This is the chapter about two friends sharing penis and ass in
sensual pleasure, where the penis slides in and out of the ass.
This is called ass fucking, humping, buggering, sodomizing, and
anal intercourse. For those who think sodomy is an offbeat or minor
act, you'll be surprised to hear that actually it's been the most
common and popular gay male sexual activity. All kinds of "simple"
creatures, like bulls, frogs, guppies, dogs and so on, can
frequently be seen making male-male sexual advances. For those
animals that mount from behind (which includes the amphibians and
mammals, for example), this naturally leads to male-male mounting.
These actions are usually simple and don't end in intercourse,
though one or both partners may appear to get excited. But in some
of the "higher" animals such as monkeys, complex activities are
seen. That baboons do it often, seemingly to the point of orgasm,
has become common knowledge. These acts usually involve an older
and younger male and may develop into an ongoing relationship. The
same is seen in macaque monkeys, where we have a description, for
example, of a friendship between an adult and younger male that
"was accompanied by frequent sodomy, mutual embracing, and social
protection of the younger animal by his full-grown partner."
Sometimes relations will happen between nearly equal males, as
noticed in squirrel monkeys. For our closest relatives, the chimps
and gorillas, no observations are recorded, although among that
unusually complex animal the porpoise, attempts at homosexual
intercourse have been seen.
These behaviors suggest a phylogenetic pattern, in which anal
intercourse became increasingly important through the evolution of
animal life. In the simpler animals, sodomy happens by random
chance, while in highly evolved social animals, it is often
purposeful to that society. Thus ass fucking, as an aspect of
nature, contains meaning and mystery of the life-spirit. When
humankind came along, the pleasurable and mystical powers of sodomy
could be cultivated on new levels, equal to our consciousness and
intelligence.
The Earliest records of our western "civilization" show that anal
intercourse was important culturally and spiritually, It was tied
up with worship of androgynous gods, who were part male and part
female. When culture reached the point of having temples, there
were special priests who acted as go betweens for a person and the
god, using anal intercourse as the medium. This intercourse was
considered spiritually cleansing and uplifting, a sharing between
person and god "held to be pure and fraternal," an act "venerable
and holy." This was a common opinion throughout the ancient
Mideast. Sometimes descriptions survive of sodomist relations among
gods themselves, as for example the Egyptians Set and Hourus.
Of course anal intercourse was not limited by any means to the
spiritual level only. It was always seen as a form of pleasure and
recreation. "profane" sodomy (sex for its own sake) was, as the
Bible continually reminds us, "rampant." Paradoxically enough, it
was even "quite common if customary" among the ancient Jews
themselves, even though they started the taboos against it. Myth
imputes the destruction of Sodom to this act (although most modern
scholars no think Sodom was a morality story about the violation of
hospitality rules, having nothing to do with sex).
Among the ancient Greeks, gayness was a part of everyday life. Anal
intercourse was the common mode for men, and was considered an
enjoyable, healthy, and uplifting activity. Being sensual and fun,
it was done with humor (as were all pleasured to the Greeks) and
called in slang "the carnal assault," the two partners described as
"dog modest" (referring to the most popular position, that of rear
entry).
Also it formed part of the morality of the state, the "proper" way
to bring up young men and be an upstanding citizen. In Greek
philosophy, education was conducted through the love between
teacher and student, called paiderastia, and "by Paiderastia a man
propagated his virtues, as it were, in the youth he loved,
implanting them by the act of intercourse." We find this idea of
virtue-giving through anal intercourse to be frequent in different
cultures. In fact, at times a man was not considered to be living
up to community standards unless he did practice sodomy:
Lycurgus, the Spartan legislator, living some centuries before
Socrates, refused the title of a good and deserving citizen to any
man who had not a [male] friend that served him as a concubine.
To say that anal intercourse was practiced widely by the Greeks and
later, the Romans would probably be an understatement:
Who does not know that the Greeks and Romans were intrepid pedicons
and determined cinedes? In the Greek and Latin authors... the male
Venus parades on every page...all burnt with the same fire, the
common people, the higher classes, the king.
Pedicon was the Latin name for "a man who exercises his member in
the anus." He was also called a pederast or drawk. The man "who
allows himself to be invaded in this way" was called the cinede
(cinaedus), or patient, catamite, minion, effeminate. Also, if the
cinede was an adult or "worn out," he was called an exolete.
