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The Gay Marriages of a Nineteenth-Century Prison Ship
- gerland 6y agoDays I did not hear about a LGBT/woman/minority in a place you "would not" expect them - 0. It never got above zero. Who should I scream "Yes, we know!" to?
- pjc50 6y agoI dunno, maybe at some of the people still saying "it's not normal" or "it's a modern trend"?
- gerland 6y agoHow many of them are there? There will always be some, like there is always one homeless guy who talks with pidgeons. Still we do not try to remind people daily that pidgeons cannot understand human speech. It's like christians trying to protect themselves non-stop from satanist plots. How many satanists are there? 5? 10? And they definitely do not care.
- pjc50 6y agoThe modern discourse on trans people is as if only pidgeon-talkers were allowed to have newspaper columns. Literally this morning I had a "women can't be craftsmen" on my timeline: https://twitter.com/XylaFoxlin/status/1281098896081653760 https://twitter.com/XylaFoxlin/status/1281098896081653760
- antihero 6y agoThere are an absolute shitload of sexists, homophobes, and transphobes out there.
- gerland 6y agoIsn't it just that there they are vocal and the way the news pipelines work makes it spread more than it would?
- emiliobumachar 6y agoI would guess that, even in the huge world population, there are large time intervals between any two people being murdered for defending that pidgeons cannot understand human speech. Really, you might be living in a bubble.
- otabdeveloper4 6y agoRetconning 'prison bitch' as 'gay husband' is beyond stupid and crass. Does this sort of thing really help anyone?
- thepangolino 6y agoI guess it helps advertisers get clicks.
- zozbot234 6y agoYup, it's especially funny because the present-day, deeply egalitarian idea of homosexuality (with its attendant developments, including gay marriage) is a very modern (late 19th c. at the earliest) development. Back in, say, Ancient Greece and Rome, "prison bitch" was all you got - both homosexual sex and, to a large extent, heterosexual were essentially predatory in nature. Rape culture was very real. (You can see the consequences of this e.g. in the Christian new testament, where the homosexual practices of the time are said to be an abomination but this also extends to heterosexual practices.) (OP's article does attempt to reframe the typical practices of the time and make them "fit" the modern egalitarian view, but note how even in their own account it's always the older, more dominant member of the pairing who is said to "love" and "care" for his younger and more submissive partner. This is clearly the same sort of highly skewed arrangement that is well known from ancient Mediterranean cultures.)
- pjc50 6y ago"Consent culture", along with contraception and condoms, strikes me as one of the real enablers of the 20th century sexual revolution.
- hakka-nyu-su 6y agoIf we're questioning the egalitarian quality of pre-20th century relationŝips, one could also say that "heterosexuality" between equals was also not the norm. Only modern _homosexuality,_ though, is burdened with the requirement to prove that its historical antecedents were somehow more egalitarian than the norm for its time.
- battery423 6y agoIt is still a hard balance to strike between "In Iran they still hang you on a car crane" vs. "My circle of people is accepting and moved along already a few years ago".
- ChrisRR 6y agoUntil the day when homophobes/racists/sexists stop acting like pieces of shit. If doing your part to support these people just includes not saying anything while awareness is raised, I would recommend doing that. It's very easy to do and takes no effort on your part.
- kruezenberg 6y agoWhat kind of awareness did this story raise ?
- intopieces 6y agoQueer people are typically not present in traditional histories. This raises the awareness that queer people existed then too, albeit in different circumstances.
- luckylion 6y agoIsn't the consequence of that line of thinking that anything that doesn't raise awareness is problematic, as it takes up attention/spots on the front page etc? Ergo: we should have nothing but LGBT topics so everybody is aware all the time.
- drewbug01 6y agoThis statement: > If doing your part to support these people just includes not saying anything while awareness is raised, I would recommend doing that. Does not imply what you asserted, which is: > Isn't the consequence of that line of thinking that anything that doesn't raise awareness is problematic, as it takes up attention/spots on the front page etc? Ergo: we should have nothing but LGBT topics so everybody is aware all the time. There seem to be several logical steps in-between the two assertions that you've assumed would happen and didn't lay out here.
- rsynnott 6y agoI mean, a psychologist? If it bothers you that much, that's probably something you should deal with...
