Ancient gay kings and emperors thread

Pic related: Hadrian and Antinous
How did romans react to their emperors gay relationship?

Revisionism

They were gay the same way someone who goes to /b/ is gay. They have just been exposed to so much sex and so many traps that at some point they say "Why not".
They are not absolute gays, they instead just wanted to delve into every weird sexual thing they could find.

It was intercrural sex.

You're overcomplicating things. A decent percentage of people, especially women, would engage in sex with the same gender under certain circumstances if the societies around them didn't care too much about it happening.

There was no gay identity back then. In fact there wasn't any kind of sexual identity. Sex was something you did, not something you were. You engaged in homosexual behavior, you weren't "a homosexual" because that wasn't a thing. Sexuality was conceived of by 19th century psychoanalysts as a way to explain what they considered perverted behavior. They believed all expressed behaviors were symptoms of an underlying psychological core, that all outward expressions were a part of an inner self. Thus it stood to reason that sexual inclinations were an expression of a "sexual self" or sexuality. Thus, homosexual behaviors indicated a homosexual self.

Before that notion though, if you engaged in homosexual behavior it just meant you were a sinner or a pervert or a weirdo or just "one of those types" depending on your society and your status.

TL;DR they weren't gay by the modern reckoning of the term

This. As long as you were the active part, and specially if you were older fucking/grooming a younger man, it was ok.

What was particular about Hadrian afaik is that Antinous was more like his actual couple, not just another random sexual partner. Like, he was actually in love with him.

dem boiis alex and hef were definitely fucking

The most famous case in Chinese history.

Gay people didn't exist until kultural marxist professors started infiltrating Western society in the 1800s

It's not gay if you're fucking your other half

This reminds me of an article I read about how modern Pashtun culture perceives homosexuality. Pretty much any amount of male on male sex is fine. It's just viewed as a thing you do. However, if you love and/or live with the person you're fucking, that's totally gay. So raping someone, one night stands, or predatory sex with young boys is fine. It's when two consenting adults attempt to live together in a loving relationship under one roof that everyone involved has to be stoned to death.

Gay identity, you idiot.

As far as these men were concerned, they didn't turn into something else. "Third genders" seem to be a case in places like India & Southeast Asia though.

>There was no gay identity back then

There literally is nothing called identity now either either gay or heterosexual.

Just because you say you identify as something doesn't make it true.

Yeah no, you're wrong.

None of this mentions causes and it certainly doesn't negate the original point.

Hitler was gay!

...

>Just because you say you identify as something doesn't make it true.
Does any other identity exist to you?

An identity as a Greek colonist, as a member of a polis, as a Persian immigrant, even if you find out in a DNA test and sociology lesson afterwards that you're actually genetically and culturally Indian, as a Jew being hunted during the Holocaust, as someone visiting certain boards on Veeky Forums?

The whole concept of identity is bullshit tbqh and is almost always used as a weapon of power.

>"As a woman, you can't possibly have an opinion on abortion"
>"As a minority, you can't possibly understand what it's like to constantly experience racism"
>"As a Muslim, I am offended that these people drew cartoons of my prophet"

White noise and power games.

>concept of identity is bullshit tbqh
Why do think that?

Because it's not real?

Prove it's real with empirical evidence.

>Because it's not real?
I thought that's what you meant by it being "bullshit".

