Effeminacy

Effeminacy is character trait of a male showing femininity, unmanliness, womanliness, weakness, softness and/or a delicacy, which contradicts traditional masculine, male gender roles.

History

Etymology

Effeminacy comes from the Latin, ex which is "out" and femina which means woman; it basically means for a man to be like a woman. The Latin term for the vice is mollities, meaning "softness".

Related Topics:
Latin - Woman

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A Greek word that approaches one modern meaning of effeminate is kinaidos (or cinaedus), a man "whose most salient feature was a supposedly "feminine" love of being sexually penetrated by other men." (Winkler, 1990) However, "cinaedus is not actually anchored in that specific sexual practice....It refers instead to a man who has an identity as gender deviant." (Williams, 1999) Kinaidos is malakos, but malakos is more general effeminacy (Martin, 1996). Furthermore, a "boy" is not necessarily generally considered motived by taking pleasure in penetration, but rather is gratifying (charizesthai) the normative masculine desire of an older male (Halperin, 2002).

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"A cinaedus is a man who fails to live up to traditional standards of masculine comportment. Indeed, the word's etymology suggests no direct connection to any sexual practice. Rather, borrowed from Greek kinaidos (which may itself have been a borrowing from a language of Asia Minor), it primarily signifies an effeminate dancer who entertained his audiences with a tympanum or tambourine in his hand, and adopted a lascivious style, often suggestively wiggling his buttocks in such a way as to suggest anal intercourse....The primary meaning of cinaedus never died out; the term never became a dead metaphor." (Williams, 1999)

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Other contemporary words for effeminacy include: "pansy", "nelly", "pussy", and "girl" (when applied to a boy or, especially, adult man). Contrastingly, a masculine girl would be called a "tomboy" or, less commonly, anti-gay slurs. The word effete similarly means effeminacy or over-refinement but comes from the Latin effetus, from ex- + fetus (fruitful).

Related Topics:
Pansy - Nelly - Pussy - Girl - Tomboy - Effete

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Ancient Greece and Rome

See main article Classical definition of effeminacy.

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Greece

Greek historian Plutarch recounts that Periander, the tyrant of Ambracia, asked his "boy", "Aren't you pregnant yet?" in the presence of other people, causing the boy to kill him in revenge for being treated as if effeminate or a woman (Amatorius 768F).

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As part of Greek politician Aiskhines' proof that a member of the prosecution against him, Timarkhos, had prostituted himself to (or been "kept" by) another male while young, attributed fellow prosecutor Demosthenes nickname Batalos ("arse") to his "unmanliness and kinaidiā and frequently commented on his "unmanly and womanish temper", even criticising his clothing: "If anyone took those dainty little coats and soft shirts off you ... and took them round for the jurors to handle, I think they'd be quite unable to say, if they hadn't been told in advance, whether they had hold of a man's clothing or a woman's." (Dover, 1989)

Related Topics:
Aiskhines - Timarkhos - Demosthenes

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Demosthenes is also implicated in passive homosexuality and the prostitution of youth (Aiskhines iii 162): "There is a certain Aristion, a Plataean..., who as a youth was outstandingly good-looking and lived for a long time in Demosthenes' house. Allegations about the part he was playing there vary, and it would be most unseemly for me to talk about it." (Dover, 1989)

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The late Greek, possibly early fourth century, Erôtes ("Loves", "Forms of Desire", "Affairs of the Heart"), preserved with manuscripts by Lucian, contains a debate "between two men, Charicles and Callicratidas, over the relatives merits of women and boys as vehicles of male sexual pleasure." Callicratidus, "far from being effeminised by his sexual predilection for boys...Callicratidas's inclination renders him hypervirile... Callicratidas's sexual desire for boys, then, makes him more of a man; it does not weaken or subvert his male gender identity but rather consolidates it." In contrast, "Charicles' erotic preference for women seems to have had the corresponding effect of effeminising him: when the reader first encounters him, for example, Charicles is described as exhibiting 'a skillful use of cosmetics, so as to be attractive to women.'"

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Rome

Over-refinement, fine clothes and other possession, the company of women, certain trades, and too much coitus with women were all deemed effeminizing. Taking an inappropriate sexual position, that is passive or "bottom" (kinaidos, see above), in same-gender sex was considered effeminate and unnatural in much the same way that taking any position in same-gender sex is disparaged today. Touching the head with a finger and wearing a goatee were also considered effeminate (Holland, 2004).

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Roman consul Scipio Aemilianus questioned one of his opponents, P. Sulpicius Galus: "For the kind of man who adorns himself daily in front of a mirror, wearing perfume; whose eyebrows are shaved off; who walks around with plucked beard and thighs; who when he was a young man reclined at banquets next to his lover, wearing a long-sleeved tunic; who is fond of men as he is of wine: can anyone doubt that he has done what cinaedi are in the habit of doing?" (fr. 17 Malcovati; Aulus Gellius, 6.12.5; cited/translated by Williams 1999, p.23) Note the word play on men and wine, vinosus/virosus.

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Roman orator Quintilian described, "The plucked body, the broken walk, the female attire," as "signs of one who is soft and not a real man." (Institutes 5.9.14, cited/translated by Richlin, 1993)

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For Roman men masculinity also meant self-control, even in the face of painful emotions, illnesses, or death. Cicero says, "There exist certain precepts, even laws, that prohibit a man from being effeminate in pain," (Fin. 2.94) and Seneca adds, "If I must suffer illness, it will be my wish to do nothing out of control, nothing effeminately." (Epist. 67.4)

Related Topics:
Cicero - Seneca

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The Bible

Malakos is listed among other vices 1 Cor. 6:9. "The JB (1966) chooses 'catamite,' the NAB (1970) renders arsenokoités and malakos together as 'sodomite,' others translate malakos as 'male prostitute' (NIV 1973, NRSV 1989), and again some combine both terms and offer the modem medicalised categories of sexual, or particularly homosexual, 'perversion' (RSV 1946, TEV 1966, NEB 1970, REB 1992)." (Martin, 1996)

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United States

To strengthen the argument of the "mechanics", Thomas Jefferson said something similar to Xenophon (see above):

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:"The mobs of great cities add just so much to the support of pure government, as sores do to the strength of the human body. I consider the class of artificers as the panderers of vice, and the instruments by which the liberties of a country are generally overturned." (8)

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Being friends with women, having limp or loose wrists, a high and/or lispy voice, a swaying walk, occupations including waiting tables and hairdressing, and hobbies and interests such as theater, musicals, or "domestic" activities such as design, sewing, or cleaning, are all often considered effeminate.

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Fictional effeminates

• James Kojir?