History Memes

Romans saw sexual relations as a matter of ‘penetrator’ and ‘penetrated’, or ‘active’ and ‘passive’, or ‘receiving pleasure’ and ‘giving pleasure’. In all of these cases, it was the second which was ‘shameful’ (to at least some degree), and the former which reflected virility and manliness.

I know, that is the reason I asked.

In matters of oral sex, then, Romans held that receiving oral sex was manly - giving it was ‘effeminate’ or ‘servile’. Some very odd sexual standards, the Romans. Here’s an example of rhetoric of same-sex penetration being used as a threat which ‘reclaims’ the Roman author’s masculinity from accusations of being too effeminate in his poetry

Are you sure about that? In the poem Catullus wrote "I will sodomize you and face-fuck you" not "I will sodomize you and suck you off", so there seems to be some kind of misunderstanding here, just not sure on which side tbh.