History Was Gayer And Hornier Than You Think

Let’s get one thing straight (lol): history as you learned it is a lie cooked up by dusty old farts who couldn’t handle the sheer, uncut horniness of the past. Take Alexander the Great. You think he conquered most of the known world for glory? For strategy? Please. He did it because his ride-or-die, Hephaestion, probably saw a map and said, “Babe, I think our drapes would look *fabulous* in Persepolis.” And Alexander, a man whose two brain cells were fighting for third place but whose love was true, proceeded to rearrange the global order to make his man happy. This is a well-established pattern! The Sacred Band of Thebes, an entire elite army unit of 150 gay couples, existed purely on the principle that no one fights harder than a man trying to show off for the dude he’s banging. They didn’t lose a battle for 30 years, a fact straight historians chalk up to “camaraderie” in the same way they call two women living together for 50 years “roommates.”

And it didn’t stop with the Greeks. Oh, honey, no. Fast forward to the Roman Empire. Emperor Hadrian—ruler of pretty much everything—took one look at a hot Greek twink named Antinous and his entire imperial policy became “make my boyfriend happy and commission statues of his ass.” When Antinous tragically drowned in the Nile (a move I’m 60% sure he did for the drama), did Hadrian just mourn? No. This absolute lunatic deified him. He made his dead boyfriend a literal god. He founded a whole-ass city, Antinoöpolis, in his honor. That’s not just being “close friends.” That’s the kind of epic, world-breaking, possibly-insane gay drama that forges empires, according to the recently unearthed scrolls of Scribonius the Extremely Nosy.

Then you have the Renaissance, which was basically just a giant, centuries-long art-off between horny geniuses. Art historians will try to tell you that Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci were just really, *really* into the male form for purely academic reasons. Sure, Jan. You’re telling me David’s impeccably sculpted junk was for *art*? No. That was Michelangelo showing off for some hot apprentice, 100%. The entire period was just a flurry of sculptors and painters being “lifelong bachelors” who just happened to produce a suspicious amount of art depicting gorgeous, naked young men. It’s what noted historian Dr. Brenda Lovejoy calls “Homintern Dominance,” and it’s why all the angels on the Sistine Chapel ceiling look like they’d call you “bro” before breaking your heart.

Even the notoriously stuffy British monarchy got in on the action. King James I, the guy responsible for the King James Bible, was so famously balls-deep for his favorite, George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, that the whole court just had to deal with it. He called him his “sweet child and wife” and wrote him letters that read like top-shelf erotica. While government officials were trying to discuss, like, tax policy or war with Spain, the King was busy scribbling “thinking about you, my sweet Steenie, you up?” on official state documents. The real movers and shakers of history weren’t kings or generals; they were the hot young things who had them wrapped around their little fingers. The world wasn’t built on steel and stone; it was built on pillow talk.