Alexander the Gay?

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Originally posted by Se�mis of Arierep

I bet that Alexander liked from both... 

The idea of Alexander "probably bisexual" or "sexual" relationships is interesting in the sense that it reflects what is often the case in a society based on assumptions fed by a popular culture that thrives on innuendo instead of actually searching out the main legit sources and reading them for ones self and not relying on sixth source information from people who obviously have have alternative motives for saying what they do. So the "may be he/they were" shows that for most part the "proof" is nonexistent and without proof one is talking mere fantasy and allowing such fantasy to go unchallenged is the indulgence of fools and mental vagrants....yes I am talking about modern society here.  

Originally posted by Se�mis of Arierep

the chronicals say that and in ancient greece and ancient civilizations this is a thing well accepted and a thibg that show the status of the persons

Those false ideas people hold are comforting but ultimately self-deluding views of the late twentieth century. Homosexuality existed in Greece, just as it has existed since the beginning of human history in all societies and cultures, but not while describing the mistranslated 'erastes- erwmenos' relationships. However, while it did exist in ancient Greece, it was never legally sanctioned, thought to be a cultural norm, and the risk of engaging in such activity was serious punishments such as exile and death. If a person was discovered to be a homosexual, he would either be executed or sent into exile.  The only way a homosexual would have been "accepted" in ancient Greek society is if he/she came out of the closet. In that case, he/she would be permitted to live under the law known as grafi etairisios, which basically means this individual would loose all his citizen rights and those caught breaking the prohibitions which grafi etairisios law tells them to follow, would be convicted and put to death. So basicaly if you were a homosexual who has gone public in ancient Greece, you didn't even exist.  

In antiquity they practices in pederasty was seen as an "educational institution" for the inculcation of moral and cultural values. Two very difference concepts of what people are trying to imply ancient view on homesexuality was. Such relations were not only practiced in Ancient Greece but ancient Rome and were well documented among other ancient peoples too, such as the the Celts and various Germanic peoples such the Heruli and the Taifali. As idealized by the ancient Greeks and Romans, pederasty was a relationship and bond�whether sexual or chaste�between an adolescent boy and an adult man outside of his immediate family, mostly practiced as you so rightfully stated among the elite in a society but differed from society to society and the relationships were not always physical.  The regular Greeks view on pederasty was usually degrading and made fun of. While there were Greek and Roman men engaged in relations with both women and boys, exceptions to the rule were known, some avoiding relations with women and others rejecting relations with boys.  But they never viewed homesexuality as being ok, acceptable or correct. There are instances of ancient Greeks who did not 'settle down' (i.e. Agathon) but they're thought of as being very odd by their fellow citizens and are often ridiculed, for example by Aristophanes. One element of ancient Greek society which is used to promote homosexuality in ancient Greece is the largery misqouted, mistranslated and misinterpreted quote which claim the Sacred band of Thebes. This is what the non-Greek translations of that quote says, and notice what word is used below and how it is mis-translated, either by accident or deliberately, into English:

"an army should be made up of lovers and their loves"
The original Greek text says:
"genesthai e stratopedon eraston te kai paidikon." ~Symposium 178e

