Boehringer - 2010 - Does Sexuality Have A Past

DOES SEXUALITY HAVE A PAST?
From the Greek erôs to contemporary sexuality: a modern question in the ancient
world
Sandra Boehringer
Association Recherches en psychanalyse | « Recherches en psychanalyse »
2010/2 n° 10 | pages 189a à 201a

ISSN 1767-5448
DOI 10.3917/rep.010.0008
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Recherches en Psychanalyse – Research in Psychoanalysis 10│2010
10│2010 – Politics of the Sexual

Politique du sexuel
Does sexuality have a past?

From the Greek erôs to contemporary sexuality: a modern question in the ancient world
La sexualité a-t-elle un passé ?
De l’érôs grec à la sexualité contemporaine : questions modernes au monde antique
Sandra Boehringer
Abstract:
Perspectives on love and sexuality in the Ancient Greek and Roman societies differ greatly from those of
contemporary western societies, in that the sexual identity of individuals has little bearing on the
characterization of erotic life and pleasure. In ancient poetry (7th–6th century BCE), the poets
emphasize especially the effects and the force of eros, referring to the way the lover’s body is affected
and the paradoxical sensations he or she experiences (feelings of dissolution, losing oneself, feelings of
loveliness). In this context, emotion and desire are the characteristics of love between older and
younger men, between women, between a woman and man, without discrimination. In the 4th century,
a passage of the Symposium, which has become famous for its portrayal of the figure of the
“androgynous”, Plato elaborates a philosophical myth which, far from explaining the origin of
anachronistic “heterosexuality” or “homosexuality”, displayes the aspects of an eros as a lifeforce.

Looking at the ancient world using the concept of gender as our tool enables us to historicize the
categories of sex and sexuality and thus highlight the cultural and constructed dimension – the political
dimension – of contemporary sexuality.
Résumé :
La façon de percevoir l’amour et la sexualité des sociétés grecque et romaine est fort différente de celle
des sociétés occidentales contemporaines en ce que l’identité de sexe des individus n’entre que peu en
considération pour caractériser l’érotisme et les plaisirs. Dans la poésie archaïque (VIIe-VIe siècles avant
notre ère), les poètes insistent avant tout sur les effets d’érôs et sa force, en évoquant les atteintes sur
le corps de la personne touchée (celle qui aime) et les sensations paradoxales qu’elle ressent (sensation
de dissolution, perte des repères, douceur). Dans ces contextes, l’émotion et le désir caractérisent
indistinctement les amours entre hommes et jeunes hommes, entre femmes, entre homme et femmes.
Au IVe siècle, dans un passage du Banquet devenu célèbre pour son évocation de la figure de
l’androgyne, Platon élabore un mythe philosophique qui, loin d’expliquer l’origine d’une anachronique
« hétérosexualité » ou « homosexualité », déploie les facettes d’un erôs comme élan. Ces approches du
monde antique, avec l’outil du genre, permettent d’historiciser les catégories de sexe et de sexualité et,
par effet de conséquence, mettent en évidence la dimension culturelle et construite – la dimension
politique – de la sexualité contemporaine.
8
Journal of Psychoanalytic Studies.
Hosted by the Department of Psychoanalytic Studies, Paris Diderot at Sorbonne Paris Cité University.
