With ancient Rome, the issue--when there was one--was in the details. Read on.
Before Christianity, homosexuality was commonly practiced in ancient Rome. In most cases, Romans didn't attach any label or stigma to same-sex relationships. In fact, in ancient times there were no Latin words differentiating between same-sex and opposite-sex relationships. It was all just SEX. (Fun fact: the words homosexual and heterosexual weren't invented by the medical community until about a hundred years ago.)
It wasn't uncommon for Roman men to have affairs with other men, particularly during adolescence and early adulthood (that extended to sexual relationships with males who were technically still children, but that's a topic for another post). In fact, by today's standards we might label many men in Roman society as bisexual rather than heterosexual--same-sex relationships were that common. However, male homosexual relationships didn't preclude married men from having sexual relations with their wives. Indeed, a Roman man who preferred sex with men was still expected to marry a woman and produce children. With homosexual relationships, there was more concern about issues such as the social status of the men involved, active versus passive partners in the coupling, and displays of explicit femininity.
If a man was the penetrating or active partner, that was considered acceptable. But if he was a free Roman citizen and the passive partner, that was seen as less manly for societal rather than moral
reasons. For instance, it was perfectly acceptable for freed or freeborn Roman men to have sex with male prostitutes or male slaves (unhappily, the slave's feelings on the matter did not signify). Regardless of sexual orientation, explicit displays of femininity in men were generally frowned upon.
Sex between women isn't well documented but it most assuredly occurred. Although Roman women were supposed to be more decorous than men in matters of sexuality, it was common for upper-class married women to have affairs outside of marriage. In those instances, female partners weren't out of the question. It's interesting to note that "strap on" dildoes were already in use between female sexual partners in ancient Rome, two thousand years before modern society. There's truly nothing new under the sun!
It all came to an end, starting in the 4th century. Once Christianity became the state religion, passive homosexual partners were condemned to death (why only the passive ones? we don't know!). By the 6th century, all homosexual acts, either for passive or active partners, were punishable with execution. In Western Europe it wasn't until at least the Renaissance that the death penalty was finally dropped (often replaced with prison or some other harsh punishment), but unfortunately the stigma continued until the last few decades of our own modern era. Thankfully today, both punishments and societal stigma are gone in most of Western society.
Photo of two men holding hands via iStock
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