/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.1112045]

I will sodomize you and face-fuck you,
Cock-sucker Aurelius and catamite Furius,
You who think, because my verses
Are delicate, that I am modest.
For it's right for the devoted poet to be chaste
Himself, but it's not necessary for his verses to be so.
Verses which then have taste and charm,
If they are delicate and sexy,
And can incite an itch,
And I don't mean in boys, but in those hairy old men
Who can't get their flaccid dicks up.
You, because you have read of my thousand kisses,
You think I'm a sissy?
I will sodomize you and face-fuck you.

[Anonymous No.1112058]

I think it's just funny as hell that this guy is taken seriously. I mean, some of his works are considered influentional classics, and yet he's the same guy who got all butthurt over two idiots calling him a pansy.

[Anonymous No.1112061]

>>1112045
what's latin for "ethered"

[Anonymous No.1112077]

>face-fuck
what does that mean? like, blowjobs or skull fucking?

[Anonymous No.1112088]

>>1112077
deepthroat pounding a woman's mouth as if it were her pussy

[Anonymous No.1112094]

>>1112088
In this case, a man's.

[Anonymous No.1112132]

>>what does that mean? like, blowjobs or skull fucking?

The Romans had a different conception of sexuality to contemporary western countries. Whether you fucked a man or a woman made no difference to them....what mattered was that you were the one *doing* the fucking. In other words, a Roman man had to be the fuck-er, not the fuck-ee. But it didn't matter if he fucked his male slave or his female mistress.

So as a result, while we tend to think male homosexual activity goes along with "effeminate" behavior, to the Romans being a womanizer was what made you effeminate (because you were clearly spending too much time or paying too much attention to what women, who were ONLY fuckees, thought or wanted.)

Well, the Latin sexual vocabulary reflects this. The verb that Catullus uses is "irrumare"---he uses it in the future tense, "irrumare"--and I remember the late GP Goold (editor of the Loeb classical library) trying to explain this verb to a classful of students, because there wasn't an exact English equivalent. He translated it as "stuff your gob" (Goold was originally a Cockney himself) because his point was that it was an aggressively active verb. "I am going to fuck your mouth", basically, except expressed in the form of one ACTIVE verb. He was right that the equivalent English sentiments---"suck my dick," "blow me"---aren't quite equivalent, because they are commands for the other person to do something active. Whereas the real sense of the verb that Catullus is using here reflects a Roman man's sense of sexuality...I'm going to make you my fuck-ee (and therefore render you into my bitch without compromising my own masculinity) by fucking your mouth.

[Anonymous No.1112139]

>>1112132
god i love the romans

a weak pussy like me wouldn't get any respect though

[Anonymous No.1112144]

>>he's the same guy who got all butthurt over two idiots calling him a pansy.

He's not getting butthurt over Furius and Aurelius calling him a pansy. In another poem (c. 11) he asks them to deliver a message to his mistress Lesbia, which is basically "you whore, I hope you're happy with the thousands of men who fuck you, you killed my love".

It's always dodgy trying to construct a narrative out of Catullus' poems, or his famous poems about Lesbia, since the text survives in a mangled form and we know so little biographical information about him, but it's usually assumed that Furius and Aurelius---whom he addresses as his comrades (comites) in the other poem---probably both fucked Lesbia, and so he addresses a poem of pure invective abuse to them here, and a more literary version in c. 11.

[Anonymous No.1112149]

>>1112132
why would your professor project onto a culture with limited verification, and historicize a concept of sexuality (bearing in mind of course that any interpretation of roman sexual attitudes necessarily reflects our own attitudes more than those of the romans) and present it as fact? and more importantly why would you believe him or repeat such an obvious mishandling of the truth?

[Anonymous No.1112154]

>>a weak pussy like me wouldn't get any respect though

Well, you would get plenty of respect from Roman women. That's one of the great paradoxes of Roman society. Because Roman manliness involved lots of military attitudinizing---as well as making a virtue out of avoiding sex and disliking women---apparently being a weak pussy made you very popular with the ladies.

Unless you're a gay bottom, in which case, can I have your number? Because my own sexuality is Romanitas personified and I'm always keen to meet an attractive young cinaedus.

[Quentin !!p3mpBqBwOeY No.1112165]

No wonder the Roman Empire crumbled they had idiots like this guy running around representing the arts

[Anonymous No.1112170]

>>why would your professor project onto a culture with limited verification, and historicize a concept of sexuality (bearing in mind of course that any interpretation of roman sexual attitudes necessarily reflects our own attitudes more than those of the romans) and present it as fact? and more importantly why would you believe him or repeat such an obvious mishandling of the truth?

Huh? I don't understand where you're coming from. Is this some kind of Foucault-iste postmodern Pyrrhonism? Everything said in that post is the most historically accurate reconstruction of Roman sexual attitudes, based on the available evidence, which is considerable. You will find it backed up in works of substantial historical scholarship, including JN Adams' The Latin Sexual Vocabulary and Eva Cantarella's Bisexuality in the Ancient World, not to mention AE Housman's own contributions to the study of Roman sexuality (which he had to write in Latin because the issues being discussed were "obscene" by Victorian standards).

I don't understand why you doubt that we can reconstruct what the Roman attitude towards sexuality was, based on the available historical evidence. I mean, unless you think ANY accurate understanding of the past is impossible, in which case you're either too stupid or too trendy-deconstructionist to be worth arguing with.

Also, is English your first language? I'm assuming not, because you write like pretentious Eurotrash.

Te pedicabo et irrumabo, stulte.

[Anonymous No.1112176]

>>No wonder the Roman Empire crumbled they had idiots like this guy running around representing the arts

No wonder the American Empire is crumbling when you mock Catullus without realizing that he lived entirely during the Roman Republic, and was dead by the time Rome became an Empire. Fucking idiot.

[Quentin !!p3mpBqBwOeY No.1112182]

>>1112176
It was all the same thing really just diff. names

[Anonymous No.1112191]

>>1112170
It is ''foucauldian'' (for your further ranting against). You aren't far from the mark, although the fact that you denigrate the position off hand and without knowledge of it. I do tend to consider that a position taken on a culture such as rome, who's primary sources are limited is inherently limited, and reflects not only academic trends, but also current sexual attitudes and specifically the attitudes of your professor. I was more critical of the attitude of authority with which you presented this recreation than anything. Personally, I think sexuality has never been as defined as you are suggesting that Roman sexuality was, and texts reflect nearly everything but the truth.

[Anonymous No.1112192]

>>historicize a concept of sexuality (bearing in mind of course that any interpretation of roman sexual attitudes necessarily reflects our own attitudes more than those of the romans)

The Sambia tribe of New Guinea believe that masculinity is inherent in semen, and therefore they segregate adolescent boys and make them suck the cocks of the adult tribesmen and swallow their semen, in order to grow up and become real men.

