Chances are you’ve never gotten a raging case of penis envy while perusing the statuary of Ancient Greece at the Met or similar. Those statues of Zeus and Hercules may be built like brick — or, rather, marble — houses, but there’s a reason why, by today’s standards at least, they’re generally unimpressive between the legs, and it’s not because they were all ’roided out juice pigs.
“Only grotesque, foolish men who were ruled by lust and sexual urges had large penises,” according to a recent piece on Quartz.
They could be talking about many of the guys I dated in my 20s, but in fact they’re talking about the masculine ideals of the Hellenistic period that dictated how heroes and gods were depicted in sculptures:
“Greeks associated small and non-erect penises with moderation, which was one of the key virtues that formed their view of ideal masculinity,” explains classics professor Andrew Lear, who has taught at Harvard, Columbia and NYU and runs tours focused on gay history. “There is the contrast between the small, non-erect penises of ideal men (heroes, gods, nude athletes etc) and the over-size, erect penises of Satyrs (mythic half-goat-men, who are drunkards and wildly lustful) and various non-ideal men. Decrepit, elderly men, for instance, often have large penises.”
It’s amazing how much can change in over 2,000 years! Of course, experts agree that, similar to the way that we now know that a huge cock doesn’t necessarily guarantee sexual satisfaction for either partner, in Ancient Greece a tiny tool wasn’t necessarily an indication of intelligence and moderation. Then, as now, the total package was tough to find: body of a Greek god, brain of a philosopher, and hung like a goat-man.
MMDD
I first realized I was gay when I was a young boy and a man my aunt was dating gave me a book of Greek mythology filled with drawings and statues. I found myself extremely attracted to all the naked male figures but not interested at all in the female ones. I was fascinated with how tiny the penises were on so many of the statues but still found them very attractive. To this day I still find myself drawn to Greek male nudes. Probably explains why I’m a total size queen: I love penises of all sizes, and especially uncut ones.
Kangol
Thank the gods that contemporary Greek men seem to have grown more than a few inches on these statues and gotten over the idea that large penises and sexual desire were negative things!
davidjohng
Greek statutes may have small penises but their booties are magnificent! Big manly bubble butts. Not only at the Met but I recall the central plaza of Florence, Italy as an amazing place full of naked male statues everywhere in full view. Their asses were and are amazing.
Billy Budd
I am totally fascinated by ancient greek society and I have read MANY books on the subject. In ancient greece, it was more common to be bisexual than to be heterosexual. It was a wonderful time of enlightenment, culture, philosophy and innovations. We owe a lot to the Greeks. Please read “The Greek Way” by Edith Hamilton. It is the best book on the subject, together with the classic “Homosexuality in Ancient Greece”.
Paco
@Billy Budd: Wasn’t the one that was penetrated considered to be of lower social standing? I wonder what life was like for them. And what was life like for the total bottoms that aged out of it being socially appropriate for them to be penetrated?
Johnathan
@Paco:
IM SURE JUST LIKE TODAYS AGED BOTTOM; SCORNED ,SLAYED AND REJECTED !!!
Billy Budd
@Paco: Bottom shaming only happened in the Roman Empire, and it was a real problem as you said. Romans use to fuck their slaves. During Athenian times (500-300 BC especially) being a bottom was no big deal, but the bottom was always the young adult, i.e the ephebe (around 18 yo) who had a strong relationship with an older guy who taught him how to be a soldier and how to be a man, among other things. This kind of relationship was central to their society (erastes-eromenos) and was seen as the true source of love. Women took care of the home and were fucked in order to procreate. True love was reserved for relationships between men. Please read THE BANQUET, also named The Symposium, by PLATO.
Billy Budd
Also, I must add that apart from being fabulously gay friendly and truly revolutionary (they created DEMOCRACY, the THEATRE and the OLYMPIC GAMES for christ sake), Athenian society was militarized, misogynistic and based on the use of slaves as workforce. It was not perfect, certainly not perfect, but their model serves us until this day.
SumSay
@Billy Budd:
I guess you could leave it there, but ancient Greek society wasn’t really in support of same sex relationships lasting longer than middle-age (and lesbians? they definitely left a bad taste in everyone’s mouth). Any intimate relationships where there was no wife or children was considered “weird” in most cases. There was definitely a cut-off time when you couldn’t see “older-brother” or “daddy” anymore and you had to stay at home with the wife and help raise the kids and farm/govern the land. It was expected and the family demanded it. Once you were established, you had to leave those type of feelings in the past and just remain platonic friends (of course there are stories where there was obviously more going on later in life for some men in Greek society, but of course not so much in the open) Trying to have some type of life-long intimate relationship with your boyfriend and only your boyfriend, and into old age, and out in the open, was very much shunned.
