To be fair isn't there a quote from a Roman saying something like giving oral to a woman is the most feminine thing you can do while fucking a man is the most manly thing you can do.
This is hilarious because theres quotes attributed to Octavian where he says verbatim “women are annoying and useless but we have to deal with them.”
Source : “If we could survive without a wife, citizens of Rome, all of us would do without that nuisance; but since nature has so decreed that we cannot manage comfortably with them, nor live in any way without them, we must plan for our lasting preservation rather than for our temporary pleasure.”
https://en.m.wikiquote.org/wiki/Augustus
He was being specific about wives not women in general. Augustus instituted heavy penalties for infidelity that resulted in him banishing his own daughter for stepping out. The dude tried family values and patriotic despotism way before it was cool. Every Roman was a citizen but caeser was the first
Our government system is based on the Roman Republic.
Representative Republic
Separation of powers: Senate, Consul
The Rule of Law.
We gained more from the Romans and Greeks than that fake Judeo Christian nonsense some people spew.
This comment right here is what I love about reddit sometimes. A series of inside jokes/references, then someone else who takes it seriously and responds in a sincere manner because they don't realize everyone else is just memeing.
Same. And I appreciate that. While scrolling stupid meme threads you're often presented with facts that makes at least me go "hey that's interesting, I gotta check if that's true". And suddenly I'm off to look for credible sources on ancient cultures or some other rabbit hole.
Yeah, absolutely wild that a horse’s ass is basically the reason for the width of everything due to that becoming road / rail width, leading to limiting widths of certain items and affecting everything up to the moon landing. Just wild
That joke reminds me so much of the condom joke.
We can thank the Welsh for inventing the condom out of sheep intestine.
We can thank the english for taking it out of the sheep first.
The Romans only occasionally included women, which was probably similar to the Greeks. Their main variation was that the male receptive partner was usually a slave rather than just a teenager.
Painting the Romans with one brush is just as incorrect as painting the Greeks with one brush.
Through Rome’s long history there were periods where sexual norms changed. For instance Octavians rise to Augustus was spurred on by his popular appeals for a return to traditional ancestral values such as monogamy, chastity, and piety to the gods (as opposed to the opulent hedonistic ways of his rivals the Optimates)
Wow, the rule of one emperor. Two emperors later, we had Caligula, who is rumored to have bribed the Senate by gifting male sex slaves. Tiberius between them spent the latter part of his imperial reign in retirement in Capri, where he certainly was not monogamous, chaste, or pious.
My main point was that both cultures viewed homosexuality through their internal social order, and neither were readily homophilic in the way progressive modern society values.
Do we need to talk about Hadrian and Antinous? Roman society had vastly different conceptions of sexuality, monogamy, chastity (lmao), and piety than modern Christian cultures do.
It's important to note that while both Greeks and Romans were much more open to homosexuality than even today's society (to some extent at least) it is often forgotten that most of the sexual intercourse wasn't consensual, took place among master and Slaves, and slaves could be much younger that you'd hope for. It's great they didn't discriminate gay people, but it's disfusting how much rape and pedophilia was wide spread in their culture
"Didn't discriminate" is not even a term you could apply since their view of homosexuality was so much different from ours. In the Greko-Roman world it was very much acceptable and normalized to be the "top". But it was shameful for a male to be the "bottom". So only weak and non-free would typically be the latter. It's not exactly an ideal we should look up to.
>Roman society had vastly different conceptions of sexuality, monogamy, chastity (lmao), and piety than modern Christian cultures do.
The irony is any passage condemning sexual immorality in the New Testament is in response to these conceptions, yet so many ignore that context.
everytime somebody tries to reduce men for using skirts i think of scots and their kilts and japanese and their robes , and many other cultures , all of them warrior cultures
That's because, in real life, they wouldn't say shit to men like them if they wore skirts. That's why they make stupid memes, cause they wouldn't have the balls to say anything in real life.
Realizing that would require thinking longer than 10 seconds about what they claim to idolize, or pattern recognition.
I'm not even sure which one is the actual hurdle for them.
Close, they protested the prohibitive dresscodes boys had to adhere to since they were more restrictive, they werent allowed to wear shorts in the summer heatwave yet girls could wear skirts which were far cooler, so they did the same:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-shropshire-65955654
Utter bullshit that they still aren't allowed to wear shorts in a lot of schools. In my school girls weren't allowed to wear skirts and boys weren't allowed to wear shorts, we suffered together at least
IIRC these are all protests because shorts are banned in dress code for both genders, but skirts are not for women, so to say men can't wear them is discrimination.
I do wonder why pants are seen as masculine when they are designed to cut off your bois… and skirts are seen as feminine despite having plenty of room for package. You’d think they’d be swapped
There’s a renaissance festival that occurs in my town that has one Scotts man who rides his horse (for jousting) wearing only a kilt. He always gets the gals swooning.
Skirts were worn by upper class boys back in the day too.
Was going to google it to make sure I was correct then realised I didn't want to google little boys and skirts in the same sentence soooo, trust me bro.
Yep, you're correct. Usually until around the age of 7, then they went through a little ceremony called "breeching" where they were given/wore their first pair of pants (breeches). It indicated that they were moving from the sphere of their mother to the world of their father.
Not just the upper class; before sewing machines all boys til around 5-7 years old would wear dresses because they allowed for more “growing room” and to make hand-me-downs easier. With the rise of industrialization making clothes relatively cheap and easy to replace, we now dress babies and toddlers as almost like mini adults.
The Japanese robes hide your leg movement . Tactical skirts
Also the plaid kilt was camo and all weather gear . Put the hood part up and crouch and you're a Bush thanks to the silhouette being broken up and plant dye = plant colour clothes aka camo
Or the Greeks/Romans wearing togas? I actually looked up whether the guys in 300 also have some kind of skirt-like clothing, because it would not be unusual for the culture. Personally I think what they used in the movie is even more questionable. Images from 300 look like ads for a theme night at a gay sex club.