The Sambia are what is usually referred to as a "primitive" tribe, but they were still doing this well into the 20th century. This is what they believe. Are you going to tell me that the ethnographers who studied the Sambia (like Gilbert Herdt) and their sexual customs somehow AUTOMATICALLY reflected "our own" sexual customs more than they were accurately able to describe those of the Sambia and analyze them accurately?

I say that's horseshit. It's possible to accurately analyze a culture that has different sexual mores to our own, and to do so based on literary evidence---as with the Romans---or direct anthropological observation (as with the Sambia).

Because your style of argument is one that impoverishes any sort of knowledge whatsoever. As though scholars and intellectuals haven't been trying to seriously and accurately understand the Romans since the Renaissance, and as though their work has all been in vain?

[Anonymous No.1112211]

>>1112192
Well, first it is a far different matter to describe a living phenomenon, rather than reconstructing from text. Second, anthropology is a academic abortion, and has been for many years fairly debunked. I don't think the recognition and admition that knowledge is subjective impoverishes knowledge. I think the idea that objective knowledge is possible is what should be looked upon with the same cynicism that we may look at religious faith in terms of rationality. Now, at the same time, I open my heart to these things, the same as I do towards the faith of others, but I do not personally take leaps of faith when it comes to knowledge, and I don't genuinely appreciate claims of objective truth. I laugh on the inside. Especially in terms of history.

[Anonymous No.1112217]

>>It is ''foucauldian'' (for your further ranting against).

Yeah, I could tell. However, even Foucault agreed that Roman sexuality was defined by whether one took the active or passive role.

>>You aren't far from the mark, although the fact that you denigrate the position off hand and without knowledge of it.

Believe me, I have plenty of knowledge of Foucault's position on ancient sexuality. And therefore I'm glad to note that even Foucault-influenced works of classical scholarship---such as Halperin's "One Hundred Years of Homosexuality"---are in agreement about THE FUCKING FACTS, and vice versa.

>>I do tend to consider that a position taken on a culture such as rome, who's primary sources are limited is inherently limited, and reflects not only academic trends, but also current sexual attitudes and specifically the attitudes of your professor.

Amazing that you can divine the sexual attitudes of the late GP Goold without having met him, but denigrate him for having devoted his life to accurate study of the ancient Romans. Is that a double standard?

How do you know he wasn't as polymorphously perverse as your beloved Foucault?

For what it's worth, a friend of mine told this story. He was interviewing with a professor at UC Berkeley who had overlapped with Foucault in some academic position. My friend asked: "Did you know Foucault?" The professor responded: "Know him? I shat in his mouth!"

I will leave it to you to interpret this anecdote about Michel.

>>I was more critical of the attitude of authority with which you presented this recreation than anything.

Well, the truth is the truth.

[Anonymous No.1112221]

>>Personally, I think sexuality has never been as defined as you are suggesting that Roman sexuality was, and texts reflect nearly everything but the truth.

And that's where we disagree. If you think "texts reflect nearly everything but the truth", then you really are a fool, and more to the point, what are you doing on a board devoted to LITERATURE? Seeking everything but the truth? Posing as a louche conoisseur of falsehood? God, I thought your style of "argument" died out among educated people circa 1994.

[Anonymous No.1112225]

>>1112211

Would you mind defining your terms before making sweeping generalizations? "Knowledge", specifically.

[Anonymous No.1112237]

How can history ever be truly accurate when it amounts to surviving subjective opinions and chinese whispers?

[Anonymous No.1112244]

>>1112225
first off, fuck you. ''define knowledge'' yeah i'm not going to spam /lit/ with a dissertation mkay? >>1112217
and you, i never said that i agreed with foucault necessarily, although his work never commands the authority of truth as you have done and will do continually. foucault is evocative, not expository.
>Amazing that you can divine the sexual attitudes of the late GP Goold without having met him,
I wasn't suggesting that I had divined it, only that by reading his books I would know more about his sexual attitudes than those of the romans. This idea that these texts speak for everyone, or even anyone other than the author is intellectually dishonest and I think you are grasping at a truth and cannot bear the hollowness of concepts.
>Seeking everything but the truth?
I couldn't have put it better myself. That is exactly what I'm doing. If you are looking for truth, or require it to be edified or informed, or if you must assert truth in order to put ideas into praxis then you are the milquetoast that Foucault, et al are always being accused of. I fearlessly act, without a truth-requirement. I know without ''knowledge''. In short, I don't seek power I scorn it.

[Anonymous No.1112268]

>>I wasn't suggesting that I had divined it, only that by reading his books I would know more about his sexual attitudes than those of the romans

Aren't you contradicting yourself here? You say that in reading GP Goold's work---which incidentally was largely in Housman's realm of textual criticism, not in "sexology"---you would know more about "his" sexual attitudes than those of the Romans.

In which case, why is it that you believe that, in reading the surviving textual evidence of the Romans, one can know nothing about the sexual attitudes of the Romans?

You don't make any sense. Do you believe that "historical accuracy" is a wicked fiction perpetrated by elitists with a will to power? If so: how does that make you different---either ethically or epistemologically---from a Holocaust denier?

[Anonymous No.1112270]

Also, you still haven't answered my question....English isn't your first language, is it? I'm curious where you are from. You see, I fancy that I can divine from the textual evidence of your posts that you don't naturally think or write in English. This is because your posts read like they were translated out of Bulgarian and into modish jargon.

[Anonymous No.1112276]

>>1112244

I don't give a fuck about your dissertation, just state which school of thought you subscribe to.

[Anonymous No.1112277]

>>1112268
I'm not contradicting myself at all. If you read a roman's account of Roman Sexuality (even though this would be endlessly preferrable to reading a contemporary text on the subject for my purposes but whatever) You wouldn't know about the sexuality of ''the romans''. It's that generalization or historicizing that I doubt seriously. His text is an account of his self (referring to Goold now) more than it could ever be an account of ''the romans''. You could possibly get away with remarking on the sexuality of a particular roman, based on a text that that roman had written on his own sexuality. You can never, however, comment on the sexuality of ''the romans''. There is no "vox populi". Revisionist history can be called to the service of power. I will quote foucault here when he said ''there is no power in language, only language in the service of power''. It goes a bit like that. Historical accounts are edifying, for sure, but when someone is telling me to simply believe, to acknowledge a truth I turn 360 degress and moonwalk out of there.

[Anonymous No.1112278]

>>1112225
>>1112211
>>Would you mind defining your terms before making sweeping generalizations? "Knowledge", specifically.

