The Wages of Effeminacy?: Kinaidoi in Greek Documents from Egypt

Abstract

This article examines the appearance of the term κίναιδος in Greek documentary sources from Egypt and asks what these sources can contribute to our understanding of a figure who is so often presented in Greek and Latin literary texts as a sexual or gender deviant. The first half of this paper presents and contextualizes one ostrakon and six papyri which use the term κίναιδος and argues that this word is employed predominantly as an occupational term to denote some kind of performer. On one occasion, however, it is used as a pejorative term although the particular negative sense of this use is ambiguous. The second half of this paper compares these documents to mentions of the kinaidos/cinaedus in literary and documentary evidence from outside Egypt which most often, but not always, connect this figure with sexual deviancy and only occasionally with his role as a performer. A comparison is also made with documentary sources from within Hellenistic and Roman Egypt which mention effeminacy, homoerotic activity, and anal penetration. This analysis suggests that similar concerns over the correct observance of homoerotic protocols are evident in Greek, Roman, and Hellenistic and Roman Egyptian contexts; but whereas the kinaidos/cinaedus serves as a locus for such concerns elsewhere, he does not appear to be connected with any such anxieties in the Egyptian context.