continued from part 2

...and totally loved the sex... Except that I think Bob would be a little less quick to go from "I love you Harry, but I've never even considered sex with a man" to "Fuck me now"...

Actually, I blame my research on that.

According to the multiple sides I browsed, at the times Bob was alive the Catholic Church hadn't yet damned homosexuality as severely as it would happen later. After the fall of the Roman Empire, Emperor Justinian's laws that had been passed in the 6th century, ordaining death by burning for the "sin against nature", were no longer upheld.

And until the 13th century, there were no laws against homosexual sex in Europe, although between 569 to 1008, the so-called "penitentials" (handbooks of penances) were introduced. They were not secular law and only reglemented the penance required of members of the Catholic Church who had committed any of the "sins of Sodom". The basic penance consisted of exclusion from the sacraments, self-mortification (though younger boys were beaten with rods at the hands of older clerics), fasting on bread and water on holy days (which included most days), and general discomfort. The Penitential of Theodore the Archbishop of Canterbury in 670 required 1 year for inter-femoral contact (penis between thighs); 3 years for all lesbian activity, undifferentiated; 7 to 15 years for anal intercourse; 7 to 22 years for fellatio; and, for comparison, 7 to 10 years for murder; 15 years for infanticide (reduced to 7 years if the mother was a pauper). If caught kissing, boys under the age of 20 were subject to 6 special fasts; 8 fasts if it was "licentious kissing"; 10 fasts if it was "kissing with emission"; more if it involved mutual masturbation; and much longer if the partners were over the age of 20. Sometimes the penance was greater for the insertor than for the receptor.

In 1051, Saint Peter Damian, a member of the circle of papal reformers, denounced homosexuality, especially among the clergy. Pope Leo IX., however, questioned the severity of the penances, but did not deny the condemnation itself.

All that changed with the Crusades. The Catholic Church proclaimed that sodomy was rife in the Islam, and used that claim to denounce its enemy and gain support in the kingdoms in Europe. Beginning in 1116, the same claim was then made against heretics like the Henricians, the Albigensians, and later the Knight Templars in 1307. The reasons behind that were more an interest in the wealth amassed by the order than a true revulsion against the male/male orgies they did most likely take part in.

Anyway, that change was felt everywhere, and between 1250 and 1300 homosexual sex turned from a sinful, if legal, practice into a criminal act punishable by death.

My Bob lived before 1066 (the Norman conquest of England). I decided to make 972 the year of his death, which means that during his lifetime, male/male sex used to be legal and more or less common. He might have experienced the introduction of the penitentials, but I doubt he was a very devoted Christian, and I see him as getting several offers once he came into a tavern to book a pallet for the night - two or more by women, and perhaps one by a man. Bob, oversexed as he is *g*, would have accepted the most attractive of the available women and not given much thought to the men. Not because the idea of homosexual sex disgusted him, but because he already had all he could ever wish for with a knowledgeable wench to warm his bedding.

Later, after being cursed, I think he would have been amused at the Church's crackdown on homosexuality, and even more amused whenever one of his "masters" turned out to be a stuck-up upholder of moral standards, and secretly recall the most shocking actions he had ever been a witness to, wishing he could detail them out loud in order to gross out one of the early Morningways.

So, no, I don't think Bob would have anything against homosexual sex, not morally and not personally. I think he'd value feelings far more than morals that never applied to him during his lifetime anyway.