I can assume that most of these men were not gay, but rather used gay sex as an outlet for pleasure given the hopeless circumstances they were in.
What struck to me most though, is the eventual development of romantic relations where partners would pamper each other with gifts. To me this shows a deeper need for a human connection beyond just sex.
> were not gay, but rather used gay sex as an outlet for pleasure given the hopeless circumstances they were in
MSM behavior is on a spectrum, that moreover encompasses both deprivation-based homosexuality (the kind you get in "hopeless" circumstances with no access to heterosexual relationships) and dominance-based homosexuality (MSM sex as a raw exertion of dominance by one participant towards the other). These sorts of practices need not have much to do with "sexual orientation", as understood today.
In ancient Mediterranean cultures, being a dominant participant in MSM encounters was something "anyone" could do, and was not understood as anything unusual. It was only the submissive partner that was considered highly feminized. This same model shows up in other ancient cultures, e.g. in East Asia. The modern Western understanding where MSM practices boil down to a gay "sexual orientation" that's equally shared by both partners is historically novel.
I quite enjoy the description of gifts and mutual affection, but nothing in this article is new or surprising -- not sure if I'm more familiar than the average reader with queer history or everybody will feel the same.
It's in general quite astonishing to see how different the view of homosexual relationship is and has been over different cultures. It's not just a binary acceptable/not acceptable difference, but homosexuality has had a different social role in different societies in a way that is difficult to imagine today.
I've heard that a lot of the crazy stories about Nero were just propaganda. I'm not certain that this is an example, but it definitely feels like propaganda.
You could say the same thing about the modern stories of Epstein, Qanon, the supposed secret basement in that pizza place etc. Maybe it was just propaganda, or maybe Nero, Caligula and other Roman emperors were a bit sociopathic to say the least and were drawn to more than just abstract political power.
Are you saying Epstein wasn't in the business of pedophilic exploitation involving a number of the global'elite', and that his island wasn't a resort for said activities?
It doesn't seem right to conflate that with Qanon or Pizzagate. It's like comparing critics of a particular Covid-19 policy to flat-earthers.
> It doesn't seem right to conflate that with Qanon or Pizzagate. It's like comparing critics of a particular Covid-19 policy to flat-earthers.
Yes, but the point is that the two cases can be indistinguishable at a distance. We'll probably never know what stories about Roman emperors were at least somewhat factual, and what were just propaganda.
Nero had a very "peculiar" sexual life, but was also, of course, very powerful, which made him an enemy of the Senate that was very conservative about the image of Roman as soldiers.
So it is possible that the stories were true and they used them to dethrone him and later on the propaganda depicted him as a monster.
There were rumors in history, today believed untrue, that he killed his wife Poppea kicking her in the belly, also killing the baby she was caring.
There are rumors of him killing his mother Agrippina (we don't know if it's true or not).
The story says that Nero after losing the wife married his lover Statilia Messalina, but she was too different from Poppea so he started a search throughout the Empire for a woman looking exactly like his dead wife.
He also decided that the sex of the person wasn't important, so when they found Sporo, Nero castrated him and married him in Greece. Story says Sporo was dressed as an empress, but probably he never wanted that life and the castration was forced upon him.
The marriage with Sporo came after the one with Pitagora, when Nero played the role of the wife.
If all of this is propaganda, Svetonio had a great imagination, or, maybe, as the historians think today, most of it is the truth, romanticized, but mostly true.
Or maybe he just wrote down some of the craziest rumors? Individually I think I could buy most of them individually, but together they just seem too much. He married a guy after castrating him and also got married to a guy with himself dressed as the bride? I guess I would consider it more believable if they seemed more 'congruent'.
> I would consider it more believable if they seemed more 'congruent'.
Why?
Social norms were very different for regular people, imagine being the emperor, especially Nero, whose family history make GOT look like a family camping...
Another example is Elagabalus, who is considered the first example of a transgender emperor in history.
Right now, 7 of the 30 stories on the front page (> 23%) have nothing to do with tech. Dang (the moderator) encourages a solid amount of non-tech content to keep the site interesting and diverse.
I, personally, didn't touch the article - and from the title, I could guess I'd probably feel the same way towards it as you.
However, my actual comment was literally to just make a correction that posts on HN aren't limited to what the parent had listed.
