Assignment: Plato, Symposium, in
Coursepack, pp. 170-191.
Sexual Categories in Ancient
Greece
- Active (penetrative) for
pleasure and (in the case of wives) legal duty
- Passive (penetrated) for the
pleasure of the active partner and/or out of duty, always
potentially shameful for the passive partner.
- Male
- male youths (without beard)
- for pleasure of active partner and
education of passive partner
- slaves
- for pleasure of active
partner
- Female
- wives
- for children (citizens &
heirs)
- hetairai, concubines
- for pleasure of active
partner
- slaves
- for pleasure of active
partner
N.B. This scheme does not imply that other
combinations or points-of-view did not exist, merely that this is the
scheme outlined by the surviving (male) sources.
Symposia in Ancient Greece.
- Please see the following link for
illustrations of Greek symposia:
Plato's Symposium.
- Pausanias: Love is the oldest of the gods.
Two Aphrodites. Heavenly (male only) and earthly (vulgar: male and
female). Love of boys as the breeding ground of freedom.
Importance of virtue in lover.
- Ereximachus: praises double love.
Temperance from opposites, hence the healing power of
love.
- Aristophanes: Myth of the three sexes.
Male/male the best. Male/female lascivious breeders.
- Agathon: Praise of love as the god from
whom all good things derive.
- Socrates: The truth about love. Love as
intermediary. Love leads in vulgar to generation of of children,
but in refined male/male relationships to spiritual impregnation
of virtue.
- Alcibiades: Drunken proof of Socratic love
by way of anecdote.
Essays
- Why are the terms "homosexual" and
"heterosexual," although perhaps fitting categories for describing
types of coupling according to gender, inadequate for getting at
the basic distinction between sex acts according to ancient Greek
thinking? Men could go from slaves (male or female) to boys to
wives to prostitutes, and be considered virtuous citizens, so long
as they did not engage in what "shameful" practive?
- Discuss the implications of the double
standard regarding male and female sexual roles, and how this
double standard compares to current standards and
expectations.
- How are ancient same sex relations similar
to and different from same sex relations today? Please discuss
these relations in the cultural and political contexts of their
respective societies.
