceptable is determined by one's position in the social hierarchy. Seneca the Elder said…
passive sex in a free man is a crime; in the slave, an obligation; in the freedman, a service.
It should be specified that we are talking about male homosexuality, because given the role of women in these societies, lesbianism (from the Greek island Lesbos, home of the poetess Sappho ) or female homosexuality was not socially accepted, something inexplicable and practically invisible in these cultures, which does not mean that it did not exist. Moreover, on occasions when it became visible, as in some writings by satirical authors such as Juvenal or Marcial, the sexual behavior of one of the women is masculinized, thereby trying to make that behavior understandable and not question the established moral order.
In this text by Luciano de Samósata , from his Dialogue of the Hetairas , we clearly discover the reality not only of female homosexuality or lesbianism , but also the reality of a person whose gender identity does not correspond to the sex assigned to them at birth (trans ).
CLONING .- We heard new things about you, Leena,… that Megila of Lesbos, the rich Lesbia, is in love with you as if she were a man and that you live together, and I don't know what you do to each other. What does she consist of? Have you reddened? Hey, tell me if this is true.
LEENA .- It's true, Clonarion, and I'm ashamed, because it's something unnatural.
CLONING .- By Aphrodite, what is it about? what does that woman want? And what do you do when you're together? You see it? You do not love me, otherwise you would not keep such secrets from me.
LEENA .- I love you more than any other, but she is terribly manly.
CLONING .- I don't quite understand what you're saying, unless it's "a courtesan of women", because they say that in Lesbos there are such types of women, with the appearance of men who don't want to have experiences with men, but instead approach women. women as if they were men.
LEENA .- It's something like that.
CLONING .- So, Leena, explain it to me in detail, how she came on the first time, how you let yourself be convinced and what came after that.
LEENA .- She and Demonasa, the Corinthian, rich like her and with the same arts as Megila, had organized a party together, and they hired me to play the zither for them. When I finished playing and it was already an ungodly hour and they had to go to bed, and they were still drunk, Megila said to me:Hey, Leena! It's a good bedtime now, sleep here with us, between the two of us.
CLONING .- And what happened next?
LEENA .- At first they kissed me like men, not only joining their lips to mine, but half-opening their mouths, and they hugged me and squeezed my breasts. Demonas was also biting me while showering me with kisses. I couldn't interpret what that was. After a while, Megila, who was already a bit hot, took off the wig from her head – she was wearing a very well imitated and perfectly adjusted one – and showed herself bald to zero, shaved like very manly athletes. And when I saw her I was shocked. But she says to me:Have you ever seen, Leena, such a beautiful young man? I don't see any young man here, Megila, I told her. Don't take me for a woman, she said, because my name is Megilo and it's been a while since I married Demonasa, she's here, and she's my wife. At this Clonarión, I laughed and said:So you, Megilo, have been hiding from us that you were a man, just as they say that Achilles hid among the maidens, and you have the virility of men and you do to Demonasa what he wants? men do? I don't have it, Leena, she said, nor do I need it at all; You will see that I make love in a special way, much more pleasant. Then you will not be a Hermaphrodite, I said, of which it is said that there are many, who have both sexes? Because I, Clonarion, was still ignorant of the subject. No, he told me, I am a complete man. I heard, I said, the Boeotian flutist Ismenodora who related traditional stories of her country, that in Thebes someone changed from a woman to a man and that he had become a magnificent fortuneteller, Tiresias was called, I think. Has something similar happened to you?
No, Leena, she said, but I was born just like all of you, but my thoughts, my desire and everything else I have as a man.
And Desire is enough for you, I said? Give me a chance, Leena, if you don't trust me, she told me, and you will find that I lack nothing that men have, for I have something in exchange for manhood. But give me a chance and you'll see.
I gave it to her, Clonarión, because she begged me a lot and she gave me a very expensive necklace and very fine dresses. Then I hugged her like a man and she acted and kissed me and gasped and it seemed to me that she felt pleasure in an exaggerated way.
CLONING .- And what did you do, Leena, or in what way? Tell me this about everything.
LEENA .- Do not ask me in such detail, because they are embarrassing things; so, by Aphrodite, I couldn't tell you.