Subj : Rush to Judgement?
To   : Todd Henson
From : Curtis Johnson
Date : Fri Nov 03 2000 09:46 pm

 -=> Quoting Joseph Voigt to Todd Henson <=-

 JV> Friday November 03 2000 03:29, TODD HENSON wrote to JOHN WILSON:
 
 >>JV> "Fisting", BTW, is a perfectly legitimate sexual behavior, as
 >>JV> are sodomy, fellatio, cunnilingus, masturbation, and a host of
 >>JV> others. Your hangup about "fisting" (not to mention gay sex)
 >>JV> says a lot about you and about how you'd legislate "decency"
 >>JV> for all of us.
 
 TH> In a blatantly obvious attempt to shift the focus on philosophy, 
 TH> what do you think Plato would have to say about the above 
 TH> behaviors?

 JV> LOL.  Are you going to rewrite history for us now, Todd?  Plato 
 JV> never married.  On the internal evidence of his writing, his sexual 
 JV> feelings seem to have been directed solely to other men.  That sounds
 JV> homosexual to me. I have a pretty good idea what he'd have to say
 JV> about the above behaviors. 

	Not overly familiar with ancient Greek society, are you, Todd?
	
	Our moderator declared this off-topic, but gave us 3 days of
grace, so I trust that an answer to a question would be allowable 
(especially given the philosophical link), but probably not a discussion
that would be over the 3-day limit.

	The short, oversimplified answer is that Plato would not 
have condemned them any more than he would have marital indulgence 
in the missionary position.

	Here's what seems to be a fairly good summary of Plato's
notions about sex, pp. 8-9 of "Philosophers Have Avoided Sex," W.M.
Alexander, in _The Philosophy Of Sex:  Contemporary Readings_, 2nd.
ed., Alan Soble, ed., Littlefield Adams Quality Paperbacks, 1991:

	"Plato's position on sexual love is representative of the
Greek view in general.  Aristotle does not differ materially . . . 
and even . . . Lucretius is essentialy Platonic in its sexual 
doctrine.  The representative character of Plato's Hellenism is 
perhaps best symbolized by the fact that the timeless Greek myth of
the judgment of Paris . . . can serve as an account of the Platonic
philosphy of sex. . . .  The point of the story is the stupidity of
the young man's choice, which brought on the war, the death of many
heroes, and the destruction of a civilization.  Paris had chosen sex.
It should be noted that in the myth sex is a perfectly natural part
of the universe, along with other desirable possibilities, and there 
is o thought that sex is evil or corrupt.  Sex is a natural part of
human existence; however to select it over other values, values of 
the soul, is to make an unreasonable choice.
	"It is this relation between the body and the soul that 
provides matrial for most of the so-called paradoxes of the Platonic
view of sex.  Readers of Plato cannot undeerstand how he can take 
such a dim view of sexual relations with women and be so suspicious of 
marriage ans an institution that subverts the state . . . and yet . . .
make himself conspicuous as the philospher who advocated equal rights
for women in all affairs.  Nor can readers understand how Plato can
create a view of the cosmos in which love motivates everything, and
yet in which nothing found in nature can fulfill the desire of his
love.  And again, physical love is quite frankly discussed in one
of Plato's greatest dialogues, and yet, as one writer puts it, `it is
not at all clear how sex enters into the Platonic philosophy.'
	"These paradoxes disappear when it is realized that Plato
removed sex from serious philosophical consideration as a human affair
when he transposed sex upon a cosmic screen. . . . In his physical 
existence man longs for the eternal forms which alone can satisfy
his soul.  But his sexual existence qua sexual has no significance for 
this metaphysical eros; man's sex, as a matter of fact, is a matter of
indifference.  Plato's conception of love, insofar as human sex is
concerned, is completely non-sexual and can apply indifferently to 
heterosexual, homosexual, or asexual relations.  As Iriving Singer put 
it, `Sex is an afterthought, a technological device for propagating
the race.'"

