Historical Homos – Details, episodes & analysis

Why do bottoms always die in Greek mythology?

If you're a fan of Greek myth, you know the gods love to act like humans: they love, they fuck, they fight...they throw dinner parties.

But they also love to kill us. When gods show up on Earth, it typically means someone's about to get pregnant or dead, real quick. (Or both.)

And the pattern holds for the gay Greek myths. (With admittedly fewer pregnancies carried to term.)

Zeus and Apollo never seem able to keep their mortal boyfriends alive, while demigods like Herakles and Achilles also find it tricky to maintain their lovers' pulses.

Why is this? What's going on psychologically, historically, narratively, and yes, erotically, when the ancients were sang of so much LITERAL twink death in their myths?

Join Bash and Liv Albert, renowned Greek myth expert and host of the Let's Talk About Myths, Baby! podcast this week as they discuss:

• Herakles and Hylas being afraid of women (and the bottomless depths of ancient Greek misogyny)
• Apollo, the god of being a total DICK all the time, and Hyacinth, a beautiful youth slain in a totally avoidable "frisbee tragedy"
• Achilles and Patroclus, the famed comrades-at-arms, who die for one another in most toxic fashion

You can follow Historical Homos for more on our ⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠, and you should ⁠⁠⁠⁠sign up to our newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠ too, if you care about gay people at all.

Written and hosted by Bash. Guest host: Liv Albert. Edited by Alex Toskas. Produced by Dani Henion.

The year is 1395. The city: London. The crime: an "unmentionable, ignominious vice" commonly known as sodomy.

And the perp? A rascally, resourceful enigma named John Rykener, who enters the court records "calling herself Eleanor," wearing women's clothes, and defying gravity / everything we know about medieval gender.

But John/Eleanor Rykener – or Jeleanor, as they shall henceforth be known to scholars – doesn't map easily onto our modern categories of "trans," "queer," or "sex worker."

Jeleanor lived and presented as both a man and a woman, depending on when it suited them. That made them highly creative with their gender, especially when it came to their day job, but does it mean they were "trans"?

They learned the cons that kept them surviving and thriving from a local madam. But in medieval London, to be a prostitute was to be a woman. The court is clear that Jeleanor was AMAB and that their crime was sodomy, not prostitution. So can we say they were seen as a sex worker in their own time?

And finally, they took to bed men and women from all walks of medieval life, for money and for fun. Does that make them queer or "bisexual"? Can we trust this court record to tell us about Jeleanor's experience of sexual desire? Did the court care more about the gender of Jeleanor's conquests, or their ties to the Church?

Join Bash and the brilliantly clever medievalist, Dr. Mireille Pardon, as we unpick and unpack the surviving legal record that details Jeleanor's deliciously saucy life.

Along the way we'll learn about:

• Streetside sodomy in the Little Ice Age

• Common cons to make sure your medieval john pays
• The wages for a sex worker in the 1390s
• Why the cops REALLY cared about busting trans sex workers 600+ years ago

You can follow Historical Homos for more on our ⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠⁠, and you should ⁠⁠⁠sign up to our newsletter⁠⁠⁠ too, if you care about gay people at all.

Credits: "Running up that hill Cover in Early Middle English BARDCORE/MEDIEVAL version. Original by Kate Bush." Accessed June 2025 on YouTube. Owned by @the_miracle_aligner.

How do you start a renaissance?

The one woman who knows - Beyoncé - was unavailable to answer my questions.

So instead, we've gone back to 1920s Harlem this week, to figure out the good gay truth.

It turns out the Harlem Renaissance was a lot more queer than we learned in school.

And half of its greatest luminaries, who represented a major step forward in Black queer history, have been largely forgotten today.

Three of them are the focus of this week's episode: Alain LeRoy Locke, Gladys Bentley, and Claude McKay.

They are just a fraction of the queer Black people who started, fueled, and memorialized the cultural flowering we now call the Harlem Renaissance.

Join me and my guest as we delve into their lives and figure out what each has to teach us about this fascinating period.

When you're done here, grab a copy of my guest's new book on the subject, which is beautifully illustrated and just came out: ⁠Flamboyants⁠ (2024).