For those who need translation: paidikon = pederasty and erastes can mean either friends or lovers. It becomes even more evident that this is an intentional mistranslation when we read only one line above, the phrase "abstaining from all dishonour". What is interesting with this whole subject is that the biggest supporters of homosexuality being openly accepted in ancient Greece is put forth by openly homosexual "academians" such as David Halperin, Gore Vidal, John Winkler, Jonathan Ned Katz, John Boswell and Michel Foucault. It was Walter Pater (1870's a poet and tutor) he and his band of "merries" that just out of a weird coincidence were all homosexuals, originally began this fiasco of a theory in Oxford. We find them introducing a totally new "theory", in which Platonic love has nothing to do with "phyche" but is totally based on phisical attraction. Later we find a list of wanna-be "historians" of Hellinic sexuality, see: Michel Foucault, John Boswell, John Winkler and David Halperin that were or are all homosexuals, strange coincidence once again [roll] striving to make some connection between homos and Hellinism. The reason, of course, is simple and I mention it above, similar to those of Eurocentrics and Afrocentrics. Ancient civilizations such as Greece's have always been viewed as a model of civilisation. So what better way to justify their lifestyles than by connecting it to one of greatest civilizations and thus legitimise same-sex? While today the words 'heterosexual', 'homosexual' and 'lesbianism', terms which again by some strange coincidence were coined after Pater and CO's fiasco of a theory, simply denote the sexual preference of an individual, the ancient Greeks while never had absolutely any kind of definition for 'heterosexuals'.. used the term 'kinaidos'.. in order to describe 'homosexuals' and their preference. Why this is of some interest/significance?  As it was said while the terms today simply define one's sexual preference, in ancient Greece the term 'kinaidos' was actually the word used and shows us what they believed.. as Epicletus has written 'the beginning of knowledge comes from the analysis of names'... so we have:

'kinaidos' = �he who �kinei thn aido� from
�kineo�= � to move , to meddle with things sacred� and
�aidos� = �the personification of a conscience, of shame�

So in reality the very word's meaning in ancient Greek means 'he who provokes shame'... also keep in mind that 'Aidos' was a demi-Goddes always accompanied by Nemesis. Lets see what does the
 'academic' Foucault, a pioneer on ancient Greeks acceptance of homosexualty, says about this issue:

"Greek men, were bisexual and could, simultaneously or in turn, be enamoured of a boy or a girl. To their way of thinking, what made it possible to desire a man or a woman was simply the appetite that nature had implanted in man's heart for 'beautiful' human beings, whatever their sex might be". ( Uses of Pleasure (1984), Vl II, History of Sexuality)

Wow, well now there is some "unbiased" reporting for you.   Other "great" supporters of homosexuality being part of the "norm" of ancient Greece include one Kate Mortensen, who was a main speaker at the International Symposium on Ancient Macedonia in Thessaloniki. Its funny that the main stream English news outlets bring up the point Mortensen and her collegues were "hackled" during this event but fail to point out  why Mortensen and her crew were made fun of. The main reason is because when challenged to point out where in the original ancient Greek untranslated text does it say what they claim the text says, Mortensen and her crew admitted they could not even read the untranslated texts, never mind translate it. Very telling in my opinon, historians who are supposed to be taken as legit academics who can't even read the work they are suppose to be "experts" in? Yeah, some creditable sources they are.  Not sure whatever became of Mortensen, she is not heard much these days. Last I heard she was writting papers on breastfeeding, great use of her "classical" teaching there or lack off I might add.  

As for the "lesbian" 7th centry BC poetess Sappho, it should be pointed out that from all her works which have so far been found, only one has been found intact with many of her fragments in that book being translated into modern era, with translators filling in the gaps as to what she might have actually been writing, in essence modern translators were writing Sappho's poems for her.  

As for Plato, despite his suppose participance in such activities in his early life, in his later life Plato was among those who spoke up against the traditional Athenian pederasty and in his Laws dialogue he recommends prohibition on such activities ALL TOGETHER. Which is why I believe can all thank Plato for Christianity's homophobia where he associates such activities in The Laws as: "Shameful, Unclean and Unholy"; as he specifically states in the quote I posted above "Whether these matters are to be regarded as sport, or as earnest, we must not forget that this pleasure is held to have been granted by nature to male and female when conjoined for the work of procreation; the crime of male with male, or female with female, is an outrage on nature and a capital surrender to lust of pleasure." ~(Laws I 636a-d)  

Alot of what you would find in today's Christian philosophical concept is a fusion of Hebrew and Greek thought, the Greek derived from Hellenic philosophy of Epicureanism, Stoicism, Aristotelian and Platonic idealism. Plato was so influencial in Western culture that the term Platonic is in refrence to his works. Which is were such terms as Platonic love is derived from. The early christian fathers believed that to have converts during late Hellenistic times, specifically since Hellenistic culture remained dominant in the Eastern part of the Roman Empire, into the new faith, they needed to used elements which the people back then were familiar with. Henche where quite a bit of  ancient Hellenistic philosophical idealism comes into play and make their way into Christianity idealism. 

