User blog comment:SayuriDarling/The Mark of Athena Official Discussion/@comment-5577244-20121021054716/@comment-4515675-20121021065406

I'm not exactly sure what you find disturbing about this. I'm not gonna go into the whole gay rights with you here but I'll let you in on a little secret, most heroes in Greek myths were either openly gay or bi, Zeus himself had male lovers.

During Ancient Greece young boys who attended schools were actually encouraged to date the same sex because women were seen as uneducated with little purpose other than taking care of the household and the children.

What I find disturbing is the lack of same sex relationships in both the PJO and HoO series. Sure ppl might argue that these books are for children but really there's nothing tabboo about the subject and I think a lot of authors send the wrong message when they make all their characters straight.

Maybe RR is just uncomfortable writing about such things but homosexuality was percieved as something normal in the Ancient World and the distrubing part is that centuries later we the so called modern civilazation frown upon something that came so natural to our ancestors who apperantly were less evolved than us.