The Romans didn't give the same moral and institutional values to
anal intercourse as the Greeks did, but their ardor for it appears
equal, none the less. Plenty of poets spoke of it, praising it,
mocking well-known friends (with humor), spreading rumors and
giving advice. Here are a few examples:
Stretch the foot and take your course, fly with soles in the air,
with supple thighs, and nimble buttocks and libertine hands...
- Petronius (First Century A.D.)
Caesar, the husband of all women, and the wife of all husbands -
Curio the Elder
Catching me with a boy, you harass me with your cries, and you tell
me, my wife, that you have posteriors too.
Many and many a time did Juno say the name to Jupiter the
Thunderer; yet he continued to sleep with slender Ganymede.
-Martial (40?-102 A.D.)
He was very much given to the intercourse between men, and amongst
such he preferred men of ripe age, exoletes.
-Seutonius (Second Century A.D.) Speaking of the Roman Emperor
Galba.
For you, ungrateful boy, I keep my treasures all, and no one shall
enjoy them but yourself; my penis is growing; while it used to
measure seven inches, now it measures ten.
-Pacificus Maximus, Elegy II, to Ptolemy
Overall, the ancients thought differently about sexual matters then
we do. They lacked that guilt, that righteousness, that disgust of
pleasure that early Christians so treasured. In other words, they
simply enjoyed it.
The general attitude of the Greeks, Romans and other Mediterranean
peoples towards anal intercourse can be summed up in the words of
an ancient Greek historian, Timaeus, as he comments on a
neighboring county:
It is not considered objectionable among the Tyrrhenians [of Italy]
to have to do with boys openly, whether actively or passively, for
paederasty [man/youth love] is a custom of the country...They pay
homage to love...they are very fond of women, but find more
pleasure with boys and young men...
all this changed with the rise of the Christian church, which took
a harsh Jewish creed and made it more harsh. Sexual matters were
far from perfect in the ancient Mediterranean world ( especially as
regards the rights of women), but there is a vast gulf between
arguing the pros and cons of passive sodomy and condemning all
sodomy as against God's will. Christianized Roman emperors such as
Justinian were afraid that God would cause earthquakes and fires
like he did on Sodom if homosexuality were not wiped out. And many
early Christians believed that all sex was sinful (some even going
so far as to castrate themselves), thus making gay sex doubly evil.
Male gayness was common in all Eurape, even before the advent of
Christianity, and it seems likely anal intercourse was widely
practiced. At least this was true for the Celts of France,
according to the Roman Athenaeus:
The Celts take more pleasure in prederastia then any other Nation,
to such a degree that amongst them is no rarity to find a many
lying between two minions.
Many references tell how common ass fucking was among the Normans,
who conquered England in 1066. As to England itself, Anselm,
writing to Archdeacon William in 1102, says, "This sin had been so
public that hardly anyone has blushed for it, and many, therefore,
have plunged into it without realizing its gravity." The fortunes
of sodomy rose and fell during the Middle Ages depending on
religious and social feelings. Sometimes you could be more open
about it, and sometimes you were burned at the state. Sodomy was a
potent crime against God, and Accusation of it was often used to
punish political enemies. Thus, for example, the Knights Templar,
famous during the Crusades, were accused of sodomy in order to
remove their political power.
Different European states held different attitudes on the matter.
Officially it was condemned everywhere, but practically speaking
the countries varied in tolerance. Especially after the Renaissance
it seems that sometimes matter could be more open. for Example, the
Scot Lithgow reports in 1610 while touring Italy:
for beastly Sodomy, it is as rife here [in Padua] as in Rome,
Naples Florence, Bullogna, Venice, Ferrara, Genoa, Parma not being
exempted, nor yet the smallest village of Italy: A monstrous
filthiness, and yet to them a pleasant pastime, making songs, and
singing Sonnets of the beauty and pleasure of their Bardassi, or
buggered boys.
Of a later time, one scholar writes,
If we may trust to Aloysia Sigaea, the Italians and Spaniards did
it; also the Dutchmen, with whom towards the middle of the XVIIIth
Century as J. David Michaelides tell us...this habit was so much in
vogue, that the punishment of death was hardly a avail against it;
also the Parisians...
The Mideast was not only the cradle of western civilization but
also of those culture which today embrace North Africa, Turkey, all
the near East, India and Indonesia. Male gayness was very
widespread in these cultures, at times to the point of rivaling
heterosexual values and institutions. Having been bypassed, so to
speak, by the accusing finger of the Judeo-Christian god, gayness
in these lands continued to flourish ad it had in ancient times.
In the geographical center of the Mideast lies Persia, modern Iran.