There was no stain on his reputation for chastity except his intimacy with King Nicomedes, but that was a deep and lasting reproach, which laid him open to insults from every quarter. I say nothing of the notorious lines of Licinius Calvus:
"Whate'er Bithynia had, and Caesar's paramour."
I pass over, too, the invectives of Dolabella and the elder Curio, in which Dolabella calls him "the queen's rival, the inner partner of the royal couch," and Curio, "the brothel of Nicomedes and the stew of Bithynia." I take no account of the edicts of Bibulus, in which he posted his colleague as "the queen of Bithynia," saying that "of yore he was enamoured of a king, but now of a king's estate." At this same time, so Marcus Brutus declares, one Octavius, a man whose disordered mind made him somewhat free with his tongue, after saluting Pompey as "king" in a crowded assembly, greeted Caesar as "queen." But Gaius Memmius makes the direct charge that he acted as cup-bearer to Nicomedes with the rest of his wantons at a large dinner-party, and that among the guests were some merchants from Rome, whose names Memmius gives. Cicero, indeed, is not content with having written in sundry letters that Caesar was led by the king's attendants to the royal apartments, that he lay on a golden couch arrayed in purple, and that the virginity of this son of Venus was lost in Bithynia; but when Caesar was once addressing the senate in defence of Nysa, daughter of Nicomedes, and was enumerating his obligations to the king, Cicero cried: "No more of that, pray, for it is well known what he gave you, and what you gave him in turn." Finally, in his Gallic triumph his soldiers, among the bantering songs which are usually sung by those who followed the chariot, shouted these lines, which became a by-word:
"All the Gauls did Caesar vanquish, Nicomedes vanquished him;
Lo! now Caesar rides in triumph, victor over all the Gauls,
Nicomedes does not triumph, who subdued the conqueror."
- Suetonius

>Prove it's real with empirical evidence.
My dictionary says that "identity" in psychology means "a person's perceived unit of self".

Don't I just have to walk up to someone and ask him what kind of person he perceives himself to be?

>Sexuality was concienced in the 19th century

>>>/Tumblr/

How do people fall for this shit? Get BOG'D

He's actually right, if we look at the Ancient Greeks, for example.

Well I don't believe it's real. I just think people act.

And whatever the reasoning they have in their head for acting a specific way, are just non-real abstractions.

I mean, if a Roman citizen constantly engaged in homosexual behavior, and never had children, and a man in the 21st century did the same, there's literally no difference. They are both homosexual, regardless of the concept of "identity".

In Homer's time, the Greeks had no word for "blue".

This does not mean blue did not exist.

Not that you aren't entirely without a point in that, yes, they didn't have such well set identities in that regard - though you could still develop a reputation for pegging or getting pegged. (The latter having negative connotations.) And I'm fairly certain they had one or more slurs for someone of that ilk.

Even if it wasn't like today, where people literally identify by their sexual preference. Which, while I've no real problem with homosexuality in general, I find rather irritating. But, given the controversy, particularly among the young and hunting, it's hardly surprising. I suppose it'll be less of an issue as it normalizes over time - maybe.

>young and hunting
What does this mean
They didn't have the concept of gay and straight, they had the concept of masculine and feminine. Unironically saying Christianity with its abrahamic culture changed identity politics. But people identifying as Indian third genders to be raped by their gods is just fucked up

What do you mean by "real"? Do you mean that identity doesn't exist physically? I think nobody doubts that.

>And whatever the reasoning they have in their head
So you agree that there is some sort of cognitive process involved?

>I mean, if a Roman citizen constantly engaged in homosexual behavior, and never had children, and a man in the 21st century did the same, there's literally no difference.
To the act, there wouldn't be a difference.
But I would say that if one of them doesn't at all think about how he perceives himself and the other one does, or they both do, but conceptualize their act with different models, then there is a difference, even if it doesn't exist materially.

Let's rather take Greeks again. Greeks didn't have sexual identities in the sense of "homosexual" and "heterosexual", but they did have sexual roles: the domineering, active one and the domineered, passive one. This applied to both heterosexual and homosexual sex.
Men that practiced homosexuality didn't at all think that they were "homosexual". They just had either the role of erastes or eromenos.
But nowadays, the sexual role is in the background and in the foreground is to which sex you feel attracted.

>its not gay if its intercrural

The point is that the act is what matters.

Notice that nobody defines things as identity in any other domain in society.

People don't ask if someone identifies as a carpenter, they ask what kind of work people do and they respond.

>So you agree that there is some sort of cognitive process involved?

No, I think the cognitive process is completely irrelevant.

What if the Roman citizen also constantly engaged in heterosexual behavior, what if he had a wife as well? Would he still be homosexual?

If he did both he would obviously be bisexual.