If you want more from Historical Homos, you can join our cult at our website.

And follow us on Instagram⁠⁠ and TikTok⁠⁠.

Like what you hear? Please leave us a five star rating on Apple or Spotify.

Do it. Yeahhhhhh just like that.

Written and hosted by Bash. Edited by Bash. Guest host: George M. Johnson.

“I wake up cold, I who

Prospered through dreams of heat

Wake to their residue,

Sweat, and a clinging sheet.”

(The Man with Night Sweats, Thom Gunn, 1992)

Never heard of Thom Gunn? Me neither!

That's because straight people want to destroy us.

Thom was one of the great poets of the 20th century, up there with Philip Larkin and Ted Hughes.

But he's scarcely remembered in the 21st century, because he was:

• gay.
• (end of list)

Join us as we explore Thom's leather-harnessed and LSD-fueled life as a poet of sexual revolution, formal precision, and gay liberation.

In particular, Thom deserves to be remembered for the memorializing poetry he wrote about the AIDS epidemic and his many friends who lost their lives to the disease.

My guest this week is Michael Nott, who has recently published a magnificent biography, Thom Gunn: A Cool Queer Life.

Grab yourself a copy after the episode, and make sure to let us know what you think about Thom's poetry!

If you want more from Historical Homos, you can join our cult at www.historicalhomos.com and follow us on Instagram and TikTok.

Like what you hear? Please leave us a five star rating on Apple or Spotify. Do it. Yeahhhhhh just like that.

Written and hosted by Bash. Edited by Alex Toskas. Guest host: Michael Nott.

"'Cosmus is a great big cinaedus. He keeps his legs apart and sucks d!ck.' ... I believe that's almost a direct paraphrase."

– Professor Tom Sapsford, quoting Ancient Roman graffiti about my biological ancestors

Kinaidos (or cinaedus in Latin) was the Ancient Greek word for a depraved, unmanly man who liked to get railed. (LIKE MEEEEE.)

Since then, the kinaidos has been used and abused by scholars of classical antiquity for centuries. (LIKE MEEEEE.)

Some say he never existed and is more akin to the Victorian idea of vampires than any modern-day frociaggine.

But my guest on the podcast this week says different, and he literally wrote the book on the subject, so...let's ask him, shall we?

Join me and Professor Tom Sapsford (Boston College) as we trace the history of the kinaidoi, from their first mention in Plato to the peak of their cultural and sexual powers in the 3rd century CE.

Kinaidoi were not "f*gs just like us," to be sure. But they were a well-known sexual and gendered Other in the classical world.

They highlight the pitfalls of telling normative tales whenever we try to understand ancient sexualities of any kind.

Check out Professor Sapsford's book here for more on this fascinating subject!

––––

If you want more Historical Homos, you can join our cult at www.historicalhomos.com and follow us on Instagram and TikTok.

Like what you hear? Please leave us a five star rating on Apple or Spotify.

Do it.

Yeahhhhhh just like that.

Written and hosted by Bash. Edited by Alex Toskas. Guest host: Tom Sapsford.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

– Dylan Adler, Japanese-Jewish comedian to the stars!

Join us this week on a rip-roaring ride through Japan's hole-tighteningly gay history.

From Buddhist pederasts to sissy samurais and beyond, we explore the kimonos, the scroll paintings, and yes, the hemorrhoidal humor that sustained Japanese homosexuality for over 1,000 years.

My guest and I will also – because everyone keeps asking! – give you a full run-down on how to get laid in medieval Japan. From picking the right lube to just finding somewhere to bathe, it's like talking to two Cosmo Kyoto editors who should have perished centuries ago!

(Except we didn't! And we have the poreless, perky asses to prove it.)

If you want more Historical Homos, you can join our cult at www.historicalhomos.com and follow us on Instagram and TikTok.

Like what you hear? Please leave us a five star rating on Apple or Spotify.

Do it.

Yeahhhhhh just like that.

Written and hosted by Bash. Edited by Alex Toskas. Guest host: Dylan Adler.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I've been talking about gay men for FAR too many episodes recently, so please enjoy this summer repeat of one of my favorite episodes ever from Season 1, with my former co-host Donal Brophy.