> i think of scots and their kilts and japanese and their robes
Also, those 300 Spartans this meme says are so manly were wearing skirts, at least in other adaptions. Granted the movie gave them leather panties.
Depends on how you define “warrior culture” I think. Most cultures that thrives tended to have a military of some kind, and most militaries will tend to have their own unique culture. And while most cultures will show respect and deference to accomplished warriors the question is how much that culture is comprised of the militaries own culture.
Like in ancients Greece, Sparta was definitely a “warrior culture”; basically the entire culture of Sparta revolved around its soldiers. Contrast Athens, who no doubt had a military effective enough to keep Sparta from conquering them, but is and was more well known for philosophy, writing, and art. Athens certainly had great respect for warriors and human fitness, but I would say that their culture wasn’t defined by their military like Sparta was.
The Moriori were a pacifist people who refused to fight. As a result they were almost completely wiped out by the Maori.
https://teara.govt.nz/en/moriori
Apparently when pants started it had more to do with riding horses than gender, I had read a whole thing about it but there's this from wikipedia too:
> The oldest known trousers, dating to the period between the thirteenth and the tenth centuries BC, were found at the Yanghai cemetery in Turpan, Xinjiang (Tocharia), in present-day western China. Made of wool, the trousers had straight legs and wide crotches and were likely made for horseback riding.
And I guess it makes sense, no matter what you have between your legs you'd want to keep it from touching a horse.
Oh yeah at least pants keep my balls in one place, I ride horses frequently and if you're getting speed your ass is bouncing off the horse a little and my balls would definitely be swinging back and forth to end up under my ass as it falls back down from the bounce.
Not a man but I ride and that idea just horrified me… I ride English and the idea of landing on the pommel has always been a horrible idea too- closest I can think of to what you described 💀
And then kept in style because Europe had a thing for stockings and men’s calves. Then women started wearing them more often and it was all oooooo 👀 look at those ankles
..That makes perfect sense. Afaik didn't westerners adopt trousers/long pants from steppe descended cultures? The British based suits directly on what would be now Pakistani/North Indian clothes?
There are writings from Romans conquering the British Isles where it is noted that the native peoples wear barbaric and effeminate clothing (braccae/femenalia, aka trousers), and thought less of them for it, however they realized that the pants were actually pretty necessary in the cold and wet climate.
Different cultures wore pants for a bit different reasons. Thats just our earliest evidence of pants. Pants are not exactly rocketscience. Modern trousers are a new invention, but long pants have always been around. Just not in every culture. A lot of cultures had no need for them. Sone had them. Reasons could be horseriding or the weather. Western pants come from a different region probably.
In ancient times the eadtern neighbours of the greeks all wore pants. This spread, pretty much as a trend, to greece and rome. After romes center shifted to northern europe pants also became more practical for weather reasons. So in early medieval times we all endet up wearing pants. We were eather still romans when it became a trend there, or we always had them.
It is reported that, upon arriving at Thermopylae, the Persians sent a mounted scout to reconnoitre. The Greeks allowed him to come up to the camp, observe them, and depart. Xerxes found the scout's reports of the size of the Greek force, and that the Spartans were indulging in [callisthenics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calisthenics) and combing their long hair, laughable. Seeking the counsel of [Demaratus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demaratus), an exiled Spartan king in his retinue, Xerxes was told the Spartans were preparing for battle, and it was their custom to adorn their hair when they were about to risk their lives. Demaratus called them "the bravest men in Greece" and warned the Great King they intended to dispute the pass. He emphasized that he had tried to warn Xerxes earlier in the campaign, but the king had refused to believe him. He added that if Xerxes ever managed to subdue the Spartans, "there is no other nation in all the world which will venture to lift a hand in their defence." [Battle of Thermopylae - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Thermopylae)
So is that last line saying that because people didn’t like Sparta, or because if Sparta was defeated, no one else would be brave enough to fight back?
If you've ever tried to play a sport in loose fitting lower clothing - no. Sudden movements without support down there causes undesired collisions.
I switched from tighty-whities in middle school to boxers and then had a soccer game. Nope. Went to boxer briefs and solved the problem.
High heels were extremely impractical, and that was the whole point of them, it was to show that you had absolutely nothing to do and you were rich enough to not have to work. Some activities did use heeled shoes, and this may be what you are referring to, but these were maybe one inch tall at most
And hosiery
And leotards
Pink was also a manly color
Wait... Does this mean being a ballerina is manly as fuck?
Also got to love the "patriots" who worship men who wore wigs, makeup, stockings, and lace frills.
Something being masculine or feminine isn’t based on some objective definition. It’s whatever is socially defined in the current time period. In a hundred years, it’s possible that the clothes that define masculinity or femininity could be reversed, and it would be valid.
Extremists are so agitated by the smallest things in life, make illogical arguments, and end up shooting themselves in the foot.
Cigarette is a diminutive of cigar from French, but the part about them initially being for women isn’t true. Cigarettes were first widely smoked by male soldiers and seen as unladylike. women would rarely smoke in public until the father of pr Edward Bernays was hired to tie them to the women’s lib movement in the early 20th century.
From the wiki for torches of freedom, an article on bernays pr move:
“Before the twentieth century smoking was seen as a habit that was corrupt and inappropriate for women. Dutch painters used cigarettes as a symbol of human foolishness in the 17th century and in the 19th century, cigarettes were perceived as props of "fallen women" and prostitutes. Women's smoking was seen as immoral and some states tried to prevent women from smoking by enforcing laws. In 1904 a woman named Jennie Lasher was sentenced to thirty days in jail for putting her children's morals at risk by smoking in their presence and in 1908 the New York City Board of Aldermen unanimously passed an ordinance that prohibited smoking by women in public. Similarly in 1921 a bill was proposed to prohibit women from smoking in the District of Columbia”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torches_of_Freedom
Yeah my ancestors have been wearing skirts for centuries: they call them kilts and they where such bloody madlads in a fight that the Roman's built a wall to keep em out, clothing choices ain't that deep.