Keywords: desire, love, eros, sexuality, poetry, Alcman, Sappho, Anacreon, Pindaros, Plato, Antiquity,
Greece, Rome
Mots-clefs : désir, amour, érôs, sexualité, poésie, Alcman, Sappho, Anacréon, Pindare, Platon,
Antiquité, Grèce, Rome
Plan:
Erôs as an impulse
Ancient eroticism versus contemporary sexuality
Erôs has no sex
“Love again!”—such is the cry we often hear in pains of each one of us?)—we shall see that in
the songs of the great Greek poets of the the course of history, the conception of the
archaic period (6th century BC). The exact Greek amorous and erotic bond has changed a great
expression is “Erôs deute me,” or “Love is again deal. What today we perceive as self-evident
making me…” The rest may vary according to and perhaps indeed “natural,” would not have
the situation: love is making me suffer, it is been understood as such in a different historical
making me rejoice, it sets my heart on fire, it is period. Is love eternal? The historian and the
killing me with pleasure. Sappho, the celebrated anthropologist would say no: it cannot be
poetess of Lesbos, sings: “Now Love, the natural because it is cultural. Both love and
ineluctable, dominates and shakes my being, sexuality—two notions our western society
and fills me with bitter-sweetness.”1 The Erôs of closely associates with one another—are social,
Anacreon, another 6th-century Greek poet, is cultural and political constructions and a
more playful: “Once again golden-haired Eros, journey into the Greek antiquity can help us put
hitting me with a purple ball, calls me out to them into historical context.
play with a fancy-sandaled maid.” During the

archaic period, the recurrent image is that of a Erôs as an impulse
ravaging erôs, which, once he has struck a lover
with its arrow, destroys everything in his way: In order to explore these distant worlds and
“Now like a mountain wind the oaks more particularly focusing on what in our view
overwhelming, Erôs shakes my soul,” writes belongs to the sphere of love and sexuality, we
Sappho, or “Once again Erôs has struck me like a must first recognize that what we now think of
smith with a great hammer and dipped me in as women and men, as the feminine and the
the wintry torrent,” sings Anacreon.* masculine, are concepts or sets of cultural
These cries of love and pain seem timeless: we constructs that are socially produced and
think of Racine’s Phaedra, tortured by her love depend on the geographical and temporal
for Hippolytus: “I stared, I blushed, I paled, context of their making. If everything were
beholding him,”2 (Racine uses one of Sappho’s natural, we would have no need for “history.”
poems which he then transposes to a masculine We historicize things that evolve and change,
object). Timeless are Eluard’s poems for Nusch, things that are precisely not “natural”.
Heloise’s letters to Abelard, the first words Historians working in the field of “gender
Tristan says to Iseult or Jaques Brel’s rendition history” therefore argue that “masculine” and
of Ne me quitte pas. Yet, though the pains of “feminine” identities, as well as the
love and passion may indeed seem eternal— characteristics we attribute to them, do not
while in reality they are unique and mutually exist “naturally”—they have not been invented
incomparable (indeed, how could one compare, by some divinity or by a Nature trying to play
even within the same era, the pleasures and demiurge. They consider these identities a
9
human invention, or rather a whole set of not the poet himself but a diegetic “I”, which at
human inventions, which can be studied in the times bears the name of the actual poet. Some
same way as we study, for example, the social indications may refer to the real circumstances
classes in Russia, the religious casts in India, the of the poem’s performance; at other times this
constitution of national identities during the is not the case.
inter-war period or the invention of democracy The first quality of the effect produced by erôs is
in Athens. If we examine more closely what is sweetness. The sensation is felt and compared
meant by the Greek term Erôs, we will see that to the softness of sleep, the smoothness of
firstly, its emotional field is very different from liquid, the loveliness of music. While in the epic
the current implications of the term “love” and poetry, erôs can also mean a desire for war or
secondly, that it is linked to what we now call victory, the melic erôs is often linked to the
“sexuality” in a entirely different way. context of singing or music, apt to provoke
The Greek term erôs appears in the earliest of desire, and it is associated to an aspiration to
Greek texts, during the archaic period. In the beauty and value. It frequently stirs paradoxical
Homeric epos, erôs designates before all else a emotions, as evidenced by Sappho’s oxymoron
type of momentum or impulse (élan), yet of erôs the bittersweet (glukupikros).4 As a
without having a clearly defined object: one can force, Erôs tends to objectivize: the amorous
be driven towards good food or have a craving subject suffers these feelings, he is desire’s
for drink. The expression “when they had target and victim, rather than its active source.