- gerland 6y agoSo with any external thing I should basically go to a psychologist? Is it so werid that I'm tired of all the preaching. You cannot evan say that you are tired. Every preacher is autmatically assigned a status of invincibility. Say something to the preacher - you are the offender now.
- adamcharnock 6y agoIt reads to me like you've taken rsynnott's point to an extreme here. > Is it so werid that I'm tired of all the preaching Humans are all weird in different ways, but that isn't the point here. The point is that your views on this seem to be making you unhappy. And, well, that doesn't have to be the case. Talking to someone can help you not feel unhappy about this stuff. And if indeed it does, it will likely make other parts of your life better too, in ways that may not be obvious now. Lot's of people here have had therapy. This is not a judgement or a dismissal, rather it is genuine advice.
- gerland 6y agoYou seem to be trying to give me an honest advice, which is nice and I appreciate it, but you don't seem to get the point - you do not have to, and should not, feel ok with everything that happens externally. That's not something that needs fixing. I do not need a cope mechanism. There are real things that I'm dissatisfied with and I have the right to feel this way. I can rationalise it and go to some kind of therapy, but that's not the point. I have enough "terapy" sessions in my job, that's precisely what I'm dissatisfied about. It's a bit annoying and redundant most of the year, but after the pride month you just want to never hear about this topic anymore in your life. Imagine that someone comes to you and says that you should kneel before some random black people, because that's how you are supposed to react to the BLM narrative. You might genuiely care about the minorities and still do not agree with the BLM narrative, or just plainly do not see the point of the performances themselves. You might feel very bad about doing this, which is completely natural. There are a lot of reasons why you would not want to do this. Should you go to a therapy to be able to shame yourself more easily? All due respect, it feels that someone who suggests something like this would need the therapy more.
- adamcharnock 6y agoThis is just another topic that some people – such as myself – are interested in. It's no more in your face than any other interesting-but-somewhat-off-topic posts that come up here. However, as an LGBT person I do also feel some fatigue in this regard. But in my case, I think the source of that fatigue is mainly my Facebook feed, not HN.
- gerland 6y agoDo you really have anyt of the issue that people are constantly reporting? I'm seriously asking now, this is not a bait. As an outside observer I just don't see anything of the sorts happening, but clearly I cannot be everywhere. There are numerous atrocities happening every day around the globe, that seem to me like a bigger problem, but yet I rarely hear bout them. For some reason though, we have to go over and over this mind numbing stream of preaching and virtue signaling every week. You start anew every time and have to prove your loyalty to the grand cause or the ruling party, or whatever it is at this point. Reminds me of the guy that stopped clapping first during a Stalins speech. I mean, what do you people want in the end? Do I have to spend the rest of my life proving that I do not care about you at all? At some point I will start caring and that probably won't be a good type of caring.
- adamcharnock 6y ago> For some reason though, we have to go over and over this mind numbing stream of preaching and virtue signaling every week. You start anew every time and have to prove your loyalty to the grand cause or the ruling party, or whatever it is at this point You can do whatever you want. As can everyone else. If anyone doesn't feel that either of those things are true, then I really genuinely recommend some therapy. Therapy is great.
- gerland 6y agoIt's very hard to avoid getting bombarded by this. You would have to completely avoid processing any information stream. Taht would still leave you with all the events and initiatives in the office. I don't really see why I should stick a pride flag on my desk and it is frowned upon if I don't. It's not a matter of therapy. I'm perfectly fine, there is a problem with people pushing politics down your throat even if you already accepted it. I cannot even imagine how people that have different opinions handle it.
- asjw 6y agoThere's a rule 34 in porn, but also a rule 34 in history: if it happened, Romans have already done it. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagoras_(freedman) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagoras_(freedman)
- TehCorwiz 6y agoLet’s call that one “Rule XXXIV”
- DoofusOfDeath 6y agoLet's call it rule "XXXIIII", to be a little naughty!
- TehCorwiz 6y agoI absolutely love this.
- casefields 6y agoExcept for technology ruining it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Challenger_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Challenger_disas... The argument for some ship disaster is not analogous either.
- ImprobableTruth 6y agoI've heard that a lot of the crazy stories about Nero were just propaganda. I'm not certain that this is an example, but it definitely feels like propaganda.