Since I didn't use the term "knowledge" in the post that you referred to there, I don't know why you're asking me to define it, or accusing me of making a sweeping generalization about it IN THAT POST.

[Anonymous No.1112280]

>>1112270
Well it isn't strunk white but you understand me well enough.

[Anonymous No.1112283]

>>1112278
>I don't think the recognition and admition that knowledge is subjective impoverishes knowledge
> I think the idea that objective knowledge is possible is what should be looked upon with the same cynicism that we may look at religious faith in terms of rationality
>I do not personally take leaps of faith when it comes to knowledge

Now you're just fucking with me, aren't you?

[Anonymous No.1112285]

>>1112276
I don't subscribe to a school of thought. I will say that I think knowledge is a horrendous stop-gap in discourse. maybe this: discourse>knowledge.

[Anonymous No.1112286]

>>1112277
> His text is an account of his self (referring to Goold now) more than it could ever be an account of ''the romans''.

I find this kind of author-worship and general idea about authorship highly disturbing. It's the fucking 21st century, get with the program.

[Anonymous No.1112290]

>>1112283
no. Knowledge is a stop-gap, or an attempt to short-circuit cultural material. It is a limitation placed on a discourse. Culture should not be interpreted in the same way that one would interpret a algebraic expression.

[Anonymous No.1112294]

>>1112285
>>1112290

Look bro, as long as you can't explain what you mean with the word "knowledge", there's no fucking point in using it, is there? A certain argument regarding private languages comes to mind...

[Anonymous No.1112295]

>>You could possibly get away with remarking on the sexuality of a particular roman, based on a text that that roman had written on his own sexuality.

Well, considering that the evidence of Roman sexual attitudes consists of everything from obscene graffiti and pornographic paintings at Pompeii, to the legal speeches of Cicero, to the legislation of Augustus on matters relating to sexual behavior, to the poetry of Catullus Horace Ovid et alia, the prose fiction of Petronius and Apuleius, and much much more, I'd say it's possible to make generalizations from the available evidence.

Just like I can make a generalization along the lines of "As an American---whose ancestors came from neither England nor France---I have noticed in my travels that the kind of theorizing you subscribe to is very popular in France at the Sorbonne, but regarded in England at Oxford and Cambridge as a ludicrous offense against empiricism, not to mention common sense, and is regarded a very French phenomenon indeed."

[Anonymous No.1112296]

>>1112286
To what? If texts can be used to recreate historical cultural attitudes (something you admit that foucault does) , then how is it that you cannot examine the author of the text via the text? The author is implicated much more directly and firmly than the culture behind the author. I find the idea of ''culture'' disturbing, anyway. Culture is not cohesive. There are narratives and individuals and individuals who fashion narratives. I'm sure you've heard this all before.

[Anonymous No.1112297]

>>1112294
Knowledge is a hollow concept, I can't give life to the dead.

[Anonymous No.1112299]

>>1112295
>empiricism
>common sense
We are never going to agree--
You can make generalizations all you like, but don't present it as ''truth''. I find it to be a more intense and satisfying experience to scorn generalizing in favor of examining the particular (this offending graffito, that roman's poem, this singer's partisans, etc.)

[Anonymous No.1112301]

>>Knowledge is a stop-gap, or an attempt to short-circuit cultural material. It is a limitation placed on a discourse. Culture should not be interpreted in the same way that one would interpret a algebraic expression.

Uh, facts are facts. When they start to add up, you start to make generalizations. Scholars have been doing this about the available evidence from Rome since the Renaissance. They argue and criticize each others' generalizations, and sometimes new facts come to light---for example, the discovery of the Oxyrhynchus papyri---which alter previous generalizations.

Forget "knowledge" for the moment. Do you believe there are such things as FACTS?

[Anonymous No.1112302]

>>1112297

...

go suck Zizek's dick or something.

>>1112296

Because the analysis of sexuality is based on something concrete (if not objective): primary sources. Unless the historian completely distorts the message of the sources (which is not the case), there's very little input in terms of authorship, which is in any case ambivalent and useless. And while the sources may themselves be tainted by their authors, there's a shitload of them as >>1112295 said. There is a common ground which we pretty much have to accept as the truth.

[Anonymous No.1112307]

>>I find it to be a more intense and satisfying experience to scorn generalizing in favor of examining the particular (this offending graffito, that roman's poem, this singer's partisans, etc.)

And what do you do in examining those particulars? Specifically, after examining all of them in exhaustive and critical study? Do you just "appreciate" each one and masturbate? Or do you willfully misread them in order to rail against the idea of making generalizations in order to masturbate?

BTW I used the terms "common sense" and "empiricism" deliberately to enrage you, since I can tell that you are basically a nihilist with a pretentious streak. Was I correct?

[Anonymous No.1112311]

>>1112302
We don't have to accept it, and we shouldn't (it's fuckery) I like zizek, and what's more I've actually read his books instead of relying on the /lit/ consensus (which is just as uninformed as you are). You can look at primary sources or other sorts of text, and take it for its own content, rather than short-circuiting it to fit into a generalized cultural narrative.

[Anonymous No.1112312]

<- ITT

There's no point in trying to talk to these people.

[Anonymous No.1112313]

>>There are narratives and individuals and individuals who fashion narratives. I'm sure you've heard this all before.

I have heard all this before, and I ask my question again: what is the difference---ethically and epistemologically---between someone who takes the attitude you take towards history and someone who denies that the Holocaust happened?

[Anonymous No.1112319]

>>1112311
>rather than short-circuiting it to fit into a generalized cultural narrative.

In what way are the observations "short circuited"? We pretty much owe everything we have right now to the (scientific) process of generalizing from the specific. It seems to be working pretty well.

[Anonymous No.1112320]

>>rather than short-circuiting it to fit into a generalized cultural narrative.

See, I happen to think a text is something that should be read, analyzed critically with a full regard for one's own biases and with an eye towards spotting the biases of the text in question. In no way do I view any text as a work of electrical technology in which a metaphor like "short-circuiting" makes any kind of sense. But considering you think and write like a robot that has been programmed with some once-fashionable French theorizing, perhaps it makes sense to you.

That is assuming that you are, in fact, human. In fact, I suspect you may simply be this website:

http://www.elsewhere.org/pomo/

[Anonymous No.1112324]

lol, I can't believe this is anything other than a caricatured post-modernist troll. come on.

