Work Text:
My Dearest,
It has been too long since I have sent you a letter. While I see you in person often, some things are better written down rather than spoken aloud, and not just for the sentimentality of coming back to the tangible words again and again.[1]
My father is asking about marriage again. He wants me to promise him a legacy. Because I do not wish to lie, I have no answer for him. I cannot, in good faith to you, have children. I do not want them. Is that terrible? I should want my line to continue. I should want a little boy with my nose, or a little girl with my eyes. But unless that little boy has your hair or that little girl has your smile, I would not be able to bear it.
I admit I want to express some of my grievances in this letter to you. Perhaps in your response you can do the same. My sister once said writing things down will help take the pressure off your chest.
I wish I could love you publicly without fear of either of us being called effeminate.[2] That would do no good to either of us.[3] I admit there are days where I wish to smooth out my face, my chest, my legs, and between them. And then, with you, let the silk sheets slide along my skin. Maybe we’ll feel closer if there is less in between us. I digress. I like the roughness of your skin, the scratch of your legs against my shoulders, my face. You are well-groomed, so do not worry.[4]
But so long as we don’t claim each other to the world, we are both still men.[5] It does not matter that we switch roles. It would not bode well if anyone caught sight of either of us with a slight limp from tenderness. You are the only one to know that you are the reason I shake hands.[6]
Do you remember when we first met? We were still in school, still young and soft and inexperienced. Ha! We both fumbled so much during those first times. I’m sure many of our classmates knew what was going on, but who knows, they might have been doing the same things themselves.[7] There were several of us that sported marks from our extracurriculars.[8]
I apologize again for all those years in our youth where we were not on equal footing, where I did not let you take me like I took you. I thought I needed to preserve my chastity, my modesty, my pride. I thought I would lose my status.[9]
I do not wonder what young boys get up to when I look at them. It is none of my business. Those Greeks made it their business—those who had young boys as grown men.[10] I cannot find it within me to look at our youth and imagine myself with them, someone who could fit into the palm of my hand. That is one of the things I like so much about you—you are big, in more ways than one, and you are grown and we are attuned to one another so well sometimes I have thought our minds are linked in some way. I consider you my match, intellectually and physically.
Would you ever run away with me? Away from Rome, out to the countryside, where we can live off the land and rely on no one else. I have always wished for that. Dealing with the public day after day grows ever the more tiresome. If I had you, and perhaps a dog, I would not need anything else. Even if the harvests were poor, and the winters cold, and the work never-ending. You could practice your art. Maybe you’d take some to market and collect enough money for some luxuries the farm could not provide. I would not mind the toil so long as you were there at the end of the day.
There are days I want to wail and cry and fall to my knees at the idea that I may never be brave enough to be your lover publicly. But even that could be telling.[11]
Though I have heard them time and time again, I want to hear your wishes for the future. Tell me what kind of art you want to master. I can be your muse, your model, your assistant. Tell me what you want your house to look like. I will build it. Tell me who has wronged you. I will deal with them. I will do anything for you; all you must do is ask. I am not scared of words or hard labour.
Tell me about the hunger that sits in your chest and pulls at your stomach. I will offer myself. Let me be the thing that sustains you. Use me, take me, in any form that pleases you. I only pray that I am enough to satisfy you. If I am not, I will wear myself to the bone trying to find a way to give you more. I have given myself to you. I know you have given yourself to me, too. I do my best to believe it, but sometimes my father’s insecurities leak into my chest.
And then, after all of that, tell me what you like most about me. I will do the same. I want to watch your lips wrap around the words, right before they wrap around something else.
Anyway, all of this I will repeat when I see you next. I will recite this letter word-for-word if that is what you wish.
I will see you soon. Be well.
Bibliography
Primary Sources
Martial Epigrams, trans. D.R. Shackleton-Bailey.
Secondary Sources
Larson, Jennifer. Greek and Roman Sexualities A Sourcebook. 1st ed. London: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2012.
