ABSTRACT
Sex between men is not a salient or celebrated feature of the Mesopotamian erotic repertoire, but it is still surprising that the texts referring explicitly to sexual relations between men are so sparse. Direct references to the topic are limited to two Middle Assyrian laws concerning acts that one man commits against another, and four omens from one tablet of the first-millennium compendium of omens, šumma ālu. 1 What is equally surprising is that the vocabulary of these two legal texts and one of these omens makes anal penetration and the men’s equality of status explicit. The other three omens from šumma ālu are recorded in a topical set, the subject of which is male sex partners of differing social status, thereby highlighting by contrast the focus on equal status in the fourth omen which is placed separately in the text. 2 In addition to these explicit references, the erotically evocative language that is used to portray the relationship between Gilgamesh and Enkidu in the opening tablets of the Standard Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh consistently emphasizes their equality of status, while being altogether more reticent about the subject of sexual relations. Taken together, these sources overall preserve a judicial, literary, and divinatory perspective on a single topic – the erotics of male equals in Mesopotamia – with the omens existing midway between criminal acts and the idealized poetic love of comrades.
