This was the world of ancient Greece, a supposed gay paradise in which same-sex love flourished without discrimination. One place in particular attracted the longings of gays and lesbians. The persistent dream of a “gay utopia” is one of the constants in gay and lesbian historical imaginings over the last 200 years. It was comforting to imagine a time before Christianity told you that the acts of love that you committed were a sin or the law pronounced that your public displays of affection were acts of “gross indecency”. They provided succour and hope in a grim world. One should not underplay the importance of such fantasies. For many, it was only in their dreams that they could escape oppression. The law-court and the parliament were deaf to their pleas. Yet it is worth remembering that for decades, recourse to such methods was not available to LGBT people. In recent years, we have seen significant advances won for LGBT rights through hard-fought legal cases and well-targeted political campaigns. In our sexual histories series, authors explore changing sexual mores from antiquity to today.