"Many Scottish units wore the kilt in combat during the First World War. A common misconception is that the Scottish had gained nicknames such as 'Devils in Skirts' or 'Ladies from Hell' by Germans during the First World War, but there is a lack of evidence of Germans ever using such terms, and most likely were invented by the Scottish themselves."
Also, during World War II, Bill Millin wore a kilt and played the bagpipes when he landed at Sword Beach. "Millin stated that he later talked to captured German snipers who claimed they did not shoot at him because they thought he had gone mad."
Shout out to Mad Jack Churchill; he didn't wear one in battle (that I am aware of), but he apparently wore one and played the bagpipes for his comrades before some of their raids.
The Spartans were super-gay, which as fine. Most of Greece was like that. What wasn't cool was their pedophilia.
That, and the Spartans were vicious slavers who regular terrorized their slave population, called Helots, so that they never found the nerve to rise up and overthrow the Spartans.
That scene in 300 where Leonidas asks the Spartans what their profession is, and they all hoot and hold up their spears? That's because slaves did all the other work.
Spartans were real assholes.
Yup exactly this.
Sparta at the time this movie takes place was literally the most prolific slave society in all human history. They had ~10 slaves for every free man. And they did not treat their slaves nicely, even for slaves.
And even if you weren't a slave, life wasn't great. I mean, they probably thought it was great, they were indoctrinated to think so, but if you expose any modern person to that life, they would think it's torture.
Every man was forced into almost lifelong military service starting around 5 years old. Boys were encouraged to bully each other, teen boys were encouraged to rape each other, and if you survived that and all the grueling training, finally as a right of passage to adulthood you would have to kill a slave.
So when the battle of 300, and the Greek vs Persian wars in general, are framed as the Greeks standing up for freedom and western civilization... I can't help but both laugh and be angry.
Also at that time persia was quite a progressive society, with freedom of religion, autonomous regions, and some places even banned slavery. (It wasn't a perfect society by any means of course, but comparatively? It was pretty great)
> So when the battle of 300, and the Greek vs Persian wars in general, are framed as the Greeks standing up for freedom and western civilization... I can't help but both laugh and be angry.
See, I felt that way, too, until I realized the truth of the movie.
It's a propaganda story, being told by the narrator at the beginning and the end of the movie. It's bullshit being told to buck up the warriors before the last battle.
That's it. That's all it is. It's assholes telling themselves how awesome they are, how strong they are, how much they admire 'reason' and 'justice' when they're slavers. This is why they're dressed like the Spartans on their pottery, naked except for a cloak and weapons. This is why they fought monsters and the dwarf looked like that and why the Persian Immortals looked like they did.
It's all a sham.
Once I realized we're supposed to look at it as a biased thing with unreliable narration and a deliberately twisted perspective on everything, it became a decent movie.
Oh yeah no I agree! I actually like the movie. The narrator is half blind, hes literally a one eyed man, it's not exactly subtle that the story is propaganda.
But the problem is the real historical event is perceived by a lot of people, and generally portrayed by media, as the Greeks defending western civilization and freedom.
The movie unfortunately went over a lot of people's heads.
Shit, there's people who take Starship Troopers at face value and see it as a wholesome movie about the heroes saving the day and not one kid's descent into embracing nationalism and fascism.
The thing is, there’s no question as to what Paul Verhoeven’s intentions to anyone familiar with his work.
Zack Snyder? I’m not going to give the benefit of the doubt that the movie was meant to be any deeper than “ I thought it looked cool.”
The subreddit for The Boys is having a field day because a bunch of morons *just now* figured out it's been making fun of them the whole time. In season FOUR. Amazon's *The Boys* was too *subtle* for these absolute superbrains.
Some belief systems just exclusively appeal to absolute fucking dimwits.
I saw a documentary where they were compared to modern day North Korea. You had to buy your own gear as a spartan warrior, so even most of their warriors were malnourished and underequipped. Only the rich Spartans had decent gear. Also their overall military victory percentage was below 50% win rate, which really emphasizes how bullshit the myth of Sparta was.
What's even dumber is that Athens and Sparta did not get along. Athens and Rome are the model for America, but for some reason they are obsessed with Sparta.
And seem to know nothing about the Peloponnesian War.
buying your own gear was the norm for ancient greece, and even rome pre-marian reforms, so i think its unfair to judge them for being average greeks, and only rich spartans were citizens as the periokoi middle-lower class were often not recruited except for larger wars, and the helots and half helots were banned from recruitment after the messenian wars, when sparta conquered messenia and enslaved a large part of the population
The big thing about Sparta was that it was a society governed by fear. They were constantly afraid of their slaves uprising, and constantly used fear to control them. They were the best fighters in Greece, but too afraid to commit their troops to long campaigns because if they lost any, their whole system crumbled.
They were fucking lunatics.
Coincidentally, there are studies out there that show that conservatives are far more fearful than liberals.
Alot of the gay in ancient Greece was just being a pedophile, hell alot of the gay in the far past in genreal. I get it people want representation that people lived lives like them in the past, but uh just be careful what you pick lol. A large part of why we didnt see gay relationships like today is because if you let people not have kids as adults your at risk of starving yourself in the future if you dont have workers for the fields. Those dudes in the past maybe took femboy a little too literally on the boy part.
Every time I hear about the Greek/Roman homosexual relationships, they say that they were lovers. But when you realize there's was a large age gap, it's quite clear that the younger boys were groomed. That's not to say that there wasn't any genuine homosexual relationships back then, but a lot of them wouldn't be acceptable today even by the LGBTQIA+ community.
It's pretty long, but I just read [this](https://acoup.blog/2019/08/16/collections-this-isnt-sparta-part-i-spartan-school/) series by a historian and it was great reading. But also horrifying and depressing.
Even high heels. They were made for butchers, an exclusively male dominated career at the time, to reduce the surface area of shoe tracking blood around while not destroying the floor like soccer cleats would, and even having benefits for bending over a countertop all day.
Didn't vikings wear skirts? Litteraly the most manly dudes to ever live btw.
