The Straight Dope 01/13/2006

The Straight Dope -- By Cecil Adams
http://www.straightdope.com

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THE STRAIGHT DOPE 01/13/2006

Dear Cecil:

A friend forwarded your article on male genitalia in Greek art, and it
reminded me of a discussion--OK, a near argument--I had with a friend on
the sexual habits and rituals of the ancient Greeks. I read somewhere
that homosexual acts among ancient Greeks were commonplace, and that one
involved a ritual when a boy became a man. Supposedly the boy was anally
penetrated by his father (or maybe his grandfather) to symbolize the
passing on of the family seed. Can you verify this for me? --David Lyon,
Memphis

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Cecil replies:

Time to get the meds adjusted, pal. The ancient Greeks were pretty out
there sexually, and I've even seen speculation about homosexual
initiation rites in prehistoric times, but ritual gay incest? Gross me
out of existence. At any rate there's nothing about it in Kenneth
Dover's Greek Homosexuality (1978, revisited 1989), for now the
definitive work on the subject. That said, you can see where a bizarro
idea like this would arise.

Truth is, we don't really get what was up with the ancient Greeks.
Partly that's a function of mainstream western society's centuries-long
refusal to face the facts, namely, that sexual relations between members
of the same sex, or anyway between males, were common in Greek society
in those days. Even now there's a lot we don't know and probably won't
ever know. Though we have a seeming abundance of Greek art and
literature to sift through, ancient Hellenic culture broadly understood
spanned well over 1,000 years. Our knowledge of many periods and
subcultures is sparse. Many texts are ambiguous. Pornographic vase
paintings, it's true, don't leave a lot to the imagination, but much of
this stuff was art of a sort and not necessarily representative of how
people lived--God knows what archaeologists a couple millennia hence are
going to make of Robert Mapplethorpe and Britney Spears.

For more, see:
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/060113.html

STAFF REPORT

Dear Straight Dope:

I googled the hell out of this and the best resources I could find
(Wikipedia, etc.) could only tell me about the origin of libraries in
general, back in ancient times, or the beginnings of specific libraries
in America. Call it nerdy curiosity if you want, but I am kind of young
(25) and so do not know a time before public lending libraries. They
have been all over the place in the different states I have lived. They
let you borrow and read all sorts of books--for free! Call me crazy but
I started wondering, how did the public libraries as we know them today
come about? Some bibliophile President or First Lady in the 1950s
decided it was important and got the ball rolling or something? And how
do they stay around? Even if the books are donated, the staff are
volunteers, and taxes pay for necessities, that still doesn't cover the
property and building itself, let alone new books and computer systems.
Don't tell me it's all late fees! --dgibson

SDSTAFF Dex replies:

Questions like this can make a guy feel really old. I assure you that
public libraries as we know them today considerably predate the 1950s.
In fact, they date back to the nineteenth century--in other words,
almost to the dawn of time.

You may already have run across this while googling ancient history, but
I'll tell you anyway: A man named Amit Anu had the title "Tabl Keeper"
at the royal library at Ur in roughly 2000 BC. He was the earliest known
librarian. No word if he was the first to tell unruly sixth-graders to
shush.

For more, see: 
http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mpublibrary.html

STRAIGHT DOPE CLASSIC - 04/29/1988

Dear Cecil: 

Has anyone ever actually been tarred and feathered, or is this just some
kind of bizarro fable? Who engaged in this practice and against whom?
Wouldn't being covered with boiling tar usually prove fatal? How would
you get the tar and feathers off, if in fact you ever could? The topic
is neglected in "Hints from Heloise." -- Sherman Pothole, Somerville,
Massachusetts

Cecil replies:

Tarring and feathering may have been bizarro, Sherm, but it's no fable.
One of the stranger manifestations of the American propensity for mob
violence, the practice dates back to at least 1740 and didn't die out
until after World War I--largely, one supposes, because tar and feathers
began getting hard to come by. It was especially popular just prior to
the Revolutionary War, when many customs officials and British
sympathizers got daubed. Moonshiners later tarred and feathered
revenooers, and during World War I the same fate befell persons thought
to be insufficiently patriotic.

For more, see:
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_020.html

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