>Notice that nobody defines things as identity in any other domain in society.
I think ethnic and religious identity are both very important to many people and also often attempted to be defined.

>No, I think the cognitive process is completely irrelevant.
Do you think that it is irrelevant everywhere?
For example, at a trial? Should someone who conducted misconduct and thought that he was justified in doing so be treated differently than someone who conducted misconduct and thought he wasn't justified in doing so or didn't care whether he was?

Take the wife murdering the wife-beater, for example. The wife-beater beats the wife every day. He beats her bloody and unconscious, to the point that she becomes convinced that she will die. The police doesn't do anything, because the wife-beater is good at convincing people that all is fine. He threatened to kill her, should she divorce him. The wife thought that there was absolutely no way out of the conundrum and poisons the wife-beater.
Now, take the same case, but the wife doesn't at all think that she is threatened. She thinks that she can easily leave him, yet poisons him, because she thinks that's easier.

Does the cognitive process the wife had in the act matter?

>I think ethnic and religious identity are both very important to many people

Yeah, people think they are important. But I don't. I think what matters is how people act. Not what they say they identify as.

Also, the extent to which cognitive processes are useful in a trial is to establish motive from a crime.

People don't really care that a woman kills her husband because he beats her, it's still illegal to murder people, hence the act of murdering is what matters.

>Not what they say they identify as.
Which is an act in itself.

>Also, the extent to which cognitive processes are useful in a trial is to establish motive from a crime.
>People don't really care that a woman kills her husband because he beats her, it's still illegal to murder people, hence the act of murdering is what matters.
Most countries have relative sentences. When the law says that a murderer shall usually get 20 years, but can get between 10 years and life-long, or maybe even the death penalty, then it opens up the possibility for upping or lowering of the sentence. The most important factor there then tends to be the subjective side of the act - that is, stuff like whether someone felt threatened, to which extent someone was aware what he was doing, whether he felt remorse, et cetera.

I'd say that cognitive processes matter when it literally can be the difference between walking free or death.

>Which is an act in itself.

Well then we have wildly differing opinions of what constitutes an act.

Saying "hello" is an act.
Saying "I identify as a furry angel guiding world history" is an act.
Thinking "I am a furry angel guiding world history" is not an act.

Fine, but you do see the differentiation between saying you identify as X, and how you act.

I mean, if you say to me that you identify as an anti-capitalist, and you still fly planes and SnapChat things with your Iphone, that's what's called a performative contradiction.

And the same applies to Roman faggots. Cultural norms notwithstanding, having homosexual sex means you're gay, whether or not the culture itself recognizes gayness as some kind of acceptable social identifier.

>having homosexual sex means you're gay,
If the guy didn't have homosexual sex, would he then not be gay?

Is the pedophile that doesn't fuck children, but would really, really like to pedophilic or not?

Is the Greek elder who is socially obligated to fuck young boys, but feels disgusted even by the mere thought of it - and yet does it, because of the social pressure - really a pedophilic homosexual or does he just act pedophilic and homosexually?

I don't know, ask yourself.

Is a man who has never smoked a cigarette, but wants to smoke a cigarette, a smoker?

No... no he's not.

Thats pretty gay.

>the Greek elder
Also, he prefers THICC, older slave women.

Some things are defined only by the objective (act), some things are defined only by the subjective (thought), some by both.

The man who has never smoked but wants to smoke is a smoker, if you define "smoker" as "someone who likes the act of smoking", rather than "someone who smokes" or "someone who smokes and likes to smoke", but most people probably use the term to refer to "someone who smokes and likes to smoke".

For sexual identities such as "homosexual", I think the subjective element is the defining one. You could also define it by the objective element, but I don't think that this is how most people use those terms.

It also leads to silly situations like you, a Roman bathhouse-goer, being homosexual just because you tripped in the frigidium and your dick ended up in someone's butt. No, you are not homosexual. If anything, you are a male-fucker, because you fucked a male, but it was an accident. Similar with you being raped by some other Roman bathhous-goer that trips in the frigidium.