Virginia Woolf is the more famous author today, but back in the 1920s and 30s, it was her lover and socialite-best-friend (God I need one of those), Vita Sackville-West, who was the celebrity.

Virginia and Vita fell in love quickly, and throughout their long friendship – THEY WERE ROOMMATES – they wrote intense, glowing letters to one another.

Virginia also kept a regular diary, recording for posterity her first, second, and many subsequent impressions of Vita and her glittering aristocratic life.

You'll be surprised to hear how bitchy, funny, and catty these letters and diaries can be – brilliant and incisive, too, but neither writer is ever afraid to knock the other down a peg.

Enjoy, and we'll be back next week with our scheduled programming!

If you want more Historical Homos, you can join our cult at www.historicalhomos.com and follow us on Instagram and TikTok.

Like what you hear? Please leave us a five star rating on Apple or Spotify. Do it. Yeahhhhhh just like that.

Written and hosted by Bash. Guest host: Donal Brophy.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Is it toxic for a Roman emperor to steal a child from his home, give him all the riches of the world, groom him, and then maybe ask him to kill himself so that he can live?

That is what we seek to uncover.

The Emperor Hadrian (AD 76 - 138) was one of the not-too-f*cked-up emperors. He liked soldiering but not war, astrology, being gay, hunting, and doing architecture. Trust me, there were a lot worse before him.

But how are we to understand the notorious tale of his beloved Antinous, whom he whisked away from home at the age of 12 to become Premier Boytoy in his imperial retinue?

When Antinous died, Hadrian "wept like a woman." He also started a religion and founded a city in his honor, which means we have hundreds of Antinouses that survive today in marble and stone, from Spain to Syria and beyond.

Join me and my hilarious guest Neil D'Astolfo as we separate the fact from the fiction, and overlay a healthy veneer of frocciagine to the whole thing (not that it needed much seasoning!).

If you want more Historical Homos, you can join our cult at www.historicalhomos.com and follow us on Instagram and TikTok.

Like what you hear? Please leave us a five star rating on Apple or Spotify. Do it. Yeahhhhhh just like that.

Written and hosted by Bash. Edited by Alex Toskas. Guest host: Neil D'Astolfo.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We're back, baby! Join us as we navigate the wine-dark and wine-soaked symposia of Ancient Greece, to discover what exactly was so gay about these all-male drinking parties. (Hint: a lot.)

We cover ancient party planning, gay glassware, reclining etiquette, drunken flirting, and all the subtle arts of homosexual entertaining you need to host a horny soirée 2,500 years ago.

My guest Cosima Carnegie is a champion of the Classics in life and on social media – follow her at @cosisodyssey for more hilarious Ancient Greek and mythological content.

Visuals mentioned in this episode:

• Tomb of the Diver, Paestum

If you want more Historical Homos, you can join our cult at www.historicalhomos.com and follow us on Instagram and TikTok.

Like what you hear? Please leave us a five star rating on Apple or Spotify. Do it. Yeahhhhhh just like that.

Written and hosted by Bash. Edited by Alex Toskas. Guest host: Cosima Carnegie.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Like any Mother worth her salt, I forgot my child was turning 1 last month.

It's been one year of Historical Homos, and there have been so many milestones, amazing episodes, dramas, traumas, small wins, and long mental health breaks that it feels like my baby child should be shipping off to college TOMORROW.

That said – I am thrilled to share we added lots of new subscribers last month and I am even more thrilled to welcome them – you – to the Historical Homos cult. No one will make it out alive.

To celebrate our 1-year achievement, this week we are re-releasing one of my favorite episodes of the show so far about a riotous rugmunching lesbian of 18th century Paris.

Thank you to everyone who's written me in the past month with encouragement and compliments – please keep 'em coming! I live on Diet Coke and attention.

For more from Historical Homos, you can join our cult at www.historicalhomos.com.

And follow us on Instagram and TikTok.

If you like what you hear, please leave us a five star rating on Apple or Spotify. Do it. Yeahhhhhh just like that.

This episode was written and researched by Bash, hosted by Bash and Lucy Hendra, and edited by Alex Toskas.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.