1. Queer theory and Masculinity

2. Judith Butler

3. “Queer means to fuck with gender. There are straight queers, biqueers, tranny queers, lez queers, fag queers, SM queers, fisting queers in every single street in this apathetic country of ours.” (pamphlet circulated in London, 1991)

5. “This key queer strategy, the gender-fuck, is about parody, pastiche, and exaggeration. It replaces resistance to dominant cultural meanings of ‘sex’ [i.e. cultural gender] with carnivalesque reversals and transgressions of traditional gender roles and sexualities, which reveal their own artificiality.” Wilkinson and Kitzinger ‘The Queer Backlash.’ in Bell and Klein eds. Radically Speaking (London, 1996: 377).

6. As constructionists we insist that Sir Gawain and the Green Knight are not gay, that in fact that word has no meaning in relation to them; but at the same time, we detail their homoerotic behavior because it makes them look gay. By this action we unsettle the normativity of the Western Canon, we force the canon-makers to accept something "queer" in their (our) institutions and themselves. ‘P ositions for Classicists, or Why Should Feminist Classicists Care about Queer Theory? ’, by Kirk Ormand (1996)

7. Ulysses and Diomedes recognizing Achilles among the Daughters of Lycomedes at Skyros: Pompeii, 1st century AD. Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples

8. Herakles and Omphale: 1st century AD copy of a Roman original of the late 1st century BC. Naples, National Archaeological Museum. Ovid Fasti 2. 303

9. Ov. Met. 9. 786-790: Her face seemed of a darker hue, her strength seemed greater, and her features were more stern. Her hair once long, was unadorned and short. There is more vigor in her than she showed as a girl. She who had been a girl a moment ago is now a boy

10. “A man never begins by presenting himself as an individual of a certain sex; it goes without saying that he is a man.” Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex (1949)

11. Warren Farrell, The Liberated Man (New York, 1974) Jack Nichols, Men's Liberation (New York, 1975)

12. Robert Bly, Iron John, (Reading, Mass., 1990)

13. Men’s Rights Activism

14. Gilbert H. Herdt, Guardians of the Flutes: Idioms of Masculinity, (New York, 1981)

15. The Sambia Semen is important to all life, especially males Semen is in short supply, and is thus highly treasured Women’s sexual essence is menstral fluid and is something to be feared Both males and females have an organ, tingu, that secretes their sexual essence When a woman’s tingu bursts, she is thought to be naturally ready to reproduce When a man is born, his tingu is shriveled and dry A boy’s tingu cannot secrete a sexual essence without his initiation into manhood Younger men can die from sexual intercourse with a woman if they are not properly prepared through initiation rituals. It saps the little resources that they have before initiation

16. ‘tribesmen and clansmen make little account of each other in times of danger; a band that is held together by the friendship between lovers is indissoluble and not to be broken, since the lovers are ashamed to play the coward before their beloved, and the beloved before their lovers, and both stand firm in danger to protect each other. Nor is this a wonder, since men have more regard for their lovers even when absent than for others who are present, as was true of him who, when his enemy was about to slay him where he lay, earnestly besought him to run his sword through his breast, "in order," as he said, "that my beloved may not have to blush at sight of my body with a wound in the back.’ Plut. Pel. 18.2-3.

17. Dux Romanae pudicitiae Lucretia, cuius uirilis animus maligno errore fortunae muliebre corpus sortitus est... Lucretia, the leader of Roman chastity, whose manly spirit was allotted to the body of a woman by fortuna’s cruel error.... Val. Max. 6.1.

18. “Masculinities...come into existence as people act. They are actively produced, using the resources and strategies available in a given social setting.” R.W. Connell, The Men and the Boys, (Sydney, 2000: pg. 12)

19. Sit / Loose OctavianI aim / at Fulvia’s clit Sling-Shots from the Perusine War

20. Priapus Poems. These poems were posted on statues of Priapus that stood in gardens as protectors Femina si furtum faciet mihi virve puerve, haec cunnum, caput hic praebeat, ille nates. If a woman, man, or boy, thieve from me, she shall pay me with her cunt, he with his mouth, and him with his arse.

21. You may obtain indications of masculinity and femininity from your subject’s glance, movement and voice, and then, from among these signs, compare one with another until you determine to your satisfaction which of the two sexes prevails. For in the masculine there is something feminine, and in the feminine something masculine, but the designation of masculine or feminine is assigned according to which of the two prevails. Polemo, On Physiognomics 1.192 Polemon of Laodicea c. AD 90 – 144

22. ‘libidinous and dissolute beyond all bounds.... He had a bulbous brow, fleshy cheeks, wide mouth, a gangling scraggly neck, fat calves, and fleshy feet. His voice was like a woman's, and likewise his extremities and other bodily parts were uniformly soft; neither did he walk with an upright posture: his joints and limbs were lax. He took great care of his abundant tresses, rubbed ointments on his body, and cultivated everything that excites the desire for sexual intercourse and lust...gathering crowds in order to display his wickedness and indulge his taste in sexual debauchery’ Polemo, On Physiognomics, 1.160-4

23. Pompey himself also soon gave way weakly to his passion for his young wife, devoted himself for the most part to her, spent his time with her in villas and gardens, and neglected what was going on in the forum, so that Clodius...put to them such questions as these: "Who is a licentious imperator?" "What man seeks for a man?" "Who scratches his head with one finger?" And they, like a chorus trained in responsive song, as he shook his toga, would answer each question by shouting out "Pompey.” Plutarch, Pomp. 48 Gn. Pompeius Magnus, Copenhagen Museum

24. “Finally, he set aside a room in the palace and there committed his indecencies, always standing nude at the door of the room, as the harlots do, and shaking the curtain which hung from gold rings, while in a soft and melting voice he solicited the passers-by.” “He carried his lewdness to such a point that he asked the physicians to contrive a woman's vagina in his body by means of an incision, promising them large sums for doing so.” “Cassius Dio, Roman History 80.13, 17 'Elagabalus' Varius Avitus Bassianus (AD 204 - AD 222)

25. ‘(The praetor) also forbids a party to appear before him in behalf of others, who has suffered his body to be used like that of a woman...a party who has been convicted of a capital crime cannot appear in behalf of another...moreover, a man who has hired himself to fight with wild beasts is forbidden to appear.’ Just. Dig. 3.1.1.6

26. What hooked her? Her poppet Sergius was no chicken, with a dud arm... his face looked a mess, helmet-scarred, a great wart on his nose, an unpleasant leak from one eye. But he was a Gladiator. That word makes the whole breed seem handsome, and made her prefer him to her children and country, her sister, her husband, he comes last... Steel is what they fall for...” Juv. Sat. 6.104-112.

27. · He makes the girls sigh! Celadus the Thraex, 3 victories, 3 crowns. · The girls’ glory! Celadus the Thraex. · Celadus the girls’ glory! · Crescens the retiarius is the master and doctor of young girls in the night. ILS 5142 a-e Cupids dressed as Gladiators, Bignor Roman Villa, Sussex

28. Tintinnabulum representing a gladiator fighting a panther formed from his penis, from Herculaneum, Naples, National Archeological Museum