thewinterknight said:
The Bible don't even bother mentioning anything about homosexuality, also the Greek and the Romans practiced homosexuality, why? Because they believed that man was perfection itself.
Homosexuality is a very modern concept. Even the word itself is young. This term didn't even show up until 1869, as far as evidence is concerned. It is a literal translation that means "same-sex" (the Greek prefix
homo- and the Latin root
sex-) and can be referred to single-gender contexts, but now it is widely and inevitably referred to one's sexual orientation. We already know that.
Ancient Greeks did not have a term for "homosexuality." Nor did the Romans. There is nothing that even comes close to describe homosexual practices in the ancient Greek language, only
aphrodisiakos (aphrodisia) which roughly translates to sexual intercouse or sexual desires and pleasure, but indicates nothing about the sex of the persons involved.
But there is a specific word,
paederasteia (pederasty), which means an erotic relationship between an adult man and an adolescent boy, not yet aged eighteen. "Erotic" is a more encompassing term that does not necessarily have to include actual sexual intercourse. In fact, much philosophical discourse have taken place to discuss how pederastic relationships should be expressed. If you read Plato's _The Symposium_, you will find that Socrates himself favored chastic pederasty and even had one with Alcibiades. Socrates attributed self-control to be a noble and superior characteristic trait of a man over those who cannot refrain from indulging in their sexual desires.
What the ancient Greeks and Romans practiced cannot be exactly called "homosexuality" because, again, the kind of homosexuality we are talking about comes from a modern and perhaps a rather limited construction of sexuality in the past century. Yes, what some of them did can be considered homosexual practices in the sense that sexual intercourse took place between the same sex, but this did not necessarily make them homosexuals, or gay. Nor did all adult men have sex with their boy lovers. They believed that it was perfectly normal to be attracted to the pulchritude of young boys. They also belived that it was important to train them to be men. The sexual intercourse was one physical means for the adult male to pass on his wisdom, to instruct his boy lover in the fine subject of manhood, and more importantly, to prepare him for full participation in politics as a citizen. In fact, a relationship with an adult man was a fundamental aspect of education for growing boys.
Labelling what the ancient Greeks did with our modern term "homosexuality" is reductionistic of the complex phenomena of an elite male culture in ancient Greece. It was not just about the sex, as I have argued. It was an established and rooted institution. And it was powerful.
