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> Plato would have been very confused if you asked him if he was straight, bi, or gay. Maybe for these particular terms, but the story told by Aristophanes in
by goto11 6y ago
> Plato would have been very confused if you asked him if he was straight, bi, or gay.
Maybe for these particular terms, but the story told by Aristophanes in Plato's symposium do present attraction toward either males or females as something inherent to a person. It is the opposite of fluid.
- scarmig 6y agoI'm not saying that Greeks were genderfluid: I'm saying that their tendencies of sexual attraction ("orientation") weren't an abstraction they reached to to interpret their own realities and identities. They share the same biological territory as us, but a different map of it. In the case of the Greeks, the abstraction they did reach to to organize desire was not homosexual/heterosexual but penetrator/penetrated, with women and young boys expected to be the penetrated and post-adolescent men the penetrator. And for men, at least, there was an expected flow and directionality from one to another; it wasn't expected to be immutable.
- goto11 6y agoI'm pointing out a literary source which contradict your claims. Not that the viewpoint of Plato was necessarily shared by everyone - Greece was not monolithic. But you specifically mentioned Plato.