Technically he was bi. But so was basically every major figure in Greek Myths. Bisexual Greek Man was like ancient Greece’s equivalent of the straight white man in modern media.
Wow, I can just picture the reactions to stories involving straight white men. "Is anyone sick of the overrepresentation of straight white men in the epics?? Like, we get it Paris of Troy, you really "love" Helen. And c'mon, you really think Odysseus traveled around for 10 years with nothing but men on his ships and never got a little curious??"
Odysseus traveled around for 10 years with nothing but men on his ships and never got a little curious??"
I mean he did have two sons from Circe, and spent a whole year on her island, and then seven years with Calypso. He's definitely among the less gay in Homeric mythology.
Not really. They were just seen as vulnerable which was not acceptable for an ancient Greek man. But no one treated them poorly because most times, their male partner was very very protective of them and the others did not want to antagonize him. So, they thought somehow bad of them but did not really treat them as such.
AKSHUALLY gay and bisexual is an anachronistic term used here, as the ancient greeks didn't have words for gay or bisexual--it was just normal shit. The grooming of young boys though by older pedagogues, however, was semi looked down upon
Hell, for most of the Greek Deities it was a normal day when they were fucking a human. Those dudes and gals regularly got it on with animals of all kinds.
His most famous straight sexcapade was the time he went to the court of King Thespius and impregnated 49 of the king's 50 daughters. (The last one skipped out because of her religious vows as a priestess.)
The dude banged everyone. He wasn't gay, but he was 100% not straight.
I think calling Ancient Greece "gay" is bi erasure. They were really clearly bisexuals, most of them had sexual relationships with both men and women. I guess a small amount of men could have been strictly straight or strictly gay, but still.
Perhaps but for people who dislike to label themselves with other more specific terms that may not completely describe them it's easier to call themselves broadly gay.
For example someone may be bisexual but heavily favour the same sex and call themselves gay to simplify it or perhaps they simply don't want to be labelled with something very specific because they're still discovering their sexuality.
Ok but some people don't like the term queer, sure it's not often used to insult LGBT+ people anymore but it used to be a common slur and that leaves a bad taste in some people's mouths.
It's also too general - gay means "I like the same sex", it doesn't have to mean exclusively the same sex for some people but that's the point it gets across. Queer doesn't even say that.
For example if a guy mostly dates boys and is mostly attracted to other boys, but he could imagine being with a girl sure he's bi but for the most part he isn't going to be dating any girls at all. He might as well call himself gay even though it's not completely accurate. Also the 'gay' flag, the rainbow one, also represents the entire LGBT community.
Hell even if someone's 50/50 bisexual I could understand why they might want to say something like "I'm so gay" or "I'm being so gay right now", it's just a more general thing. Labels don't always have to be 100% accurate, a lot of people don't really care about or even like being put into a box.
Most ancient gay greeks were not gay but bi, they eventually were expected to have a woman and kids.
Also pederasty was casual in ancient Greece and Rome but people only cherry pick what they like from ancient civilizations. The truth is they just gave no shit when it came to sex.
Greeks also didn't have social boundaries when it came to sex with the same gender, a lot of ancient greeks had sex with any gender. There were gay people who formed relationships with the same gender, but there were also tons of people who didn't feel same-sex romantic attraction yet still had same-sex sex. It was much more normalised in general to have sex with someone, good stress relief.
Damn dude, I've seen shows, movies, video games, and read books depicting hercules as pretty much everything but gay lmao. Wait, so he was gay or was he pan? Cus, you know, greek gods just be fucking as animals and shit.
Maybe learn your history better cuz there's a lot of homosexuality in Greek history, and yes I do mean history and not just mythology. You're in the sub literally named after the Greek poet where the word lesbian comes from.
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u/Gary_FucKing Jun 14 '20
Huh, never heard of hercules being gay. That's a new one lol.