yesss

Stone age

Jean Cocteau

War

Ghazal

Ishikawa Toyonobu

Men, boys and courtesans in a brothel

Ishikawa Toyonobu

Folio, woodblock print on paper, c. 1730-40 Private collection

Sipping Tea

Sipping Tea

Young men drinking, reading poetry,
and making love.

China, Qing dynasty
(18th–19th c.)

Indian trio

Indian trio

Miniature from an Urdu text, Northern India, 17th – 18th century. Private collection.

Nanshoku

Spring Pastimes

Miyagawa Isshô, ca. 1750.

Depicts “nanshoku”-type relationships between samurai and their boyfriends. Young Kabuki actors who played female roles were known as onnagata or kagema and doubled as sex workers. They were much debated and sought after by the sophisticates of the day.

Shunga hand scroll (kakemono-e); sumi, color and gofun on silk.

Private collection.

Safavid style

Persian miniature in the Safavid style
Late 18th Century

Zeus and Ganymede

wine boy

Detail of a miniature from
a 19th century book known as
Sawaqub al-Manaquib,
copies of which can be found
in the Topkapi Palace, Istanbul,
the Morgan Library, NYC,
and other locations. The man and the wine boy are engaging in penetrative sex, a form of male eroticism condemned in Islam. Known as "liwat" (from "Luti" or Lot, the man of Sodom in the biblical tale), it was the target of barbaric punishments which continue to the present day in some of the more atavistic regions of the world.