Ancient Egyptians and Same Sex Love
Sex-who doesn’t like it? The Ancient Egyptians loved it. They believed you could still get in the after life. They even had sex drugs to help “keep it up” (the blue Lotus flower).
When it comes to sexuality and sexual practices, things are not as clear cut. Especially when it comes to homosexuality.
Our notion of homosexuality didn’t exist in ancient times (Halperin, 2014). It is a relatively modern theory. That’s not to say there was no homosexual people in Ancient Egypt as we would recognise – there were. It is just the Ancient Egyptians would not categories individuals sexual orientations like we do today.
It is thought that king Pepy II was gay (Kemp, 2006) and had a relationship with his general. The nightly exploits of Pepi II and i general is supposely the basis for the Tale of Neferkare and Sasenet. Tale of Neferkare and Sasenet implies that there were liaisons between men in elite circles, despite public disapproval (Parkinson, 1995).
A marriage contract from the hellenistic period of Egypt has been found that stated the man needed to not have any other lover, female or male (Halperin, 2014).
The reality is Ancient Mediterranean societies did not in practice treat homosexuality as a meaningful category of personal or public life (Halperin, 2014). In Ancient Egypt, male homosexual interest and sexual relations, though not well attested, were mentioned in several literary works (Snell, 2007).
The sources are, however, most discreet as to what actually took place (Manniche, 1987).In the New Kingdom period homosexuality was condemned in the book of the dead. This condemnation made homosexuality taboo for this period of time.
With regards to lesbianism, there were no textual allusions in the ancient Egyptian corpus to female homosexuality outside of dream books and protestations of innocence put in the mouths of the dead.(Manniche, 1987). In the woman’s version of the the woman had to say: ‘I have not had intercourse with any woman in the sacred places of my city god,’ an in a dream book for women it is said: ‘If she dreams that a woman has intercourse with her, she will come to a bad end (Manniche, 1987). Women who prefer women over men may have incurred male disapproval as early as the Hellenistic period (Halperin, 2014). However, the lack of material maybe because men were the authors of the bulk of the Ancient Egyptian records (Snell, 2007).
When homosexuality and homosexual practices are mentioned, it is usually in the negative sense. In religious and commemorative texts such acts were presented as aggressive (Parkinson, 1995). This is a common theme across the ancient Middle East.
Most writings from Egypt view homosexual acts as morally negative (non- reproductive), socially dangerous (like adultery), or physically violent (about conquest) (Watson, 2010).
Especially in the story of Horus and Seth. In the Horus/Seth case, the episodes of homosexual behavior are components of the ongoing struggle for power and have little to do with the inclinations of the two deities (Manniche, 2001).
Bibliography:
Halperin, D. (2014). homosexuality. In The Oxford Companion to Classical Civilization. : Oxford University Press,.
Kemp, B. J. (2006). Ancient egypt : Anatomy of a civilisation.
B. Parkinson, R. (1995). ‘Homosexual’ Desire and Middle Kingdom Literature. The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology
Manniche, L. (2001). Erotica. In The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt. : Oxford University Press,.
Snell, D. C. (Ed.). (2007). A companion to the ancient near east.
Watson, A (2010). Ancient Egypt : Lulu. Brisbane
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