The Myth Of The Ancient Greek 'Gay Utopia' - CURVE

Contents:

• WERE THE SPARTANS GAY? HOMOSEXUALY SPARTA, ANCIENT GREECE
• THE MYTH OF THE ANCIENT GREEK ‘GAY UTOPIA’
• 20 GAY GREEK GODS
• THE GREEKS "WERE NOT REALLY GAY"
• GAY HERO OF ANCIENT GREECE

WERE THE SPARTANS GAY? HOMOSEXUALY SPARTA, ANCIENT GREECE

Historil Views of Homosexualy: Ancient GreeceThomas K. The state of Sparta ma homosexual relatnships mandatory.

The homoerotic element nnot be entirely ignored.

Lbian and gay women’s relatnships Ancient Sparta. Gay men and women ancient Sparta. Heterosexualy and homosexualy were both enuraged and expected at different stag life, wh homosexualy, mon wh prevalent ancient Greek thought, beg seen as the ial form of love and heterosexualy as sential for procreatn.

THE MYTH OF THE ANCIENT GREEK ‘GAY UTOPIA’

Homosexualy: sexual attractn to persons of the same sex. Vlent bate, enthiastic wrgs, shamefaced silence, flights of fantasy: few aspects of ancient society are so hotly ntted as Greek perasty, or - as we shall see below - homosexualy. Dover published his fluential book Greek Homosexualy 1978, an avalanche of new studi has appeared.

The synchronistic approach: scholars ncentrate upon homosexualy fifth and fourth-century Athens, where was tegral part of social life. There are many sourc of evince: lyril poetry, vas, statu, myths, philosophil treatis, speech, scriptns, medil texts, tragedi, edi, curs (example), and anecdot which homosexual practic are mentned, ld, ignored, and sometim disuraged.

20 GAY GREEK GODS

The often outspoken poems and the philosophy of Plato (427-347) have rulted our exprsn "Greek prcipl" to scribe male homosexualy.

Unfortunately, we know hardly anythg about female homosexualy.

THE GREEKS "WERE NOT REALLY GAY"

Therefore, this article, we will have to foc on male homosexualy. Let's start wh the word "homosexual". In ancient Greece, there never was a word to scribe homosexual practic: they were simply part of aphrodisia, love, which clud men and women alike.

GAY HERO OF ANCIENT GREECE

Prostutn, which was an important aspect of Athenian life, had ltle to do wh male domance; nor was - and this is important - Greek homosexualy rtricted to perasty between a domant adult and a shy boy. It is now clear that homosexualy was not rtricted to perasty, and that we have to study our evince more refully. Another objectn to the tradnal renstctn of Athenian homosexualy is that there is simply no evince that the prents shown on vas had any pedagogic or didactic value.

It is not te that homosexual love for boys was an aristocratic phenomenon. On the ntrary, there appears to be an crease of perastic and other homosexual reprentatns.