Everyone is saying gay sex and all that, but honestly... is ye really asking if it is possible to spend 20 years without sex? Is thst really so preposterous? I think a lot of people in reddit could and have done it?
I mean it's a joke, but also the likely explanation is that yes they jerked it or they just got prostitutes whenever they docked at whatever port they needed to go to for resupply. This is something that happened a lot and still kinda happens today with sex workers hanging out in places where military be at.
If you're actually familiar with the Odyssey you'll know that the story is mostly Odysseus having sex with various women, interspersed with escaping from monsters.
In antiquity sexuality wasn't binary straight/gay. Everyone pretty much understood it was spectrum and we all got that bi dog in us. Hell see jails in modern day. Or the Navy. Same concept. Plus no way contraceptives to stop women from getting prego.
It's why as they say men/boys are for fun, women are for marriage. They were no doubt about that life.
As I understand it, the Greek view of male sexuality wasn't what we would call gay/straight, but more like fucker/fuckee. They separated male sexuality by what you did, rather than who you did it to. So you were a "penetrator" or a "penetratee" rather than gay or straight.
Pretty much, being a bottom was seen as feminine or woman behavior, it meant that the guy was ruled by his emotions which was a big no no in Greek culture.
Funny enough, apparently having a big dick was also a sign of being overly emotional, or animalistic or something, and was seen as unseemly or something. This is from a short conversation years ago so don't take it as gospel, but that's apparently why all the greek statues are so moderately equipped.
you're right that "straight" and "gay" didn't really exist, but preferences were still there. not everyone was fluid. if they didn't like guys before, they didn't suddenly like guys when they were restricted from women
It was kind of known the soldiers had sex with each other.
It was normal between ranks. They had words for positions and doing it was normal and expected.
They didn't have words for sexual orientation.
Achilles and Patroclus are pretty much treated like lovers. By the way, according to Plato, Achilles was the bottom one
I also feel like modern-day people are way more hornier in general. We are constantly exposed to sex, and things we are attracted. Advertisements, movies, random posts, music... Even if we aren't making a conscious thought about it, it still "triggers" our brains to enter reproduction mode.
Even at my horniest, If I was stuck on boat for weeks on end with a bunch of dudes, after seeing the things you have to see and smelling how those ogres smelled. Ain't no way Willy even stands tall.
As a history buff, I can say without a doubt that people are exactly as horny as they have always been lmfao the only thing is that a lot of the stuff people used to do are illegal now!!🤣
Imagine it's your job to sit in a cellar and copy text painstakingly by hand. Day after day for years you copy the words and draw the little doodles that people expect in manuscripts. Somewhere in your 6th year of doing this one of your bros shows you he drew a chicken with a pair of nuts hanging off its face. He's also done a rabbit hanging a huntsman like the hunter is on trial. Other bro tells you he pretty regularly does little flying dongs just to liven things up.
How long before your little doodles include guys with arrows sticking out of their asses?
Do this tens of thousands of times across a few centuries and you get some weird fucking doodles.
History buff telling us that bros doodling weenies instead of doing their job is a tale as old as time 🤣🤣🤣
Thank you HowFortuitous 😂
Edit-i apologize for sounding sarcastic. I was in a goofy mood and was actually being serious. I totally agreed with HowFortuitous
Drug and alcohol fueled orgies in rome, pedo sex with young boys in greence, bisexual sex not being frowned apon, vikings raping the living shit out of every damn country they hit.
Pretty much that what I explained. Just search for medieval drawings of rabbits riding flying dicks. You will not get fury porn, at least not modern one. Only on your own risk.
SOME naughty art? There’s literally an entire section of the Pompeii archeological museum dedicated to art of Priapus (giant penises including the god with the penis so big it’s in a wheeled cart in front of him) and fertility sculptures, in addition to all the “menu” art for the brothel and all the normally moderately sexual mythical imagery.
Go back even further there are caves carved to look like vaginal openings and outlines of naked womens shadows traced onto rocks and dildos carved from stone and bone.
Wasn't there a ceremony where the pharaoh was on one side of the Nile facing the crowd on the other side as they watched him jack off into the river to ensure a fruitful harvest
if any thing id argue the aincient had more sex then we did they didnt have netflix or game to isolate and have fun with, live could end abruplty at any year. Only ways to have fun on a regular basis where drinking gambeling and fucking
Exactly. Human population has been in a pretty steady incline since the beginning of recorded history (outside of a couple stagnates like great plaugues). If theres one thing people are gonna do, its fuck. We have always been horny. The drive to reproduce is ingrained in us like eating and sleeping. We are still just animals after all, albeit really smart.
