The Greeks "were not really gay"

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

20 GAY GREEK GODS

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.

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.

GAY HERO OF ANCIENT GREECE

After all, homo-erotic love is related to tn and gag knowledge, and this mak superr to other typ of love. Like other opprsed mori, gay people have a reason to voice their hardships and acplishments.

However, vlatg and alterg history the name of gay pri is not necsary. One historil suatn that is often sourced the name of gay pri is the ancient Greek society and several ancient Greek historil figur that are falsely portrayed as gay pop culture. Many morn terpreters of the story, however, have felt fortable wh g the characters’ relatnship as evince of gay glorifitn ancient Greek lerature and culture.

Even though the available historil sourc clearly dite that the Greek kg had different female lovers each night, he is nsired the most famo gay man of antiquy, simply bee a screenwrer Hollywood imaged him as one. But how did we end up wh the false misnceptns about ancient Greek society and homosexualy? The whole thg officially opened up by Kenh Dover’s work Greek Homosexualy 1978.