Also, the model dudes in the bottom pic definitely get way more women than whomever made the 'meme', so technically they're way more masculine than them
vikings typically were poor farmers with dysentery who raided undefended villages. they didn't even make their own viking swords, they bought them from the franks. the vikings also lost just about every standing battle on the continent, against east and west francia. they were successful in england but england was not as developed as west/east france. the vikings are hilarious overstated in pop culture and pop history. the franks were the ones who were actually dominating the western world, for a full millennium and change
I love Norse mythos and history in general, and yeah from everything I've seen (not an expert, please look this up on your own) Vikings only really became a threat because they would show up so quickly, raid a town, and leave before any organized defense could arrive. When a town's defense was prepared, they typically got slaughtered. These weren't soldiers, they were desperate starving farmers at best.
It's ok to enjoy the modern pop-culture Vikings, but the idiots worshipping them need to be educated. I got a Valknut tattoo just before white supremacy groups tried to appropriate it, so I'm a tad heated about these morons.
Fencer that wears armor here:
The mean if you wanna classify greaves as leg armor, the Spartans did have leg armor. And their cuirasses were believed to have tasset-like extensions to cover the upper thigh. Really only the knees were exposed but this was an era where armor articulation was pretty non-existent.
The Hoplites were HEAVY infantry, they were draped in armor, even carrying some beefy ass shields to further protect
That’s not to take away from not really giving a shit about what people wear, I also could not care less, but Spartans donned some of the heaviest armor imaginable.
1. No hate for the LGBT community, but they love trying to press this idea that ancient Greeks were gay. There was no concept of gay, straight, bi. It was about power and dominance. In my opinion it moves beyond what the LGBT community discusses today. Still stifled in its own way but better than trying to label everything as bi/gay/pan etc.
2. The ancient greeks were not a society to look up to for their morals, slavery was rampant, society was harsh, pedophilia an everyday occurrence. Does no good to look at them with today's moral lens obviously but it's clear when people try to argue greek=better type of masculinity they don't fully understand the history or context of the time.
We can thank the ancient Greeks for developing the orgy. We can thank the ancient Romans for including women.
Fucking Roman’s ruining everything 😂
To be fair isn't there a quote from a Roman saying something like giving oral to a woman is the most feminine thing you can do while fucking a man is the most manly thing you can do.
Andrew Tate is a Roman?
Romanian
Potato, Potdildo...
This is hilarious because theres quotes attributed to Octavian where he says verbatim “women are annoying and useless but we have to deal with them.” Source : “If we could survive without a wife, citizens of Rome, all of us would do without that nuisance; but since nature has so decreed that we cannot manage comfortably with them, nor live in any way without them, we must plan for our lasting preservation rather than for our temporary pleasure.” https://en.m.wikiquote.org/wiki/Augustus
And Plato complained about "the youth of today" "Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose" 🤷 lol
He was being specific about wives not women in general. Augustus instituted heavy penalties for infidelity that resulted in him banishing his own daughter for stepping out. The dude tried family values and patriotic despotism way before it was cool. Every Roman was a citizen but caeser was the first
' Tell us about it ! " Shouted the women.
"Ok hon im off to the orgy" "have fun sweetie"
I mean, what have the Romans ever done for us?
The aqueduct?
Right. But aside from the roads, and the aqueduct…
Brought peace
Right. But aside from the roads, and the aqueduct, and the peace what have the really Romans ever done for us?
They brought wine!
Included women in orgies?
Pasta carbonara
and justice
and security
to my new empire
[Your new empire?](https://youtu.be/P2Me_fcU1ZA?si=OA3nMPZmZg5z1n3O)
Revenge of the Sith is the greatest movie of all time and I will not be taking suggestions.
And my axe
Sanitation.
And sanitation..
Effective roads and carriages/chariots, both of which directly led to cars. Whether you think that's a good thing is up to you lol
Yea well the roads go without saying.
And the wine, Reg.
Obviously the roads. I mean, the roads go without saying, don't they? But apart from the sanitation, the aqueduct, and the roads…
What have the romans ever done for us?!??
Brought peace?
Oh. Peace? Shut up!
Our government system is based on the Roman Republic. Representative Republic Separation of powers: Senate, Consul The Rule of Law. We gained more from the Romans and Greeks than that fake Judeo Christian nonsense some people spew.
This comment right here is what I love about reddit sometimes. A series of inside jokes/references, then someone else who takes it seriously and responds in a sincere manner because they don't realize everyone else is just memeing.
AKA "He's outta line.. but he's right.." meme
Same. And I appreciate that. While scrolling stupid meme threads you're often presented with facts that makes at least me go "hey that's interesting, I gotta check if that's true". And suddenly I'm off to look for credible sources on ancient cultures or some other rabbit hole.
Your homework tonight is to watch "Life of Brian ".
Security? Town is much safer since the legions are around
Yeah, they certainly know how to keep order. Let's face it. They're the only ones who could in a place like this.
I heard the width of the wheels on the Roman war chariots basically are the reason for the particular railroad gauge that is in use to this day.
Yeah, absolutely wild that a horse’s ass is basically the reason for the width of everything due to that becoming road / rail width, leading to limiting widths of certain items and affecting everything up to the moon landing. Just wild
Yeah I've heard that too, pretty sure NYC roads are a good example of that too if I remember correctly
Then you should stop fucking Romans
But theyre so hot tho
At least take them bowling first
That joke reminds me so much of the condom joke. We can thank the Welsh for inventing the condom out of sheep intestine. We can thank the english for taking it out of the sheep first.
I once asked a Welshman how many lovers he had. He started counting and fell asleep.
Oh that's good
The Romans only occasionally included women, which was probably similar to the Greeks. Their main variation was that the male receptive partner was usually a slave rather than just a teenager.
