nor a fucker (futūtor), nor does the hot mouth of Vetustina please you.You're none of those, I admit, Sextillus, so what are you? I don't know, but you know there are only two other possibilities!") The fourth line rules out Sextillus as an ; the two remaining possibilities were in Roman eyes the most degrading, that he was either a or a . Etymology is often thought to be a Greek loanword in Latin (from the noun (paidika) "boyfriend"), but the long "i" is an obstacle. Bücheler (1915, p. 105), who rejects this etymology, suggests there may be a connection to and . In Romance Unlike , the word has no reflexes in Romance. The French slang word pédé ("male homosexual") is an abbreviated form of pédéraste, according to the Dictionnaire historique de la langue française. and : oral sex : to make suck , which in English is denoted by the passive construction "to be sucked", is an active verb in Latin, since the was considered to be the active partner, the fellātor the passive. is the counterpart of ; in Roman terms, which are the opposite way round to modern conceptions, the giver of oral sex inserts his penis into the mouth of the receiver. To be forced to submit to oral sex was apparently a worse punishment than to be sodomised. Martial (2.47) advises one effeminate man who is having an adulterous affair, and who would not perhaps have objected too much if the husband punished him by sodomising him: ("Do you rely on your buttocks (to avoid a worse punishment)? Your girlfriend's husband is not a sodomiser. He does two things only: puts it in your mouth or screws women.") According to Adams (1982, p. 126-7), it was a standard joke to speak of as a means of silencing someone. Martial (3.96) writes: ("You gossip like an adulterer and a womaniser;but if I catch you, Gargilius, you will be quiet!") was seen as a hostile act that enemies might inflict on one. An inscription says: ("I would prefer my friends to suck me than that my enemies make me suck them.") It is also a standard threat made by the god Priapus, protector of orchards, to potential adult male thieves, as in Priapeia 13: ("You will be thoroughly 'cut', boy, I warn you; girl, you will be fucked; for the bearded thief, a third penalty awaits.")