Homosexual Education in Ancient Greece

The attitude to marriage and sex is changing over time. People may not accept things today that they accepted before. Are you are interested in history and want to widen your horizons while discovering sex tourism? Then find out why people associate ancient Greece with homosexual education. It is especially important since people talk about homosexuality and their orientation openly these days.

Paideia in Ancient Greece

Ancient Greece had the most unusual educational model that we know. It was called paideia. An adult man, not in any way related to family ties with a young man, had to teach him virtue, including military. Usually, families would send a young man to a mentor at the age of twelve. At the same age when the girls were being prepared for marriage. The mentor was Erast, and the disciple – eroman.

Erast was responsible for the education and deeds of his ward and could even be punished for the misdeeds of the eroman. However, in addition to these purely pedagogical relations, there were also erotic ones. The Erast teacher was obliged to give gifts to his eroman and take care of him. In exchange for help in education, the eroman had to provide erotic services to his teacher. Some historians suggest that society didn’t accept penetrative sex between men. But other researchers, on the contrary, believe that arête was symbolically transmitted and knowledge in war and hunting was transmitted from an adult male mentor through his semen.

The role of Erast

The role of Erast was ambivalent. On the one hand, he had to act as a role model, an altruistic and highly moral person. This obliged the Erast to associate himself with the chosen boy (only one!) with a spiritual connection, in order to accustom him to a beneficent life according to Plato’s theory of Eros, and in this role to give the boy in the most important years of his development animals (among other things) to strengthen both physical and moral qualities.

On the other hand, from the position of a lover, Erast had a completely selfish and unfair intention in the eyes of society: to satisfy himself sexually. Or, as Plato said, with the help of love for boys, to advance in their own perfection. Therefore, the Erast used the eroman to achieve the highest spiritual and mental knowledge through erotic ecstasy. The position of the Erast, who wanted to do something useful for society, and at the same time satisfy their personal needs, is too paradoxical and conflicting.

How Did Everything Begin?

Exactly people not Gods originated homosexual relationships in Ancient Greece. Many males Gods were interested in relationships with boys, and Greeks accepted it as something ordinary.  Did you know that Zeus, the head of the patriarchal Olympus was mostly heterosexual but even he couldn’t resist the same-sex experience? He kidnapped the young man Ganymede (brother of Eli, the founder of Troy), whom he liked, and handed over to king Troy, his father, as a ransom of wonderful horses. To calm the jealous Hera, Ganymede, along with immortality, was given the honorary title of the divine cupbearer. Afterward, he became a legitimate resident of Olympus. Poseidon had connections with boys. For example, he fell in love with Pelops (the future grandfather of Agamemnon and Menelaus). The god of winemaking Dionysus was not averse to same-sex love as well.

Final Thoughts

In numerous poetic examples, you can see that animals are put in the place of a person. Hunting aggression becomes erotic aggression, and mainly pederastic. The same thing happened on ancient Greek vases. A hare, a fox, a rooster, a swan, or a cheetah – all of them served not only as metaphors for hunting prowess but also for the love relationship between Erast and Eroman. This shows how close to eroticism the struggle had settled in the minds of the Greeks. These days, people are not afraid to share the orientation and thanks to such examples from ancient times, some of them are on the edge of doing what they want at last, and do not hide their own desires from the society.