The World Beyond BetterMost > The Culture Tent
Mary Renault Book Discussion
injest:
and they figure very heavily in the next chapter...it is mentioned that the Spartans also had them but theirs were merely a mound of stones...
Kerry can you give us a background on the significance of a Herm? What are they for...what did they mean to the ancient people??
Kerry:
--- Quote from: Zander on January 12, 2007, 10:03:04 am ---My point of debate is - do we think MR was avoiding creating a "gay" character even though all her books use homosexuality as a key theme. Might be a bit too soon to debate this, lets see what people think as the progress further through TLOTW ;)
--- End quote ---
To quote my previous post in which I quoted from the "Oxford Companion to Classical Civilisation" (Oxford University Press):
"The application of 'homosexuality' (and 'heterosexuality') in a substantive or normative sense to sexual expression in classical antiquity is not advised."
injest:
--- Quote from: Kerry on January 13, 2007, 09:57:28 pm ---To quote my previous post in which I quoted from the "Oxford Companion to Classical Civilisation" (Oxford University Press):
"The application of 'homosexuality' (and 'heterosexuality') in a substantive or normative sense to sexual expression in classical antiquity is not advised."
--- End quote ---
SURELY you are not saying that all those teenage boys laid very still and never once enjoyed ANY of the sex...I would find that very hard to believe in context of the very passionate poems and odes we have from that time...
I can accept that it was not spoken of in polite society but the idea of the younger never once showing sexual interest a little far fetched...
one source I read, and of course I don't remember where....said that ORAL sex was frowned upon..."a man who was known to engage in oral sex was not offered the common cup at a banquet....interesting to note he was invited though" but anal intercourse was considered the 'norm'...
I do agree that for an adult man to want to be the reciever would bring derision...but for the younger? no...
Kerry:
--- Quote from: injest on January 13, 2007, 10:04:55 pm ---SURELY you are not saying that all those teenage boys laid very still and never once enjoyed ANY of the sex...I would find that very hard to believe in context of the very passionate poems and odes we have from that time...
I can accept that it was not spoken of in polite society but the idea of the younger never once showing sexual interest a little far fetched...
one source I read, and of course I don't remember where....said that ORAL sex was frowned upon..."a man who was known to engage in oral sex was not offered the common cup at a banquet....interesting to note he was invited though" but anal intercourse was considered the 'norm'...
I do agree that for an adult man to want to be the receiver would bring derision...but for the younger? no...
--- End quote ---
I've just amended my previous post. Though it is quoted directly from The Oxford Companion, on second thought, after I'd posted it, I considered it best to delete it at this point in our discussion.
It's difficult for us to understand the ancient Greek mind, particularly when it comes to their sexual outlook. Suffice to say that what we colloquially refer to as "greek," perhaps wasn't necessarily a Greek practice.
Here's another quote from The Oxford Companion:
"The asymmetries structuring pederastic relationships reflected the underlying division of sexual labour. Whereas a boy, lacking his lover's erotic motivation, was not expected to play what the Greeks considered an 'active' sexual role - he was not, that is, to seek a sexual climax by inserting his penis into an orifice of his lover's body - a man was expected to do just that either by thrusting his penis between the boy's thighs (which was considered the most respectful method, because it did not violate the boy's bodily integrity) or by inserting it into his rectum. Respectable erotic relations between men and boys preserved the social fiction, to which some honourable lovers may even have adhered in actual practice, that sexual penetration of the boy took place only between the legs (the so-called intercrural position), never in the anus or - what was even worse - in the mouth. It was not a question of what people actually did in bed (the boy was conventionally assumed to be anally receptive to his older lover) so much as how they behaved when they were out of bed."
I think you were right in your earlier post, Jess. We shouldn't be discussing this so early in the book.
injest:
very good...then we will lay that aside and continue with chapter three....which starts out with one of the most beautiful evocative scenes I have ever read...the view that morning Alexias saw from the Acropolis....
the description of the ships sitting like a city of lights on the sea...the dawn breaking and details emerging from the mist...just beautiful...
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