was jesus gay?

well, i don't think he even existed at all. but, it's a question that is more interesting than may initially appear obvious, in the sense that it can help us understand how wrong our current mainstream (not scientific. mainstream.) understanding of homosexuality is.

you usually start this off by appealing to his band of merry men, and claiming that it's kind of obvious that somebody that asks grown men to denounce their possessions and follow him around the countryside must be gay. i mean, what did they do when they weren't creating bread out of thin air?

but, you're kind of missing the broader historical point, and the reality that sex between men was pretty normal in the greek world, which is the actual world that jesus lived in, rather than a jewish one. the jews were allowed to return to israel by the persians (or were perhaps actually first settled there by them.), but then they fell to alexander, and when the romans moved in it was just as the hegemon - the area was really deeply greek from the time of alexander to the years immediately preceding the crusades, which was nearly 1500 years.

in classical greece, as in classical rome, sex was something buddies did with each other to prove they were friends. so, you have propaganda about roman emperors that "wore their male partners out", which was just mean to broadcast their strength and dominance and virility. in america, we had "don't ask, don't tell"; in the ancient world, sex between soldiers was encouraged by the leadership to demonstrate fraternity and equality, as they fought to uphold a warped concept of liberty. and, the mystery cults that were dominant at the time of jesus would have been full of all kinds of sex, with all kinds of people, including those we would today consider to be far too young to consent. if the mass has a memory of bacchian ritual embedded within it, it's worthwhile to ask what part of the body you're consuming.

it's easy to forget that these categories we have - "gay" and "straight" - didn't exist until the victorian period, and are a consequence of exiting the dark ages, where they'd burn you at the stake for sodomy. before the rise of christianity, people didn't think in these categorical ways, or try to find an answer as to why people were "different" - because they weren't. homosexual sex was perfectly normal.

so, you hear this sarcastic question - "when did you decide you were straight?" - as though you can't answer that, and it therefore follows that you didn't decide you were gay, either. but, you did decide you were straight, as a part of a process of socialization and normalization growing up in childhood. you weren't born that way, it's not a default, it's not inherent or more normal.

so, did jesus have sex with his apostles? i think you should assume that this is obvious, and the burden of proof is on demonstrating that he didn't.