Sex and slavery

SEX AND SLAVERY: William Stacy Johnson notes that there are three forms of homoeroticism. Age-differentiated homosexuality, known as pederasty and common among the ancient Greeks, is when a younger person is expected to give sexual favors to his mentor as a rite of passage. Status-defined homosexuality, in which a superior performs a sexual act with a passive inferior who is often stigmatized, was common among the ancient Romans.

Egalitarian homosexuality, in which the partners are in an equal and mutual relationship, is the predominant form today. Johnson points out that no biblical text addresses this third type of homosexuality and that the second type is the context for the three New Testament texts that deal with same-sex activity. If the New Testament is a protest document that offered an alternative to Roman dominance and exploitation, as scholars are increasingly concluding, could one of the implications be that egalitarian homosexual unions are not proscribed by the New Testament, especially when its writers seem not to have known of this form of homosexuality? (Biblical Theology Bulletin, Winter).

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