Why would Hercules being of Greek/Roman origins make it any more notable to be a gay character? The ancient Greek and Roman cultures had different views on sexuality than we have in our contemporary Western cultures, which doesn’t mean they were all open to being gay or lesbian as we understand it today, alright, and I know some have the view, that Greek and Roman mythology have a number of gay relationships, including Hercules with younger men, but so what? It would be nice if it would be more noticed that in Greek mythology Hercules was not just a womanizer but also had relationships with young men which could be read as gay, but that is about it, not the origin in Greek/Roman mythology but that there are already possible stories could be interesting to work with.
To be fair to Pan, he was picking up something I said. What I was getting at was the idea of breaking with some of the stereotypes of either the flamboyant homosexual or the closeted homosexual that you find on TV, by making someone who is viewed as –for wont of a better term–“a manly man” and someone all the ladies flock to. I think Hercules is an interesting choice for gay character on ONCE instead of, say, Archie, because Archie is who you would expect.
And you’re right; it’s not as if the Greek and Romans were totally open to same-sex relationships and had no qualms. It was more a power relationship of an older man and a younger boy (see Pederasty ) So we can’t think of them as a free love type of civilization. But I think Pan was getting at the historical reality, that it’s a good way to move away from what people think Hercules is like (a la, the Disney version) and show how some types of relationships happened in Greece.