THE WARREN CUP

THE WARREN CUP
1st century CE
Rome

Looking for new sexual inspiration? There is an ancient cup that has a couple suggestions. The Warren Cup is a decorated silver drinking goblet depicting two different homosexual love scenes that functioned as a conversation piece for banquets in ancient roman times.

On one side of the cup the “bottom” is sitting on the “top’s” lap facing away from him and holding a rope that has been strung up over the bed for support.
A very clever idea, but they are not alone in their pleasure, if you look there is a naughty little slave boy peeping on them and smiling from behind the door.
The other side shows a somewhat unusual “advanced class” sideways position that looks worth trying out.

Crafted some time at the turn of the 1st century between 15 BC to 15 AD, the Warren Cup is one of the lucky roman artifacts depicting gay sex that has survived thousands of years of homophobia and Christian oppression.


Object details:
Height: 11 cm
Width: 9.9 cm (max.)
Depth: 11 cm

The cup is named after an American art collector E.P. Warren (1861-1928) who lived in England and acquired the cup shortly after it was discovered.

Warren chose to live in England where he felt freer. For he was, as he put it, "yearning for the renewal of Greek life and on the look out for affections - real affections - between my own sex".

He published a collection of his own gay love poetry as well as an essay entitled "In Defense of Uranian Love".

It wasn’t until 1999 that The British Museum finally purchased the cup for US$2.7 million.
Before that no official institution could handle the hot homo love. It was even refused entry into the USA at customs in 1950.

Personally I would love a reproduction dish set with gay sex prints and designs like The Warren Cup. I mean why use a boring old plain cup when you can have one decorated with hot gay love! It would make everything taste better. I feel it is time to sexually liberate our dishes and ourselves!

GAY LOVE CITY

ANTINOOPOLIS
The love of Hadrian & Antinous and Gay Love City!

So I’ve been indulging my gay history fetish again this time looking into various Roman emperors and I read a pretty amazing story about one named Hadrian.

Hadrian is considered one of Rome’s most brilliant rulers. He was an expert in math, music, painting, poetry, military affairs, and debate. He ruled Rome at one of its most happy and prosperous periods. He was a lavish builder, an avid traveler, and a big homo.

He wrote poetry about the love of boys and it was his devotion to this love that inspired the construction of the greatest monument to love ever built, Antinoopolis.

Antinous was an astonishingly handsome young man from Bithynia who joined Hadrian’s entourage during one of his many travels.

If you look at the existing portraits and sculptures of Antinous it’s easy to see why he would be the emperor’s fave. He has thick curly hair and is often crowned like a prince.

He has that sexy thick torso thing going on, combined with a gorgeous face that sometimes looks boyish, naive, innocent, and other times brooding, sensitive, and sensual. His ass also appears to be “from the gods”.

Not much is known about their relationship. There are some reliefs of the couple hunting. Including one that shows a lion hunt in Libya. Of this episode the Alexandrian poet Panacrates wrote an account. Apparently an especially mean lion had been terrorizing people and Hadrian went to slay it. He threw his spear but deliberately only wounded the animal to let Antinous deal the death blow but the lion attacked before the young man had a chance and the emperor killed the lion saving his lover’s life. But it was a life sadly destined to be short lived.

There is a debate around the death of Antinous. All we know for sure is Antinous “fell” into the Nile. But the word “fell” can be translated as an accident or a sacrifice.

It is possible that the young man accidentally fell into the Nile, but some say the emperor could have been preparing a ritual to extend his life that demanded a sacrifice and no one but his lover would volunteer.

Either way Hadrian was so upset by the loss of his love that we are told he “cried like a woman” and resolved to erect a city in Antinous’ honor. On October 30th 130 Hadrian issued an edict that this new city should be a monument to the dead boy, and a religious shrine. Antinoopolis, the city of gay love flourished for centuries surviving Christianity and the Arab occupation of Egypt.

