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?
Worth mentioning that ancient Greece had a very different view on sexuality. They didn't really differentiate between gay and straight. Men having sex with other men was a standard practice.
It definitely opens up some very interesting questions on sexuality.
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.
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
These men literally became the “sea people” that people were warning about. There’s another horrible thing they do other than stealing and killing and it would definitely hit on that “physical need” OP was talking about. Or are we going to pretend that didn’t happen? Why would they pay for service at a town they literally just robbed?
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.
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
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
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.
If you read greek or japanese ancient literature sleeping with boys 10/11/12 years was just the norm, read Genji Monogatari or stuff about beloved philosophers. They had different views.
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.
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.
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
Right, but there is a significant difference between a finger painting of boobs and a real-life woman dancing in a bikini holding a Pepsi.
Also to say something "look at roman graffiti" as some sort of evidence. Of course, there were hornier people back then and all it takes is one drunk slum dweller to paint something indecent on a wall.
In fact. Your brain can actually tell the difference between a CGI monster in a movie vs. a well-done creature costume. It's why a lot of modern-day movies don't have a "terror" value to them. If you notice, most movies have to use the "jump scare" or "gore overload" strategy to make them "horror",
Exposed to sex... You mean like the half naked prostitutes who plied their ware in the middle of the street, and performed lude acts for money in the middle of the day, right out on the street?
I think you need to go read about what the average street of Rome (or any other ancient civilization) actually looked like- it was basically the Red Light District in Amsterdam at its most gratuitous, but with more nudity and more aggressive whores.
Infamia class, in Rome. Anywhere there was commercial business or recreation, there were whores. Many, many whores.
Ancient towns and cities were a gritty fucking place. People see the marble and they think the places were pristine- nope. They were basically the worst favella you can find, but WAY more dirty, grimy, and FULL of vice in every form. Receiving sex acts in the open from a mostly naked whore for a few coins was very, very much a thing.
No Pepsi though, unfortunately.
Sex was EVERYWHERE; hell, the Greeks got their advice from a drugged out naked chick.
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?
I would argue that people always was this horny, we just stopped pretending otherwise compared to earlier times. In ancient times sex was a lot more accessible - different attitude about it in general; many different kinds of slavery; often priestesses of gods/goddesses responsible for love and/or sex engaged in "prostitution" which was viewed as part of their duties rather than smth shameful it is nowdays; some pagan rituals, especially ones connected to change of seasons and/or agriculture; plain, old rape, whenever foreign army/bandits/raiders took over a settlement and so on.
With time and especially in Europe during Dark Ages because of the Church and it's infamous desire to forbid everything, views on sexuality changed, from part of one's life to something to hidden and ashamed of (nevermind that hanging out bloodied sheets after wedding night was almost required as a proof of bride's virginity for centuries, lol). Renaissance attempted to bring back at least some views from before but it was mostly done as a "look how it was done in DA and do it the other way" thing instead of proper return of culture.
Circling back to "20 years without sex"... Uhh, big doubt. Army needs a lot of supplies and while not the most glamorous, "army wives" were a thing since ever.
Define hornier and modern? Because if anything, research shows that modern (as in, people from the last couple of decades) are having less sex and general interactions than they used to. People were waaaaay hornier in the 60s-80s and we simply do not have any empirical data on how horny people were during Antiquity but there's no reason to believe they were any less horny than current people are.
brother, people used to have like 7-8 kids per couple. you had to since infant mortality meant half or more of them died before their reaching teenage years. It's not like there was a lot do back then. you worked all day, ate, had sex, sleep repeat.
I did an article for a magazine about pornography immediately after the motion picture was invented. The first motion picture is a horse running. The second is porn. After that……. There is nothing new under the sun. There is nothing being done sexually now that wasn’t being done all throughout history. They just did it with more hair and less hygiene.
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.
sure but these would be uber masculine mean used to doing regular daily poundings.
I think it's probably easier to continue going without something you've never had, compared to suddenly going without something you've had in spades your entire life
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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"
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.
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.
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u/NwgrdrXI 27d 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?