>For sexual identities such as "homosexual", I think the subjective element is the defining one.

I don't think so. Because having thoughts in your head about gay sex doesn't mean you're gay any more than having thoughts in your head about murdering your boss makes you a murderer.

That said, I don't really care what people identify as, as long as they recognize that it is an intrinsically arbitrary endeavor that has no meaning beyond their feelings.

>Who is eva braun

>Because having thoughts in your head about gay sex doesn't mean you're gay any more than having thoughts in your head about murdering your boss makes you a murderer.
If you constantly have wet dreams about murdering your boss, then you're not a murderer, because being a murderer is defined by both having carried out a killing, plus some qualifiers such as doing it cruelly (the objective side), and having intended that, plus some qualifiers like doing it for a lower purpose such as getting money (the subjective side).

But still, you actually really want him dead. Not in the "I don't like my boss, wish he'd drop dead, haha" way, but in a "all day, all week, all year, I have the urge to drive this fireaxe into his skull" way. You may not be a murderer, but you are a murderphile.

And yet a person like that wouldn't self-identify as a "murderphile" nor consider him or herself capable of murder.

Then he's a murderphile in denial.

He isn't wrong tough, in fact he nailed it.

>walking free
That's a bit of an exaggeration. While sentences can be lowered based on if the offender comes clean on his act and pleads guilty, the very severity of the crime (mala in se) guarantees that the criminal will be sentence for years.

No, he's not. He just has thoughts in his head.

In school I was taught that homosexuality was hated and homos were killed for it.

Then I read into history and found that everybody is a fag but they still killed all the fags and the fags just didn't stop it

not an argument

I was actually rather talking about something like finding out that the responsibility or guilt was not on the accused, leading to the charges being dropped.

There is still one far-fetched configuration in which it looks like "walking free", though: If the sentence ends up being lower than the remand already served. That would be really rare even where such a long remand is even possible, of course.

What makes a chocophile? Liking chocolate.
What makes a murderphile? Liking murder.

The murderphile can also use substitutes to fulfill his desire. He could get off to watching murder on TV, rather than having to do it himself. Or he could smash the doll he made in the likeness of his boss.

I'm not talking about people "liking" chocolate or murder.

I'm talking about whether or not people having thoughts in their head about something constitutes being member of an identity.

Which it doesn't.

>Notice that nobody defines things as identity in any other domain in society.
They do, though.

>People don't ask if someone identifies as a carpenter, they ask what kind of work people do and they respond.

It goes like this:
>question: what do you do?
>answer: what I am
Eg "I'm a carpenter".

Yes, people identify with their work a lot. Being a carpenter goes a lot further than just 'what someone does for a living'. It can say a lot about the personality of the person: that they're introverted, derive pleasure from doing physical, actual things, doer not a thinker, doesn't have head in clouds and is practical.

As a bi/fag I'm also a bit taken aback as to how my sexuality seems to have claimed a huge part of my identity. I wouldn't want it to define me but unfortunately that is something very hard to accomplish, if even possible.

I do not dress like a fag, I am not obnoxious about it, I do not let anyone know unless it's pertinent (which it almost never is).

But I cannot stop thinking of myself as a homo. It's not just 'who I have sex with'. It's who I want to hang out with, it's what kind of people I like, it's who I feel the freest with, it's who I feel safest with. It goes beyond just inserting penis in butt.

And when you have people at some shithole in the world beheading people with the same 'identity', it inevitably strikes a nerve. Or when you have propaganda battles waging about either shilling the fuck out of your identity or propaganda against that when you have no stake in either and would want both to shut the fuck up. It's hard to distance yourself from it all.

Sounds really narcissistic to me tbqh. I never think about my sexuality other than when I jerk off.

I think I found the problem: jerking off is all your sexual/romantic life consists of.

If it becomes so important to you that you'd say it's the defining feature of you, then I'd say it's your primary identity.

Maybe I really like murder that much? In fact, I like it so much, I open a murderphile club for likeminded men of murder culture. We call it the Hashashin, or something, and it becomes our focal point in life and source of identity.