Hadrian even went so far as to have his lover declared an immortal deity which was apparently not uncommon practice back then for noble people to do, but Antinous was a commoner. Nonetheless images of the beautiful youth-god are widespread. He was considered in relation to the Egyptian deity Osiris as one who died and was resurrected and grants the requests those make of him. For this he was also compared to Christ. The religion of Antinous was very popular and widespread and it survived Hadrian’s death by several centuries, and Archaeologists found over half a million jars that held offerings to the shrine at Antinoopolis.

When the ruins of Antinoopolis were surveyed in 1798 by Edme-Francois Jomard 1,344 statues of the young man were found.
And the existing statues of Antinous are considered some of the greatest works of art ever!
Unfortunately the ruins of Antinoopolis were lost sometime between 1798 and 1863 to an Egyptian construction company who ground the city’s many pillars into cement. Industry made powder of the greatest shrine ever built to love.

I look out my bedroom window at the hideous concrete foundation of the rectangular 4-story condo going up next-door and think, if only love were the motivator behind more construction and development. I can imagine gorgeous cities brimming with the love feeling. I can picture buildings bedecked with depictions of lovers entwined, statues of handsome men abounding, sexually suggestive fountains gushing. I see an entire reordering of society coming from love rather than from greed and the desire for power.
It would be a place we would really want to live in, GayLove City!
It once was and could be again.

ABU NUWAS

ABU NUWAS (from about 756-813)
This week I’m “getting more gay” by reading some more Sufi mystic poetry. The Sufis believed that the homosexual’s ability to give up all “respectability” in the name of love, mirrors the necessity of abandoning all restrictions and social beliefs in the search for God.

Totally hot! So, I have been reading some Abu Nuwas and wanted to share.

His full name is Abu Nuwas al-Hasan ibn Hani al-Hakami but he was also known as the “Father of Curls,” because of his long flowing hair. He has been called the greatest Arab poet of his time, and some claim he is the greatest Arab poet of all time. You can also check out tales of Abu’s debauchery in “The Thousand and One Arabian Nights”.
Abu's work is so good and juicy that I had to include a bunch of his hot poems.
I hope you enjoy them.

CREDO
Lay in supplies,
O tribe that loves boys,
Of a pleasure that will not be found
In Paradise,
For all its vaunted joys.


IN THE BATH-HOUSE
In the bath-house, the mysteries hidden by trousers
Are revealed to you.
All becomes radiantly manifest.
Feast your eyes without restraint!
You see handsome buttocks, shapely trim torsos,
You hear the guys whispering pious formulas
to one another
("God is Great!" "Praise be to God!")
Ah, what a palace of pleasure is the bath-house!
Even when the towel-bearers come in
And spoil the fun a bit.


THE TRUE JIHAD
The belly of the virgin
And the rear of the youth,
A single lance pierces them both.

This is the true jihad,
And come the Last Judgment
You will be rewarded.

LOVE IN BLOOM
I die of love for him, perfect in every way,
Lost in the strains of wafting music.
My eyes are fixed upon his delightful body
And I do not wonder at his beauty.
His waist is a sapling, his face a moon,
And loveliness rolls off his rosy cheek

I die of love for you, but keep this secret:
The tie that binds us is an unbreakable rope.
How much time did your creation take, O angel?
So what! All I want is to sing your praises.


Tu’atibu-ni ’ala Surbi Stibahi
A gentle fawn passed around the cup
Delicate of waist and slim of flank,
“Will you be on your way, come morn?” he chirped.
“How can we bear to leave?” came the reply.
He glided among us and made us drunk,
And we slept, but as the cock was about to crow
I made for him, my garments trailing, my ram ready for butting.
When I plunged my spear into him
He awoke as a wounded man awakes from his wounds.
“You were an easy kill,” said I, “so let’s have no reproaches.”
“You win, so take what you will, but give me fair reward.”
So after I had placed my saddle bag upon him he burst into song,
“Are you not the most generous rider ever, of all Allah’s creatures?”