There's a lot of regulars on here who really don't know that. Obviously, they're in no way malicious, but Dan tries to correct them by urging them to read the guidelines when they make it obvious they haven't... thus, so will I.
It is still a hard balance to strike between "In Iran they still hang you on a car crane" vs. "My circle of people is accepting and moved along already a few years ago".
This is just another topic that some people – such as myself – are interested in. It's no more in your face than any other interesting-but-somewhat-off-topic posts that come up here.
However, as an LGBT person I do also feel some fatigue in this regard. But in my case, I think the source of that fatigue is mainly my Facebook feed, not HN.
So, the LGBT people you talk to on HN are, in general, likely to be middle-class, and educated, and thus somewhat less likely to be facing the very worst stuff. However, yeah, most LGBT people will face at least some issues in their lives that straights don't have to deal with.
> For some reason though, we have to go over and over this mind numbing stream of preaching and virtue signaling every week
I think you're seeing what you want to see.
> I mean, what do you people want in the end?
To be treated as people, basically.
> Do I have to spend the rest of my life proving that I do not care about you at all?
You can do what you like. You seem to be taking this bizarrely personally.
> For some reason though, we have to go over and over this mind numbing stream of preaching and virtue signaling every week. You start anew every time and have to prove your loyalty to the grand cause or the ruling party, or whatever it is at this point
You can do whatever you want. As can everyone else.
If anyone doesn't feel that either of those things are true, then I really genuinely recommend some therapy. Therapy is great.
It's very hard to avoid getting bombarded by this. You would have to completely avoid processing any information stream. Taht would still leave you with all the events and initiatives in the office. I don't really see why I should stick a pride flag on my desk and it is frowned upon if I don't. It's not a matter of therapy. I'm perfectly fine, there is a problem with people pushing politics down your throat even if you already accepted it. I cannot even imagine how people that have different opinions handle it.
Yes, I can see how it seems impossible to avoid. And trying avoid The Thing is one approach.
Another other approach is to figure out why you have these feelings in response to The Thing. Once you know why, you can work towards not having these feelings in response to The Thing.
That route is the harder one, and so is often made much easier (/possible) with the help of a therapist.
The easy 'avoid' route takes constant low-level effort and occasional difficult feelings. The hard 'why' route typically takes more up-front effort, but much less long term maintenance.
It's kinda like software: It's ok to suffer technical debit for a bit. But after a while you may just think "f--k it", lets deal with this once and for all and move on.
Yup, it's especially funny because the present-day, deeply egalitarian idea of homosexuality (with its attendant developments, including gay marriage) is a very modern (late 19th c. at the earliest) development. Back in, say, Ancient Greece and Rome, "prison bitch" was all you got - both homosexual sex and, to a large extent, heterosexual were essentially predatory in nature. Rape culture was very real. (You can see the consequences of this e.g. in the Christian new testament, where the homosexual practices of the time are said to be an abomination but this also extends to heterosexual practices.)
(OP's article does attempt to reframe the typical practices of the time and make them "fit" the modern egalitarian view, but note how even in their own account it's always the older, more dominant member of the pairing who is said to "love" and "care" for his younger and more submissive partner. This is clearly the same sort of highly skewed arrangement that is well known from ancient Mediterranean cultures.)
If we're questioning the egalitarian quality of pre-20th century relationŝips, one could also say that "heterosexuality" between equals was also not the norm.
Only modern _homosexuality,_ though, is burdened with the requirement to prove that its historical antecedents were somehow more egalitarian than the norm for its time.
> one could also say that "heterosexuality" between equals was also not the norm.
Yes, that's pretty much what I said. Hence also the historical focus on socially sanctioning heterosexual sex via marriage, and on the family's role in carefully vetting prospective marriage partners. It clearly didn't go as far as modern "consent culture" towards solving the issue, but it was a rough attempt.
Often, these discussions go awry is when we overestimate and build upon solid seeming concepts that are actually squishy.
Marriage and prison bitch have very different connotations to us. To an alien...these are all in the sphere of coupling relationships. Ultimately, a 4th century peasant marriage, 19th century marriage, a 1950s American marriage and a modern, suburban gay marriage are all different from eachother... there's a common thread though.
I would guess that, even in the huge world population, there are large time intervals between any two people being murdered for defending that pidgeons cannot understand human speech.