During the middle and early modern ages, Persia flourished as a
center of religious, philosophical and artistic thought. And the
general code of law and customs,
including one of the most ancient of Malthusian law seeking
population control, fostered sodomy in social and theological
practice. Thus, Persians became one of the first endemically and
customarily inverted peoples.
"True love" for males in Persia was often gay in nature, and poets,
philosophers, holy men praised it, using its feelings to enrich
their thinking, and vice versa. Thus sodomy was connected with
"higher" virtues, and anal intercourse became a way of reaching new
spiritual levels and of teaching the young, just as it was with the
Greeks.
Much was written on the joys of sodomy. Muhammad ibn Malik, an
Arabic poet of the twelfth century in Andalusai, wrote the
following poem:
FACING MECCA
. Friday
. in the mosque
. my gaze fell upon a slim young man
. beautiful
. as the rising moon.
.
. When he bent forward in prayer
. my only thought was
. oh to have him
. stretched out
. flat before me,
. butt-up,
. face-down.
In North Africa, not only was sodomy prevalent among the Egyptians,
but also with the Berbers, Moors, and other Arabs. And in
Afghanistan, a typical greeting was, "May the devil rub thy
buttocks, ya Huzoor!" In the same region lived the Pathans, whose
pederastic love song (Zekhmi Dil, "Wounded Heart") went, "There's
a boy across the river with a postern like a peach, but alas! I
cannot swim!" In libya anal intercourse was known as el-cudeh ("the
worm"), while in Hindu culture the "active" partner was called
gandhmara ("anus beater"). In Hindu society, anal intercourse was
usually frowned upon, as was gayness in general. But as I noted
before, this was more the attitude of the upper class and
intelligentsia, the "lower" classes being more relaxed, because the
god Shiva had sodomy with other gods. We do not know how prevalent
this kind of sex was there, except that it was at least fairly
popular. The nomadic tribes living on the middle plains of Asia -
the Turanians, Cossacks, Huns, Tartars, Mongols, Turkomans, Yakuts
and others - practiced "flagrant sodomy," the Elizabethan Samuel
Purchas noting that the Tartats were "addicted" to it"
Gayness was also historically widespread and held in esteem in
China. Again, anal intercourse was the popular mode, and was
referred to in Chinese literature as "sharing the peach." This
phrase arose out of the firs recorded instance of sodomy in Chinese
history:
Duke Ling [around 500 B.C.] committed sodomy with a young court
official, Mi Tzu-hsia, who had a face "as pretty as that of a
blooming maiden."...One day, when the two of them were sauntering
hand in hand in the Duke's Eastern Garden, Mi playfully picked a
ripe peach from a tree. After having a few bites himself, he
unceremoniously pushed the remaining part of the peach into Duke
Ling's mouth. In those days such an act was considered one of the
great disrespect for the head of the state. And yet Duke Ling
gladly munched the peach and said aloud: "This peach tastes so good
because it has been in your mouth first."
Nobles, courtiers and even emperors engaged in sodomy, this being
especially prevalent during the Manchu dynasty (17th-20th
centuries). Relations were most common between men and youths. One
of the classic erotic masterpieces of world literature, the Chin
P'ing Mei, involves the hero, Hsi-men, in the scene:
Hsi-men opened the boy's robe, pulled down his pants, and gently
stroked his penis...while the boy surrendered his bottom to a might
warrior, Hsi-men stroked his stiff penis....Said the boy: "He
pushed his poker so violently between my buttocks that today they
are swollen with great pain. When I asked him to stop, he pushed
his poker in and out all the more."
In both China and Japan, male prostitution was widespread, and "a
thriving and honorable profession" sanctified in China by Tcheou-
wang, God of Sodomy, and in Japan consecrated in male Geisha
houses. In China, "the boys were made to sit on benches made of
boxwood sprigs in graduated sizes, in order to prepare them to
welcome the pleasures expected of them." In both cultures these
prostitutes could still be found on special streets as late as the
last world war.
The majority of the "Primitive" cultures on all continents and
throughout human history sanctioned some form of male gayness. As
one scholar noted, "anal coitus is the usual technique employed by
male homosexuals in preliterate societies."
These relationships could take on a variety of forms, depending on
local customs. One common form involves a marriage between a man
and a transvestite, who may also be a magician. Here, the
transvestite usually takes the "passive" role with his husband,
though in some cultures he is allowed to take female wives in
addition. Such customs have been noted among diverse peoples, such
as the Chuckchee of Siberia, the Aleuts and Konyages of Alaska, the
Creek and Omaha of the U.S., "the negro population of Zanzibar,"
and the Bangala of the upper Congo
