Why were the Romans more lenient on homosexuality than Medieval Europe?

 

I think the better question is, why was Medieval Europe less lenient on homosexuality than Ancient Rome? And the answer is Christianity.

Let’s address the elephant in the room first. The Romans were not universally accepting of homosexuality. The Romans didn’t have a concept of sexual orientation as we it. Rather than our hetero-normative society, they were a bi-normative society, in which men were supposed to sleep with women for reproduction and other men for pleasure.

Romans sexual mores also operated on “prison rules”. A man may penetrate a woman because she is lower in social status than him. A man may also penetrate another man if he is of a lower station. But a man may not be penetrated by another man of lower status. He may not be penetrated by someone poorer, less connected, or even younger than him. Because that’s gay.

These same sexual mores survive in modern day prisons. Men, heterosexual men, will develop “situational homosexuality” in an all male environment. And that situational homosexuality will be used to construct a social hierarchy.

Which is essentially what happened in Rome. Because this was a very patriarchal society, in which women were considered property, and in which women and men didn’t interact much unless they were married.

Homosexual sex became the preferred means of recreational sex, because it didn’t risk pregnancy, and it didn’t “de-value” someone’s daughter.

Lot flees the destruction of Sodom. Scholars debate exactly why God destroyed Sodom, the three main theories being homosexuality, homosexual rape, and being rude to guests.

And this is where Christianity, or rather where Judaism, comes in. Because at this time most cultures had some acceptable form of homosexuality, except for Judaism. The religion had a pretty blanket ban on the matter.

My theory is that the ban was related to the idea that sex should produce children. Because this was a culture that was beset on all sides by enemies, suffered from a high mortality rate, and a high infant mortality rate. And so the ban on homosexuality emerged as a means of ensuring the survival of the tribe. You have to have as many children as you can, so that we don’t die out.

God kills Onan for “pulling out” when he has sex with his dead brother’s widow. (Brick Testament was the only picture I could find.)

And when Christianity was founded, spread throughout the Roman Empire, and eventually to Europe, it carried Jewish sexual mores with it. Medieval Europe had a ban on homosexuality, because Judaism had a ban on homosexuality, because it was considered a form of contraceptive. Which is banned.

Even today, if you look at many extremely conservative Abrahamic groups, whether Jewish, Christian or Muslim, they have a ban on both homosexuality and contraceptives. And they’re both rooted in the same fundamental concept. That sex is supposed to produce children.

Say what you will about the Taliban, but if there’s one good thing about them, it’s that they killed anyone who practiced “Bacha Bazi”, or the rape of young boys by men. Something that the US turned a blind eye towards. And something that would have been perfectly acceptable in Ancient Rome.