"I maintain that our regulation on this head must go forward and proclaim that our citizens must not be worse than fowls and many other animals which are produced in large broods, and which live chaste and celibate lives without sexual intercourse until they arrive at the age for breeding; and when they reach this age they pair off, as instinct moves them, male with female and female with male;" (Plato Laws 8.840d)

"We might forcibly effect one of two things in this matter of sex-relations,--either that no one should venture to touch any of the noble and freeborn save his own wedded wife, nor sow any unholy and bastard seed in fornication, nor any unnatural and barren seed in sodomy,--or else we should entirely abolish love for males." (Plato Laws 8.841d b)

Sound familiar?  Stay celibate until you arrive of age; pair off male to female; sex with only your wedded spouse; do not have mindless sex or unnatural sex which he equals to sodomy...hmmm, lets see where did we hear that before? 

Ancient Greeks believed the "inhuman chaos of nature" and perceived human order as the triumph of the mind and culture over the brute forces of nature. Eros, is not "love" but "sexual desire." It is a representation of how sex attacks the mind and breaks man's will. Consequently, sexual attraction as madness is a theme that recurs throughout Greek literature. The ancient Greeks saw sex and violence as two sides of the same irrational coin.

For whatever their political modern views are, people seem to have this false misconception that in ancient Greece homosexuality was "accepted" when infact it was controversial and according to ancient Greek laws if you were deemed a homosexual you could loose your civil rights, be banished, or the worse of them all loose your life for it. "Pederasty" and homosexuality were two very different philosophical concepts to ancient Greeks, and that in itself was a complex issue which varied from city-state to city-state and colony to colony.  Aristophanes in his plays portrays homosexual characters as corrupt and decadence, check ou his comedy The Knights for examples of this. Also read Aeschine's speech Against Timarchus of 346 BCE, which is by far the longest text addressing homosexual behavior we have from the Classical Greek world and one of the few legal documents of the time which tells us the legal implications of a person being accused of the subject matter, in this case engaging in same sex, and what the general population views on it were. In short Timarchus takes Aeschine to court and charges him with treason. Aeschine counters by accusing Timarchus with "corruption" and one of the charges against Timarchus is homosexuality and prostitution.  According to Athenian law Timarchus forfeited his right to speak before the people and the court because of his corrupt acts. In the end Aeschine won the vote and Timarchus was barred from politics. So I find it pretty humorous that ancient Greece is used by some to promote whatever modern belief they might have, for or against homosexuality. One last thing to keep in mind: contrary to what some would like us to believe, of the inumerable quantity of writings, literature, plays and written records of daily life in ancient Greece and history of the civilization which the Greeks legated to posterity, only a minuscule 5% of writings make some mention about homosexuality. As for painted vases, out of all the thousands of ancient Greek painted vases that have so far been discovered, over 80,000 have been found in Attica alone,  only .02% have an overtly homosexual/bisexual theme on them. Pretty low percentage for a socieity that is so openly homosexual, don't ya think?  From the inconsequential evidence available only individuals with alternative motives would manufacture allegations of such an unsustainable nature. Given the narrow selection found of such activities, (i.e. pederasty/homosexual/bisexual) in literature and artifacts, it should be kept in perspective that there is no real reason to believe such activities were the "norm" or representative of ancient Greek society as a whole any more than media distrubution of modern pornography(child, same sex, etc.) indicate what is normal and accepted in modern times by the majority of the population. It should also be noted and kept in mind that homosexuals do have more rights and protection nowdays then they ever would have had living in ancient Greece.  

Edited by apro282 - 10-Jul-2006 at 22:28