Alexanr The Great: Gay or Straight?

Contents:

• ALEXANR THE GREAT OR ALEXANR THE GAY?
• ALEXANR THE GREAT: GAY OR STRAIGHT?
• WAS ALEXANR THE GREAT GAY? THE ACTUAL ANSWER
• ALEXANR THE GREAT’S GAY LOVERS
• 19 - ALEXANR THE GAY AND THE GLORYHOLE THAT WAS GREECE
• ZACK SNYR'S 300 SEQUEL WAS A GAY LOVE STORY FEATURG ALEXANR THE GREAT, BUT WB WANTED NO PART OF IT
• BREAKG GROUND WH A GAY MOVIE HERO

ALEXANR THE GREAT OR ALEXANR THE GAY?

Alexanr the Great or Alexanr the Gay?

ALEXANR THE GREAT: GAY OR STRAIGHT?

For LGBT history month, gut blogger Prof Lloyd Llewellyn-Jon (Chair of Ancient History, Cardiff Universy) asks: 'Alexanr the Great or Alexanr the Gay? I thk he probably was gay.

WAS ALEXANR THE GREAT GAY? THE ACTUAL ANSWER

It was supposed to say ‘Alexanr the Gay’, but someone translated wrong to ‘Alexanr the Great. The qutn of Alexanr’s homosexualy, once the prerve of scholars such as Tarn whose termed attempt 1948, ‘to straighten the matter out’ (no pun tend, surely) and close future discsn down, met only wh Badian’s hatchet-job of a dissectn of Tarn’s own pedantic nservatism a later. The sexual revolutn of the 1960s and 1970s stimulated even Classicists to thk new and excg ways, and Alexanr’s sexualy was thrown wi open for bate – classrooms, on gay polil march, popular lerature, magaz, pornography – and the strengtheng gay muni of the liberal wt happily embraced the ancient ler not only as a gay prototype, but as a gay hero.

In recent s enthiastic (if flawed) gay-tert webs have been bily appropriatg Alexanr as a role mol for the morn gay man; so much so, ed, that the Cassell’s Queer Compann entry dited to the Macedonian nqueror not that Alexanr is a staple the long list of historil gays that have been ‘claimed ‘om history. The talk is not even ncerned wh iologi surroundg ancient exprsns of sexual inty eher, but do look at ntemporary exprsns of the sexual and genred self bee our foc is explorg morn ncepts of homosexual inti which have attached themselv to the figure of Alexanr the Great. Takg as s startg pot this lecture will exame several twenty-first century rpons to ‘Alexanr the Gay’ by people who intify themselv through a range of genrs and sexuali.

For some though, Alexanr is not jt a top ten gay hero, he is the ultimate fantasy whose kiss we ntue to crave. Yet, to give Stone his due, he was prepared to take on the ch the welter of homophobic cricism he received for pictg his hero  close homoerotic enunter wh the Persian nuch. For ancient Greeks there was no ntradictn between youthful homoeroticism and predomantly or wholly heterosexual adult proclivy and activy.

ALEXANR THE GREAT’S GAY LOVERS

"We are not sayg that we are agast gays but we are sayg that the productn pany should make clear to the dience that this film is pure fictn and not a te pictn of the life of Alexanr, " Yannis Varnakos, who spearheads the mpaign, said.

"We have not seen the film but om the rmatn we have already there are referenc to his alleged homosexualy, a fact that is no historil document or archive on Alexanr, " he said.

"The US Gay and Lbian Alliance Agast Defamatn (GLAAD) says the film breaks new ground for a big budget epic bee shows Hephatn "as the te love of Alexanr's life.

19 - ALEXANR THE GAY AND THE GLORYHOLE THAT WAS GREECE

"This is not the first time Greeks have been angered by suggtns Alexanr was homosexual and had affairs wh young years ago hundreds of northern Greeks om the provce of Macedonia, where he was born, stormed an archaeologil symposium after one speaker prented a paper on the homosexualy of were lled to evacuate the of the greatt ary lears of all time, Alexanr was never feated nquered about 90 per cent of the then-known world before his myster ath at the age of 32, buildg an empire that stretched om the Mederranean to Varnakaos says as Mr Stone has the right to eely exprs himself, the dience should have the right to know.

ZACK SNYR'S 300 SEQUEL WAS A GAY LOVE STORY FEATURG ALEXANR THE GREAT, BUT WB WANTED NO PART OF IT

"We nnot e out and say that (former US) Print John F Kennedy was a shootg guard for the Los Angel Lakers basketball team and so Warner nnot e out and say Alexanr was gay, " Mr Varnakos film will be released on November 24. The Importance of Evince the Heated Debate on Homosexualy Ancient Egypt. Roman Law and the Banng of ‘Passive’ Homosexualy.

At the same time, Ancient Greek ary forc (for example, the Spartans), believed that homosexual sex ma bonds between the soldiers stronger. Like huntg, homosexualy was thought to foster mascule, pecially martial, bravery. Homosexualy was a norm the ancient tim, but the se of Alexanr the Great and Hephatn, is hard to ratnally nclu what the te relatnship was between them.

Even if they were lovers, the beliefs and perceptns about homosexual relatnships was fely different than the way is nsired today. Is there historil evince that Alexanr the Great was really homosexual or bisexual ( our morn sense), or is that a prent-day ntrivance?

BREAKG GROUND WH A GAY MOVIE HERO

I've seen him lled bisexual a lot of plac and even exclively gay others but the most mon catn I see is a uple of sourc that say he "loved Hephatn above all others. My (very basic) unrstandg of ancient Greek homosexualy is that wasn't really related to sexual orientatn at all.