- wil421 6y ago> Nero, covered with skins of wild animals, was let loose from a cage and attacked the private parts of men and women bound to stakes Yikes. Let’s hope they were just stories.
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- CodeGlitch 6y agoAgain - what the heck does this have to do with tech/hacking/startups.
- s5300 6y agoHave you ever read the HN guidelines? I get the idea you haven't, and suggest you do.
- CodeGlitch 6y agoNo I hadn't. Thanks for the pointer. TBF 99% of the stuff on HN is about tech in some way, so anything not related feels out-of-place. Everyday is a school day.
- tomhoward 6y agoRight now, 7 of the 30 stories on the front page (> 23%) have nothing to do with tech. Dang (the moderator) encourages a solid amount of non-tech content to keep the site interesting and diverse.
- Thorentis 6y agoI didn't find the article intellectually stimulating or thought provoking. It's the type of thing my "I'm in my freshman year of my sociology degree by the way" friend would share on Facebook that most people would scroll past and ignore. I clicked straight to the comments hoping others shared my opinion, and glad at least somebody did.
- s5300 6y agoThanks for your input. I, personally, didn't touch the article - and from the title, I could guess I'd probably feel the same way towards it as you. However, my actual comment was literally to just make a correction that posts on HN aren't limited to what the parent had listed. There's a lot of regulars on here who really don't know that. Obviously, they're in no way malicious, but Dan tries to correct them by urging them to read the guidelines when they make it obvious they haven't... thus, so will I.
- nobodygivesa 6y agoCongratulations and good for them, but nobody gives a shit on what you do in bed. None, zero, nada, null, zilch and nil. Get over it, your preference doesnt make you special. I'm so sick of being forced seeing this kind of stuff literally everywhere.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- kentosi 6y agoFascinating article. I can assume that most of these men were not gay, but rather used gay sex as an outlet for pleasure given the hopeless circumstances they were in. What struck to me most though, is the eventual development of romantic relations where partners would pamper each other with gifts. To me this shows a deeper need for a human connection beyond just sex.
- zozbot234 6y ago> were not gay, but rather used gay sex as an outlet for pleasure given the hopeless circumstances they were in MSM behavior is on a spectrum, that moreover encompasses both deprivation-based homosexuality (the kind you get in "hopeless" circumstances with no access to heterosexual relationships) and dominance-based homosexuality (MSM sex as a raw exertion of dominance by one participant towards the other). These sorts of practices need not have much to do with "sexual orientation", as understood today. In ancient Mediterranean cultures, being a dominant participant in MSM encounters was something "anyone" could do, and was not understood as anything unusual. It was only the submissive partner that was considered highly feminized. This same model shows up in other ancient cultures, e.g. in East Asia. The modern Western understanding where MSM practices boil down to a gay "sexual orientation" that's equally shared by both partners is historically novel.
- dhimes 6y agoFor those of you who also don't know what MSM stands for (Methylsulfonylmethane?): Men who have Sex with Men
- martopix 6y agoI quite enjoy the description of gifts and mutual affection, but nothing in this article is new or surprising -- not sure if I'm more familiar than the average reader with queer history or everybody will feel the same. It's in general quite astonishing to see how different the view of homosexual relationship is and has been over different cultures. It's not just a binary acceptable/not acceptable difference, but homosexuality has had a different social role in different societies in a way that is difficult to imagine today.
- wayneftw 6y agoWhy is this here? It’s completely off topic for HN.
- adamcharnock 6y agoSee the guidelines[1] which define on/off topic as: > On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity. > Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic. This article did gratify my intellectual curiosity, and I don't think I'd see it on TV news. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- balladeer 6y agoOn-topic guideline essentially allows everything, rendering off-topic guideline moot. Could have been avoided by defining "a good hacker" but that's missing as well :)
- krapp 6y ago>Could have been avoided by defining "a good hacker" but that's missing as well :) Given that it's his site, his forum and his rules, I've always assumed "anything that good hackers would find interesting" loosely correlated to "anything Paul Graham would find interesting."
- zzzcpan 6y agoIt's usually a measure of similarity to the mods, not pg, i.e. whatever dang thinks is interesting goes, if you are not "a good hacker" like dang - too bad for you. Although I do remember there was a pg article not so long ago that was so dumb and nonsensical it was flagged off the frontpage only to forcefully reappear a few hour later.