CLAS 1000 Chapter Notes - Chapter 8: Sexual Orientation, Expurgation, Prude

• School: University of Guelph
• Department: Classical Studies
• Course: CLAS 1000
• Professor: John Walsh

Document Summary

Sexual pleasure had a positive social value in roman antiquity: the ancients had a goddess of sexual pleasure, and erotica was displayed openly as an indication of high status and luxury. Such properties are viewed as definitive or identity because they are natural , inherent , or inborn , existing before or beyond acculturation: constructivism, in contract, is the theory that different times and places produce different results. It seems that roman men were held up to a physical ideal that began in classical greece and is still with. Some of those characteristics are transferred to the roman cinaedus. In other words, they took pleasures in performing activities inappropriate to their gender and so transgressed the boundaries of acceptable gender identity. Interestingly, their female partners performed normally and were not censured: sexuality and the law: stuprum and rape, stuprum was the generic latin term for sexual misconduct .