this post was submitted on 22 Sep 2025
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Interesting how this seems to happen every single time there's a large gathering of Republicans.

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[–] ignotum@lemmy.world 7 points 2 days ago (4 children)

So if you're a switch you're fine? (That's the term for someone who switches between top and bottom right?)

[–] luciferofastora@feddit.org 4 points 1 day ago

In addition to the other informative answers, the "serious" reply to the first question would be "no, not really". I'll summon up a "Tales of Time Forgotten" blog post on the matter, as best as I understand it, with the recommendation to read the original if you can.

The difficulty with understanding Ancient Greek sexuality from our modern perspective is that they didn't strictly think in two genders so much as a scale of masculinity, or something close to it. Accordingly, sexuality wasn't thought of in terms of hetero- or homo-, but as an act of the less masculine party receiving the more masculine one. The expectation then was that your role and choice of partners would evolve throughout our life and progress along the expected social hierarchy.

An adolescent boy in his mid-to-late-teens (~14-18) was expected to be courted by young men (in their twenties) and eventually choose a lover (although suitors did have to work for it and being "easy" was shameful).

It's worth noting that there was a distinction between (adolescent) boys/girls and children, which were off limits. Obviously, adolescents are still vulnerable and the whole thing is still messed up by most modern western standards. "Not quite as bad" is still bad.

Eventually, they'd reach adulthood and thus become (young) men themselves and were expected to strive and even compete for the affections of boys.

In their late twenties to early thirties, men were expected to proceed to mature adulthood, losing interest in boys and seeking a girl to marry instead (with much of the same expectations as before, though arrangement of marriages typically gave girls much less choice).

Any significant deviation from that expected course would, of course, be considered shameful. There might have been some leeway on the age brackets, but the "direction" of the age dynamic was quite firm, and men seeking out or receiving other men was seen as unnatural and effeminate.

Female sexuality is much less well-attested, just as women in general are less "visible" in most sources, and somewhat contradictory. On one hand, Sappho of Lesbos achieved quite a reputation, but she was writing ~500 BCE. On the other, some sources written in the first and second century CE strongly condemn it. One woman is criticised for loving boys, which would fit with the expectation that both women and boys were to "receive" men.

This might have been a shift over time, but the scarcity of evidence makes it hard to pin it to that cause alone.

On the whole, it's pretty clear that a male vers would not have been "fine" by any standard. Men were to be tops, boys to be bottoms and mature adults were to be interested in girls and women alone.

[–] GlendatheGayWitch@lemmy.world 8 points 2 days ago (1 children)

That would be vers or versatile.

[–] ignotum@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Love that the two of you answered this at the same exact minute

What's a switch then, or am i just hallucinating new terms here?

[–] GlendatheGayWitch@lemmy.world 4 points 2 days ago

Switch is going between Dom and sub. Like being Dom top to sub top or sub bottom to Dom bottom.

Typically a Dom bottom is called a power bottom and a Dom top could call himself a Dom top or power top.

[–] degen@midwest.social 8 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Technically it's dom and sub, but colloquially it's kinda both, yeah. Pretty sure they'd consider a switch a bottom tho, like a top is a never-bottom and getting pegged is also gay?

[–] just2look@lemmy.zip 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Vers is someone who both tops and bottoms.

[–] ignotum@lemmy.world 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Love that the two of you answered this at the same exact minute

What's a switch then, or am i just hallucinating new terms here?

[–] just2look@lemmy.zip 8 points 2 days ago

Like degen said, switch is if you do both dom and sub.