/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.18787269]

When we look to the Greco-Roman conception of sexuality, we see that they thought of the penetrators as masculine and the penetrated as feminine. Given that whole societies shared this view, and that sodomising slaves was considered to be sexually healthy male behaviour by average people, how do we account for the strange modern attitude toward sexuality that homosexual tendencies are somehow genetic and not entirely socially conditioned behaviour, and that all participants of it are effeminate and not just the gay bottoms?

Books on this topic?

[Anonymous No.18787284]

>>18787269
Gay doesn't necessarily mean effeminate, dummy

[Anonymous No.18787354]

>>18787269
>Books on this topic?
The Odyssey, especially the part where Telemachus is to kill the house girls.

[Anonymous No.18787364]

>>18787269
Plato said it is equally shameful in both positions, and no society could accept the whole action.

Also genetic gays definitely exist and we can see that in the modern world.

[Anonymous No.18787378]

>>18787269
>Given that whole societies shared this view, and that sodomising slaves was considered to be sexually healthy male behaviour by average people
Also this is patently untrue. It was never “normal” behavior. You’ve been psyop’d. There’s a degree to which the androgyne and pederasty and in some cases male homosexuality was common, but it wasn’t normal in the case of the last. These things about the Greeks being homosexuals are notable precisely because they were shocking, even for their time. Something having occurred in certain societies doesn’t mean they were normalized, encouraged, healthy, or any of that. In fact, penetration, not in the sexual sense but in the sense of sword and spear would’ve been normalized in this sort of thinking. It’s a bizarre sort of classicism that would lead you to think as your question suggests. It is not and never has been normal or average.

[Anonymous No.18787386]

>>18787364
>Plato said it is equally shameful in both positions
>*writes a philosophical erotica about his teacher fucking the hottest man in Athens*
Plato was fist-deep in boy pussy. Sorry if that makes you uncomfortable.

[Anonymous No.18787392]

>>18787269
The greeks would have slaughtered every single person walking in a gay pride march

[Anonymous No.18787405]

>>18787269
>the strange modern attitude toward sexuality that homosexual tendencies are somehow genetic and not entirely socially conditioned behaviour,
Who says this? If that were true gays would die out since they don't have kids, they create other gays by molesting kids

[Anonymous No.18787408]

>>18787386
>pretending to have read Plato
I'm not against talking about homoeroticism in ancient Greece, but stop trying to use Plato as an excuse for your own disgusting fetishes.

Go back to discord, it's painfully obvious you don't care about Plato and just want to talk about "muh twinks."

[Anonymous No.18787419]

>>18787269
Although you are correct, we do see writers in antiquity who recognise the existence of, if not fixed and exclusive orientations, then strong inclinations. For instance, Sophocles is said to be a "lover of boys", which implies that he is, perhaps, more inclined toward young males than the average person. In Plato's Symposium Aristophanes gives a mythological explanation for why different people are heterosexual and homosexual. An interesting aspect is that Aristophanes talks about the 'homosexuals' as wanting to continue relationships with other males beyond the conventional stage of life when these relationships are expected to occur. So whereas the average Athenian man might be happy having one or two pederastic relationships in his youth before getting married, the type of person Aristophanes talks about is unhappy with this situation, and only gets married to a woman because of social convention and the expectation to have children.
>>18787364
Plato was a bitter old fag when he wrote the Laws.
>>18787378
Ancient Greece was not the only civilisation. We see it in a lot of the Middle East from antiquity to early modernity, among the Japanese and Chinese during the feudal period, among certain cultures in the Americas, and there are quite a few primitive tribes who practiced it too. It seems to have flourished in Renaissance Florence, as well. There is perhaps more textual evidence for Islamic pederasty than Greek, simply because the tradition lasted a lot longer there. In not a few cases the strong aversion of Christian missionaries to homosexuality seemed rather queer to the local peoples they visited.

[micsimone No.18787423]

the whole point of the feine struc is to blaur tranuozlqility. free rom form of boot to a spectaular joint high with manymashies of chroloform blizzeard mex

[Anonymous No.18787439]

>>18787405
Some studies have found that the female relatives of male homosexuals are more fertile than the average woman (there are a few theories for why this is the case, one of them being that the genes involved are not for homosexuality per se, but attraction to males, making the female relatives 'hyper-heterosexuals'). The straight male relatives of homosexuals also seem to enjoy greater reproductive success.

[Anonymous No.18787476]

>>18787419
> we see it happen in place over the course of thousands of years
Yeah, you would. See, this is the issue. People talk about this stuff with sweeping assumptions. For example: Oh, we have some pots with guys having sex from Greece so that must mean all Greeks of Antiquity thought this was normal. Absolutely not. Ancient Greece covered an enormous span of time, attitudes changed from place to place, underwent changes from time to time. And a few pots and poems don’t indicate something was normal. It especially doesn’t indicate that it was encouraged. It doesn’t even logically follow. Why do we note Sophocles? In part, because his stories were shocking. Yet, when it’s about anything LGBT we’re supposed to accept that it’s actually not at all shocking and totally normal. We’re also supposed to accept implications that are as a matter of fact, not even overt in the text. People take The Song of Achilles as a scholarly work when it is quite literally The Iliad fan fiction from a fujoshi and nothing more. Just because you see instances of something occurring does not mean it was normal, healthy, or even encouraged. This is a precisely post-modern lens that we take to choose to see things that way because we would, and I could go on forever about this. The idea that it was “normal” as a matter of fact is simply not true.

