How to Be Queer: An Ancient Guide to Sexuality

by Sappho

An irresistible anthology of ancient Greek writings that explore queer desire and love

Eros, limb-loosening, whirls me about again,
that bittersweet, implacable creature.
—Sappho

The idea of sexual fluidity may seem new, but it is at least as old as the ancient Greeks, who wrote about queer experiences with remarkable frankness, wit, and insight. How to Be Queer is an infatuating collection of these writings about desire, love, and lust between men, between women, and between humans and gods, in lucid and lively new translations. Filled with enthralling stories, this anthology invites readers of all sexualities and identities to explore writings that describe many kinds of erotic encounters and feelings, and that envision a playful and passionate approach to sexuality as part of a rich and fulfilling life.

How to Be Queer starts with Homer’s Iliad and moves through lyric poetry, tragedy, comedy, philosophy, and biography, drawing on a wide range of authors, including Sappho, Plato, Anacreon, Pindar, Theognis, Aristophanes, and Xenophon. It features both beautiful poetry and thought-provoking prose, emotional outpourings and humorous anecdotes. From Homer’s story of the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus, one of the most intense between men in world literature, to Sappho’s lyrics on the pleasures and pains of loving women, these writings show the many meanings of what the Greeks called eros.

Complete with brief introductions to the selections, and with the original Greek on facing pages, How to Be Queer reveals what the Greeks knew long ago—that the erotic and queer are a source of life and a cause for celebration.

Genres: Queer, Nonfiction, Poetry, History, LGBT, Philosophy, Historical

264 pages, Hardcover

Published June 4, 2024

About the author

Work of Greek lyric poet Sappho, noted for its passionate and erotic celebration of the beauty of young women and men, after flourit circa 600 BC and survives only in fragments.

Ancient history poetry texts associate Sappho (Σαπφώ or Ψάπφω) sometimes with the city of Mytilene or suppose her birth in Eresos, another city, sometime between 630 BC and 612 BC. She died around 570 BC. People throughout antiquity well knew and greatly admired the bulk, now lost, but her immense reputation endured.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sappho

Reviews

[Massimo Pigliucci · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Queer” is, of course, a modern concept. Or is it? This collection of new translations by Sarah Nooter will certainly greatly expand your views on what the Greco-Romans thought about sex and love, not to mention how they put those thoughts into action. Nooter begins by going all the way back to the Iliad, which—as she puts it—“shows one of the most intense and loving relationships between two men in world literature,” the one between Achilles and Patroclus, which almost wrecked the Greeks’ attempt to win the Trojan War. How to Be Queer also features poetry from Sparta, of all places, and of course by Sappho of Lesbos, the highland near modern western Turkey from which we derive the very word “lesbian.” My two favorite sections, however, come right at the end: “The wings of love: adoring boys,” from Plato’s Phaedrus, and especially “Who wants to live forever: killer queen,” based on Plato’s Symposium. The latter is a masterpiece of literature-as-philosophy, featuring a speech on eros by none other than Socrates, as well as the dashing and complicated Alcibiades crushing the party and sorrowfully recounting his unsuccessful attempts at seducing Socrates. You will never look at sex, love, or philosophy in the same way after reading this.

[Oli · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

Damn those Greeks were down bad for men I wanna see some crazy Tumblr-iffied version of Plato, Socrates and Alcibiades now

Only note about the overall book is there really isn't much Sappho in it's pages but the translation is thorough and well done

[Maddie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Actual rating: 4.25 stars

Thank you very much to Princeton University Press for my copy of this wonderful book. Perfect for pride month! I wish the chapters had been more evenly split between sapphic and achillean texts, but I know most of the remaining queer work from antiquity is achillean….

Happy pride month to everyone reading this review, no matter what month it is when you come across it!!! 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

[Chiara Barone · Rating 5 out of 5]

“If now she flees, soon she will chase.
If now she does not accept gifts, rather she will give.
If she does not love, soon she will love even against her will."
beautiful

[Saimi Korhonen · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Reader, whatever your own sense of your own identity, sexuality, or place in the world, I hope that you will find this volume in turns buoyant, playful and passionate. If there is one thing the Greeks can teach us, it is that the erotic and queer are a source of life and a cause for celebration."