satisfied their desire (erôs) for food and wine” is As a condition of being, erôs transforms the
very common. The term may refer to a desire individual at the deepest level of his existence,
which can indeed be satisfied: “when I have representing a form of invasion. It is often
relieved my desire for lamenting,” says a hero of associated with deep sleep, with death, with the
the Illiad.* Erôs also designates the impulse of a all-enveloping thickness of fog, or with the state
man towards a woman but its use is not limited of drunkenness, which makes us lose our
to this, as we have just seen. Besides, the main bearings.

subject of Iliad and Odyssey are not love Another important fact is that erôs invades the
relations.3 During the 7th and 6th century BC, the loving subject not by caresses or by the physical
meaning of erôs and of the verb corresponding contact with the desired being but through the
to it, erân, changes to mean essentially a force gaze. It is like a fluid, an emanation coming from
linked to what one today would call the erotic the loved one’s gaze to the person touched by
impulse, that is to say an impetus linked to erôs and it is experienced as quasi-dissolution.
sexuality and/or love. Some aspects of our The victim’s passivity may only lead to one form
contemporary “love” are therefore not of action, that of a quest (“I look for”, “I aspire
contained in the Greek erôs (we will not find it to…”). In melic poetry this quest is generally
referring to the son’s love for his old father, of unsuccessful. The desiring lover is completely
to the mother’s or father’s love for their child). focused on the loved object, whom he/she
The term erôs appears very frequently in the so- admires and who is his/her sole object of
called melic poetry—still in the archaic period, interest; he/she wants to reach this person or
precisely in the 7th and 6th centuries BC—which attract their attention but the other escapes or
is composed in order to be sung (often in an is constantly slipping away.
institutional context, although the circumstances This aspect is particularly clear in Alcman’s
are not always known to us). Its main poetry (7th century BC). Alcman is the author of
representatives are Theognis, Sappho, Alcaeus, the Partheneia—songs recited by young girls—
Anacreon, Ibycus, Pindar, Solon, Bacchylides and commissioned by the city of Sparta, of which
Alcman. The poems are often recited in the first there remain unfortunately only a few
person: this first person of course designates fragments. During the archaic period, choral
10
training represented an important period in the tells us about being turned down by a young
lives of both girls and boys, as part of their girl, have sparked much debate among present-
education (paideia). In these songs, which were day philologists due to the probably intentional
to be recited during official ceremonies, the variety of their possible interpretations.
young singers themselves experienced the Once again golden-haired Erôs,
erotic emotion caused by the beautiful Hitting me with a purple ball,
Astymeloisa. Calls me out to play
With a fancy-sandaled maid.
… with limb-loosening desire,
and more meltingly than sleep and death But she, haling from
she gazes toward (me), Well-endowed Lesbos, finds fault
or is she sweet in a lightheaded way. With my hair, for it's white.
8
5 She gapes open-mouthed at another girl.
But Astymeloisa answers me nothing,
[but] holding the wreath [like] a falling star of the In another poem, the first-person character
glittering heavens refers to the dazed state caused by the sight of
or a golden sapling or a soft [feather]
she crossed on long fee.
the beautiful Cleobulus, returning to the theme
The moist hair [-enhancing?] gift of Kinyras of love’s ability to disrupt the order of things
(perfume) and completely transform human beings.
Sits on the hair of the maiden.
I love Cleobulus,
I might see if somehow [ ] (she) [approaching] I’m mad about Cleobulus,
9
Take (my) soft hand, immediately I would I only have eyes for Cleobulus.