However, people can have many identities at the same time. Identities that vary in their importance depending on the context.
We are not only the ones appreciating murder culture, we also really like animals. When it's out of the season, then we're murder lovers. When it's platypus season, then we're primarily platypus fans and don't care about murder at all.

Wow, what a great argument. Truly the gay community is without prejudice.

Anal must have been even more unhygienic back then. Gross

Like I said, I don't care what people say, I care what they do.

If the murder club starts murdering people they are murderers. Their identity would become the acts they are committing.

I don't understand why this is so difficult.

You ever watch Baboons fuck with two dicks and no bitch. You ever seen Hyenas sleep under each others nutsack or taint. Animals doing animal behavior. Humans have slowly been evolving, becoming more intellingent from monkeys but really Bashing the gays is historical and biblical. The Bible said being gay is a sin or some shit like that. But really its just saying a man is made for a woman and vice versa and its not wrong but I am not offended by gays nor animals that sleep under nutsacks. But its kind of like the fathers of independence they wrote laws that we still cant live up to. They are ideas that are planted in the collective subconscious that are based in fact and truth but we aren't able to live up to them certanly not back then

>Their identity would become the acts they are committing.
To the others, maybe.

To themselves, no.

>There literally is nothing called identity now

There is literally something called identity and it's called identity. You can find it in the dictionary.

>Just because you say you identify as something doesn't make it true.

It makes you identifying as the thing is true.

If I say I identify as an apache attack helicopter (and mean it), it is true that I identify as an apache helecopter. It doesn't mean I am an apache helecopter.

If, more likely, I identify as Canadian, it is both true I identify as a Canadian and legally true that I am a Canadian.

If I say I identify as something vague and personal, how exactly can you say it's not true? If I say I identify as a spiritual person, how do you know if I do or don't? There's no registry, no ID card, no passport. Same goes for identifying as a homosexual.

It is an identity, whether you think it's valid or not isn't up to you, it's up to the person claiming that identity and whether they fit the criteria. You can probably prove I'm not an attack helecopter, but how are you going to prove the guy who fucks other men isn't gay? If they fuck the same sex, I'd say that's a valid criteria for identifying yourself as "a homosexual".

So i guess i meant to say they probably turned a blind eye to it all. And fucked each other down at the orgy pits

Well first of all it's a complete and utter social construct, which means you didn't even choose it yourself, and all the signs and symbols that you think constitute your identity are completely arbitrary and without content.

The real truth is that you're simply an ape that wants to throw shit and have sex.

>I'm talking about whether or not people having thoughts in their head about something constitutes being member of an identity.
>Which it doesn't.

Yes it does. You've been exposed to too many retards going "I self identify as a wolf" and you're applying it to the word "identity" in general.

Identity is varied and usually context specific, you can assume any number and people do. Take "American" for an example. There are American citizens who don't identify as Americans. If you ask them who they are, they'll say "I'm Jim", "I'm a lawyer", "I'm a Muslim", "I'm from a German family" "I'm a vegetarian" They can identify by nationality, profession, belief, behavior. If you ask someone at a hospital who they are, they'll probably say "I'm a doctor" or "I'm a patient" not "I'm a lawyer" "I'm an American". At work, you're "the boss" or maybe you're not, but when you get home you don't behave the way you do at work. If you ask someone at a pride parade, they'll probably say they're gay, or they're a pride supporter, or they're a Christian and think this is all bullshit.

And by the way, if you consider your name part of your identity, remember it's something that was literally made up and applied to you. Your name was just a thought in your parents' head until they told someone to stamp it on a card, and you might have a nickname that isn't on your driver's license which is also part of your identity.

See
It's completely arbitrary, and there's no reason why "I self identify as a wolf" is any less reasonable than the untold billions of other ways to self-categorize yourself.

I agree that it's arbitrary, but I also think there are identities that people assume that aren't true. You can pretend to be someone/something you're not. There is a reason why some identities are less valid than others.