[Anonymous No.1112327]

>>1112307
yes you are correct, although nihilism is more of an affliction than a choice, eh? The analysis of a text in-itself is very exhaustive, and there is no real need to graft it onto the larger population, as no text offers a consensus but only a single account. If you notice trends among the collected texts from a period and region, there is still no need to speak of that time and that region's people as if they were reflected in these texts. Really, the texts would resemble eachother more than the population at large. If i were going to interpret a text, I usually use movements within art as a reference point, I compare it to its peers I suppose. ''How does this text reflect or relate to other texts from the time''. I would never wonder ''what does this text say about the other people of the same nationality as the author.'' Texts reflect culture more than culture reflects the text, I guess.

[Anonymous No.1112333]

>>There is a common ground which we pretty much have to accept as the truth.

Clearly you haven't argued with people like this before. They don't believe there's any such thing as the common ground or the truth. Which rather begs the question of why they don't hop in their Peugots and deconstruct the next stop sign they see and die in a car crash.

Oh, if only they did have the courage to live up to their principles in such heroic fashion....

[Anonymous No.1112334]

I wouldn't be surprised if there was a pro-hetero bias even in Ancient Greece.

[Anonymous No.1112338]

>>1112324

I, for one, hope so. There are people like him, though, so I'm not 100% sure. If it really is a troll, he's quite dedicated and skilled...it's not easy to be this realistic, and it took a LONG time until someone called him on his shit.

[Anonymous No.1112340]

>>1112313
Well, for one I am not denying the holocaust (even though I think that people who deny the holocaust are at least radically discussing the holocaust a huge faux pas because of the sanctified position of that particular genocide--made especially absurd in light of the numerous and more lethal genocides before and since but I digress)
>>1112319
You are wrong, science does not generalize from the specific. It hypothesizes and then rigorously experiments to confirm or deny hypotheses. Cultural studies does not have a real model to recreate the scientific method, and attempts at such are lame.
>>1112312
>there's no point in engaging those with whom i disagree
>>1112320
short-circuit refers to structuralism, it is a short-cut when considering culture from the structuralist perspective. it is jargon, and i suppose structuralism is out of fashion but then again so is twee pop and i'm listening to belle and sebastian right now, so...

[Anonymous No.1112342]

>>1112333
>begs the question

It poses the question. Begging the question is the logical fallacy of assuming the conclusion is true.

[Anonymous No.1112346]

>>1112340
>t hypothesizes and then rigorously experiments to confirm or deny hypotheses.

What the fuck is this, a french postomodernist popperian?

[Anonymous No.1112354]

>>1112342
anyway this anon is right, it's no use talking to me if you want to convert me to the truth. if you want to oggle my monstrosity then go ahead, the view from the cage goes both ways.

[Anonymous No.1112366]

>>yes you are correct, although nihilism is more of an affliction than a choice, eh?

Kind of like homosexuality? Or is it more like Judaism? Or is it more like autism?

>>The analysis of a text in-itself is very exhaustive, and there is no real need to graft it onto the larger population, as no text offers a consensus but only a single account.

This is like complaining that, because literature necessarily is not written by illiterates, we are being unfair to illiterate persons by trying to generalize about culture on the basis of written evidence.

>>If you notice trends among the collected texts from a period and region, there is still no need to speak of that time and that region's people as if they were reflected in these texts.

Again, you seem to argue as though respectable historians are trying to achieve some inscrutable "will to power" over people who have been dead for 2000 years.

>>Really, the texts would resemble eachother more than the population at large.

See, and that's the problem with people like you. When the only tool you have is a Foucauldian-Nietzschean hammer, to your dull eyes every text starts to resemble a nail.

The interesting thing about reading widely in classical literature and classical scholarship is to see the way in which the texts do and do not resemble each other. And in any case, we are trying to reconstruct what it was like to live in the culture at large at a point remote in time. Clearly you think that's a foolish pursuit because it's impossible to know. But in that case, I don't understand where your epistemological skepticism ends. If you can say that it's impossible to say what the Romans thought about sexuality---or the ways in which their attitudes differed from those of our society----then why not say that the Holocaust never happened?

[Anonymous No.1112378]

>>If i were going to interpret a text, I usually use movements within art as a reference point, I compare it to its peers I suppose.

Movements within art? How is "Impressionism" not a cultural construct? Was JMW Turner an Impressionist? Is somebody who paints an exact copy of Monet's waterlilies in 2010 an Impressionist? Is a visually-impaired person being forced at gunpoint to paint precisely what he sees and coming up with something that looks like an Impressionist painting an Impressionist? How are "schools of art" anything more than an elitist tool of oppression just like the historical scholarship you decry?

>>''How does this text reflect or relate to other texts from the time''. I would never wonder ''what does this text say about the other people of the same nationality as the author.''

But if national identity is a socially-constructed phenomenon, and so are texts, and they contribute to the construction of each other, why don't you wonder about this? Out of respect for the ancient Romans? Or out of smug pride in your own lack of curiosity and ability to analyze evidence and derive intelligent conclusions?

>>Texts reflect culture more than culture reflects the text, I guess.

When you used the word culture there, I instinctively reached for my gun. I wonder why....

[Anonymous No.1112384]

>This is like complaining that, because literature necessarily is not written by illiterates, we are being unfair to illiterate persons by trying to generalize about culture on the basis of written evidence.

This argument has actually been made. Just look at any leftist criticism basically, just replace "illiterate" with "working class".

[Anonymous No.1112393]

>>Well, for one I am not denying the holocaust (even though I think that people who deny the holocaust are at least radically discussing the holocaust a huge faux pas because of the sanctified position of that particular genocide--made especially absurd in light of the numerous and more lethal genocides before and since but I digress)

I didn't ask your opinion on the Holocaust. I asked: What is the difference---ethically and epistemologically---between your views on history, and the views on history of someone who denies that the Holocaust took place?

Because as far as I can see, there is NO difference epistemologically.

And ethically....well, I'd have nothing to trust except the words that you post, and since that would comprise a so-called "text" (or, at the very least, a simulacrum thereof), I will have to interpret them according to my obvious pro-Western pro-Zionist imperialist paradigms, like the hegemony-minded empiricist that I must ineluctably be, in all my despicable historicity....

[Anonymous No.1112402]

>>This argument has actually been made. Just look at any leftist criticism basically, just replace "illiterate" with "working class".

As though historians of Ancient Rome have not included committed leftists and those who devoted their entire lives to the study of the lives of slaves (since it would be unhistorical to refer to a "working class" or "proletariat" in Ancient Rome).

Rosa Luxemburg didn't just pull Spartacus out of her snatch, tovarish.

As I have said before: historians, scholars and textual critics have been examining Latin and Greek literature critically and in great depth SINCE THE FUCKING RENAISSANCE. THAT'S WHAT THE FUCKING RENAISSANCE WAS, and they haven't stopped since they started then. Is that 500 years of purely hegemonic discourse which has contributed nothing to knowledge? Or, if you still refuse to believe in knowledge, do you think that 500 years of scholarship has produced no FACTS?

