User:Mark Miller/subpage eros

The same sex pratices of the Ancient Greeks is a subject debated, discussed, written about, therorized and heavily dissected for hundreds of years. While the day to day lives of the Greek people is difficult to peice together through surviving literature, graffiti and pottery, it is possible to see from the available information what the ancient Greeks actualy did say about sex.

Overview
The god Eros is known from Hesiod's Theogony. The epic poem, the most famous of the Greek Creation myth tells of the birth of Eros from Chaos, Gaia the earth and Tartarus the underworld. The ancient Greek traditions speak of different uses of the term Eros. Traditionally, Eros was principally the patron of male love, however, is also the primordial god of lust, beauty, as well as love and intercourse when worshipped as a fertility god. Accounts by Simonides have Eros as the son of Aphrodite and Ares.

It is Eros, that supposedly inspired the love of the human form and especially that of male same sex relationships. In the ancient ideology of the Greeks the appreciation of male beauty could be as strong or stronger than that of the female form. These relationships may or may not be consummated, but could be as simple as the love of an athlete and his physical and perceived spiritual perfection from a distance. At times, when the attraction is returned, the relationship becomes physical. With no social stigmas or barriers, the idolization of the athlete in this manner, known as Kalos kagathos, became a national symbolic idea and philosophy. The modern concept of sexuality cannot be placed on the ancient Greeks as we understand it today. Our modern concepts are steeped in hundreds of years of mostly Christian doctrine and the influences that it has had on the acceptance of male relationships and sexual desire in general.

Archaeological evidence
Archaeological evidence of relationships between males in ancient Greece is abundant, but, demonstrating that it is definite proof of a homosexual subculture is impossible. The Greek generic term of "boy' is seen modified by the word καλός on hundreds of examples of vases. The use of the term of "boy" does not qualify to a modern translation of underage or of a one sided, unwanted advance by an elder. No, to best understand the use of the term "Eros" or "kalos" in ancient Greece, one must understand the ancient Greek appreciation of male physical perfection in terms of the religious, spiritual and social connotations as well as the enternal desires of the Greek male to achieve a perfection unachievable by ones self without the appreciation of what the Greeks considered pure and natural.

This is not to be confused with pederasty or the modern term of pedophilia. While the Greeks considered relationships between a mature adult male and a youth, they did actually take a very stern critical eye towards a number of actions. A child of an extreme low age of both sexes was off limits to Greek social acceptance. The Greeks did not define "boy" in the same way modern terms do with a connection to a set age of consent, However they did have a moral code. They saw male sexual relations to be socially acceptable at an age group that was old enough to participate in the "Olympiads". It is common for modern interpretation to simply assume the man-boy relationship of a much older man with a boy even ancient Greek standards did not accept.

19TH century Hellenistic poets have adopted the idea of "Greek love" to be something that they defined

Located throughout the Greek world, graffiti on walls, in corridors and on natural rock have been found with the writings of men proclaiming there intense love of other men and athletes.

Stadium Graffiti
Tunnel Graffiti at the Nemea stadium as well as many similar sites has the remains of graffiti of competing athletes. Much of what is inscribed on the walls besides aclamations of "I won" and the response "Sez who" are kalos names accompnied by the praises of beauty and perfection.

Historical documentation
There are many historical sources that deal with the subject of Greek and Platonic love as decribed by the ancients themselves. Historians have poured over this subject for centuries.

Historical references
Eros is the force of sexual desire unleashed on the mortal world of chaos and death.