MOORE, CASEY C. “Cross-Dressing: Ancient and Modern Reappropriations of Homosexual Identity.” The Comparatist 37, no. 1 (2013): 276–95.
Williams, Craig A. Reading Roman Friendship. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
Williams, Craig A. Roman Homosexuality : Ideologies of Masculinity in Classical Antiquity. 1st ed. Oxford ; Tokyo: Oxford University Press, 1999.
[1] As in better to not be overheard, as a precaution. On the flip side, if this is a concern, sending a written letter is rather risky lol.
[2] Casey C. Moore. “Cross-Dressing: Ancient and Modern Reappropriations of Homosexual Identity.” The Comparatist 37, no. 1, 2013, p. 291. The appearance and image of a male Roman as seen by the community was much more important than whatever he did in the bedroom. If two men are in a public relationship, it is incredibly likely others are going to try to figure out which one plays the receptive, ‘womanly’ role—which means they both run the risk of being charged with effeminacy.
[3] Jennifer Larson. Greek and Roman Sexualities A Sourcebook. 1st ed. London: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2012, p. 109. Generally, elites of the Roman Republic and early empire disapproved of erotic relations between men of equal civic status—on the grounds that one of them was thereby made effeminate and therefore disqualified from citizenship and its privileges.
[4] Excessive masculinity is embodied with unkempt hair, skin, and beard, while effeminacy is artificially curled hair, and depilated legs and chest. In Martial 2.36, he implies the happy medium is somewhere in between. Williams, in Roman Homosexuality, described that shaving/plucking underarms is considered good grooming in men, but doing that to your legs is going too far (p. 130).
[5] Craig A. Williams. Roman Homosexuality : Ideologies of Masculinity in Classical Antiquity. 1st ed. Oxford; Tokyo: Oxford University Press, 1999, pp. 18. A self-respecting Roman man must always appear to be the active partner in penetrative acts, because masculinity is domination. | p. 127: The gender of their sexual object choice does not necessarily matter—but the style of their erotic pursuit does. A man who aims to please (anyone, male or female) in his erotic encounters is effeminate.
[6] This is a reference to Martial 2.21, in which preferring not to kiss someone and rather shake hands (or kiss them? It’s not explicitly clear to me from the passage) implies the person habitually performs oral sex. The wording of my sentence sort of implies that the reason he shakes hands is because he knows what the public thinks about fellatio/cunnilingus and not because he himself suspects everyone else to be performing oral. Moreso societal politeness.
[7] Craig A. Williams. Reading Roman Friendship. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012, p. 139. Sexual desire between males was simply taken for granted. It was not questioned or stigmatized and instead viewed as a part of human and animal nature. As long as you played the role of penetrator.
[8] E.g. hickeys.
[9] Larson, Greek and Roman Sexualities, p. 184. Male citizens were expected to be sexually active, but were taught to uphold ideals of self-discipline as part of their gender role. If a free man failed to control his sexual behaviour (i.e. be the ‘passive’ sexual partner), he was seen as unworthy of the privileges tied to his gender and social standing. For men, notions of chastity and modesty were connected to the belief that the male body had to preserve its integrity—meaning it should never be penetrated.
[10] Moore, “Cross-Dressing,” p. 279. The practice of pederasty was considered by the Romans to be a Greek phenomenon. In Rome, pederasty was viewed as shameful specifically because of the belief that no Roman citizen should be penetrated or be the passive sexual partner. Nevertheless, pederastic relationships appear throughout Roman literature.
[11] Williams, Roman Homosexuality, p. 138. Excessive displays of pain or grief are often dismissed as womanish. I’m taking a little bit of liberty with this since I’m not 100% on what is considered ‘excessive.’ Was Achilles’ reaction to Patroclus’ death not excessive, and therefore, womanly? I don’t know if the Romans considered it that way because of the general opinion on/idolization of the Greeks and their lore. Aside from that, the Roman logic regarding masculinity essentially boils down to: if one is not ‘manly,’ one is ‘womanly.’