Sex! Love! Writing!

[susanmcgee48176]

> Carol responds:
> Unfortunately, the Greeks (whom do I admire for many reasons,
> especially therir contributions to art and philosophy), regarded 
love
> between men as superior to love between a man and a woman because
> women were regarded as physically and intellectually inferior to 
men.
> The attitude was not universal, forever. Plato's "Symposium" 
explores
> the views of a number of young men (who, BTW, have had quite a bit 
of
> wine--and one of them, Aristophanes, is a comic playwright whose 
ideas
> should probably be taken with a grain of salt). And, of course, we
> don't know to what degree Plato fictionalized the dialogue, which
> would have occurred many years before he crafted it as a defense of
> Socrates (executed for corrupting the youth of Athens). We do know
> that some Greeks loved their wives. Pericles, who was born nearly
> seventy years before Plato, loved his wife, Aspasia, an educated and
> beautiful woman (unfortunately, a "metic" or resident alien, so her
> children had no rights in Athens). Education was, of course, not the
> norm for Athenian women, but Aspasia wasn't Athenian.
> 
> Not sure where I'm going here, except that we should not overlook 
the
> inferior status of women in ancient Greece, especially Athens, if we
> discuss homosexuality in ancient Greece or the frequent disparity in
> the ages of the homosexual pairs, some of whom were beardless boys.
> 
> Carol, not sure that fourth- and fifth-century B.C. Athenian culture
> and values are at all comparable to late the nineteenth-century WW 
(or
> even to postmodern European and American culture)
>

yes, Carol, I agree...

I have a master's in ancient history, with a specialization in Greek 
history..

I think that for many years gay men (and lesbians) had so very few 
positive depictions of same-gender love and attraction, so they 
fastened on the Greek model as depicted in Plato. The problems with 
it, of course, is that it portrayed the ideal love as between a man 
(although probably a man of 25) and a boy of 16 to 18...and I would 
have real trouble with that, as I think many would today....)

The other problem was that love between men was considered superior 
by Plato and some others to love between men and women who were 
considered inferior (in Athens, anyway...)

In Sparta, there was much more equality among men and women, and in 
the islands, (Melos, Lesbos..now part of Turkey) women were MUCH 
freeer and enjoyed greater status..

Aspasia was a courtesan (woman hired for sex)..hetaira. There is no 
English word to accurately translate hetairai, but they were more 
than courtesans. They were indeed sexual partners, but they were also 
companions, better educated than other Greek women. They were 
educated in philosophy, history, politics, science, art and 
literature, so that they could converse intelligently with 
sophisticated men. Aspasia was considered by many to be the most 
beautiful and intelligent of the city's hetairai.

AND she became Pericles' (the most famous and tremendously successful 
leaders of Greece during their golden age in the 5th century)PARTNER 
(although they could not marry) and wielded immense political power 
as such.

Susan