STDs more common during Roman times (since they had orgies)?

[Breathe]

I was reading about the Romans/Greeks and their sex lives sound crazy! Apparently orgies were widely accepted so was pedophilia (sex between adult men and little boys). So basically they had multiple sex partners

Do you think STDs/AIDS were more common since people were so sexually liberal?

[sean]

STDs more common during Roman times (since they had orgies)? I was reading about the Romans/Greeks and their sex lives sound crazy! Apparently orgies were widely accepted so was pedophilia (sex between adult men and little boys). So basically they had multiple sex partners.

I don't think so.

Rome was at its heart an agrarian society, where property ownership was inherited. It was every man's duty to Rome to get married and have children. Sulla gave up being dictator for life so he could fuck little boys without being murdered for it and even he had six kids. No man would dare not get married, it would bring shame, dishonour, probably assassination, and ridicule. A man not getting married and reproducing was simply out the question, even if he found women to be disgusting sows and preferred nubile Greek boy buttocks.

Spoiler!

In Ancient Rome at a time when most people tended to remain within a thirty mile radius of where they were born and exclusively hang around with nothing more distant than a second cousin, it becomes a lot harder for STDs to spread very far.

Sure among elites there were STDs, but Galen thought it was caused by too much miasma or whatever. The Romans outlawed the ritual kiss-on-the-lips greeting to cut the spread of herpes. In Ancient Rome, the famous medical writer Aulus Cornelius Celsus was the first person to describe the blisters of herpes in his book De Medica. Even the Antonine Plague outbreak have been a case of smallpox.

Regarding ancient Greece, Sparta was very homophobic. Athens (they were struck hard by a mysterious pathogen between the years of 430 and 427 BC, known as the Plague of Athens, the epidemic greatly disrupted their efforts in the Peloponnesian War) and Thebes were open with their degeneracy. Homosexuality however was not prevalent in ancient Greece. Any pre-antibiotic society that tolerates that would be wiped out from STDs.

As for pedophilia, Romans were "tolerant" and "accepting" of the rape of underage child slaves, provided the rapist was the one doing the sodomizing (not receiving it) because the act was seen as dominance and toward the end of their decadent society that was the state they had degenerated to.

Now we see Greco-Roman pederasty continuing in the Catholic Church, and we also see Greek Orthodox priests in kinky sex scandals lel.

Spoiler!

Do you think STDs/AIDS were more common since people were so sexually liberal?

Nope, the ancient world first off, had way less people, and the populations of people that did exist were actually pretty isolated from each other. Things like Syphilis and HPV likely existed in one corner of the world, but stayed there and didn't get the chance to spread very far. So short answer: almost definitely yes STDs existed but not common, and outbreaks were small-scale.

STDS have been passed down from dawn of time. It is likely part of the reasons behind many of the cultural practices centered around shaming promiscuity etc.

Herpes for instance existed in apes, so humans have had it since evolving from lower primates.

Writings from Ancient Rome describe cold sores. Descriptions in the Epic of Gilgamesh and the King of Uruk suggested symptoms of Chlamydia. Ancient Egypt famously had working knowledge of gynecology, sexual health and treatments related to pelvic infections, and in a more recent discovery, some Roman remains have exhibited signs of Syphilis.

Ancient Egyptians and Mesopotamians knew about herpes and primarily blamed prostitutes for spreading it. The condom dates all the way back to Ancient Egypt where they used silk sheathed in order to prevent diseases. Ancient Egyptian prostitutes used tattoos as protective charms against STDs.

Hepatitis-B was also found in bone fragments in female skeletons found throughout Eastern Europe.

Whores had to watch their monthly cycle to avoid pregnancy so ironically ancient whores were smarter than modern ones.

[BozP]

They all had syphilis.