It can be true that you identify as a wolf. Perhaps you assume the behaviors of a wolf, fuck wolves, whatever, but you identifying as a wolf won't make you a wolf. I'd say this is a less valid identity. If you identify as a wolf-fucker and you fuck wolves, though, right on the money. Obviously more often than not people use the identity analogically, if a (normal, not batshit furry) person says "I'm a wolf" they're usually just laying claim to the features, not the species.

In regards to homosexuals (I think) we agree anyway. They're identifying themselves by a preference/behavior which they hold, it's nothing contrary to the reality.

I just think the privileging of specific identities makes no sense.

Postmodern philosophy accurately pointed out that monogamy, male and female binaries and a whole host of other things were arbitrary concepts made by the culture itself in order for it to perpetuate.

Now this Pandora's Box has been opened in my mind, there's no way that I'm going to see people's self-proclaimed identities the same way again, and I'm certainly not going to privilege specific identities over others.

And as such, I think gay people can go fuck themselves just as much as straight people.

>I just think the privileging of specific identities makes no sense.

Maybe it doesn't, but it has probably existed for as long as society has. If you want society, you're going to have social constructs. In any case, I don't think privileging identities is necessarily bad, but it obviously depends on both the identity and the circumstance.

>there's no way that I'm going to see people's self-proclaimed identities the same way again

In what way? I agree that there's no reasonable need (beyond politeness) to indulge self proclaimed identities, especially when they don't align with reality. We throw people who 'self identify' as doctors but aren't in fucking jail, because it's dangerous. That said, the education required to become a doctor is still a social construct and changes between societies. There's no natural law about identifying as a doctor, but we created a system as a society to know when you could trust the medical advice of a person. We give them a badge. They (often) wear a uniform. When you see a person in a doctor's coat and a stethoscope, you're basically primed to think he knows what he's talking about when it comes to medical advice. Are we privileging doctors? Would it not be reasonable to?

As for gays, it's is own short hand, though really the only requirement to assume the identity is you choosing to. Take the unlikely scenario you're a gay man and a woman is hitting on you. "I'm gay" is basically all you need to say for the woman to get you're not interested. If you're gay, perhaps you want other gay men to know you're gay, so you behave a certain way, wear certain clothes, etc. If enough people agree that gays wear pink wristbands, people will notice your pink wristband and assume you're gay, despite there being no natural law that gay men wear pink wristbands. It's a social tool.

Well maybe we shouldn't have society now that we have deconstructed it's constituent elements.

If all the reasons society exists are completely arbitrary, then perhaps society is arbitrary.

Why would you want to just abandon society because it's arbitrary?

Things are arbitrated to maintain cohesion, all man-made rules are arbitrary. Cohesion is necessary for the society to function and avoid complete chaos. Yet with this cohesion we are capable of surviving and thriving in ways we wouldn't be able to if we were totally alone.

Besides, even if you tore apart every government and every law, if you intended to reproduce you would have a family unit, which will have its own rules and expectations.

>Things are arbitrated to maintain cohesion, all man-made rules are arbitrary. Cohesion is necessary for the society to function and avoid complete chaos.

Which is an argument that can also be used about Stalinist Russia or Maoist China or Nazi-Germany.

If the constituent elements of a society are *completely* arbitrary, then that means there is no society that in principle can be said to be better than another.

Are you willing to say that liberal democracy is as arbitrary as national socialism?

>Which is an argument that can also be used about Stalinist Russia or Maoist China or Nazi-Germany.

Sure, they were societies too. I never said all of them were equally friendly.

>Are you willing to say that liberal democracy is as arbitrary as national socialism?

Yes, though we should probably resolve our definition of arbitrary.
When I say it I mean stemming from the word arbitrate, "to act as arbiter upon (a disputed question) : to settle (a dispute between two people or groups) after hearing the arguments and opinions of both" - That is, society is arbitrated. When humans socialize we agree on certain ways to behave, set laws, establish cultures, etc.