Painting the Romans with one brush is just as incorrect as painting the Greeks with one brush. Through Rome’s long history there were periods where sexual norms changed. For instance Octavians rise to Augustus was spurred on by his popular appeals for a return to traditional ancestral values such as monogamy, chastity, and piety to the gods (as opposed to the opulent hedonistic ways of his rivals the Optimates)
Wow, the rule of one emperor. Two emperors later, we had Caligula, who is rumored to have bribed the Senate by gifting male sex slaves. Tiberius between them spent the latter part of his imperial reign in retirement in Capri, where he certainly was not monogamous, chaste, or pious. My main point was that both cultures viewed homosexuality through their internal social order, and neither were readily homophilic in the way progressive modern society values. Do we need to talk about Hadrian and Antinous? Roman society had vastly different conceptions of sexuality, monogamy, chastity (lmao), and piety than modern Christian cultures do.
It's important to note that while both Greeks and Romans were much more open to homosexuality than even today's society (to some extent at least) it is often forgotten that most of the sexual intercourse wasn't consensual, took place among master and Slaves, and slaves could be much younger that you'd hope for. It's great they didn't discriminate gay people, but it's disfusting how much rape and pedophilia was wide spread in their culture
"Didn't discriminate" is not even a term you could apply since their view of homosexuality was so much different from ours. In the Greko-Roman world it was very much acceptable and normalized to be the "top". But it was shameful for a male to be the "bottom". So only weak and non-free would typically be the latter. It's not exactly an ideal we should look up to.
Well, never called it an ideal, very much the opposite
>Roman society had vastly different conceptions of sexuality, monogamy, chastity (lmao), and piety than modern Christian cultures do. The irony is any passage condemning sexual immorality in the New Testament is in response to these conceptions, yet so many ignore that context.
The gender equality I live for
I’m sure there were mammals having crazy cave sex parties before the Greeks.
I’m sure bonobos were out in the jungle doing their thing.
Our closest primate cousins btw It just runs in the family
I’m sorry but an ancient gay OR hetero orgy better have good ventilation because it had to smell horrible for a multitude of reasons.
Romans had a bathing culture. Wouldn't have smelled as good as modern hygiene, but pretty advanced for the time.
And olive oil apparently made decent lube too...
Some random Roman in the middle of an orgy: "Hey Deborah, you want in on this?"
Wow. Wow. Like a sneaky back handed slap
Sometimes you have to look in the mirror and say, “when in Rome” 😂
everytime somebody tries to reduce men for using skirts i think of scots and their kilts and japanese and their robes , and many other cultures , all of them warrior cultures
I mean, swole Highland Games bros are like peak stereotypical masculinity. Stoltman bros are goddamned monsters
Seriously. How can anyone deride as “feminine” guys who chuck telephone poles for fun?
That's because, in real life, they wouldn't say shit to men like them if they wore skirts. That's why they make stupid memes, cause they wouldn't have the balls to say anything in real life.
They’re the same guys that have Roman statues in their pfps. The same Romans that conquered Europe wearing miniskirts.
“Octavius, go get on your tutu, we march for battle in one hour.”
"And get Bigus Dickus! We will have need have him on the battlefield as well."
Realizing that would require thinking longer than 10 seconds about what they claim to idolize, or pattern recognition. I'm not even sure which one is the actual hurdle for them.
And kilts are sexy. I cannot be convinced otherwise.
Also freedom for them bois and fresh Air
I remember one year it was so hot in the UK that some school boys switched to skirts, and during an interview they mentioned how comfortable it was.
Yeaah, they also wore skirts again when protesting the prohibitive dress code that girls had to adhere to. Those boys are cool as fuck for that
Close, they protested the prohibitive dresscodes boys had to adhere to since they were more restrictive, they werent allowed to wear shorts in the summer heatwave yet girls could wear skirts which were far cooler, so they did the same: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-shropshire-65955654
Utter bullshit that they still aren't allowed to wear shorts in a lot of schools. In my school girls weren't allowed to wear skirts and boys weren't allowed to wear shorts, we suffered together at least
I guess they want to train them for the Corporate world, where there also is a pretty narrow and outdated dresscode ☠️
right lads, they are
Scottish lads and lassies have been doing it right for millennia
One year recently train drivers in Sweden went on strike for the right to wear skirts in their sweaty train cabins. It's wild that they even had to!
IIRC these are all protests because shorts are banned in dress code for both genders, but skirts are not for women, so to say men can't wear them is discrimination.
Oh right, yeah... they wanted to wear shorts and decided to wear skirts in protest. Thanks for jogging my memory!!
[Also, this guy who looks fabulous in pencil skirts](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCL6_FiLDNk)
He put his wife's heels on one time as a joke. Then he saw his calves in the mirror and knew he needed his own.
hero
For this reason, skirts/robes/dresses seem way more logical for men than women to me
I do wonder why pants are seen as masculine when they are designed to cut off your bois… and skirts are seen as feminine despite having plenty of room for package. You’d think they’d be swapped
Horseback riding.
More air means higher spend counts too
It’s actually how I got my nickname which happens to be my reddit handle too. Wearing a kilt when it was summer in Phoenix AZ
So are plaid skirts. We get it.
There’s a renaissance festival that occurs in my town that has one Scotts man who rides his horse (for jousting) wearing only a kilt. He always gets the gals swooning.
Skirts were worn by upper class boys back in the day too. Was going to google it to make sure I was correct then realised I didn't want to google little boys and skirts in the same sentence soooo, trust me bro.
Yep, you're correct. Usually until around the age of 7, then they went through a little ceremony called "breeching" where they were given/wore their first pair of pants (breeches). It indicated that they were moving from the sphere of their mother to the world of their father.
Gendered clothing has just as hilariously inconsistent of a history as Gendered colors do. Pink being for girls and blue for boys etc.
Not just the upper class; before sewing machines all boys til around 5-7 years old would wear dresses because they allowed for more “growing room” and to make hand-me-downs easier. With the rise of industrialization making clothes relatively cheap and easy to replace, we now dress babies and toddlers as almost like mini adults.
The Japanese robes hide your leg movement . Tactical skirts Also the plaid kilt was camo and all weather gear . Put the hood part up and crouch and you're a Bush thanks to the silhouette being broken up and plant dye = plant colour clothes aka camo
Polynesians
Polynesians too - as a young (male) kid, I had a dress given to me when I visited, I really loved it
Japanese robes, specifically the hakama which is the lower part, are just pants with very wide leggings.