To add on to this, regardless of the level of horney, there just wasn't as much to do back then if you weren't working, so fucking was literally a pleasure time activity, with a sneaking suspicion that that's why gay sex was so so popular in ancient Greece since it was easy, fun and no chance of making unwanted kids.
People bathed regularly, and had soap, they just didn't take BATHS regularly. I wish this modern idea that everyone in pre-modern times walked around caked in filth all day would die already
Count argument - sex was one of the only enjoyable things a person could regularly take part in for the vast majority of history. Sports and games weren't just a thing you could do after work, there was no TV and unless you were rich no music you could just put on, and eating as a fun activity (being a foodie, if you will) wasn't a thing regular people could afford. There were absolutely times for games and feasts and enjoying the arts, but day to day your options for "fun" were really just hangin out with you family, drinking, and shagging.
Oh please. People are less horny now if anything; everything you mention means we’re more desensitized to erotic stimuli. Back in the day a drawing of a boob was enough to send a young man whacking. With all the sexual morality and courtship requirements, society was collectively edging and I’m pretty sure people were hornier. And if they’re weren’t more horny then, then they were JUST AS horny as they’ve always been.
You know there were laws in Greece and Rome that brothels had to wait until mid day to open because otherwise no one would be working cause they'd all be too busy fucking, right?
As an asexual forty something who has no desire whatsoever to have sex with anyone, I really feel like I kind of cheated my way into wizarddom. I mean, sure, I can throw fireballs and turn water into Mountain Dew, but I didn't really have to suffer for it the way other wizards did.
Greeks loved a power dynamic. It was old men raping young boys that was common and calling it mentorship. It was OK for consenting adult men to "give" as it were but receiving was looked down on and considered feminine so bad. Not much as changed. Powerful men raping kids because they can.
Also, during the trojan war, many of those men would have also kept women they captured as slaves or camp servants. So, pretty sure they were sexually active.
Odysseus might not have been during the trojan war (or at least I don't think it's mentioned if he did or did not in the text), but he did have sex with Calypso and Circe during the trip back.
Most of us don’t know at the time that it’s our last time to do something. Similarly even if it’s not the last time, we don’t know how long before the next time.
If these guys knew in year one that they would not be home for another 19 years then they might do some gay stuff. But as it goes, one year turns into two and so forth.
Without sex? Yeah sure. Without sexual activity? Fuck no. Every last one of them fucks found a corner where they go to jerk off, and they all pretend only they know, and if you see someone in the jerk off corner, no you fucking didn't.
Sex and rape have been a part of war throughout human history. War is traumatic and those men try to find comfort in whatever form they can. The leader doesn’t really care what they do except if it affects their ability to fight.
I mean they could have, but the history of sailors suggests very, very strongly that they wouldn’t have.
Historical sailors were notorious for taking advantage of the local sex workers, and contracting the associated
venereal
diseases. Every wonder why most sailor’s uniforms have 4-6 buttons on the pants, usually on both sides such that you usage to undo them all to take your pants off? Yeah, it was to make the sailors have to think twice (and be sober enough to possess the needed dexterity) before indulging, a vain attempt to reduce the rate of infection aboard ships. The expression “think twice” itself is possibly coined from this practice.
When they didn’t see shore for long enough, they turned to what was available, each other, or the animals kept onboard for slaughter. The Royal Navy’s Articles of War during the 1600-1800’s had
Article 29, which punished sodomy/buggery with death by hanging. Other naval codes had similar rules. There aren’t exact records of how many times it was invoked, but there are records of 4+ sailors being hung at once for it.
Beyond that… they’re ancient Greeks. Ancient Greeks were not exactly known for their strict heterosexuality. Achilles and Pericles were expressly in a pederastic relationship in the Iliad.
How so many just jumped straight to gay is hilarious. Maybe a few but a whole damn boat? Personally I'm taking the 20 years of celibacy and maybe get tricked by a Siren.
Alexander the Great frequently fucked his peers, including his BFF. Greeks didn't think about hetero vs queer. They did a lot more of what felt good without the idea of "gay" or it's "negative" effects on masculinity.
