i mean it bothers me too when people even use the word 'gay' to refer to hellenistic sexuality ( i toss around horrid terms like 'ultrapatriarchy', patriarchal normative bisexuality, so i shouldn't really blame them for keeping it simpler) but you're going a bit too far in this analysis. the exact form and extent of pederasty isn't actually very well known. we've got some very well known and authoritative-sounding sources like plato making a case for a read like yours, but the provenance of these sources must be interrogated. can we really say for certain the intense focus plato put on boyishness was the rule everywhere? even just for athens at large, for just the ruling class? some examples for homosexual/social activity in the hellenistic world are definitely adult---the sacred band of thebes, hephaistion x alexandros. to be clear this is only a critique of your characterization of ancient hellenistic culture at large;
i 100% agree its fucked to adopt & identify with the sources we do have, even if it's not for certain every younger partner in an ancient greek homosexual relation was a child, the very explicit character of the powerful pursuing the relatively powerless is super-fucked. shit wouldn't be cool if all the youths were 'of age'. and the biggest blindspot, as you point out, is always regarding women. both in the casual non-acknowledgement that every 'gay' character in this period would've been socially obliged to have been hetero married, and the brushing aside the intense misogyny in fucking everything from back then. it's so neat to hear people to gush about how 'gay' achilles or alexandros were when their ""conquest"" of and enslavement of women is explicit.
to be clear this is only a critique of your characterization of ancient hellenistic culture at large
this is a good critique i was heavily generalizing an entire society. its these more nuances looks at history that i want in the first place so thank you.
i mean it bothers me too when people even use the word 'gay' to refer to hellenistic sexuality ( i toss around horrid terms like 'ultrapatriarchy', patriarchal normative bisexuality, so i shouldn't really blame them for keeping it simpler) but you're going a bit too far in this analysis. the exact form and extent of pederasty isn't actually very well known. we've got some very well known and authoritative-sounding sources like plato making a case for a read like yours, but the provenance of these sources must be interrogated. can we really say for certain the intense focus plato put on boyishness was the rule everywhere? even just for athens at large, for just the ruling class? some examples for homosexual/social activity in the hellenistic world are definitely adult---the sacred band of thebes, hephaistion x alexandros. to be clear this is only a critique of your characterization of ancient hellenistic culture at large;
i 100% agree its fucked to adopt & identify with the sources we do have, even if it's not for certain every younger partner in an ancient greek homosexual relation was a child, the very explicit character of the powerful pursuing the relatively powerless is super-fucked. shit wouldn't be cool if all the youths were 'of age'. and the biggest blindspot, as you point out, is always regarding women. both in the casual non-acknowledgement that every 'gay' character in this period would've been socially obliged to have been hetero married, and the brushing aside the intense misogyny in fucking everything from back then. it's so neat to hear people to gush about how 'gay' achilles or alexandros were when their ""conquest"" of and enslavement of women is explicit.
this is a good critique i was heavily generalizing an entire society. its these more nuances looks at history that i want in the first place so thank you.