Parts of pages 213-219 of Roslyn Bologh’s Love or Greatness remind me, strangely, of one of the main theses in the book, The Greeks and Greek Love by James Davidson. I’m not sure that these are opposing ideas, similar ideas, or ideas that can play with each other.
For Bologh, in the midst of erotic love, “the recognition that while the self is appearing to be a subject, s/he can also be an object makes for the playfulness of social interactions”. A key feature to this playfulness, according to Bologh, is “suspension of commitment” to ones role as either position (object or subject) (desired or desiree). These ideas are labeled as a feminist mode of erotic love and it reads as such: erotic love is the fluidity (and balance) to be both the object of interest and the interested party.
In his book, Davidson explores the prevalence and seeming acceptance of male homosexuality in Ancient Greek society and posits that much of this “acceptance” was predicated on the pursuit of homosexual sex but not on the actual act of homosexual sex. That is…one can chase and one can be chased, but one must never catch or be caught.
There are, according to Davidson, strictly prescribed roles for sociable, socially acceptable male homosexual behavior. Specifically, these roles consist of the “eromenous” (the youthful, smooth, young male) who is pursued by the “erastes”—the older man doing the pursuing. The strictness in age of the roles and the concept of the chase are important to the acceptance of this sociable behavior; the older erastes is expected to make an object of the eromenous. However, according to David, the eromenous is expected to flee from his role as object. In other words, Davidson posits that in many places in Ancient Greek society, it is acceptable for a man to lust after a younger boy and it is acceptable for a younger boy to be lusted after by an older man; it is acceptable for the older man to pursue the younger man (say, attempting to give the young man a gift) but it is not acceptable for the young man to be “caught” (accepting the gift/ acknowledging the pursuit).
Davidson uses many Greek myths and Greek pottery art to illustrate his complex concepts of “Greek love”.
To illustrate the above concept (I’m not sure if it’s symmetrical or asymmetrical), Davidson refers to the Peithinos Cup. This cup is decorated with repeating images of an erastes very close to an eromenous. In each couple’s background, there is a bottle of oil (the setting is assumed to be a gymnasium). As the couples vary in postures, the oil bottle in the background varies in its position; for the couple who is depicted as the furthest apart, the oil bottle is upright (Davidson reads this as a symbol of “social acceptability”); for the couple that are illustrated as the most sexually engaged, the oil bottle is tipped and spilling over (read as “socially unacceptable”).
Bologh’s writing emphasizes fluidity in erotic love: the ability to switch roles between desired and the one desiring (in both homo and heterosexual relations). Davidson emphasizes strict rules and roles in the erotic homosexual behavior of men in Ancient Greece yet a key feature here is also non commitment to the act: it is also play. And in a sense, there is also fluidity: an eromenous has the capacity (the destiny?) to age into becoming the erastes.