How to Be Queer, one of the books in the Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers series (featuring books like How to Care About Animals, How to Find Happiness and How to Make Money), is a collection of poems, snippets of plays and epics, and philosophical speeches all somehow to do with queer attraction, desire, love or identity. The book begins with Homer and goes on in a generally chronological fashion, and features texts from notable authors like Sappho, Plato, Theocritus and Aeschylus. Each chapter begins with a small introduction by Sarah Nooter.

I love collections like these that surround a certain theme because I feel like it's a really good way to get to know ancient authors and find new, interesting authors and people. For example, I am not super interested in ancient philosophy – I dabble in it from time to time but it's not a passion of mine – but if you introduce me to Plato's texts and ideas through the theme of queerness, I will read it and I will be intrigued by it. I might even start googling Plato (which I did) and read more about him. In collections like this, not every text will be equally enjoyable to you, but if you pick a book all about a theme you find fascinating, nothing will be truly boring, I think. I genuinely found myself enjoying the philosophical texts by Plato that were included (Lysis, Symposium and Phaedrus). Reading this book also made me interested in picking up more from authors who had, until now, been merely names I had heard mentioned somewhere, such as Theognis, who writes really passionate and desperate poetry about this boy he loves who does not love him back – these poems include stuff like "It is bitter and sweet and pleasant and rough, unless it is fulfilled, Cyrnus – desire for the young. For if you fulfill it, it is sweet. But if you pursue it and do not find fulfillment, it is the most painful thing of all." Theocritus, a Hellenistic era poet, also had some bangers, such as his poem about Heracles and his beloved, Hylas, and this beautiful description of the fleeting nature of youth: "–youthfulness cannot be gotten back again. For it has wings on its shoulders, and we are too slow to catch it as it flies away." Anacreon, a lyric poet and the earliest poet (whose work survives to us) who wrote of desire and love between men, is also a poet I need to read more from in the future.

I was highly amused that Theocritus later wrote of Anacreon saying that to know he liked pretty boys is to know all about him. But it is also an interesting nod as to how there is this legacy of queerness, a history to it that these people knew and dialogue about who they were and who they loved. Same can be seen in the way certain mythological or historical figured keep popping up and being reinterpreted, their queerness discussed and reconsidered. In the Iliad, Achilles and Patroclus are a deeply intimate pair, but not explicitly in a sexual relationship, but in Aeschylus's missing play (the loss of this trilogy will haunt me until my last breath – though, luckily, some gay af fragments of it survive) The Myrmidos, Achilles, as he mourns Patroclus, remembers their countless kisses, talks about how he revered Patroclus's thighs and states clearly that he loved him: "And yet, since I love him, these things are not revolting to me." Sidenote on that quote, it reminds me of the famous Orestes and Pylades "Not to me, not if it's you" -quote, which made me all kinds of emo. The pair is also talked about in Plato's Symposium, and the nature of their relationship is debated: there was a history of discourse around them. It is not just, as many idiots claim, a modern invention. They were understood to be lovers!

There are fewer sapphic texts in this book which is understandable, considering the emphasis the Greeks placed on desire and love between men and their general dislike of women and anything feminine. Sappho obviously takes the center stage in the sapphic (hehe) chapters, but there were also some fragments of Spartan poet Alcman's works who wrote, though a man, these hymns meant to be sung by choruses of girls that are, if not explicitly sapphic, then very clearly hinting at it. I loved this quote especially: "With longing that loosens limbs, more meltingly than sleep or death, she looks at me. Not at all in vain is her sweetness." This poem is also just one example of Eros being described as someone or something that loosens limb – this is one of my favorite metaphors when it comes to this wily personification and god of desire. In general, I really enjoyed how throughout this book you see how Eros and his mama, the goddess of love herself, Aphrodite, are described. They are capable of such sweetness and such cruelty, they are dreaded and they have the power to turn you mad with longing – as Theognis writes of her: "For you conquer the quick wits of men and there is no one strong or wise enough to flee.".

