Early Advocacy Of Strap-On Sex
Speaking as a representative of the “epoch of the future” appealed to in the text below, I see no flaws. I’d say “have at it!” but them as wants to already do without waiting for me or any other “legislator of strange pleasures”:
If males find intercourse with males acceptable, henceforth let women too love each other. Come now, epoch of the future, legislator of strange pleasures, devise fresh paths for male lusts, but bestow the same privilege upon women, and let them have intercourse with each other just as men do. Let them strap to themselves cunningly contrived instruments of lechery, those mysterious monstrosities devoid of seed, and let woman lie with woman as does a man. Let wanton Lesbianism — that word seldom heard, which I feel ashamed even to utter — freely parade itself, and let our women’s chambers emulate Philaenis, disgracing themselves with Sapphic amours.
See it here in the original Greek. It’s said to be by an imitator of Lucian, and thought to date from around 300 CE.
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“And your thoughts on pegging, sir?”
You do realize this writer intended this to be a convincing homophobic argument against male male sex OR female female sex?
It is a classical arguement absrudium – you are supposed to be so incensed by the (absurd) thought of approving female female sex in the body of the argument that you reject the premise – that male male sex is ok.
The evidence is in the last few lines where the words “ashamed” and “disgracing” illuminate the writer’s true beliefs.
In a word: yes.
My quote is an excerpt from a much longer satire in the form of an argument between those who hold male-male sex to be much superior and those who do not. However given the overall satyric frame, I’m not at all sure you’ve correctly pegged the authorial intent; it’s certain that the speaker of this excerpt is engaging in reductio ad absurdem, but far less clear that the speaker and the author share a common viewpoint in that moment. Indeed I think the author may be lampooning those who oppose gay sex.
Either way, my stance is intended to be an understated “you say that like it’s a bad thing” reaction to the bald words of the rhetoric. However absurd the speaker considered his proposition, I’m presenting it is just good old-fashioned plain common sense.
@Peter: If you look at the full text (there’s a version in English here and a version in the original Greek (with a Danish translation) here, you’ll see that the section quoted by Bacchus is part of speech by a character in a dialogue, which is not the same thing as the opinion of the writer.
Very well, apologies! I did not pursue this enough to realize the quote was of one character’s speech and viewpoint. It simply set off my BS detector (which has become so wornout recently that it takes very little to trip it!) I believe we agree the character quoted is homophobic though?
In this age of twitter and instant messaging the ability to recognize rhetoric and the classical forms of critical reasoning is becoming rare, just when we need it to cut through the fake news, double-speak and newspeak with which we are inundated (from both sides of the political spectrum).
I would certainly go with “disapproving” if that satisfies you. “Homophobic” I find tends to get used as a snarl-word that’s often inaccurate or at least poorly chosen, as it tends to denote a hatred of or disdain for all things homosexual with a root that means “fear”. I don’t consider it intellectually honest to build into our speech the claim that hatred or disdain necessarily stems from fear.
It’s also the case that homophobia is a word very firmly anchored in 20th century cultural attitudes. I’m not sure how readily we should attach it to the cultural disputes of the ancients or how meaningful it is when we do so attach it.