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289th out of 554 books
—
2,372 voters
Controlling Desires: Sexuality in Ancient Greece and Rome (Praeger Series on the Ancient World)
by
Kirk Ormand
Historians of ancient Greece and Rome are sometimes hesitant to engage with the well-documented fact that Greek and Roman men regularly engaged in same-sex sexual relations with younger men. In a similar vein, scholars have constructed elaborate social explanations for Sappho, a 6th-century woman from the island of Lesbos who wrote passionate poetry about her erotic relati...more
Hardcover, 292 pages
Published
November 30th 2008
by Praeger Publishers
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Nov 13, 2009
Sam Grace
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
Anyone into Sexuality, Gender, or Classics - beginners welcome!
Don't be intimidated by the topic, this book is totally accessible and readable. Whether you are interested in the ancient world or just in better contextualizing contemporary ideas about sexuality, this book is great. He gives plenty of examples, and provides some endnotes to further reading, but it seems clear he intended for this book to be read by beginners as well as academics, and keeps the prose light and readable while walking you through concepts that will let you talk about this easily...more
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"Greek men viewed Persian men as suspiciously feminine, in part because Persian men wore pants." 5
"...Greeks and Romans thought of sexual roles differently than we do--that, in effect, their sexual universe was oriented on a different set of axes than ours is." 6
"The first point we must note about this debate [between a man with a strict preference for female-objects and a man with a strict preference for male-objects in Pseudo-Lucian's 'Erotes'], in any case, is clear: This is not an argument b...more
"...Greeks and Romans thought of sexual roles differently than we do--that, in effect, their sexual universe was oriented on a different set of axes than ours is." 6
"The first point we must note about this debate [between a man with a strict preference for female-objects and a man with a strict preference for male-objects in Pseudo-Lucian's 'Erotes'], in any case, is clear: This is not an argument b...more
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