Finally, I wanna talk a little bit about Phaedrus, this philosophical text by Plato which, as usual, is written in the form of a dialogue, this time between Socrates and a man called Phaedrus. In this text, Socrates talks about two interpretations of love and specifically this kind of mad, desireful love. First, he talks about how any excess of any kind can be considered dangerous and unmanly (the emphasis Greeks put on self-control as a key aspect of masculinity on show), how older men in love will happily keep their boyfriends as dumb, poor and physically incapable as possible to control them. He concludes that, thus, it is better for a boy to be with someone not passionately in love with them. But then he goes on another speech, talking about how, actually, the madness that comes with love is divine in origin – it comes from Eros after all – so it cannot be totally bad. Divine-born madness can bring a lot of good (aren't Oracles mad and divine, for example?) and Eros, love and desire, are actually necessary to nourish a person's soul. There is a lot of gorgeous wing and feather imagery in this text when describing how love lets peoples souls grow wings and so on. What I found especially interesting was how in both speeches, Socrates talks about how beloveds can learn from their lovers. In the first one, he critiques this idea that all men in love wish to keep their boyfriends uneducated and prevent them from becoming fully realized, proper, wise Athenian men, while in the second one, he talks about how love nourishes your soul, your mind and your body: it is beneficial to you. The way Greeks saw education and the pederastic lover-beloved dynamic as going hand in hand is endlessly intriguing to me.

I am so glad I found out about this little book. It is not long and half of it is in ancient Greek so, of the 230 and so pages of text you end up actually reading only half (unless, of course, you can read ancient Greek), so it is not a difficult book to get into, even if you are, like me, a bit intimidated by certain kinds of ancient texts. I love how this book showcases the long history that queerness has (despite many people who claim the opposite) and the unique way Greeks understood queerness. I would happily recommend it to anyone interested in queer history and specifically that of antiquity. I will definitely pick up more books in this series.

[pani tet · Rating 4 out of 5]

Першою думкою було - о, нарешті інструкція, як жити тоє життя! Другою - та ніби і так ясно, не треба мене вчити бути квірною, хєхє.

Проте поза жартами, це вибірка віршів та уривків із симпозіумів із короткими довідками від авторки про різні прояви сексуальності та гендерної ідентичності в Древній Греції. З одного боку кропітка робота знайти-зібрати-пояснити, з якої тепер легко вибрати собі цитат на випадок дискусій "а от раніше оцих геїв ваших не було". З іншого боку читається легко, часто навіть як плітки про те, хто кого любив, хто кому зраджував, яка пані обіцяла нести спогади про іншу до кінця життя і далі, хто ще роками у віршованій формі нив про молодого хлопчину, що пограв серцем і пішов собі далі по ліжках чоловіків. Звісно, з усіма некльовими речами теж, а все одно було цікаво.

Шкода, що така коротка книжуля. Добірка хороша, теми уривків явні та однозначні. Хотілося б ще пліток біля кулера. :)

[Coulson]

A really good collection of ancient Greek "queer" literature. I wish there were more women involved – while I understand it's reflective of the culture that there's a lot on male homoeroticism and not female, men were writing about lesbians (as indicated by her inclusion of Alcman's choral songs), and what they had to say is illuminating in and of itself. I was also intrigued by the choice to include a segment about male crossdressing but not one about actual sex changes – the book is themed around sexuality so I wasn't expecting that, until one form of gender nonconformance was included and not the other. (Tiresias would have been very thematically appropriate!) Nonetheless, I enjoyed the poetry, and I hope to go back and look at the translation decisions in more detail at a later date.

[Meivi · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m genuinely hesitant to rate How to Be Queer: An Ancient Guide to Sexuality by Sarah Nooter three stars instead of two, this was a frustratingly fragmented read.

Much like my experience with Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations, this book is mostly a compilation of quotes and excerpts, feeling more like lazy curation than genuine scholarship. I was excited by the premise with the rich potential for exploring sexuality in the Ancient Greek world but instead found it disappointingly lacking in cohesive narrative or in-depth analysis. The biggest letdown was the missed opportunity to integrate meaningful insights directly into the main text, what should have been thoughtful analysis ended up hidden away in the footnotes. Moreover, my initial excitement upon seeing Achilles and Patroclus featured prominently in the opening chapter quickly turned to disappointment as instead of fresh perspectives or engaging commentary, it was essentially a copy-paste of familiar Iliad excerpts…

Overall, this felt less like a thoughtful exploration and more like a hastily assembled anthology, leaving me wishing it had aspired to be more than just a collection of fragmented quotes.

[Isa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Plato’s unrequited love for Socrates is killing me. Dude was so down bad and Socrates did not give a single shit. And was also homophobic low key. This book was more of a (unindented) humorous glance into the sexuality and relations between the Greeks. Should’ve had more Sappho. Also the whole “Patroclus and Achilles were just friends” argument looks HILARIOUS when you read those passages. My man was sobbing his eyes out for days, that ain’t casual friendship.

