Roman Homosexuality by Craig A. Williams;

Author:Craig A. Williams; [Williams;, Craig A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780195388749
Publisher: OxfordUP
Published: 2010-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

WAS THERE A SUBCULTURE?

In her 1993 article Amy Richlin argues that “the possibility of a male homosexual subculture at Rome should not be set aside”; in his studies of sexuality in Roman art, John Clarke suggests that artifacts like the Warren Cup, together with “the relatively large number of poems addressed by poets to their male lovers,” are “positive signs of a homosexual culture in Roman society”; and in a 1997 article Rabun Taylor argues extensively for the “development of homosexual subcultures in the face of adversity” in ancient Rome.300 Whether described as a “culture” or a “subculture,” the concept is familiar enough from later times and places. Randolph Trumbach has described “molly houses” in early eighteenth-century London, which formed part of “a subculture of the like-minded where men who could be both active and passive sought each other,” and George Chauncey’s study Gay New York provides extensive documentation of clubs and saloons in late nineteenth-and early twentieth-century New York City, places that “fostered and sustained a distinctive gay culture in a variety of ways.”301 But precisely these putative parallels point to a crucial distinction between the cultural landscapes of London and New York on the one hand and ancient Rome on the other. As Trumbach puts it, molly houses provided a place where homosexual relations could be “more safely pursued,” since “it was dangerous to attempt to seduce men who did not share such tastes.”302 In other words, in more recent times subcultures have responded to the need of the “like-minded” (persons defined by their desire for persons of their own sex) to meet in an environment that offers them a safe haven from an outside world hostile to homosexuality. Hence a number of historians have argued that one simply cannot speak of a “homosexual subculture” in the West until the eighteenth century or later, when hostility to homosexual desire and practices became increasingly virulent and when the quintessentially modern identity of “the homosexual” was established.303 For its part, the Roman textual tradition described in this book strongly discourages us from imagining cinaedi and their male sexual partners as belonging to one group, just as it discourages us from conceiving of men and the female prostitutes they visited, or men and the male slaves they used, as belonging to a cohesive group. The young stud picked up by Apuleius’ cinaedi (Met. 8.24–30) clearly did not form a part of any subculture he shared with the cinaedi; Petronius’ characters Encolpius and Ascyltos, sexually involved with each other as well as with Giton, do not share a subculture with the repulsive cinaedus who jumps on them at Quartilla’s house (Petr. Sat. 23–4).304

Trumbach’s description of the London molly houses and Chauncey’s study of bars and clubs in New York point to another important issue: these subcultures served as environments in which men could meet potential sexual partners.305Writing about late nineteenth and early twentieth century England, Jeffrey Weeks observes:

A sexual subculture can fulfill a number of complementary functions: alleviating isolation and guilt, schooling members in manners and mores, teaching and affirming identities.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.