[Anonymous No.1112427]

>Kind of like homosexuality? Or is it more like Judaism? Or is it more like autism?
It isn't really like any of those, it is just a pronounced skepticism and apathy. Don't get me wrong, reading gets my rocks off, but drugs and fucking are more what i'm after.
>This is like complaining that, because literature necessarily is not written by illiterates, we are being unfair to illiterate persons by trying to generalize about culture on the basis of written evidence.
Actually it's more like a willful incomprehension or scorning of cultural narratives. It's more like, not giving undue prominence to the writes of the world. (believe it or not, doing so is not a pre-requisite to enjoying literature)
>Again, you seem to argue as though respectable historians are trying to achieve some inscrutable "will to power" over people who have been dead for 2000 years.
And they aren't, it's the people who believe what they say is ''truth'' who are seeking power over the past, over the hollowness of their own concepts and over themselves (i'm kind of going out on a limb, there)
>Movements within art? How is "Impressionism" not a cultural construct?
I never said that it was, but i'm also not saying that france at the time of high-impressionism was an impressionist culture. I'm not saying that frenchmen were impressionists and that some of them expressed this cultural phenomenon through painting.

[Anonymous No.1112430]

>>1112366
>Foucauldian-Nietzschean hammer

Why the hell would you put Nietzsche in there?

[Anonymous No.1112431]

>Or out of smug pride in your own lack of curiosity and ability to analyze evidence and derive intelligent conclusions?
I make conclusions about certain texts, but I don't expand these conclusions into universalized cultural narratives.
>When the only tool you have is a Foucauldian-Nietzschean hammer, to your dull eyes every text starts to resemble a nail.
I really, really like that. I do see myself in it and it makes me feel good, for some reason.
>This argument has actually been made. Just look at any leftist criticism basically, just replace "illiterate" with "working class".
And that argument is correct. Problem, anon?

[Anonymous No.1112433]

>>1112427
>It's more like, not giving undue prominence to the writes of the world.

But that's exactly what you've been doing all this time...

[Anonymous No.1112436]

>>Why the hell would you put Nietzsche in there?

Because the word hammer automatically suggested "Wie man mit dem Hammer philosophiert".

[Anonymous No.1112445]

>>1112393
I meant the difference is that I'm not denying the holocaust. Epistemology doesn't enter into it, because holocaust-deniers are acting politically. I don't know maybe we are bros after all, it doesn't hurt my feelings.
>>1112433
No really, I hold the writers accountable for their text, I don't hold culture accountable for their texts. I'm not giving the writers a leg to stand on.

[Anonymous No.1112446]

>>1112430
i ask back: why foucault?
nietzsche made the appeal to philosophise with the hammer, to find hollow spots

[Anonymous No.1112455]

>>1112436
>>1112446

No shit, the hammer reference is obvious. The "nails" in relation to history and Foucault are not. What little he wrote on history (on the use and abuse... and bits of the birth of tragedy) aren't really related, and in any case when he was a historian "in practice" he didn't follow anything like what you propose.

[Anonymous No.1112458]

>>I make conclusions about certain texts, but I don't expand these conclusions into universalized cultural narratives.

Well, smell you, Nancy Drew.

In any case, the ancient Romans themselves WERE (in many cases) attempting to construct universalized cultural narratives for themselves.

So why do you deny historical scholarship the ability to examine those of the Romans, analyze them, and to note the ways in which they differ from those of living persons?

>When the only tool you have is a Foucauldian-Nietzschean hammer, to your dull eyes every text starts to resemble a nail.
>I really, really like that. I do see myself in it and it makes me feel good, for some reason.

Well, if I say something to demean you utterly in my own eyes, and you take it as praise, it makes me feel good. Because I don't like insulting anybody, but certain forms of willfull stupidity make me very angry indeed. And the fact that you are not insulted but flattered by the worst thing I can say about your intelligence makes me feel like I haven't been gratuitously unkind, I've just been accurate.

[Anonymous No.1112462]

>>1112445
>I hold the writers accountable for their text
>It's more like, not giving undue prominence to the writes of the world

Uh? Surely holding the author accountable for his work is giving them undue prominence?

[Anonymous No.1112470]

>>No shit, the hammer reference is obvious. The "nails" in relation to history and Foucault are not. What little he wrote on history (on the use and abuse... and bits of the birth of tragedy) aren't really related, and in any case when he was a historian "in practice" he didn't follow anything like what you propose.

We're talking about Foucault's appropriation (or misprision, if you will) of Nietzsche here, particularly the idea of a will to power, not about Nietzsche himself.

I didn't mean to demean Nietzsche, just to point out the nutzen und nachteil of Nietzsche as far as persons like Foucault (or the Foucauldian Flamer in this thread) are concerned.

I can only imagine what Nietzsche himself---who was a classical scholar of great distinction---would make of the Foucauldian Flamer in this thread, who seems to believe that any "knowledge" about Classical "culture" is utterly impossible (and denies that knowledge or culture even exist).

[Anonymous No.1112475]

>>1112462
No, I don't think so. I think sanctifying the writer as some conduit for culture or some harbinger of truth is giving them undue prominence. I see the writer and his text, naked and exposed with no cloak of cultural narrative to shield him from my cynical otherness.
>>1112458
When you say ''romans were doing'' this or that, are you aware of how stupid you sound? The idea that ''romans'' in general, en masse were acting on cultural projects is fucking idiotic, most romans were trying to pick the lice out of their crotch.
>Well, if I say something to demean you utterly in my own eyes, and you take it as praise, it makes me feel good [...]
I mean, if it makes you happy can it really be so bad? Honestly, I think it is nice to find someone who's disgust is my glory. I would say people like you outnumber me, but really each of us represent a rather small and outmoded faction of society...

[Anonymous No.1112482]

>>1112470
That makes sense.

[Anonymous No.1112484]

>>1112470
hey I didn't say the don't exist, but they exist like an imaginary friend exists.

[Anonymous No.1112495]

Cultures and Knowledge are ''inside the cave''. They are the illusion which we mistake for truth. The material truth is what matters, not what writers have puffed their chests up to say about the truth. At any rate, you guessed it, marxist as well as a foucault and nietzsche fag. pretty much what you expect.

[Anonymous No.1112498]

>>1112495
wait, scratch that. I really dislike nietzsche. replace him with Henri Bergson and you've got it.

[Anonymous No.1112503]

>>1112495
>marxist as well as a foucault and nietzsche

It would take at least a Russell-level misreading of N. for those three to be compatible in any way...

[Anonymous No.1112508]

>>hey I didn't say the don't exist, but they exist like an imaginary friend exists.