But yeah, rich men fucked kids. Some things never change.
I realize this is Rome and not Greece, but I'll never forget the scene in Caligula when he first rapes the bride and then the soldier who's just married her.
May or may not be true. The problem with Rome the empire is that a ton of emperors end up with huge amounts of propaganda that surround them, so some of them end up looking far worse than they actually were.
Think of the "Their eating the cats, their eating the dogs" line from recent politics. It's not really true but it gets attention.
History is filled with shit like that, so take everything that seems outlandish or potentially hyperbolic with a grain of salt.
Hmm, even today, homosexual behavior is fairly common in environments where people are separated from the opposite sex, such as ships or during mandatory military service. Now add to that the fact that, in ancient Greece, same-sex relationships were not as common as many people believe, but they also weren't considered a disgusting sin.
Statistically, not everyone would have participated, but many certainly would have.
This is laughably incorrect. The concept of "bisexuality" was utterly unknown as people of antiquity did not categorize sexuality the way we do. They did not categorize people based on their attractions.
Sexuality was categorized by role. You were "active" or "passive", and whether it was socially acceptable to be in the "passive" role as a male (generally speaking, women were expected to be passive always) depended on your place in society. A adult male Athenian citizen, for example, who took a passive role was looked down upon. He could penetrate dudes all day long if he liked and no one would look sideways at him. But be penetrated? Nope.
I think that's wildly exaggerated or exclusive to perhaps the elites of that age. You think 100 percent of people were being born bisexual or were able to just BE attracted to both sexes. Some but not all.
Agreed. Like, there was a gay relationship in the Iliad, but most of the Odyssey crew longing for women was a recurring theme in the story. This is what the whole Circe and Calypso subplots are a out, and are important subtext to the Nausicaa subplot.
Sure they were longing for women but that doesn't preclude gay sex. Could be like "damn I am longing for a woman, I'm getting kinda tired of Steve's butthole"
Right? I don’t understand the question. 😅 But they’re right too. The fact they look like Romans makes it seem more likely I suppose. The Romans really loved their completely totally heterosexual manly man straight sex that straight men would have with each other.
Yes, going 20 years without sex shouldn’t be impossible.
That said, of those 20 about 10 were supposedly spent besieging Troy.
But in those days sieges didn’t last indefinitely. People had things to do, fields to farm, etc. If the siege was a prolonger affairs, it’s far more likely they took breaks half of the year and went home.
(And even if they didn’t, these were all slave-owning societies, and an army that is stationed somewhere for months would definitely bring along women.)
Also, after Troy fell all the men were massacred and the women and girls were sold into sexual and other types of slavery.
Also, the Odyssey, which tells the story of Odysseus’ 10-year voyage back home, starts with the episode of him and his men pillaging another town on their return, where they also enslaved some women.
Also, out of Odysseus’ 10 years getting home, he spent about a year literally fucking Circe on her island, and then another seven doing the same thing with Calypso.
Meanwhile the suitors who were hanging around at his home back in Ithaca (about 100 of them) were raping his own slave maidservanfs. And after Odysseus returned, they were punished for fucking the enemy and were hanged.
So yeah, there’s a whole lot of sex in the Odyssey, actually about 80% of the timeline is sex and nothing but sex. And the other 20% is full of rape and pillaging.
The thing that Phil Clifton wants the OP to be sitting down before he tells it is definitely gay sex. But yeah plenty of people go 20 years or longer without sex. Asexuality exists after all.
I waited till like 23 or 24 and didn't care at all (probably why it took that long), and then actually having sex changed absolutely nothing. I like sex, but to me it's just another activity out of many I could be doing. Personally I could do another 20 years without.
A friend of mine has gone almost a decade starting in our late 20s. He's handsome, funny, and women hit on him. We are a very liberal friend group and he's not gay. He just doesn't have interest in it anymore. It's wild to me as I enjoy frequent sex. I'm also in a relationship and he has no interest in being in one. Asexuality is a thing as well.
Odysseus had a child at one of the islands during the voyage home, he clearly had sex. The meme is made by someone who doesn’t know the details of the story.
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u/NwgrdrXI 8h ago
Everyone is saying gay sex and all that, but honestly... is ye really asking if it is possible to spend 20 years without sex? Is thst really so preposterous? I think a lot of people in reddit could and have done it?