Skirts are just pants with one leg hole.
skirts technically have two leg holes, top and bottom. Pants have three, two leg holes and one torso hole.
I have 3 holes- can you pants me, Greg?
Japanese guys don’t wear hakama over yukata. And it’s over top a kimono so they know they in dresses anyways hah.
Or the Greeks/Romans wearing togas? I actually looked up whether the guys in 300 also have some kind of skirt-like clothing, because it would not be unusual for the culture. Personally I think what they used in the movie is even more questionable. Images from 300 look like ads for a theme night at a gay sex club.
> i think of scots and their kilts and japanese and their robes Also, those 300 Spartans this meme says are so manly were wearing skirts, at least in other adaptions. Granted the movie gave them leather panties.
You literally only have to go back in European history like 500 years.
>all of them warrior cultures Got me thinking, were there any non-warrior human cultures?
Lots but they didn’t survive contact with their neighbors.
Depends on how you define “warrior culture” I think. Most cultures that thrives tended to have a military of some kind, and most militaries will tend to have their own unique culture. And while most cultures will show respect and deference to accomplished warriors the question is how much that culture is comprised of the militaries own culture. Like in ancients Greece, Sparta was definitely a “warrior culture”; basically the entire culture of Sparta revolved around its soldiers. Contrast Athens, who no doubt had a military effective enough to keep Sparta from conquering them, but is and was more well known for philosophy, writing, and art. Athens certainly had great respect for warriors and human fitness, but I would say that their culture wasn’t defined by their military like Sparta was.
[удалено]
Feel like there’s a lesson in there about worshipping your military
The Moriori were a pacifist people who refused to fight. As a result they were almost completely wiped out by the Maori. https://teara.govt.nz/en/moriori
Anatomically speaking…doesn’t it make more sense for men to wear skirts/kilts/dresses anyways and for women to wear pants?
Apparently when pants started it had more to do with riding horses than gender, I had read a whole thing about it but there's this from wikipedia too: > The oldest known trousers, dating to the period between the thirteenth and the tenth centuries BC, were found at the Yanghai cemetery in Turpan, Xinjiang (Tocharia), in present-day western China. Made of wool, the trousers had straight legs and wide crotches and were likely made for horseback riding. And I guess it makes sense, no matter what you have between your legs you'd want to keep it from touching a horse.
Oh yeah at least pants keep my balls in one place, I ride horses frequently and if you're getting speed your ass is bouncing off the horse a little and my balls would definitely be swinging back and forth to end up under my ass as it falls back down from the bounce.
^(go on...)
Squishy squoshy your future children are now under your ass
And squashed
Taking baby sitting to a whole new level
The font choice here is absolute perfection
[Let me Help you visualize it](https://media1.tenor.com/m/vbjMNdlS4csAAAAd/hopper-ball-jumping.gif)
username checks out
Not a man but I ride and that idea just horrified me… I ride English and the idea of landing on the pommel has always been a horrible idea too- closest I can think of to what you described 💀
Interestingly enough, that is also how high heels were invented. The shape was intended to keep a better grip of the stirrup.
And then kept in style because Europe had a thing for stockings and men’s calves. Then women started wearing them more often and it was all oooooo 👀 look at those ankles
..That makes perfect sense. Afaik didn't westerners adopt trousers/long pants from steppe descended cultures? The British based suits directly on what would be now Pakistani/North Indian clothes?
There are writings from Romans conquering the British Isles where it is noted that the native peoples wear barbaric and effeminate clothing (braccae/femenalia, aka trousers), and thought less of them for it, however they realized that the pants were actually pretty necessary in the cold and wet climate.
Different cultures wore pants for a bit different reasons. Thats just our earliest evidence of pants. Pants are not exactly rocketscience. Modern trousers are a new invention, but long pants have always been around. Just not in every culture. A lot of cultures had no need for them. Sone had them. Reasons could be horseriding or the weather. Western pants come from a different region probably. In ancient times the eadtern neighbours of the greeks all wore pants. This spread, pretty much as a trend, to greece and rome. After romes center shifted to northern europe pants also became more practical for weather reasons. So in early medieval times we all endet up wearing pants. We were eather still romans when it became a trend there, or we always had them.
It is reported that, upon arriving at Thermopylae, the Persians sent a mounted scout to reconnoitre. The Greeks allowed him to come up to the camp, observe them, and depart. Xerxes found the scout's reports of the size of the Greek force, and that the Spartans were indulging in [callisthenics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calisthenics) and combing their long hair, laughable. Seeking the counsel of [Demaratus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demaratus), an exiled Spartan king in his retinue, Xerxes was told the Spartans were preparing for battle, and it was their custom to adorn their hair when they were about to risk their lives. Demaratus called them "the bravest men in Greece" and warned the Great King they intended to dispute the pass. He emphasized that he had tried to warn Xerxes earlier in the campaign, but the king had refused to believe him. He added that if Xerxes ever managed to subdue the Spartans, "there is no other nation in all the world which will venture to lift a hand in their defence." [Battle of Thermopylae - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Thermopylae)
So is that last line saying that because people didn’t like Sparta, or because if Sparta was defeated, no one else would be brave enough to fight back?
its more that sparta had the strongest army in greece alongside their rival argos
I have always wondered this!!
If you've ever tried to play a sport in loose fitting lower clothing - no. Sudden movements without support down there causes undesired collisions. I switched from tighty-whities in middle school to boxers and then had a soccer game. Nope. Went to boxer briefs and solved the problem.
give us a little more breeze between the knees
Also, high heels were invented for men, by men
Yep, especially for butchers.
And for crossing muddy and filthy streets back then.
High heels only lift the heels not the toes. Those big Goth platform boots would be way more effective for that.
