In her study of the historical and cultural context of homosexuality in ancient Greece, Eva Cantarella (1992) points to a sharp contrast between the social roles of male and female homosexual bonds. The male pederastic model, with its distinct roles of dominance and submission, served as an instrument in the education and political development of young men. Sex between man and boy symbolized the transfusion of political power from the superior older man to his younger beloved (cf. Dover, Foucault 1985). By contrast, although homosexual erotic relations among women may also have had an educational and social role, these relations were not linked to the institutional structures of power as male pederastic relations were. As Cantarella puts it: "But what symbolic and social significance could be attached to the love between women? Sex between women takes place on an equal basis, it does not involve submission, it cannot symbolize the transmission of power (not even the power of generation, the only power held by women)"(83).
In the article, Greene discusses the way Sappho speaks of her beloved, and the way the beloved is often elevated from object to subject. Sometimes the beloved does this through dialog and calls out to Sappho, having a voice and so also a self and the ability to speak. Sometimes also the beloved is the subject of a sentence and so acts, rather than being an object, upon whom or in relation to whom Sappho acts. In fact, in the article, Greene stresses the difference between tradition sexual roles (active v passive) and a kind of sexuality that is specific to sex between two women, where there isn't as defined defined difference between the body which acts and the body which receives.
This doesn't speak at all to the issue of taboo, which we flirted with for a moment in class, but I do think it is an interesting point which we didn't discuss in class.
2 comments:
This is really good commentary, Kate!
One thing we might have talked about last time was the perspective given by the inclusion of a female voice. Is it significant that it is a woman who is saying that love is more important than war and glory?
(What would Klytemnestra say? Arguably the Agamemnon tries to give voice to the perspective of the women upon the Trojan war, even though the poet is male. Plato's Republic, which we are not reading this year, also arguably gives a critical take on the martial-glory-ridden ethos of the Iliad.)
Kate's observations on Greek homosexuality also accord with my understanding.
To this, I'll add that the man/boy relationships one sees depicted in 5th century Athens were not universally approved among the Greeks. There is a variety of attitudes towards them in different cities and different times. (Indeed, Plato's Symposium shows that there are even a variety of attitudes in 5th/4th century Athens.) It wasn't technically pederasty, by the way, as the "boy" in question was generally a teenager, "about the time of first beard". But it definitely wasn't a relationship between equals. Indeed, the general attitude seems to have been critical of two grown men being lovers. Its proponents' case for its merits also seems to be tied to the kind of misogyny that was particularly prominent in Athens -- i.e., loving a young man is superior to loving a woman because you can actually have an intellectual conversation with a man, while women are (they felt -- Plato being a notable exception) women are unsuited to such things, though of course one needed them for having children. So this sort of relationship was nothing like same-sex unions today.
I think much less is known about female homosexuality in the Greek world. In general, we have far fewer writings by or about Greek women than Greek men. (Likewise, we hear mainly about aristocratic Greek men. So what we read is really about a very small fraction of Greek society, and there were probably a lot of perspectives that have been ill-preserved. History is written not only by the victors, but also by those among the victors who write and preserve manuscripts.)
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