At the time of "drinking", in ancient Greece, there was a very obvious social phenomenon, that is, men loved each other for the beauty of men, which developed into a social fashion, and "lover" (elder party) and "beloved party" (teenager party) developed into a close relationship. Adult aristocratic men educate free citizens and teenagers about "love" to make them qualified and qualified as adults. In essence, this relationship is a special way of relationship and education: an adult man with rich knowledge, self-restraint and male charm will cultivate a handsome boy into a handsome boy with the same knowledge, self-restraint and male charm, and this virtuous circle will be passed down from generation to generation. Under the dual effects of external and internal environment, a large number of outstanding men, such as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, emerged in ancient Greece, all of whom had lover relationships with their students.
At the same time, during the pre-Qin period in China, there were also many well-known gay stories, such as The Good of Longyang and The Love of Leaving Zhi Tao. The Western Han Dynasty is a particularly striking historical period for homosexuality. Liu's royal family seems to have a hereditary homosexual tendency. From high-impedance Liu Bang to Liu Xin who lost his emperor, almost every generation of emperors had boyfriends, such as high-impedance Jiru, Hongru, Tong, Jingdi Zhou Ren, Jin Bang, Wu Di, Zhang Pengzu, Yuan Di Hongmu and Cheng Di Zhang.
However, it is worth noting that in ancient Greece, the sexual life of gay men was not exactly what we thought. At that time, oral sex and anal sex between men were not accepted and advocated. "Lover" and "loved" can touch and kiss each other's bodies, but "insertion" is considered unclean. They usually have sex through "leg sex", that is, inserting "lover" into the gap between the legs of "lover". They think that this way is a good path prescribed by God, while "oral sex" and "anal sex" are the ways to treat slaves or male prostitutes. An important point conveyed by Plato in Drinking is that the most beautiful love, even in this state, is not aimed at fertility and lewdness, but at the exchange of knowledge and virtue, so that both the lover and the beloved can become better people in love, understand the essence of beauty, and then achieve "great love" from "little love". Platonic love is also a kind of love between men, which should be based on the exchange of knowledge and virtue. Ancient Greece is also the earliest golden age of homosexuality in history, and it is also an era that many gay fans yearn for.
However, since the Middle Ages in Europe, homosexuality has been severely suppressed. From the severe punishment of homosexuality in the Middle Ages to the emergence of psychoanalysis in the 20th century, it was recognized as one of the mental diseases, and it took nearly a hundred years to remove it from the category of mental diseases. It was not until modern times that European countries began to legalize homosexuality, and gay groups ushered in the opportunity to breathe freely. However, contempt and attacks on gay groups are still widespread, especially in China. Under the absolute influence of Confucian culture, homosexual culture can only live in the position of subculture, and this group is also oppressed and destroyed by mainstream culture. Fortunately, with the current economic development, the inclusiveness of this group is gradually increasing, and perhaps the difference in sexual orientation in the future is equivalent to people's left-handed.
Since this book is the first time to openly discuss the love between men and women, and ancient Greece is an era of male chauvinism, why not extend the theme of reading and exploring this book to the in-depth study of homosexuality and different kinds of love?
The homosexuality we know now may be obviously different from that in ancient Greece, and homosexuality is also a vocabulary that only appeared in modern times. At present, homosexuality is one of sexual orientations, which refers to people who have only love and sexual desire for the same sex. Individuals with this sexual orientation are called homosexuals, and homosexual behavior is also common in animals other than humans. So since human beings classify homosexuality according to the definition of sexual orientation, but sexual orientation is not an absolute dichotomy, sexologists have studied that everyone's sexual orientation is like a coordinate axis, with heterosexuality and homosexuality at both ends, that is, everyone's sexual orientation is randomly distributed between the two axes, and absolute heterosexuality and absolute homosexuality are only a few according to probability distribution. So can it be said that most people's sexual orientation is distributed in the middle area of the axis, that is, it is very plastic, and most of the data involving large samples have been proved to be normal distribution, and most people's sexual orientation may come from the middle area.
What do you think of heterosexuality as heterosexuality? Perhaps it is not necessarily true that heterosexuality is born. In the view of constructivism, you are probably constructed. You are constructed as heterosexual, constructed by this social culture. It used to be a popular saying that every heterosexual just hasn't met a homosexual who makes him fall in love with him, which may be true, such as giving you a dozen handsome men and beautiful women who are both inside and outside, and trying their best to seduce you in front of you. Can you promise not to subvert your original understanding of your sexual orientation?
If the condition of strong plasticity of sexual orientation is established, with the increasing tolerance of homosexuality, will there be a day when homosexual culture will rival heterosexual culture or return to the atmosphere of the Greek era? What kind of era will it be? Perhaps just as poverty limits my imagination, so does tradition.