Accusing men in power of norm-transgressive sexual behaviour has been a widespread strategy of political defamation since Antiquity. The specific nature of such reproaches, however, depends on cultural norms, which are subject to historical change. When investigating same-sex desire and homosexual behaviour in specific contexts of the past (e.g. medieval or early modern royal courts), historians should be aware of the fundamental difference between the pre-modern discourse of sodomy, and the conceptual framework of modern psychology that structures the perception of sexual behaviour and erotic desire today. The example of rulers ranging from Frederick II to Richard the Lionheart, as well as astonishing statements by Hugh of St-Victor on same-sex-partnerships, show the fundamental shift in the perception of affective male bonding and homosexual acts which took place in the late 19th and the early 20th centuries.