What are some interesting tidbits from the underappreciated history of homosexuality/queerness?
>As soon as they reached Mamluk land, the Oirats found themselves in a peculiar position. With Asiatic features and smooth, hairless faces, they immediately became objects of sexual attention on the part of the hairy Mamluk men with beards and rough features. Mamluk men were attracted not only to Oirat women but also to young Oirat men. In no time, “beardless” Oirat boys were seized by mature Mamluk men as sexual partners. According to al-Maqrizi, Oirat boys became so popular and desired among Mamluk commanders that they could not get enough of these boys. The revelation that Oirat boys were being sodomized en masse by Mamluks reached the Ilkhanid court, compelling Ilkhan Ghazan to ask a visiting Mamluk messenger named Hisam al-Din Azdamar al-Majiri about his former subjects, “How [did it happen] that your amirs left women and are using boys That is—beardless boys.” Much to the Ilkhan’s anger, the messenger, while acknowledging widespread sodomy between Mamluk men and Oirat boys, undiplomatically cast all the blame on the Oirat boys themselves: “Our amirs were not acquainted with such [practice], but it was introduced to our country [recently] with the coming of Turaqai of your [origin], and he came to us with boys from the sons of Tatars, and the people [started] to be engaged in them instead of women."
>>18227111The people of ancient Mesopotamia put a great deal of stock in omens that might reveal the truth. These could be found in signs as grand as eclipses or as small as cattle lying down. In a collection of over ten thousand omens written down on a set of cuneiform tablets known as the šumma ālu, a number of them deal with homosexual acts.Several of the gay omens hint at dark things for certain types of gay sex. Having sex with a male house slave portends a bad destiny, and sleeping with a royal official will lead to a whole year of worry. However, some say that homosexual sex can be a good sign.We are told, “If a man copulates with his equal from the rear, he becomes the leader among his peers and brothers”. The text also informs us that sleeping with a male prostitute who works in a temple causes all of a man’s problems to leave him.
