DiscussionNew Age Queer Mythology

submitted by JulienMayfair from (self.LGBDropTheT)

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[–]Neo_Shadow_LurkerPronouns: I/Don't/Care 11 insightful - 1 fun11 insightful - 0 fun12 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

When people talk of the acceptance of male homosexuality in ancient Greece, they're not talking about the acceptance of sex between two adult men.

Yes, the people who refer to ancient Greece as a 'gay society' are just ignorant of history.

What was widely acceptable was pederasty, not same-sex relationships between two adult men. Also, most pederasts were married to women and their relationships with boys were framed as master-student affairs, so pretty far from our modern understanding of homossexuality.

It's not that same-sex relationships between adults didn't exists, but that the ones who engaged in them weren't exacly paraded around by others.

Hell, there were pederasts who talked shit about men who had same-sex adult lovers, for crying out loud!

[–]JulienMayfair[S] 10 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 0 fun11 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Regarding pederasty, I read a description of it where the author claimed there were three genders: Men, women, and boys, and men could have sex with boys under a certain age. It was apparently fairly widespread around the Mediterranean till at least the end of the 19th C. It wasn't entirely respectable, but it was tolerated, especially, so I've heard among the Ottomans. The boys were often slaves, so it was highly exploitative.

Discussion of this cultural phenomenon seems to have been swept under the rug, but it was still a thing when people like gay playwright Joe Orton visited North Africa in the 1960s.

[–]Neo_Shadow_LurkerPronouns: I/Don't/Care 10 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 0 fun11 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

There's also a class dynamic in play here: the ones who engaged in pederasty were, on average, well off men who held positions of power.

As I said before, the whole thing was framed as a master-student affair, where the older men was responsible to teach the boy not only a profession but also various aspects of life, including sex and relationships.

Even so, it's impossible to deny there was a very 'creep' factor involved in this, as there's several written documents which describe in detail the attraction these pederasts had specifically for effeminate, delicate boys. They weren't after, let's say, the 'prototypical jock' so to speak.

It's unsettling to say the least.

[–]JulienMayfair[S] 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

the whole thing was framed as a master-student affair

Some of it was that, but much of it was simply prostitution. The children of the poor who couldn't support or educate them ended up in the streets surviving however they could, and that often meant finding their way into prostitution, especially if they were physically attractive. I saw a news report talking about how it's going on now with Syrian refugees in places like Greece and Italy. They hang out in parks at night, and men come, pick them up, and pay them for sex. They don't identify as gay, but they have no other way to feed themselves.

That's part of why I think the New Age romanticizers are so off-the-mark. I think it more likely that these early societies were more like what's described in Game of Thrones than they were like some fantasy of sexual/gender utopia prior to contact with Western Civilization. The less powerful have always been subject to exploitation.