Rethinking What We Know

Several years ago, I did a podcast on f/f sexuality in classical Rome, based on everything I had read up to that point. Obviously, I might discuss certain details differently with the addition of Boehringer's analysis. That's only to be expected and entirely unsurprising. If I weren't learning new things all the time, I might as well close down the Project. And conversely, if I waited to post any summaries or analysis until I had perfect and complete knowledge about a topic, I'd never post anything at all.

One of the reasons I love Boehringer's approach to this material is exactly because she make me think in new ways, and points out places where I've accepted the interpretations of authors whose understanding was shaped by conflating disparate time periods, or back-projecting later assumptions and interpretations. And neither do I take Boehringer entirely uncritically. I think there are a few places where she prioritizes her overall conclusions (that classical understandings of f/f sexuality included no aspect of role differentiation or gender-crossing) over multiple possible readings of the available texts.

And that's the way things ought to be. We learn, we analyze, we challenge, and we accept that at no point do we have a perfect understanding of the past.

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