So with any external thing I should basically go to a psychologist? Is it so werid that I'm tired of all the preaching. You cannot evan say that you are tired. Every preacher is autmatically assigned a status of invincibility. Say something to the preacher - you are the offender now.
If general-interest articles about history that you're under no obligation to read make you want to scream, then... yeah, maybe. That's not a normal response.
It reads to me like you've taken rsynnott's point to an extreme here.
> Is it so werid that I'm tired of all the preaching
Humans are all weird in different ways, but that isn't the point here. The point is that your views on this seem to be making you unhappy. And, well, that doesn't have to be the case. Talking to someone can help you not feel unhappy about this stuff. And if indeed it does, it will likely make other parts of your life better too, in ways that may not be obvious now.
Lot's of people here have had therapy. This is not a judgement or a dismissal, rather it is genuine advice.
You seem to be trying to give me an honest advice, which is nice and I appreciate it, but you don't seem to get the point - you do not have to, and should not, feel ok with everything that happens externally. That's not something that needs fixing. I do not need a cope mechanism. There are real things that I'm dissatisfied with and I have the right to feel this way. I can rationalise it and go to some kind of therapy, but that's not the point. I have enough "terapy" sessions in my job, that's precisely what I'm dissatisfied about. It's a bit annoying and redundant most of the year, but after the pride month you just want to never hear about this topic anymore in your life.
Imagine that someone comes to you and says that you should kneel before some random black people, because that's how you are supposed to react to the BLM narrative.
You might genuiely care about the minorities and still do not agree with the BLM narrative, or just plainly do not see the point of the performances themselves. You might feel very bad about doing this, which is completely natural. There are a lot of reasons why you would not want to do this.
Should you go to a therapy to be able to shame yourself more easily?
All due respect, it feels that someone who suggests something like this would need the therapy more.
Until the day when homophobes/racists/sexists stop acting like pieces of shit.
If doing your part to support these people just includes not saying anything while awareness is raised, I would recommend doing that. It's very easy to do and takes no effort on your part.
Queer people are typically not present in traditional histories. This raises the awareness that queer people existed then too, albeit in different circumstances.
Isn't the consequence of that line of thinking that anything that doesn't raise awareness is problematic, as it takes up attention/spots on the front page etc? Ergo: we should have nothing but LGBT topics so everybody is aware all the time.
> If doing your part to support these people just includes not saying anything while awareness is raised, I would recommend doing that.
Does not imply what you asserted, which is:
> Isn't the consequence of that line of thinking that anything that doesn't raise awareness is problematic, as it takes up attention/spots on the front page etc? Ergo: we should have nothing but LGBT topics so everybody is aware all the time.
There seem to be several logical steps in-between the two assertions that you've assumed would happen and didn't lay out here.
See the guidelines[1] which define on/off topic as:
> On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.
This article did gratify my intellectual curiosity, and I don't think I'd see it on TV news.
On-topic guideline essentially allows everything, rendering off-topic guideline moot. Could have been avoided by defining "a good hacker" but that's missing as well :)
>Could have been avoided by defining "a good hacker" but that's missing as well :)
Given that it's his site, his forum and his rules, I've always assumed "anything that good hackers would find interesting" loosely correlated to "anything Paul Graham would find interesting."
It's usually a measure of similarity to the mods, not pg, i.e. whatever dang thinks is interesting goes, if you are not "a good hacker" like dang - too bad for you. Although I do remember there was a pg article not so long ago that was so dumb and nonsensical it was flagged off the frontpage only to forcefully reappear a few hour later.
I don't really mind dang making those sorts of editorial decisions, since it's more or less his job. At least dang seems open to a greater breadth and depth of subject matter than many people's narrow minded view of what should be relevant here.
That said, "good hacker" as a qualifier is as frustratingly elitist as it is maddeningly vague.
My interpretation is that "good" is meant to delineate from "bad". E.g. this isn't a forum for sploits, warez and script kiddies. Reading how others interpret this is curious to me, as I joined with zero knowledge of this pg guy and personally tend to weigh his various opinions on merit.
I can assume that most of these men were not gay, but rather used gay sex as an outlet for pleasure given the hopeless circumstances they were in.
What struck to me most though, is the eventual development of romantic relations where partners would pamper each other with gifts. To me this shows a deeper need for a human connection beyond just sex.