[Jordy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was such a great translation! I would like it if there were more descriptive introductions to the chapters, but otherwise this was informative and lovely.

[sapphictybalt · Rating 4 out of 5]

a beautifully presented compilation of the diverse facettes of queerness in Ancient Greece - this gave me an idea for potential future bachelor thesis topic!

[Aimee · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mostly passages in Greek with translations and limited analysis. Not enough context for me, but I found some of the passages interesting

[Polina Dushenkovska · Rating 4 out of 5]

Much of this book is steeped in, and cannot be removed from, pederasty. The poetry/dialogue is so beautiful, and the translation is stunning, but the form that queerness takes in most of these poems is a very specific one. Erotic relationships between older men and younger boys were mostly socially acceptable, and while there is much good discussion of desire and its effects, it is not “queer” in the modern sense (not an ounce of taboo to be had). Still a thoroughly enjoyable read, but measure your expectations :)

[Lex (Alexis) Beucler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful anthology of queer excerpts from Ancient Greece. I wish the introductions for each text was longer. That being said, each introduction gave me enough context to boldly tackle the ancient writings. I was pleasantly surprised by all of the queer Greek history that the American education system failed to teach me during my K-12 years. I hope current educators take note and introduce more queer role models into their curriculum.

[Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

I maintain that Theognis of Megara needs to learn how to accept rejection. Maybe he doesn't want you not because he is fickle and young but bc u're ugly?? like for real

this book said it wasn't glossing over the problematic aspect of ancient sources and it did not lie oop

anyway, shout out to the woman praising other women but still saying 'I myself am just a girl who screeches in vain from the rafter, an owl'
and shoutout to Alcibiades lol

[Kyle A. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m not a usual reader of poetry or classical texts, but I really enjoyed listening to this book. It was fascinating to listen to how the Greeks wrote so eloquently about same sex attraction.

Definitely not informed enough to offer a critique if the content, but as a newbie, this was a really interesting and accessible listen.

[Samantha · Rating 3 out of 5]

Due to some of the content in here being plays/writings, reading it physically probably would have been easier for me to absorb and understand…Though, hearing the validity of queer people in long long longgggggg ago publications and life was awesome and a good read for sure.
I may re-read physically at some point.

[CJ · Rating 5 out of 5]

So cool!! There were moments when I felt the translations could have been a bit more artful (?) but also moments of beautiful poetry and prose. All in all, it was a collection of proof that queer people have always been here, philosophizing and writing and loving each other.

[Daan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ik vond de eerste helft lichter, leuker en interessanter dan de tweede helft. De verduidelijkende voetnoten kon ik wel appreciëren, zo leerde ik nog eens iets nieuws over Griekse mythologie of de oudheid. Ook de inleiding bij elk hoofdstuk was een goede toevoeging!

[Liz Browne · Rating 1 out of 5]

A better title would be how to be a pedophile. I found this book deeply disturbing, and really don’t care about societal norms during the different time frames of history. Truly disgusting in so many ways.

[Lizzy Jeffries · Rating 3 out of 5]

as someone who doesn’t read a lot of greek poetry/philosophy, this selection kept me decently engaged. i do wish it had more of an even split between gay and sapphic content, but nevertheless it was fun to annotate and read a section a day

[liana star · Rating 4 out of 5]

ah the lovers and the beloved

[Kiran · Rating 3 out of 5]

some of these passages were so beautiful

[Prosciutto Asciutto · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

Super cute collection of queer poetry from the ancient world.

[Ash · Rating 4 out of 5]

The layout of the poetry and stories in the book is smart, and I really enjoyed the selected passages. I think it's important for modern day queer people to get a glimpse into the past and see that the community has been around far longer than some people think. I also found it to be a good introduction to greek poetry which, because of the phrasing and word usage, can be difficult to understand.

[natt :) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Aristófanes le sabía

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved the telling of the stories. God those Greeks were cheeky and obsessed with love

[Dave · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don’t understand the title. IMHO There was not much here that would help folks today. It would have been better to title it “How the Greeks Handled Being Queer.” There are some interesting things about how the Greeks looked on, and lived with, homosexuality. Half the book shows the Greek texts that Nooter translated; Greek on the left and English on the right. The Greek was useless to me.

The best chapter for me was the clear translation of how the very earliest humans were two people in one body and how the gods split them - leaving us to search for “our other half.” I had heard of this but did not know the details. Interesting.