What emerges from this is that we've got an issue that has generated lots of hot air with almost nothing in the way of solid analysis based on primary sources. Therefore, in the remainder of this essay, I shall attempt to carry out that analysis. Supporting evidence, where extensive, will be covered with hyperlinks. The most important consideration here is the danger of improper cross-cultural extrapolation. Back then, homosexuality was not so much a state as it was an event.
Most men seem to have engaged in just a few encounters.
A much smaller percentage of these men engaged in perennial homosexual behavior. In the Renaissance moral order, complete celibacy was considered the moral ideal. But much, much lower fell any form of non-procreative sex. That was unnatural, an offense to God, a moral outrage. We are therefore reduced to asking indirect questions about his state of mind, his attitudes, and his relationships.