Yes, but unlike an imaginary friend, knowledge and culture have actual effects on the real world.

Insofar as a lack of knowledge, even knowledge about cultural can be fatal in certain circumstances---"I can't wait to wear my bikini in Kandahar!" / "At first I was gonna ask him to wear a condom, but then I thought, when's the next time I'll be in Haiti again?" / "Can anybody tell a brother where all the white women is at here in Johannesburg?"----and what we agree to call "culture" has distinct real-world effects on people's ACTUAL lives.

Unless your imaginary friend is telling you to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge, I really don't think it's fair to compare knowledge and culture to an imaginary friend.

You can problematize and historicize and contextualize them to your heart's content, pal, but they're NOT GOING ANYWHERE, despite the best attempts of a few world-weary soi-disant intellectuals in Paris at the end of the last century.

[Anonymous No.1112524]

why does the doctor of philosophy i know in person make more sense than use without dropping concepts and names? mayhap you are a blitheing snob, cher anon?

[Anonymous No.1112536]

>>1112503
see
>>1112498
>>1112508
Oh, but you are wrong. Dead wrong. Wearing your bikini anywhere and you may get acid thrown in your face. You can catch hella HIV in my state (one of the highest rates in the nation woot. also i'm an IV drug user so condoms aren't really my speed. How Foucauldian?!)
Culture doesn't have an effect on lives, the material conditions of life do. Culture is a way to dress it all up and make it digestable. It might be nice to do sometimes, but in my heart I know I can't rely on it.

[Anonymous No.1112538]

>>When you say ''romans were doing'' this or that, are you aware of how stupid you sound? The idea that ''romans'' in general, en masse were acting on cultural projects is fucking idiotic, most romans were trying to pick the lice out of their crotch.

You are aware that the Foucauldians and the Derrideans and everybody had their moment in classical scholarship? And that this kind of juvenile nihilism about history has come and gone? And that when I talk about "the Romans" I am making generalizations about a culture in the way that pretty much everybody---except members of the epistemological cult to which you belong--is willing to make generalizations, and not willfully misunderstand them?

In other words: are you aware of how stupid YOU sound when you take a generalization I am making about the Romans and behaving as though I were claiming that this generalization is meant to apply to EVERYBODY?

For godsake you started ruining this thread because I ticked you off for making a generalization about sexuality in ancient Rome that (a) Foucault agreed with, and (b) IS GENERALLY ACCEPTED AS FACT BY ALL EXPERTS IN THE FIELD, who these days are familiar with all of the arguments you are making, and STILL ACCEPT IT AS FACT, BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT IT FUCKING IS.

Seriously, I want nothing more than to say to you "well trolled", but in reality I suspect that you're probably a high school student in Hyderabad or Bratislava who has just discovered Foucault.

[Anonymous No.1112578]

>>1112538
This guy would like to have a word with you. Skepticism of cultural narratives is not played out. I know it doesn't feel good, but a lot of the best things in life hurt. When you say ''The romans'' you reveal how problematic it is to try to make narratives. You could have indicated specifically the author of the sources which indicated the sexuality you were discussing (and you did, to be fair) but you were then intent to extend those specific notions to the rest of roman ''culture'' which is where i say bullshit.

[Anonymous No.1112589]

>>1112578

So what is your point? If we can never generalize from specific sources to a general idea of culture, are you saying that "culture" or "metanarrative" are completely meaningless terms?

[Anonymous No.1112609]

>>1112589
culture is a meaningless terms, ''metanarrative'' indicates why culture is a meaningless term. the term ''metanarrative'' is made use of. to be honest, i think critical theorists are wasting a lot of time, doing what they do. i told you i like doing opiates and having sex most of all. the thing is that, what you are arguing for, is part of me (inside) it is my internal-difference i suppose. I fight it because in that way i keep it alive, like you might keep a sore festering by picking it. I distrust the concepts of culture and knowledge, when you say these words, what do you point to exactly? What is signified? You know it to be very problematic, and so to make broad statements about a culture, such as a statement about the ''culture's'' sexuality is even more problematic. culture does not have sexuality, a person has sexuality. also, animals (but animals are people too lol)

[Anonymous No.1112624]

>>Oh, but you are wrong. Dead wrong. Wearing your bikini anywhere and you may get acid thrown in your face.

I should think in Rio de Janeiro you'd be more likely to get acid thrown in your face for NOT wearing a bikini.

>>You can catch hella HIV in my state (one of the highest rates in the nation woot. also i'm an IV drug user so condoms aren't really my speed. How Foucauldian?!)

Well, trust me, even if you don't use condoms, some drug mule had to swallow a condom full of Afghan tar heroin so that you can cook up your breakfast in a teaspoon, kiddo.

Also---speaking as a homosexual who uses plenty of drugs but doesn't shoot up (even if speed really is my speed)---I'm not really sure what connection you're making between your IV drug use and condoms not being your speed? Did you mean that you have no sex drive due to heavy opiate use so condoms are irrelevant? Or did you mean you're already running a big HIV risk so you might as well opt for unsafe sex while you're at it? I can't tell if you were hinting that you're a bugchaser or celibate, and there's a very big difference.

And incidentally are you the same poster who got me to read Drieu de Rochelle earlier this summer? If so, thanks for the recommendation (and the pdf)----great book.

[Anonymous No.1112627]

>>Culture doesn't have an effect on lives, the material conditions of life do. Culture is a way to dress it all up and make it digestable. It might be nice to do sometimes, but in my heart I know I can't rely on it.

I think we have differing definitions of "culture" here. You seem to be viewing it as "high culture". For me it comprises everything that's "culturally constructed", which includes things as basic as language.

For example, I think it's part of culture that a native speaker of English, in pointing at himself, is indicating himself....whereas a native speaker of Guugu Yimithirr, in pointing at himself, is always indicating the direction in which he is pointing.

Anyway, bear that in mind the next time you meet someone who speaks Guugu Yimithirr.

[Anonymous No.1112647]

>>1112624
wow, that was me (i'm glad you liked it!) and as for my reasons it is both. i am already running the risk so i don't care to use a condom (a bit of cognitive dissonance that would be or am i just fatalistic?) (also, i'm in a monogamous relationship with another drug user we share needles and don't use condoms but we're both HIV free--i was just speculating really) And at times, yes, celibacy is something i do not quite by choice.
>>1112627
Ah I suppose I was talking mostly about high-culture or texts or whatever. Then again, is it really culture when a muslim fundamentalist stones a woman or is it just that he is an asshole? I opt for the latter, usually.
>whereas a native speaker of Guugu Yimithirr, in pointing at himself, is always indicating the direction in which he is pointing.
roflmao. and thanks for the tip.