I don't mean that all societies are equally arbitrary in the "based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system." There's usually a reason or system in place, but those reasons / systems can be based on all sorts of shit. The end is usually an "ideal society" but you're not going to have liberal democrats and national socialists in agreement on what that society is. If you're an individualist you're going to have different ethics to a collectivist. A Christian will think society works to different ends than an atheist. They've all got reasons and systems, but they don't all align.

So what you're saying is that the social construction of society matters, but in the end it doesn't matter?

Well, you can't have it both ways tbqh. Either it has to matter, or it doesn't.

Either you value the principle of innocent until proven guilty, or you don't. Either you value free speech or you don't.

There's no "middle-ground" when it comes to values and axioms.

>There's no "middle-ground" when it comes to values and axioms.
That seems like an oddly superfluous and arbitrary thing to say.

>anal sex

That was not common at all in Ancient Greece.

Well take gay people then. 50 years ago they would be arrested for sodomy and sentenced to prison.

What made that rule wrong, exactly, if all the rules of society are arbitrary?

If there is no reference point where someone can stand and say "This is better than this", why do we even have a society anymore?

Germanic peoples bogged any homosexual they found. If you were found to be a homo in Athens you'd have your citizenship revoked. The ancient Semites always hated homos.

In urbanized societies however homosexuality becomes more prevalent, because of the atomization of the individual. Contrasted to an agrarian, tribal society where people are one big family and had cohesion - as soon as they sniffed out a subversive homo down the well they go.

I'm not sure what you're getting at, user. What do you mean matter? We're on a pretty huge tangent from where we started talking about identity. Are we just off topic or is this to make a point about identity that I'm not understanding?

Society matters to me because I believe that collectively we survive better and more comfortably than we do alone. I wouldn't be posting on Veeky Forums right now if not for society, I personally prefer this lifestyle to living alone in the woods. On a biological scale it matters to humans because we're considerably more productive and consequently can reproduce our species a lot more. On a cosmic scale it doesn't really matter at all.

That doesn't mean I don't accept that it's not all just a made up set of rules that we agree to conform to / are usually indoctrinated into. It's also very malleable. I grew up in a liberal democracy so I'm going to share a lot of its inherent values. If I grew up in nazi Germany I might have a different opinion on what my ideal society is. I personally think our liberal democracy is a 'better' society than the examples you provided, especially for things like personal freedom, but not every ideology is going to value personal freedom more highly than the common good, or they might think that your personal freedom is damning your shot at an afterlife, etc. This opinion is subject to change, if we witness democracy fail time after time we might get disenchanted and think authoritarianism will have a better go of it. If we see authoritarians kill millions of people we might think that was a bad call.

>If there is no reference point where someone can stand and say "This is better than this", why do we even have a society anymore?

Because the alternative is chaotic, and most people don't want chaos. People are generally more comfortable with a made up rule that creates stability than a vacuum which can put them in danger.

The law is influenced by the values of the lawmaker, and the values of the lawmaker can change with time. When sodomy was illegal, it was (largely) influenced by religious thinking which is becoming less the case. Now we consider personal freedom a higher ideal than religious ethics and ask the question "Who does it harm that two consenting adults fuck?"

For example lets take the sanctity of life.

Seems simple enough, right? You either tolerate killing or you don't. But then what about death penalty? What about abortion? What death resulting from self defense - where was too much force applied? CAN there even be such a thing in self defense as 'too much force'?

It would seem whether you treat life as sacred or not would come down to your definitions of killing and life.

Same for freedom of speech. Is openly enticing people to commit a crime protected by freedom of speech? Are threats protected? Where do you draw the line? Hate speech? Again, all definitions.

Innocent until proven guilty? Do we put it into full practice, or are we content with having it merely on paper by giving people who can't foot the bill a state sponsored idiot to defend their freedom? Does that not contradict the notion? How much proof is enough proof? Where do we draw the line? Same as above, it would all depend on how we define 'prove'.

>What made that rule wrong
Trends that are the product of our inter generational whims and fleeting emotions and the increased safety and comfort offered by our numbers and technological advances.

>why do we even have a society anymore?
Because we're social animals and function better in mass.

>We're on a pretty huge tangent from where we started talking about identity.