[Anonymous No.18787521]

>>18787408
>I'm not against talking about homoeroticism in ancient Greece

Wrong. You're not against talking about the parts of homoeroticism that don't make you uncomfortable.

[Anonymous No.18787619]

>>18787476
I can't help but think that you have not read very much ancient literature. Precisely what is so strange about the Greeks is that homosexuality seems more matter-of-fact and everyday to them even than it does even to us moderns. That is not to say there was ever unanimity among Greeks, or that it didn't constitute a social "problem", in the sense of being something that people held varying opinions of. But in antiquity, we do see a relative openness and lightness about the topic. The fact you bring up pots and pans is, to me, telling, because it is the literature, rather than the images, that gives us our strongest impression of homosexuality in antiquity (and the literature provides the context for these).

The Song of Achilles is irrelevant. So is postmodernism. Neither of these things are responsible. Aeschylus portrays Achilles and Patroclus as lovers. So does Shakespeare. Frederick the Great makes reference to their reputation. They may not have been in Homer's time, but the idea of them as lovers is certainly is not a modern invention: it is a very old Athenian one (and Plato and Aeschines both reference this common opinion; Aeschines regards it as self-evident and implicit in the Iliad itself).

Dozens of statues devoted to the tyrant-killing lovers Harmodius and Aristogeiton were erected all across the democratic cities of Greece; one can hardly read a Greek play or without finding them referenced (the homosexual nature of their relationship is described in Thucydides and Plato).

Plato's Lysis depicts Socrates coming to the aid of a boy who has a crush on another boy in his wrestling-school. Socrates references his being in love with Alcibiades in numerous dialogues, including off-hand comments in the Gorgias and Protagoras. Socrates confesses being attracted to Charmides (and the eponymous dialogue describes almost every other male present being attracted to him as well). Several pairs of male-male lovers are depicted, most prominent among them being Agathon and Pausanias. Xenophon says that most Greek cities allow and sanction pederasty. We find pederastic poetry attributed to Solon, the Athenian lawgiver. Revered poets like Theognis and Theocritus devoted most of their lines to the subject of male love. Demosthenes wrote an essay to his beloved instructing him on virtue. Plutarch considered homosexual relations superior to heterosexual ones. Sappho, of course, provides us with a bit of lesbianism, and we find references to her reputation in Aristophanes (there is one other Greek female poet who composed lesbian poetry, called Nossis).

The Romans took inspiration from the Greeks, more in their art than in their social life. Virgil's pastoral poetry features numerous romances between shepherd boys. The bawdiness of Plautus, Catullus, Martial, Meleager, Petronius etc. hardly need be enumerated. Even Ovid, who described himself as disliking pederasty, regularly features homosexual themes.

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[Anonymous No.18787627]

>>18787476
>>18787619
To list everything would be exhaustive. The Jewish Neoplatonist Philo expresses discomfort with the fact that Symposium grounds most of its discussion in homosexual relations. A later Christian writer complained about the fact that Cicero made such a noble and refined speaker as Cotta in 'De deorum natura' a 'sodomite'. No one seemed to mind when Hadrian deified his deceased beloved Antinous and named (and constructed!) multiple cities after him, and many people worshiped him for decades if not centuries afterward.

Here is a passage from the 1673 history book, 'Archæologiæ græcæ: or, The antiquities of Greece' by John Potter:
>CHAPTER IX. Of their Love of Boys.
>WHO it was that first introduc'd the Custom of loving Boys into Greece, is uncertain: However (to omit the infamous Amours of Jupiter, Orpheus, Lajus of Thebes, and others) we find it generally practis'd by the ancient Grecians, and that not only in private, but by the publick Allowance and Encouragement of their Laws: For they thought there could be no means more effectual to excite their Youth to noble Undertakings, nor any greater Security to their Common-wealths, than this generous Passion. This the Invaders of their Liberties so often experienc'd, that it became a receiv'd Maxim in the Politicks of Tyrants, to use all their Endeavours to ex•irpate it out of their Dominions; some Instances whereof we have in Athenaeus(b). On the contrary, free Common-wealths, and all those States, that consulted the Advancement of their own Honour, seem to have been unanimous in establishing Laws to encourage and reward it. Let us take a view of some few of them.