6
become her suppliant…
The subject of love is not reserved to “private”
Sappho, the poetess of Mytilene, uses similarly poetry (which is also a slightly anachronistic
intense terms to express the paradoxical notion): although we know little about the
emotions that are the effect, on the female context of these performances, both Sappho
body, of an erotic desire for another woman. and Alcman sang before the audience of the

city. In the 6th and 5th century BC, “official”
He seems to be a god, that man
Facing you, who leans to be close, poets—i.e. those solicited by high city officials
Smiles, and, alert and glad, listens to write poems celebrating their or their
To your mellow voice ancestors’ victories in the PanHellenic games—
And quickens in love at your laughter do not remain silent on the topic of love’s
That stings my breasts, jolts my heart
power. This was the case of Pindar, one of the
If I dare the shock of a glance.
I cannot speak, greatest lyrical poets of ancient Greece, well
My tongue sticks to my dry mouth, known for his choral songs celebrating athletic
Thin fire spreads beneath my skin, victories. In a poem dedicated to Theoxenos,
My eyes cannot see and my aching ears the poet praises not only the young man’s moral
Roar in their labyrinths.
and physical qualities, but also the sensual,
Chill sweat slides down my body,
I shake, I turn greener than grass. ethical and social power and value of desire
I am neither living nor dead and cry itself.
From the narrow between.
But endure, even this grief of love.
7 One ought, heart, pluck one’s loves in due
season, with youth;
Just as Sappho did two generations earlier, the But he who looks at the sparkling rays of
poet Anacreon also constructs the scene of the Theoxenos’ eyes
And does not swell with desire
poem around a poet who says “I” and who feels
Has a dark heart forged of adamant or iron
age coming on; contrary to the poetess, his in a cold fire and, dishonoured by round-eyed
poems nonetheless frequently end on a Aphrodite,
humorous note. The following lines, where he Either labors vehemently for money
11
Or is carried down the whole length of a cold to the psychological identity of an individual.
road While the connection between personal
by female assertiveness, a servitor.
But I melt like the wax of holy bees in the
identity, sexual identity and sexual orientation is
warmth on (Aphrodite’s) account, very complex, it is also very recent:
Stung whenever I look at the new-limbed youth Something new happens, writes David
of boys. 12
Halperin, to the various relations between
10
Now truly in Tenedos Persuasion and Grace sexual roles, sexual object-choices, sexual
11
Dwell in the son of Hagesilaos. categories, sexual behaviors and sexual
The main features of the archaic Erôs in melic identities in bourgeois Europe between the
end of the seventeenth century and the
poetry are thus: (frequent) one-sidedness of
beginning of the twentieth. Sex takes on
love, intense and paradoxical emotions, a new social and individual functions, and it
musical context, a praise of qualities and a assumes a new importance in defining and
desire for beauty, the importance of the gaze, a normalizing the modern self. The
large number of erotically charged terms and an conception of the sexual instinct as an
autonomous human function without an
insistence on the lover’s condition of
organ appears for the first time in the
victimhood. We should also note that the word nineteenth century, and without it our
erôs and the state it refers to characterize, heavily psychologized model of sexual
without discrimination, amorous attractions subjectivity—which knits up desire, its
between women, between men, or between a objects, sexual behavior, gender identity,
reproductive function, mental health, erotic
man and a woman. In melic poetry, the case of a
sensibility, personal style, and degrees of
male-female pairing is indeed rather rare: the normality or deviance into an individuating,
first poems evoking erotic force refer to the love normativizing feature of the personality
between either two women or two men. called ‘sexuality’ or ‘sexual orientation’—is
inconceivable.