Brian
Stop trying to homosexualize the male body. The male body does not belong to any sexuality.
The ancient Greeks understood that homosexual desire was common in all masculine men but that there was no such thing as a homosexual identity. It’s a far cry from today’s label-obsessed queens tottering on the trans precipice.
Billy Budd
@SumSay: One correction. You said that “Any intimate relationships where there was no wife or children was considered “weird” in most cases”. That is not accurate. Even though you are right in saying that relationships with -really- old men were not valued (even though they DID happen), most Erastes were NOT married yet. Please read the fabulous book THE LAST OF THE WINE by Mary Renault for an example of an utterly beautiful relationship between two single young men, one older, the other younger. This is my FAVORITE book of all time together with Billy Budd by Hermann Melville.
highestbidder
@Brian:agree
bottom250
I am so not greek. I am a size queen. Lets face it I am an all around queen.
n900mixalot
@Brian: What the … no, not every masculine man has homosexual desires, that is the rapiest thing I’ve seen written, ever.
Do you ever have anything positive to say about anything? We’re all seeing a pattern with you. Every single post is something bullying, negative or depressing. Is it a cry for help?
Maude
@Billy Budd:
..and or anything by Mary Renult….especially, “The Last Of The Wine”.
Until her death about 20 years ago, she was THE recognized authority on ancient Greece….don’t look for lust, look for love in her novels.
BTW, she was a Lesbian.
Dwik27
@Brian: The ancient Greeks believing that there was no such thing as a homosexual identity is just as dumb and inaccurate as the same assumption held by bigots today. Then, as now, there were people in the Greek world who were attracted exclusively to members of their own gender and conducted themselves differently from their heterosexual counterparts in both sexual and non sexual ways. What we call ‘gays” today existed in ancient Greeks whether the broader society acknowledged it or not.
Billy Budd
@Maude: Yes, yes, I know, I read ALL her books including the trilogy on Alexander The Great. I know she was a lesbian. She was awesome. I am happy to find someone here who actually know who she was.
martinbakman
Decrepit old man with a large penis??????
Hmmm…like that trailer trash Arkie.
Our modern day goat man.
JamJewel
Coupla things: the old bottom will become a dead bottom but the old top is fucked!
The misogynist, male-dominated societal construct has been the dominant one from the beginnings of time and have only started to die out in modern western societies. The surviving non-western societies continue to breed these dominant male cultures which encourages male-on-male sexual activity to supposedly preserve the sanctity of female virginity but which in fact results in male-like prepubescent girls being married off to old men who also keep ‘dancing boys’ who themselves are not homosexual, meaning neither the old men nor the boys are though of as such since these are cultural phenomena that says there is no difference between raping an eight year old boy or eight year old girl, but your betrothed must be virginal and to be exclusively homosexual is an abomination worthy of death.
Vallin
This is why I’m a Satanist/Pazuzian! We are clearly a more philosophically advanced culture. You KNOW John Galt is hung!
Vallin
@Vallin: “Herms” had phalli of a size appropriate to the property/proprietor they protected. My villa would of course have had a .357 MAG-num!
Vallin
@bottom250: Please update your Gravatar. Any chance you’re on Fetlife, sweetie?
Billy Budd
@Vallin: Do you know that you were supposed to satisfy and please the Herm with your hands for good luck? Greeks were the best.
Maude
In ancient Greece on the public streets, they often used an image of a phallus (penis)to point the way instead of an arrow to almost anything.
rmarin776
I don’t idealize a small penis, but I don’t understand what the obsession with a big penis is in our society today. I personally prefer an average size dick. It feels better and you can do a lot more with it. That said, it’s also about the person it’s attached to, of course.
Billy Budd
@rmarin776: Some people enjoy having their prostates stimulated with very powerful strength, even to the point of PAIN. That is why many gay guys value the big dicks so much -in my humble opinion-. It is also a matter of aesthetics and perceived masculinity, of course. Like yourself, I also prefer the average size dick. It is easier to accommodate in all places and you can easily avoid touching it with your teeth during oral sex. It’s so much more practical…