	Also useful commentary is in Michel Foucalt's 2nd volume in his
 _The History of Sexuality_, _The Use of Pleasure_.  Here it is more 
Plato in the general cultural background.  Pp 43-45 in the pocket book:

	"It is true--Plato always comes back to this--that for the
Greeks there could not be desire without privation, without the want
of the thing desired and without a certain amount of suffering mixed
in; but the appetite, Plato explains in the _Philebus_, can be aroused 
only by the representation, the image or the memory of the thing that 
gives pleasure; he concludes that that there can be no desire except
in the soul . . . .  Thus, what seems in fact to have formed the 
object of moral reflection for the Greeks in matters of sexual conduct
was not exactly the act itself (considered in its different modalities), 
or desire (viewed from the standpoint of its origin or its aim), or 
even pleasure (evaluated according to the different objects or practices
that cause it); it was more the dynamics that joined all three in a
circular fashion (the desire that leads to the act, the act that is
linked to pleasure, and the pleasure that occasions desire).  The 
ethical question that was raised was not:  which desires?  which acts?  
which pleasures? but rather with what force is one transported `by
the pleasures and desires'?"

	"This dynamics is analyzed in terms of two major variables.
The first is quantiative; it has to do with the degree of number that
is shown by the number and frequency of acts.  What differentiates
men from one another, for medicine and moral philosophy alike, is not
so much the type of objects toward which they are oriented, nor the 
mode of sexual practice they prefer; above all, it is the intensity of
the practice.  The division is between lesser and greater moderation
or excess.  It is rather rare, when a notable personage is depicted,
for his preference for one form of sexual practice or another to be
pointed up.  On the other hand, it is always important for his moral
characterization to note whether he has been able to show moderation
in his involvement with women or boys, like like Agesilaus, who 
carried moderation to the point that he refused to kiss the young man
that he loved; or whether he surrendered, like Alcibiades or Arcesilaus, 
to the appetite that one can enjoy with both sexes.  This point is
supported by the famous first passage in the first book of the _Laws_.
It is true that Plato draws a sharp opposition in this passage between
the relationship `according to nature' that joins man and woman for
procreative ends, and relations `against nature' of male with male and 
female with female.'  But this opposition . . . is referred by Plato
to the more basic distinction between self-restraint and self-indulgence.
The practices that contravene nature and the principle of procreation
are not explained as the effect of an abnormal nature or of a peculiar
form of desire; they are merely the result of immoderation: `a lack
of self-restraint with regard to pleasure' (_akrateia hedones_) as
their source.  And when, in the _Timaeus_, Plato declares that lust
should be considered as the effect, not of a bad volition of the soul,
but of a sickness of the body, this disorder is described in a grand
pathology of excess:  the sperm, instead of remaining enclosed in the
marrow and its bony casing, overflows and starts to stream through the
whole body, so that the latter becomes like a tree whose vegetative
power exceeds all limits; the individual is thus driven to distraction
for a large part of his existence by `pleasures and pains in excess.'
This idea that immorality in the pleasures of sex is always connected
with exaggeration, surplus, and excess is found again in the third
book of the _Nicomachean Ethics_. . . "

	"The practice of the pleasures was also related to another
variable that might be labeled `role or polarity specific.'"

	"From this viewpoint, and in this ethics (always bearing in
mind that it was a male ethics, made by and for men), it can be said 
that the dividing line fell mainly between men and women. . .  But
more generally, it fell between what might be called `the active
actors' in the drama of pleasures, and the `passive actors'. . .  
The first were men, naturally, but more specifically they were adult
free men; the second included women of course, but women made up
only one element of a much larger group that was sometimes referred 
to as a way of designating the objects of possible pleasure:  `women,
boys, slaves.'"

	"For a man, excess and passivity were the two main forms of 
immorality in the practice of the _aphrodisia_."

	Foucault also devotes much space to the cult of the "beautiful
boy" and the mentoring relationship between man and boy which was 
founded on romantic love and which also figures in some of Plato's
dialogues, but this post is getting lengthy and I'm not sure how well
you can handle it.  





 
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