“The love that dares not speak its name” was truly a silent love in pre-Christian Norse society. Norwegians viewed male homosexual relationships through a curious (by modern American standards) dichotic lens. Similar to Roman and Greek societies, the Norse did not attach any great negative stigma or condemnatory connotations to the very idea of ​​homosexual intercourse. However, the Vikings strongly disapproved of free men taking a passive role in any male-male sexual act. Nordic society viewed passivity in all penetrative relationships as intrinsically related to unmanly, and therefore feminine, behavior. Therefore, any man who participated in this behavior was vilified as less worthy of the title "man." Sociolinguistic evidence, contemporary legal accounts, customs and social norms all confirm the intense contempt that Norwegians had for free men who played a passive role in any form of relationship. As a disclaimer, the terms “homosexual” and “passive intercourse” are used frequently in this article. To clarify, the term “homosexual” is anachronistic when applied to the Viking Age (793-1066), having been coined much more recently in the late 19th century by Karoly Maria Benkert (Pickett). All the literature read and cited in support of the arguments in this article argues that Norse society recognized no concept of exclusivity in sexual orientation, or indeed any concept of modern sexuality. Therefore, in this article, the word "homosexual" refers to any male who has participated in male-to-male sexual intercourse without taking into consideration other factors, such as whether the male in question has also engaged in heterosexual intercourse. The other term "passive intercourse" is used in the cited literature to refer to acts of being... the center of the paper... about sex or love between males. The only limitation that the culture placed on the relationship was the prohibition for two free men to engage in penetrative intercourse due to perceptions of honor and gender. Considering these facts, one could safely say that Norse society before the advent of Christianization was not homophobic in the modern sense of the term. Works Cited Pickett, Brent. "Homosexuality". The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2011 edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = entries/homosexuality/>. Dynes, Wayne R. Encyclopedia of Homosexuality. Garland, 1990. Sørensen, Preben Meulengracht. Norrønt Nid. Odense Universitetsforlag, 1980.Gade, Kari Ellen. Homosexuality and male rape in Norse law and literature. University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, 1986.