[Anonymous No.1112666]

oh and by the way, even though i was trying to put down the idea of a collective ''roman'' sexuality, i found it fascinating. it is very much the same in US prisons (the aggressor of homosexual rape, or the top in consensual acts, is not a homosexual) very innerestin indeed.

[Anonymous No.1112672]

>>You could have indicated specifically the author of the sources which indicated the sexuality you were discussing (and you did, to be fair) but you were then intent to extend those specific notions to the rest of roman ''culture'' which is where i say bullshit.

Uh, if you knew anything about Ancient Rome, then you'd know that in saying "the Romans" I am automatically referring to "those Romans who participated in / created what we identify as Ancient Roman culture". If that means that I am restricting my discussion to a cultural elite, so be it. I am part of a cultural elite myself, and in any case, I don't think I offend the much-suffering slaves of Ancient Rome by failing to take their opinions into account in discussing Rome's culture when the fact is that the slaves didn't participate in or shape that culture.

[continued]

[Anonymous No.1112682]

[continued]

But were they affected by it? Yes, because its their asses that were getting fucked by their owners. Or in some cases, their owners asked to be fucked. But was there a difference? Yes there was.

This whole discussion started off with my reference to the distinction drawn between active and passive sexual roles in the Roman sexual imagination. To anyone who has studied the evidence, this is just a fact. Does this mean that there aren't many different expressions of sexuality within that fact? Of course there are, that's part of the evidence. Suetonius thinks it noteworthy to mention that Valerius Catullus (not the poet) confessed publicly that he had buggered the emperor Caligula and wore himself out in the process. Juvenal's 9th satire presents a dialogue with Naevolus, a male prostitute who takes the passive role, and presents him sympathetically to make a larger point. Trimalchio in Petronius' Satyricon reveals that when he was a slave he gladly provided sexual service for both his male and female owners, and he's not ashamed to admit it. The Latin language has a specific word---cinaedus---for a male who enjoys the passive role in buggery. I can go on and on, or you can read Craig Arthur Williams's "Roman Homosexuality: Ideologies of Masculinity in Classical Antiquity" which will provide you with a lot more textual evidence, but the simple fact is that conclusions can be drawn. There is such a thing as a "cultural norm" when it comes to sexuality. To deny that seems to me downright dangerous, then again, I'm someone whose sexuality is not part of the "cultural norm" and it could prove fatal to me to behave as though it were, or to behave as though "culture" were purely a fiction invented by elites.

[Anonymous No.1112698]

>>1112682
Could prove fatal, but those risks are what makes life worth buggering. I mean, I understand that their is a consensus among many about a cultural norm, but ultimately it is inidividuals acting as agents of their own desires. I don't think the expressions of the cultural elite indicate the material or cultural realities of a place and time. I would say what you describe is a definite trend in Roman sexuality, but it is not a fact of roman sexuality. Facticity, to me, is very problematic, as are any static concepts. I refuse them, because when someone does me dirty I hate the person and not his culture. That is just a banality, I know, but it is close to the truth of my arguments.

[Anonymous No.1112716]

>>1112698
Ultimately, I see the materials of what you describe--the texts which allude to this sexual trend, the people who acted as agents of it and even the illusory outline of a unity among the accounts. What I won't do is remove these accounts and texts from their respective agents. I understand that there are trends, definite ones within a culture, but even when there are trends there is difference within the trend, within the specific actions that define the trend and within the agents of those specific actions. You can string it together to make a narrative, but I don't see why. To do so is edifying, I suppose (not to me, though. no, i like it to be cruel and hard, as you can see. I won't give myself a break and I think it is the goal of thought to create new problems, and never ask or seek the solution to the problems.)

[Anonymous No.1112742]

>>Could prove fatal, but those risks are what makes life worth buggering.

Not to stray into TMI territory, but when I said "could prove fatal" I didn't mean "because I could get HIV".

In reality I'm top-only....probably one reason I'm intrigued by Ancient Rome, because back then I would have had a normative sexuality, whereas in today's America I am non-normative among straights (for liking boys) and among gays (most of whom are bottoms or at least versatile)....but in any case, my own risk of HIV even during unprotected sex is substantially lower.

I meant it could prove fatal if I made out with my boyfriend on the wrong street corner in downtown Philly and got the shit beaten out of me. In other words, the violation of *social* norms which in other places---ancient Rome, contemporary Amsterdam---would not expose me to a violent reaction against my transgression of those norms.

I mean, I assume you acknowledge there's a difference between the risks associated with IV drug use in general, and the risk associated with shooting up on the sidewalk in front of a police station. It's the latter that I'm talking about when I'm talking about "culture". Since you could shoot up in front of a police station in Portugal today, and NOT face the same culturally-ordained consequences.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/05/portugal-drugs-debate

[Anonymous No.1112772]

>>1112742
off to portugal. I understand what you mean, about how culture impacts your life. In the back of my mind, I feel like my attitude towards culture of incomprehension and skepticism or apathy is what will eventually win and then we won't have cultural norms. I don't believe that positive cultural norms are possible, and that the very idea of a universal model of behavior and thought and identity (this is what culture is, no?) must be done away with, so that people aren't beaten or jailed for being who they want to be.

[Anonymous No.1112794]

>>1112716
i can see where you are coming from and agree somewhat that as historians, we will always be limited in our understanding, that these texts represent a specific elite portion of the population and that our narratives of these texts will never be perfect. However, the radical and nihilistic position of just refusing to try to make sense of them and believing that there is nothing to be learned about the original culture which produced them is in my opinion, just ridiculous.

[Anonymous No.1112797]

>>1112742
also, I won't call you abnormal. I mean, I think sexuality is a spectrum or fluid composed of molecules down and down and down until you can't even see the seperation and there really isn't any. I don't know. I hate truths and facticity because it's like choosing something over another thing and i love everything so much or maybe so little i won't choose the truth from a lie or i think a lie is the truth and i won't say that a culture is this way because some people are another way. i know, druggy ramblings, but the summer is wasting and something about being sad makes me feel love and something about feeling love makes me despise truth.

[Anonymous No.1112827]

>>1112772

Surely when the guy says 'norms' he's not talking about like fundamental given 'normality' but rather specific and identifiable trends that are made to function as synecdochic for 'normality' because they are practiced by those with material power (which affects and feeds back into cultural power, the power to provide a defintion of one's 'culture'). Maybe you believe it's so dangerous to identify anything as a norm (and that doing so automatically tends towards oppression). But surely we can identify what is PROMOTED as a norm, never mind statistically identifying if there are any widespread practices that could amount to such a thing.

