Argr is Old Norse for “unmanly”. The Norsemen would often have male-on-male sex, where the dominant partner would be seen as manly and the submissive as effeminate, or argr. So if you were accused of being argr, i.e. of being passive in sexual relations with another man, you were literally left with the choice of either killing the accuser, or becoming an outlaw due to being too submissive to take another man’s life.
Argr is Old Norse for “unmanly”. The Norsemen would often have male-on-male sex, where the dominant partner would be seen as manly and the submissive as effeminate, or argr. So if you were accused of being argr, i.e. of being passive in sexual relations with another man, you were literally left with the choice of either killing the accuser, or becoming an outlaw due to being too submissive to take another man’s life.
That’s how I remember it, at least.
Which, on the whole, is really weird and I kind of wonder how that actually worked in practice.
It would cause a serious drought of bottoms, which doesn’t seem ideal for the tops either. Who came up with this system?