Ancient eroticism versus contemporary However, before even raising the question of
sexuality gender identities in antique societies, it is useful

to clarify that in both Greece and Rome, the
The ancient erôs implies neither a particular notions of “sex” and “sexuality” do not exist.13
“orientation” of desire, nor a specific character of In neither Greek nor Latin do we find a single
the sexual relation. However, despite the ancient term commonly used to refer to both the male
origin of the term erôs, there is no Greek or Latin and the female sexual organ—as it is the case
term that would express what we now with the French use of the word “sexe”. The
understand by “sexuality.” The first thing which ancient terminology accentuates opposition and
strikes us when studying antique sources is that dissymmetry: there is nothing that would
what we now call “sexuality” or what we group express an identity of function (and especially
together under the term “sexual practices”, not the function of both organs as sites of sexual
would not have been understood by the Ancients enjoyment); everything emphasizes difference.14
as representing a coherent set of acts or The Latin word sexus15 almost never appears
attitudes or indeed could not have been grouped alone: one speaks of the sexus virile, sexus
together at all. In our reading, we must be careful muliebre; likewise in Greek, it appears alongside
to distinguish, or at least try to distinguish, what the qualification thêlu (feminine) or arren
relates to an “identity” (a very modern notion), (masculine). The seemingly general phrases
what relates to a category of persons, to a meaning “shameful parts” or “necessary parts”
category of acts, or to another type of category designate, according to the given context, male
which it is useful for us to define. or female sexual organs but rarely both at once.
In the sense that we understand it today— To put it briefly, in antiquity the sexual organ is
mutatis mutandis—sexuality is intimately linked always sexed and is never “one”.
12
Moreover, in the present-day sense of the word, What we can deduce from this brief view into
“sexuality” refers to a lot more than the simple the ancient vocabulary is that the Greek and
sexual act; complex relations exist between Roman discourses on sexuality betray an
“sexuality” and psychological identity.16 We find essential preoccupation with knowing who does
no equivalent of this notion in antiquity. An what and how (who acts, who enjoys, who
individual does not have “sexuality” but rather benefits, who is subjected to something—the
engages in certain practices. In Greece, one opposition active/passive indeed does not
does speaks of aphrosidia, “that which belongs suffice to account for the totality of oppositions
to Aphrodite’s domain”, yet this is simply in and considerations connecting a particular act
order to refer to the “matters of sex” and not to to its social interpretation). The idea of a sexual
a set of discourses that would define a field of relation in which the partners are equal, or of a
sexuality. In Rome, such general terms are still practice that could be carried out by either one
less common: one certainly speaks of “the of the partners, does not exist. Nor do we find a
matters of Venus,” but more often of the coitus, practice that would in itself be good or bad,
of sexual union. There is no sexual “being”, only commendable or reprehensible (as it was the
“doing,” pertaining to various domains and case, during a certain period, with sodomy,
fields of human practices, such as education, life understood as anal penetration). The same act
hygiene or the pleasures of the symposium (a can be considered, according to several criteria,
separate sphere). as either kata nomon or para nomon, “according
Finally, neither does antiquity have a global to the norm” or “contrary to the norm.” The
conception of the sexual act. The Latin and Greek subject of this evaluation are not the practices
terms almost always determine the role assumed themselves but the individual and his sexual
in the relation by one or the other partner. When practice, according to the criteria of sex, age and
the same verb is used, it never applies in the social status, since in the ancient world, sexual
same way to both. Thus, the Greek term morality is essentially statutory.
