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Steve I think you are taking a phenomena of the 20th century/21st century "out of the closet" gay scene and transporting it with little evidence to Dante's Italy. In my limited reading so far of Robert Duncan and the other "beat" poets of the 40's and 50's, many of whom espoused a fairly open gay life, I know of no reference to this behavior. Much reference to the difficulty of men loving other men but no reference to "eyeing" each other. I think you would find that open reference to this sort of behavior starts in the late 20th century. How did sodomites act in Dante's day? Did they gather in groups and eye each other? What is your source for this observation of sodomite behavior in 14th century Italy? I think gender specific groups were the medieval norm and that Chaucer's mixed group was exceptional. Dante's objection to sodomites was not the homosexual/gay behavior as such but rather sodomy which denied God's will. Sodomy was but one example of the denial of God's will. Even sodomy was not evil in itself but was evil in that it denied God's will. It was not so much a secular crime but rather a spiritual one. Since Augustine's compromises with the ascetics of his age the Roman Catholic church has maintained that the only proper reason for sex was the creation of children. Any other sexual activity was evil. Heterosexual behavior for pleasure alone was just as evil as homosexual sex. Dante is merely using sodomy as an example of the denial by men of God's will. Dante believed that the sperm contained the full attributes of the child; the mother provided a nurturing receptacle only. To deposit the sperm/child in a non-nurturing fashion was to counter the will of God for that "child". This whole belief system is the base of the Roman Catholic church's opposition to contraception today. To deposit sperm in a condom or a temporarily non-fertile woman is to deny God. I don't think Dante would have had no problem with gay non-sexual love, just as he had no problem with his own non-sexual love for Beatrice. Sex as it denies God's will is his only problem with sodomy. Even in the current much publicized pedophilic behavior of a few, primarily American, Roman Catholic clerics, the Church's initial response was to the spiritual problem of sex for non-creative purposes and not to the secular problem of sexual abuse. In our secular society the physical act is the problem, in Dante's more spiritual society the spiritual denial of God was the problem. Lastly don't forget that this is not very far down into Inferno. The very bottom of hell is reserved for the traitors: Judas, Brutus, and Cassius. Rick Seddon McIntosh, NM