this post was submitted on 02 Oct 2025
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RoughRomanMemes
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A place to meme about the glorious ROMAN EMPIRE (and Roman Republic, and Roman Kingdom)! Byzantines tolerated! The HRE is not.
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Explanation: Labels of sexuality vary wildly from era to era, and culture to culture. In Ancient Rome, it was considered 'manly' to penetrate another - male or female - and 'effeminate' or 'pathetic' to be penetrated - or go down on a woman (despite this, there is ample evidence of Romans doing both in great numbers, lmao). Rather than differentiating by sexual partner, they differentiated by act. An early-mid 1st century AD dispute between Roman politicians has one Senator insult another by claiming to have had sex with the other Senator's sons - the reverse of "I did your dad" - something which was shameful for the sons (if true - it was unlikely to be true) but unremarkable and even 'manly' for the supposedly lustful Senator!
Referenced in the meme is the Emperor Hadrian - in particular being notable for deifying his 19 year-old boytoy Antinous after he died during an accident on the Nile.
Antinous was a twink, making it extra straight, of course