Not really. I am talking about intrinsic worth and value.

If traditional identities, such as for example, masculine identities associated with Christianity or Abrahamic religions in general, are possible to deconstruct such that they can be annihilated of any value, than this applies to literally any identity.

It's literally the Nietschean dilemma. If one system of belief can be destroyed simply by targeted critique, there are no systems of belief that are safe from the onslaught.

imagine working as a servant standing waving some fucking thing so that the gays having anal in front of you dont get to sweaty

That's pretty cute

>If you were found to be a homo in Athens you'd have your citizenship revoked.
This is wrong.

Homosexuality per se in Athens was never civilly negatively sanctioned or even criminally persecuted. What you're referring to is the loss of citizenship from _prostitution_ as a male.

In fact, especially in the archaic and early classical, homosexuality between an older male and a young boy was not only accepted, but even promoted. Homosexuality between two adult male Athenians with the vote was considered to be dishounorable, but it didn't lead to any sanctions.

>In fact, especially in the archaic and early classical, homosexuality between an older male and a young boy was not only accepted, but even promoted. Homosexuality between two adult male Athenians with the vote was considered to be dishounorable, but it didn't lead to any sanctions.
>promoted

Topkek people actually believe this in the year of our lord 2017. It was only "promoted" in the upper class, middle class and lower class hated it and even amongst the upper class it was scorned. It was "promoted" in the same manner today, it was still not viewed as "acceptable"

Actually he is in fact wrong. Why do people project their own zeitgeist onto other peoples centuries older they have no connection to? Where are people taught these lies?

Who believes this?

The only thing that was considered dishonorable was being the passive recipient of homosexual acts.

They even had an insult for it: "Katapygon"

most often carpenters are self-employed, but let's say you have been an accountant in some firm for about 20 years, then you get laid down and you find yourself unemployed, at least at first you would still say that your profession is accounting, that lingering sense of belonging is identity (of the professional kind)

>The only thing that was considered dishonorable was being the passive recipient of homosexual acts.

No thats a pop history meme, being gay in itself was seen as being a net negative. Engaging in homosexuality was generally looked down except in small sects in rome and greece, and most of the people who got away with it were rich otherwise you didn't engage in it unless you were a prostitute, which was also shameful.

>If traditional identities, such as for example, masculine identities associated with Christianity or Abrahamic religions in general, are possible to deconstruct such that they can be annihilated of any value, than this applies to literally any identity.

Their value of social cohesion remains valid, they've just been replaced by new ideologies. Let's take constitutionalism as an example. We're all aware that a constitution is just a piece of paper which contains rules by which a society abides, yet that piece of paper has been imbued with authority. We all know that the constitution can theoretically be ignored, of itself it's not going to get up and stop you, the only thing that will stop you is people who believe in the constitution. If you try to do something unconstitutional, we must hope that there will be a judge to stop you. Walk all over the constitution enough with no judge to stop you, people will stop believing it can't be broken, and then it IS just a piece of paper. Hell, extrapolate this to any law. It's all made up, the laws don't actually have any cosmic authority, with our understanding of the universe we can rest relatively assure that no divine force will smite you if you break the law, but we can (generally) agree that it's beneficial to be there and we can try to create constitutions / laws that serve the general good of society.

>If one system of belief can be destroyed simply by targeted critique, there are no systems of belief that are safe from the onslaught.

Good. If you can say a society is shit and say WHY it's shit, you're one step towards making it less shit.

A perfect society probably doesn't exist, certainly not in a way that everyone agrees on. That doesn't mean it's not good to strive for it. Just because we're making up rules and that we can't always agree on what's ideal doesn't mean the only reasonable alternative is not to bother.

>Truly the gay community is without prejudice.
Where the hell did you find that strawman?

>You're too young to know you're queer
why is this "hate"? Aren't prebubescents literally too young to truly be sexually attracted to someones phisical appearance?

>If you can say a society is shit and say WHY it's shit, you're one step towards making it less shit.

Or you know, simply destroying it and eventually regretting what you contributed to.