The writer as researcher

Revising my novel has taken me through many days of re-reading what I wrote,  aftershocks of beta reader feedback, soul-searching, re-drafting an outline, and now, gently putting new words down on the page.

I’ve realized what I also need to do is to get clearer in my head (and then the pages) my portrayal of male/male relationships in the fantasy world wherein the action takes place.

Of course, I have some liberties with fantasy.  I could create a world with far-flung notions of male sexuality.  But the story is also re-told myth, with an ancient world–predominantly–pre-Hellenic sensibility. Thus, there’s some squaring to be done with what we know about the ancient Greece.

There are common misunderstandings about the attitudes and practices surrounding male sexuality in ancient Greece.  On the surface, the society tends to be associated with rampant homosexuality, portrayed in parody and snarky comments–“Oh, you know what the Greeks were like…”

Earlier in my career, I facilitated anti-homophobia workshops.  One of my most memorable experiences was when I presented in front of a group of teachers, during the segment of the workshop on cultural relativism, cross-cultural and cross-historical attitudes toward homosexuality.  A young teacher, watching me intently and nodding his head along for quite some time, raised his hand and asked, with full sincerity, “Didn’t the ancient Greeks support gay marriage?”

The answer, of course, was no, certainly not as we understand “gay marriage” today.

From a modern viewpoint, many of the artistic relics–naked men on vase paintings, the kouros (idols of male beauty), and depictions of the phallus–make it seem like a society obsessed with the male form, hence, obviously very gay.  This leads to a misinterpretation of male sexuality and gender roles of the time.   In actuality, ancient Greek society was highly patriarchal, with segregated roles for men and women.  Men ruled the public realm.  Women were the keepers of the home.  The idealized man was strong, fearless and dominant.   Effeminacy was ridiculed such that a man’s reputation could be ruined if he was called out as “acting like a woman.”

Thus the abundant visual depictions of men are better understood as a reflection of male-centrism politically and culturally.  The naked male image was not meant to arouse, generally.

Still, there were nuances.  Whereas many patriarchal societies enforce a heterosexual imperative, at least in public life, in ancient Greece, exclusive heterosexuality was not a requirement of male privilege.  Many of the most powerful, respected, celebrated men of the time engaged in sex with other men, particularly during the pre-Hellenic era when same-sex pairings were a widespread tradition, at least among the upper class.  The context of male/male relationships was what mattered.

Most of what we know about homosexuality at the time comes from artwork and literature depicting the specific practice of ‘paiderastia,’ which involved discrete roles for the older, more experienced partner, the ‘erastes,’ and his younger, typically adolescent lover, the ‘eromenos.’   Such relationships had social, educational and/or political components, vis-a-vis a tutor and his pupil or a noble man and a youth from lesser aristocratic family.  In some cases, these sort of couplings began with rituals similar to a marriage—the presentation of gifts (dowry) to the eromenos, animal sacrifices and feasts.  The eromenos could choose whether or not to accept the offer of his erastes, unlike girls who rarely had say in who they married.

I’d love to know more about peer-to-peer homosexual relationships of the time, which certainly happened, but are hard to turn up in the literature.  Likely, they were less socially sanctioned since they conferred none of the advantages that were prized at the time:  child-bearing or status advancement.

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