Modern men are terrified of an intimacy that ancient warriors weren’t.
Somewhere along the way, masculinity became afraid of touch.
Two women can curl up together on a couch, hold hands, sleep in the same bed, have a bath together, tell each other they love one another, and nobody necessarily assumes anything sexual is happening.
Put two men in the same situation and suddenly everybody needs a label.
Are they gay? Are they hooking up? What does this mean?
But the ancient world gives us some fascinating glimpses of cultures where intimacy between men didn’t fit so neatly inside our modern boxes.
More than 2,000 years ago, the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus wrote an extraordinary description of the Celts and Gauls. He portrayed them as physically formidable people: big dicks, tall, courageous, warlike.
And then he described something that might surprise the modern man obsessed with proving his heterosexuality.
Diodorus claimed that despite the beauty of their women, these men strongly desired the “embraces of males.” He wrote that they slept on animal skins with a male companion “on each side.” (Penelope)
Read that again.
