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Jan. 19th, 2006 06:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dreamer_easyI have an awful lot of scholarly articles photocopied at the uni library and stuffed into folders. Out of the whole lot my favourite title is Attitudes Toward Deviant Sex in Ancient Mesopotamia (Vern L. Bullough, The Journal of Sex Research 7(3) August 1971 pp 184-203.), which I've just been re-reading.
It has long fascinated me that negativity towards homosexuality and prostitution haven't always been part of the West - those attitudes had to be invented, they were innovations. In Mesopotamia, the picture is one of change from a sexually free society into a much more, erm, rigid one. There are lots of gaps in our knowledge, lots of problems with interpretation, but that's the broad picture. Plus there are huge contrasts with their neighbours the Hebrews, whose sexual mores may be a direct reaction against Mesopotamian practices ("they do it, so we don't").
The Sumerians "had little modesty about sex" - Bullough points out that the cuneiform signs for "male" and "female" were originally drawings of genitals. (He also points out that cuneiform doesn't lend itself to graffiti, robbing us of a major source of information about sex.) There are depictions of sex, such as terra cotta models of couples. Intercourse was incorporated into religion, for example in the form of the "sacred marriage" between priest (or king) and priestess. Anal intercourse between men was unremarkable. There are hints of a sexual relationship between Gilgamesh and Enkidu in the famous Epic of Gilgamesh.
The Babylonians took over from the Sumerians: they seem equally laid back, regulating marriage, inheritance, etc, but seeing nothing immoral or irreligious about sex. (This is not to say there were no rules at all: incest and adultery carried harsh penalties.)
Later, in Assyrian law, a man who slept with his male neighbour would apparently be raped and castrated. Later still, Zoroastrianism arrived along with the conquering Persians, and these guys were apparently nuts. Anal sex, whether with a man or a woman, was the worst sin of all, worse than murdering a "righteous man"; if you spotted a couple at it you were required to kill them. Prostitution was also punished. Bullough's impression is that the Persians were obsessed with producing heirs - interestingly, the Babylonians were also keen on populating the place as they had a perpetual labour shortage, but they tackled this through immigration (voluntary or otherwise) and by allowing polygamy.
I'm especially interested by the possibility that male prostitutes, possibly cross-dressed or transgender, played some sort of role in Mesopotamian religion. It's not hard to translate the cuneiform writings, but it is hard to interpret them - hence the confusion between ritual sex and commercial sex work. There's apparently a late version of the Descent in which Ishtar is rescued by a gay man so good-looking he distracts the Queen of the Netherworld!
Can you imagine how different our world would be if we had inherited their attitudes?
It has long fascinated me that negativity towards homosexuality and prostitution haven't always been part of the West - those attitudes had to be invented, they were innovations. In Mesopotamia, the picture is one of change from a sexually free society into a much more, erm, rigid one. There are lots of gaps in our knowledge, lots of problems with interpretation, but that's the broad picture. Plus there are huge contrasts with their neighbours the Hebrews, whose sexual mores may be a direct reaction against Mesopotamian practices ("they do it, so we don't").
The Sumerians "had little modesty about sex" - Bullough points out that the cuneiform signs for "male" and "female" were originally drawings of genitals. (He also points out that cuneiform doesn't lend itself to graffiti, robbing us of a major source of information about sex.) There are depictions of sex, such as terra cotta models of couples. Intercourse was incorporated into religion, for example in the form of the "sacred marriage" between priest (or king) and priestess. Anal intercourse between men was unremarkable. There are hints of a sexual relationship between Gilgamesh and Enkidu in the famous Epic of Gilgamesh.
The Babylonians took over from the Sumerians: they seem equally laid back, regulating marriage, inheritance, etc, but seeing nothing immoral or irreligious about sex. (This is not to say there were no rules at all: incest and adultery carried harsh penalties.)
Later, in Assyrian law, a man who slept with his male neighbour would apparently be raped and castrated. Later still, Zoroastrianism arrived along with the conquering Persians, and these guys were apparently nuts. Anal sex, whether with a man or a woman, was the worst sin of all, worse than murdering a "righteous man"; if you spotted a couple at it you were required to kill them. Prostitution was also punished. Bullough's impression is that the Persians were obsessed with producing heirs - interestingly, the Babylonians were also keen on populating the place as they had a perpetual labour shortage, but they tackled this through immigration (voluntary or otherwise) and by allowing polygamy.
I'm especially interested by the possibility that male prostitutes, possibly cross-dressed or transgender, played some sort of role in Mesopotamian religion. It's not hard to translate the cuneiform writings, but it is hard to interpret them - hence the confusion between ritual sex and commercial sex work. There's apparently a late version of the Descent in which Ishtar is rescued by a gay man so good-looking he distracts the Queen of the Netherworld!
Can you imagine how different our world would be if we had inherited their attitudes?
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Date: 2006-01-19 03:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-19 08:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-19 08:25 pm (UTC)But my reading on Ancient Mesopotamia is pretty scattered, so I can't remember *where* I saw that...
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Date: 2006-01-19 08:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-20 06:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-20 08:29 am (UTC)