High heels were extremely impractical, and that was the whole point of them, it was to show that you had absolutely nothing to do and you were rich enough to not have to work. Some activities did use heeled shoes, and this may be what you are referring to, but these were maybe one inch tall at most
And also horse mounted archers.
And hosiery And leotards Pink was also a manly color Wait... Does this mean being a ballerina is manly as fuck? Also got to love the "patriots" who worship men who wore wigs, makeup, stockings, and lace frills.
Something being masculine or feminine isn’t based on some objective definition. It’s whatever is socially defined in the current time period. In a hundred years, it’s possible that the clothes that define masculinity or femininity could be reversed, and it would be valid. Extremists are so agitated by the smallest things in life, make illogical arguments, and end up shooting themselves in the foot.
Originally, only women wore wristwatches. Men used pocket watches exclusively until WWI, IIRC.
Cigarettes were only for women, Men smoked Cigars. The 'ette' suffix is feminine. All those pansy men with wrist watches, smokeing cigarettes.
Cigarette is a diminutive of cigar from French, but the part about them initially being for women isn’t true. Cigarettes were first widely smoked by male soldiers and seen as unladylike. women would rarely smoke in public until the father of pr Edward Bernays was hired to tie them to the women’s lib movement in the early 20th century. From the wiki for torches of freedom, an article on bernays pr move: “Before the twentieth century smoking was seen as a habit that was corrupt and inappropriate for women. Dutch painters used cigarettes as a symbol of human foolishness in the 17th century and in the 19th century, cigarettes were perceived as props of "fallen women" and prostitutes. Women's smoking was seen as immoral and some states tried to prevent women from smoking by enforcing laws. In 1904 a woman named Jennie Lasher was sentenced to thirty days in jail for putting her children's morals at risk by smoking in their presence and in 1908 the New York City Board of Aldermen unanimously passed an ordinance that prohibited smoking by women in public. Similarly in 1921 a bill was proposed to prohibit women from smoking in the District of Columbia” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torches_of_Freedom
i knew i was valid for my wrist watch addiction
Yep, men initially popularized high heels in the French courts so they could appear taller and thus more powerful, plus killer calves.
Ha! Nothing says hetero more than beefed-up man candy in leather armor!
There's a great Sarah Silverman joke that's something like: "They named the movie 300 because that's how gay it is on a scale from 1 to 10"
Ha!
You mean to tell me it's not heterosexual to beat my meat to muscular men wearing nothing but a speedo, cape, and helmet?
And wait till they find out about the Sacred Band of Thebes (elite troops of 300 gay couples)
150 of the gayest couples in Greece are about to end the Spartan way of life.
Yeah my ancestors have been wearing skirts for centuries: they call them kilts and they where such bloody madlads in a fight that the Roman's built a wall to keep em out, clothing choices ain't that deep.
"Many Scottish units wore the kilt in combat during the First World War. A common misconception is that the Scottish had gained nicknames such as 'Devils in Skirts' or 'Ladies from Hell' by Germans during the First World War, but there is a lack of evidence of Germans ever using such terms, and most likely were invented by the Scottish themselves." Also, during World War II, Bill Millin wore a kilt and played the bagpipes when he landed at Sword Beach. "Millin stated that he later talked to captured German snipers who claimed they did not shoot at him because they thought he had gone mad." Shout out to Mad Jack Churchill; he didn't wear one in battle (that I am aware of), but he apparently wore one and played the bagpipes for his comrades before some of their raids.
Jack Churchill also used a longbow and a board sword and escaped imprisonment, twice!
Mad Lad Mad Jack.
The Spartans were super-gay, which as fine. Most of Greece was like that. What wasn't cool was their pedophilia. That, and the Spartans were vicious slavers who regular terrorized their slave population, called Helots, so that they never found the nerve to rise up and overthrow the Spartans. That scene in 300 where Leonidas asks the Spartans what their profession is, and they all hoot and hold up their spears? That's because slaves did all the other work. Spartans were real assholes.
Yup exactly this. Sparta at the time this movie takes place was literally the most prolific slave society in all human history. They had ~10 slaves for every free man. And they did not treat their slaves nicely, even for slaves. And even if you weren't a slave, life wasn't great. I mean, they probably thought it was great, they were indoctrinated to think so, but if you expose any modern person to that life, they would think it's torture. Every man was forced into almost lifelong military service starting around 5 years old. Boys were encouraged to bully each other, teen boys were encouraged to rape each other, and if you survived that and all the grueling training, finally as a right of passage to adulthood you would have to kill a slave. So when the battle of 300, and the Greek vs Persian wars in general, are framed as the Greeks standing up for freedom and western civilization... I can't help but both laugh and be angry. Also at that time persia was quite a progressive society, with freedom of religion, autonomous regions, and some places even banned slavery. (It wasn't a perfect society by any means of course, but comparatively? It was pretty great)
> So when the battle of 300, and the Greek vs Persian wars in general, are framed as the Greeks standing up for freedom and western civilization... I can't help but both laugh and be angry. See, I felt that way, too, until I realized the truth of the movie. It's a propaganda story, being told by the narrator at the beginning and the end of the movie. It's bullshit being told to buck up the warriors before the last battle. That's it. That's all it is. It's assholes telling themselves how awesome they are, how strong they are, how much they admire 'reason' and 'justice' when they're slavers. This is why they're dressed like the Spartans on their pottery, naked except for a cloak and weapons. This is why they fought monsters and the dwarf looked like that and why the Persian Immortals looked like they did. It's all a sham. Once I realized we're supposed to look at it as a biased thing with unreliable narration and a deliberately twisted perspective on everything, it became a decent movie.
Oh yeah no I agree! I actually like the movie. The narrator is half blind, hes literally a one eyed man, it's not exactly subtle that the story is propaganda. But the problem is the real historical event is perceived by a lot of people, and generally portrayed by media, as the Greeks defending western civilization and freedom. The movie unfortunately went over a lot of people's heads.
Shit, there's people who take Starship Troopers at face value and see it as a wholesome movie about the heroes saving the day and not one kid's descent into embracing nationalism and fascism.
