Rome's height of power lasted longer than we've been around yet cross dressing, homosexuality and extreme sexual expression was the normal (primarily for the high class).

You are right that Rome (and other civilizations) had degeneracy, but the degeneracy was (common place) during its nadir, not its zenith. When you hear about people like Clodius (infamous for his crossdressing), and the Roman-era punks who shirked Roman culture for the culture of the foreign Germans (much how our modern society adopted black culture)... that was all during the final years of the Roman Republic. Clodius was a contemporary of Caeser, and if you read about the final years of the Roman Republic it is eerily similar to our situation today.

Plato, the wisest man to ever live, tells us that civilizations have arcs. As the populace becomes more focused on the self rather than the health of the civilization, we move closer to tyranny.