Maybe I'm going a little too far but I imagine whoever was posting the initial factoids in this thread was using incautious phrasing - "the romans" this, "the romans that", rather than "there seems to be a trope in roman sexuality whereby..." - because he figured he was dispensing knowledge that he was confident in to an internet audience that was unlikely to be in a position to question it.

As a sidenote I'm kind of interested in this 'top only' thing. To that person: is it psychological like a kink - you want to be the dominant one? Or is it physical, like, you just don't like having a cock in your arse? As a person who pretty regularly mixes up roles with his girl I find the former hard to imagine.

[Anonymous No.1112832]

>>1112827
Yeah I guess I was being kind of a continental dick about his language (also i'm so glad when the freaks do come out at night -_-)

[Anonymous No.1112862]

>>the very idea of a universal model of behavior and thought and identity (this is what culture is, no?) must be done away with, so that people aren't beaten or jailed for being who they want to be.

Oh, I think you're giving too much credit to "culture" and too little credit to the average person's instinct for conformism. I mean, in terms of sexuality, I often think of Christopher Isherwood saying (of himself and Auden and other queer writers who emerged after World War I) that "if homosexuality hadn't existed, we would have had to invent it." In other words, there is always the grey mud of conformism just as there are always those who will go against the grain. I mean, these days if I'm asked to define myself, I tell people (only half joking) that I'm post-gay. If there's anything I find worse than the conformism of straight people in megachurches, it's the conformism of vacuous faggots holding cocktail parties once a week to watch "Project Runway". But then again, I've never believed that there IS some idealized community of any sort where I can fit in and feel comfortable. I'd prefer it that even the queers find me to be, well, queer.

[Anonymous No.1112864]

>>i know, druggy ramblings,

The best kind. I love listening to you.

>>but the summer is wasting and something about being sad makes me feel love and something about feeling love makes me despise truth.

I was with you up until the very end, where I'm inclined to respond with a question asked by one of my favorite ancient Romans, Pontius Pilate---"What is truth?" If you just mean you feel a sort of duty to rebel against the brute facts of reality, I'm with you all the way. But for me, I follow sadness to love, and I follow love all the way to truth, which to me is something that is bitter and fatal and yet precious, precisely because it is again something that the vast majority of people will never acknowledge. Truth to me is about feeling like the only person awake in a city, a country of somnambulists. So it's not really something to be despised, although it can be resented or despaired of. Again, this may just be a difference of vocabulary.

[Anonymous No.1112879]

>>1112832

Incautious terminology or incautious reception of terminology might be at the root of what happens in this thread. Because I know that when I say the word 'culture' I'm usually referring to something like 'the totality of varied and negotiable influences circulating through the population group in question with no clear border nor any ahistorical or non-contingent order'. Just like when I say 'truth' I usually mean 'as-far-as-can-be-determined-taking-into-account-my-and-our-own-biases-provisional-best-guess' blah de blah de blah (because Truth is a bit of a difficult concept). It'd be fucking unwieldy otherwise. I think this is a mistake made too often by people whose philosophy I broadly agree with. It is too easy to fixate on individual words or ways of saying ('too easy' is right, it's a good shortcut to strengthening your argument) when it is often more important to look at how they're treating their subject. But what do I know, I'm young.

I can see how love could incline one to contempt for truth. The truth is x doesn't have any real future with y, because of the way they are, but that doesn't really change anything.

[Anonymous No.1112932]

>>1112862
I know exactly what you mean about the seeming paradox of queer conformity (and yet there it is. stupid me expects every gay guy i meet to like jean genet more than lady gaga) I guess it is a sort of gift I would give to people, worrying over their ''internal difference''..i don't know if it is in spite of their conformist tendency or because of it or perhaps in denial of it. I get black though sometimes, my looks get so black and I look 10 years older suddenly and then I feel sick at how conformity is deterministic in culture, and that if there isn't a truth or a culture, that there is still a culture/norm-in-becoming (and maybe finding its zenith in society of the spectacle)
>The best kind. I love listening to you.
:3 likewise, I really like hearing the thoughts of fellow anons, rather than the names or quotes that they can produce. It is refreshing.
>Again, this may just be a difference of vocabulary.
I think it must be, I fell in love with continental jargon early on. I really like what you say about truth there, like it is a bird fallen out of the nest. I don't know, to be honest I can't speak from outside of my subjectivity and I must have seen the baby bird of truth sometimes and walked away, and now perhaps i'm a passeiste returning to the pain of that moment (who knows when it was) only to deny it in grandiose fashion. Like I said earlier, part of me contests truth so that i can engage it.

[Anonymous No.1112946]

>>1112879
I think if i got down to the facts, I would find that love is no longer tenable. I don't know why I think this, that truth and love are divorced. Actually I can tell you, because on this side of the law ''truth'' and ''facts'' are the hammer and nails that the police nail your coffin shut with. The truth, to a liar and a thief, is always something which binds or harms, and is garbled up in the mouths of cops (The truth of the law does not take me for my difference, it washes over me and drowns me, the truth is a noose) Love, is freedom and it is respect and a transgression of otherness. Love is outside of the law as well (Homosexual love, the love of two junkies, etc.) Love and Truth are in-law and out-law to me. I do have my own language.

[Anonymous No.1112955]

>>Maybe I'm going a little too far but I imagine whoever was posting the initial factoids in this thread was using incautious phrasing - "the romans" this, "the romans that", rather than "there seems to be a trope in roman sexuality whereby..." - because he figured he was dispensing knowledge that he was confident in to an internet audience that was unlikely to be in a position to question it.

I was the one posting the initial factoids, and to be honest, I just posted them in terms of "this is something the /b/tards trolling /lit/ might actually be interested in" rather than "these are statements which I fully expect to be attacked in the mode of post-Foucauldian historiography with an axe to grind". But as a basic statement about what contemporary scholarship thinks about sex in Ancient Rome, I stand by it, and I found this whole discussion so ironic and partly infuriating because contemporary scholarship got there largely BECAUSE of Foucault.

>>As a sidenote I'm kind of interested in this 'top only' thing. To that person: is it psychological like a kink - you want to be the dominant one? Or is it physical, like, you just don't like having a cock in your arse? As a person who pretty regularly mixes up roles with his girl I find the former hard to imagine.

I'm the same person. It's definitely physical--I just don't enjoy the thought or the sensation--but as for the psychology it's not about dominance. Unusually for America I went to a right-wing all-boys school with no religious affiliation--it was almost but not quite a military academy--so I think in part I am just incapable of passivity around other males, but also totally eroticized the boys who were bullied / attacked for being effeminate. Also I was reading Latin and Greek at age 12 and aware of the structure of those homosexual relationships before I'd hit puberty.