Sexuality in ancient Rome

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Sexuality in ancient Rome generally lacked the modern categories of "heterosexual" or "homosexual." [1] Instead, the differentiating characteristic was activity versus passivity, or penetrating versus penetrated. The masculine was associated with the active and penetrating role. The feminine was associated with the passive and penetrated role. However, just as today's "normative" sexuality is far from universal, these ideal roles were frequently violated, with men performing the passive role and vice versa. [2] A man who liked to be penetrated was called "pathic", roughly translated as "bottom" in modern sex terminology. A woman who wanted to penetrate was a "tribade" (the meaning of which has now changed).

Honour was associated with the masculine role and with impenetrability. There was an element of the sacred feminine, but it is subordinate in historical records of mostly male writers who emphasise male gravitas and the active role.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Further reading

Adams, J. N. The Latin Sexual Vocabulary, 1982, ISBN 0-8018-4106-2
Halperin, David M. "homosexuality" (pp. 722-3) in The Oxford Classical Dictionary, third edition, 1996, ISBN 0-19-866172-X
Hubbard, Thomas K. Homosexuality in Greece and Rome: A Sourcebook of Basic Documents. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-23430-8.
Skinner, Marilyn. Sexuality in Greek And Roman Culture. Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 0-631-23234-6.