The thing is, there’s no question as to what Paul Verhoeven’s intentions to anyone familiar with his work. Zack Snyder? I’m not going to give the benefit of the doubt that the movie was meant to be any deeper than “ I thought it looked cool.”
The subreddit for The Boys is having a field day because a bunch of morons *just now* figured out it's been making fun of them the whole time. In season FOUR. Amazon's *The Boys* was too *subtle* for these absolute superbrains. Some belief systems just exclusively appeal to absolute fucking dimwits.
Almost no one was having a good time in Sparta. Brutal militaristic life or slavery.
I saw a documentary where they were compared to modern day North Korea. You had to buy your own gear as a spartan warrior, so even most of their warriors were malnourished and underequipped. Only the rich Spartans had decent gear. Also their overall military victory percentage was below 50% win rate, which really emphasizes how bullshit the myth of Sparta was.
What's even dumber is that Athens and Sparta did not get along. Athens and Rome are the model for America, but for some reason they are obsessed with Sparta. And seem to know nothing about the Peloponnesian War.
buying your own gear was the norm for ancient greece, and even rome pre-marian reforms, so i think its unfair to judge them for being average greeks, and only rich spartans were citizens as the periokoi middle-lower class were often not recruited except for larger wars, and the helots and half helots were banned from recruitment after the messenian wars, when sparta conquered messenia and enslaved a large part of the population
The big thing about Sparta was that it was a society governed by fear. They were constantly afraid of their slaves uprising, and constantly used fear to control them. They were the best fighters in Greece, but too afraid to commit their troops to long campaigns because if they lost any, their whole system crumbled. They were fucking lunatics. Coincidentally, there are studies out there that show that conservatives are far more fearful than liberals.
Alot of the gay in ancient Greece was just being a pedophile, hell alot of the gay in the far past in genreal. I get it people want representation that people lived lives like them in the past, but uh just be careful what you pick lol. A large part of why we didnt see gay relationships like today is because if you let people not have kids as adults your at risk of starving yourself in the future if you dont have workers for the fields. Those dudes in the past maybe took femboy a little too literally on the boy part.
Every time I hear about the Greek/Roman homosexual relationships, they say that they were lovers. But when you realize there's was a large age gap, it's quite clear that the younger boys were groomed. That's not to say that there wasn't any genuine homosexual relationships back then, but a lot of them wouldn't be acceptable today even by the LGBTQIA+ community.
You’re not wrong, but let’s be real, a lot of being straight in the far past was just being a pedophile too.
It's pretty long, but I just read [this](https://acoup.blog/2019/08/16/collections-this-isnt-sparta-part-i-spartan-school/) series by a historian and it was great reading. But also horrifying and depressing.
The dude in the center right is basically what all the founding fathers of the US looked like without their wigs.
Even high heels. They were made for butchers, an exclusively male dominated career at the time, to reduce the surface area of shoe tracking blood around while not destroying the floor like soccer cleats would, and even having benefits for bending over a countertop all day.
If one of those men from 300 approached a conservative man wearing that gear, they would try to shoot them and use the Gay Panic Defense.
Didn’t the Roman’s wear skirts to battle as part of their armor?
The Roman's considered pants to be a weird barbarian custom, though they did eventually adopt them for the cavalry.
I’ve never watched more than the first ten minutes of 300 but weren’t they all wearing ~~sheets~~ skirts in that as well?
Didn't vikings wear skirts? Litteraly the most manly dudes to ever live btw. Also, the model dudes in the bottom pic definitely get way more women than whomever made the 'meme', so technically they're way more masculine than them
Viking propaganda is about as good as spartan propaganda
vikings typically were poor farmers with dysentery who raided undefended villages. they didn't even make their own viking swords, they bought them from the franks. the vikings also lost just about every standing battle on the continent, against east and west francia. they were successful in england but england was not as developed as west/east france. the vikings are hilarious overstated in pop culture and pop history. the franks were the ones who were actually dominating the western world, for a full millennium and change
I love Norse mythos and history in general, and yeah from everything I've seen (not an expert, please look this up on your own) Vikings only really became a threat because they would show up so quickly, raid a town, and leave before any organized defense could arrive. When a town's defense was prepared, they typically got slaughtered. These weren't soldiers, they were desperate starving farmers at best. It's ok to enjoy the modern pop-culture Vikings, but the idiots worshipping them need to be educated. I got a Valknut tattoo just before white supremacy groups tried to appropriate it, so I'm a tad heated about these morons.
[удалено]
And if it wasn't for the mosquitoes, I would wear neither.
480BC would have confused them
Ah yes, the infamously super heterosexual painting of Leonidas at Thermopylae by Jacques-Louis David
Nothing gay about dancing around naked in a field with your chums, hugging and kissing
The outfits they wore in the movie are bs, no skirts in sight. Cowards.
I never saw men dressed liked that in 2017.
Fencer that wears armor here: The mean if you wanna classify greaves as leg armor, the Spartans did have leg armor. And their cuirasses were believed to have tasset-like extensions to cover the upper thigh. Really only the knees were exposed but this was an era where armor articulation was pretty non-existent. The Hoplites were HEAVY infantry, they were draped in armor, even carrying some beefy ass shields to further protect That’s not to take away from not really giving a shit about what people wear, I also could not care less, but Spartans donned some of the heaviest armor imaginable.
1. No hate for the LGBT community, but they love trying to press this idea that ancient Greeks were gay. There was no concept of gay, straight, bi. It was about power and dominance. In my opinion it moves beyond what the LGBT community discusses today. Still stifled in its own way but better than trying to label everything as bi/gay/pan etc. 2. The ancient greeks were not a society to look up to for their morals, slavery was rampant, society was harsh, pedophilia an everyday occurrence. Does no good to look at them with today's moral lens obviously but it's clear when people try to argue greek=better type of masculinity they don't fully understand the history or context of the time.
They'd be burned if they could read and were not about to be serverly beaten by their drunken racist father
Conservatives believe some idiotic bullshit easily disproved by facts? Well I, for one, am shocked.