The beautiful young Elagabalus loved a good party. He was a beefcake of a god, popularised around 220AD by that great same-sex, selfish, cross-dressing, proto-transgendered Emperor, Elagabalus. This was the day the Sun was reborn and so was sacred to the deity Sol Invictus, the Unconquerable Sun. There’s less solid historical information about lesbians and trans men, sadly, but of course they would have been there.Īs most good things come in gay packages, most of our traditions, from Christmas trees to Christmas presents, are rip-offs of gay pagan solstice celebrations.
The Warren Cup in the British Museum depicts ancient Roman gay sex. Sources mention lads running naked about the place, cross-dressing for dinner, tops becoming bottoms, masters waiting on their servants (just for a day, mind), sausages, wine, cunnilingus and fruitcake. Drink flows like rivers and you and your partner snuggle up on a couch to shag and booze the holiday away.īut this isn’t Christmas: it’s Saturnalia, the ancient Roman festival dedicated to the fertility god Saturn around the first century BC. Midwinter fires are crackling, the home smells sharp of evergreen, candles flicker, glass glitters, the table sags.
