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Plato on Love and Same-Sex Relationships

Plato on Love and Same-Sex Relationships. Symposium c. 480? Set after Lenaea of 416. A recollection of a recollection. Many different characters… “Flute-girls” sent away. Intercourse “between ourselves” Phaedrus instigates the theme

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Plato on Love and Same-Sex Relationships

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  1. Plato on Love and Same-Sex Relationships

  2. Symposium c. 480? Set after Lenaea of 416 • A recollection of a recollection. Many different characters… • “Flute-girls” sent away. Intercourse “between ourselves” • Phaedrus instigates the theme • In turns going around the room following the flow of wine…

  3. Phaedrus’s Speech • Warfare nobility self-sacrifice • Achilles and Patroclus – Aeschylus phluareitalks nonsense… Achilles is obviously the erōmenos. • Prospective of an Army of Lovers – date and Xenophon’s error…

  4. Pausanias’s Speech • Hugely influential • Heavenly and Pandemos Aphrodite • Varieties of “Greek Homosexuality”

  5. Pausanias on Athenian Homosexuality • Possibly the most influential text on the topic • the most “beautiful” – kalos --, “complicated” – poikilos, “not easy to understand”. • The Athenian paradox: praise for erastai who pursue. Praise for erōmenoi who resist. • Pausanias’s resolution of the paradox: virtue • Dover’s resolution of the paradox: penetration • Other reasons for putting out implied in Pausanias’s speech… money power

  6. Aristophanes’s Speech • The origins of love: male homosexual, female homosexual and heterosexual. • A joke? Who speaks? Why is Aristophanes here? • Acknowledgement of inherent human sexual orientation?

  7. Diotima’s speech • Love and the reproductive soul.

  8. Phaedrus c. 360? • Rapture • Charioteer of the Soul • Immortality of the couple

  9. Laws c. 350? • Colorado debate on constitutionality of anti-gay legislation • Against Nature – phusis • Comparisons with animal behaviour • Invention of the myth of Ganymede cf. Phaedrus • Myth of Laius and Chrysippus – tolma. • A program to make homosexual sex unacceptable like incest through use of myths and stories. • Acknowledges that this is contrary to most people’s attitudes and especially those of his Cretan and Spartan companions • Alongside adultery

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