Nietzsche, in his Human, All Too Human, writes:
>The Greek culture of the classic age is a male culture. As far as women are concerned, Pericles expresses everything in the funeral speech : "They are best when they are as little spoken of as possible amongst men." The erotic relation of men to youths was the necessary and sole preparation, to a degree unattainable to our comprehension, of all manly education (pretty much as for a long time all higher education of women was only attainable through love and marriage). All idealism of the strength of the Greek nature threw itself into that relation, and it is probable that never since have young men been treated so attentively, so lovingly, so entirely with a view to their welfare (virtus) as in the fifth and sixth centuries B.C. according to the beautiful saying of Holderlin : "denn liebend giebt der Sterbliche vom Besten." The higher the light in which this relation was regarded, the lower sank intercourse with woman.

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[Anonymous No.18787663]

>>18787619
>Precisely what is so strange about the Greeks is that homosexuality seems more matter-of-fact and everyday to them even than it does even to us moderns. That is not to say there was ever unanimity among Greeks, or that it didn't constitute a social "problem", in the sense of being something that people held varying opinions of.
Perhaps this is obvious to you, but Greek philosophers essentially describe themselves as a social elite, even among citizens, who were above the slaves.
It’s an open secret that the world-elite today are not dissimilar in their attitudes toward and practice of homosexuality.
The truth is that homosexuality is an “issue” in the public sphere, because almost everyone you talk to is what would be considered a slave.

[Anonymous No.18787665]

>>18787663
Cope.

[Anonymous No.18787666]

>>18787619
>I can't help but think that you have not read very much ancient literature.
But you have…right? Not me. Just you. You’re the authority, aren’t you? Never mind that I have and already pre-emptively addressed this. You just ignored it. Excellent way to frame the argument from the start and make me not want to read a single word of your novel. You gave away there that to continue would be a waste of time. You are now free to proceed to project your ideals onto the Greeks as you were always going to without my raining on your parade.

[Anonymous No.18787683]

>>18787666
That is the lamest excuse not to read something that might challenge your worldview ever conceived. If I am wrong, please read what I said and refute me.

[Anonymous No.18787718]

>>18787665
Why? I’m not the person you were replying to you, and I don’t fundamentally disagree with you: I’m just reminding you that ancient Greece was made of small insular cities of elite citizens, supported by slaves, and among the citizens the philosophers that survived them were of an even more elite social group.

[Anonymous No.18787770]

>>18787718
Oh, sure. I just often hear people saying this who otherwise worship every single product of that "elite culture", but suddenly become dyed-in-the-wool proletarian populists when this issue comes up. It's also difficult to say whether there was in fact a divergence of "elite" and "popular" opinion on the matter. The main name I hear with respect to this Aristophanes, but it's hard to say how representative he is, and he mocks everything. But other people point to the heroes and myths, and odes written by Pindar for popular audiences. So I don't know. Generally, with bohemian or transgressive elite circles, they are aware of their divergences from the lower classes and make it a point of distinction. But one doesn't see much evidence of this in the literature. Rather, it is free Athens vs the barbarian Persians, or whatever.

[Anonymous No.18787782]

>>18787683
It would be a waste of my time (and yours).

[Anonymous No.18787786]

>>18787782
Will you at least read through and give your general opinion? Maybe an overall assessment?

[Anonymous No.18787883]

>>18787770
>Generally, with bohemian or transgressive elite circles, they are aware of their divergences from the lower classes and make it a point of distinction. But one doesn't see much evidence of this in the literature. Rather, it is free Athens vs the barbarian Persians, or whatever.
Hm. I seem to recall references in Plato’s dialogues to initiations into certain rites that distinguished them from the average citizen: but you’re right that homosexuality was practiced by the Athenian citizenry.

[Anonymous No.18787901]

>>18787269

[Anonymous No.18787990]

Because the ancient attic Greek mode of sexuality also thought lots of other things made you gay such as:
>being Persian
>not paying taxes
>being Spartan
>not having clean feet
>having clean sandals
>drinking more than three glasses of wine at one party
>spending too long in a bath house
>eating out pussy
>any cowgirl position
>smelling nice
>taking bribes from bisexual macedonians
>having carpet in your house
Things that did not make you gay were:
>giving handjobs and having thigh sex
>donating all your money to the theatre and education of young boys
>cuddling with twinks
>putting your dick in anyone's pooper
>putting radishes in people's poopers
>wrestling naked
>having a small dick
Attica was a shitshow before they named the prison after it.

[Anonymous No.18787999]

>>18787990
Sorry, taking bribes from bisexual macedonians did NOT make you gay in Attica. I put it in the wrong list. Bribes from Macedon are ok.

[Anonymous No.18788022]

>>18787386
PARTS OF THE SYMPOSIUM DO NOT REPRESENT PLATO'S VIEWS.
IT WOULD BE LIKE SAYING THRASYMACHUS REPRESENTS PLATO'S VIEWS.

[Anonymous No.18788090]

>>18787990
>>not having clean feet
source

[Anonymous No.18788114]

>thread descends into a slanging match about how much buttseckz the Greeks actually did
Would it help you calm down if we note that similar behavior is common in contemporary Afghanistan, clearly socially conditioned rather than genetic.
Not sure any reputable scholar would risk the butthurt by investigating properly.
Foucault did a little in his History of Sexuality

[Anonymous No.18788347]

>>18788114
we get a little horni