aphrodisiazein, which means “to engage in As a consequence, it is not surprising that

aphrodisia”, is used either actively or passively. neither the Greeks nor the Romans elaborated
The verb perainein, sometimes translated as “to or thought of a sexual category which would
have sexual relations with,” means more indiscriminately include men and women of all
precisely “to penetrate” and does not apply to social milieus, with the sole common
both partners at the same time. This is also the characteristics of being attracted by persons of
case for more general euphemisms, such as the the same sex (the contemporary category of
Greek suneimi, “to be with”, or mignumi (in “homosexuals”).17 Neither is it surprising that
Greek), misceo (in Latin), which means to “mix, to antiquity knows no category of “heterosexuality:”
combine.” Even more significantly, very different as we shall see, some female-to-male relations
verbs are used to designate each role one may were outside the sexual sphere and some male-
assume. For example, the Latin fellare refers to to-male relations did not differ from relations
an individual who engages in an act considered between men and women. Indeed, when
as servicing someone; the verb irrumare individuals decide to start a household together
represents the active act of “penetrating and have children, the relation which results
someone through the mouth.” There are from this is not considered as linked to the
numerous examples: in a relation between two sphere of sexual matters: the antique marriage,
men, a young man “grants his favors to” (in when it exists and it is practiced, is a social
Greek, charizesthai), while the other “puts his sex contract in which there is no question of either
between his thighs” (diamerizein)—this is the love or sexuality. For a man to be with a woman
term used in the cases of pederastic relations is to found an oikos, a household, and the
that are sexual but do not involve penetration. quality expected of the woman is the ability to
13
produce children, to raise them to be the future One of the key differences between the antique
citizens and to manage the house. In Economics, manifestations of the erotic force and
a treaty on the good management of an estate, contemporary sexuality is thus the fact that this
dating from the 4th century BC, Xenophon gives force is completely detached from the sexual
a description, through the words of the rich identity of its object.
landowner Isomachos, of the spouse-citizen
corresponding to the norm’s ideal: like a queen Erôs has no sex
bee, she rules over the beehive and its activities.
Likewise, according to the marriage contracts This non-sexed conception of erôs, its asexual
available to us, everything insists on the nature, appears very clearly in a well-known
agreement between families and the only passage of Plato’s, an extract from the
mention of an erotic relation concerns the risks Symposium, which is often mistakenly referred
of extramarital affairs. In poetic texts, it is rare to as the “myth of the androgynous being.”22
to refer to marital relations as either intense or The Symposium, written around the year 380
erotic and the case of Pliny the Younger, at the BC, comprises seven speeches, of which six are
beginning of the 2nd century BC, who speaks eulogies of erôs. The subject of Peri erotos is
about his wife with emotion18, is more of a therefore not “love” in the current sense of the
pastiche of the elegiac codes19 than a term, with its modern implications and
spontaneous outcry. As John Winkler connotations (which would come closer to the
humorously points out, when the historian Greek philia), but the Greek “erôs” which is at
Herodotos20 tells the story of a king who falls in the time commonly understood, as we have
love with his wife, the audience understands already seen, as an appetite or a force. Plato is
this as a sign of a looming political disaster. now going to explore the implications of this
In addition to this, male-to-female relations in term, highlighting its different characteristics,
which there is no question of either marriage or only to then separate it from this common sense
children are not perceived as having any specific and developing its original philosophical

characteristics, since similar erotic relations can definition, expressed by the character Diotima.
exist between two men. What is at stake in this The two speeches of Aristophanes and
type of scenario (love or pleasure) is the same Socrates/Diotima are of a different order than
as what is at stake in relations with a male or the previous four. According to Aristophanes,
female prostitute, or with mistresses, whose account nonetheless remains on the level
concubines or young lovers. A marriage contract of the sensual, erôs is the thrust towards a primal
found in the Faiyum Sands illustrates this point union, a desire for achieving the lost unity with
brilliantly. Among the husband’s duties, we find one’s other half: “Thus, the desire (epithumia)
the following triple prohibition: and pursuit of the whole (holon) is called erôs.”
It shall not be permitted to Philiskos to Erôs the divinity permits, once a “good
bring into the house another woman distance”23 has been established between the
besides Apollonia, nor is he allowed to keep two halves, for a temporary union, which makes
21
a concubine or a young boy.
human beings able to bear the separation and to
Putting these two threats to the married engage in activities proper to them; the divine
couple’s equilibrium together (i.e. not of an separation therefore invents both sexuality and
erotic relationship outside marriage but of work. For Socrates, who was educated on this
spending money outside the needs of the oikos) subject by Diotima, erôs is not a divinity but a
highlights their mutual equivalence in the eyes daimon, an intermediary being which allows us
of the ancients, whereas according to our to accede to the Beautiful and the Good.24
contemporary criteria they seem to belong to Still, what does Aristophanes tell us exactly? A
two altogether different types of behaviour. rather silly story we more or less all know. At
14
the beginning, Aristophanes says, humankind the love of women: the majority of adulterous
was composed of three genders: male, female men descend from this species. Likewise, all
and androgynous. Human beings were round in women descended from a female being pay no
shape, which enabled them to move in two attention to men; they turn to women instead
different directions, as well as having twice the and this is where the hetairistriai come from.
number of limbs. This state was interrupted by a Finally, all those who come from a male being
transgression. After to the humans’ attempt to seek the love of men. Since they represent parts
attack the gods, Zeus decides on the following of the male being, when they are still young,
punishment: human beings will be cut in half, they look for the love of men and take pleasure
each one resulting in two individuals. Apollo in sleeping and being with them. These are the
carries out the verdict in a way that each human best among all boys and youth, because they
being was able to see the scar resulting from the are by nature the manliest. Some people of
operation and thus retains a memory of his course say such men are indecent, but they are
crime. However, this punishment, which was mistaken. It is not indecency that leads them to
not meant to be fatal, throws the new beings behave in this way; no, it is their hardiness, their
into agony: each one wraps itself around its virility and their male allure, which urge them to
other half, soon dying of desperation, hunger search for what most resembles them. And here
and inactivity. To remedy the situation, Zeus is the proof: males of this kind are they only
moves the genital organs towards the front side ones who, upon reaching maturity, become
of the body, thus allowing for a sexual union involved in politics.25
leading to either reproduction or satisfaction. It is obvious that in their emphasis of the
From now on, human beings are no longer legendary complementarity between men and
round-shaped; they move in a single direction women, our own little stories about love’s origin
and no longer reproduce through an external (“a woman looking for her male equivalent and
element (before they would lay their eggs in the vice versa”) are strictly contemporary
ground). This new situation, which is the current constructions, purely modern legends.

state of human nature, is what has brought erôs Moreover, we should not think of Aristophanes’
into human life: erôs is what impels each half to speech as relating a “Greek myth” which the
provisionally find the lost union, whether the Greeks would have believed in: first of all
half be a descendant of an androgynous, because in Greece the question of “belief” does
female, or male being. Humans can now go not arise, but especially because we are not
about their occupations, according to the type dealing with a myth in the anthropological sense
of the primal being from which they have of the word but with a “philosophical myth”,
originated. similar to the well-known story of the cave,
It has therefore been a very long time ago that which has a very different function and making
love was first implanted in human beings, than what we now refer to as the Greek
bringing together the parts of our ancient myths.26
nature, seeking to make two beings into a single As an argument meant to praise erôs,
one in order to heal humankind. Because we Aristophanes’ speech simultaneously deals with
had been cut like flatfish, a single individual men’s love for women, women’s love for men,
becoming two, each of us is now the women’s love for women and men’s love for
complementary half of another human being men. The table below is an overview of the
and is constantly searching for this half. In this results of the original beings’ dissection. We can
way, all males who have originated from the so- see that what might at first seem rather simple,
called “androgynous” beings are searching for is in fact not simple at all.
15
In this table, the three entries summarizing the theme. Neither is this an etiological account of
original nature of the beings and the possible “heterosexual” love. Eros exists for all of the
movements between the categories highlight three original beings and is the same for all the
the fact that we are not dealing with a myth of members of humankind who are their
androgyny where bisexuality would be a crucial descendants.27
16
In this sense, the expression “before sexuality” entirely contemporary phenomenon. Starting in
has been used to characterize the antique the 19th century and particularly following the
societies. The phrase became common beginnings of psychoanalysis, sex and love
particularly after the 1990 publication of Before became an object of discourse because in our
Sexuality: the Construction of Erotic Experience societies, desire is considered as constitutive of
in the Ancient Greek World, which contained the personal identity and therefore related to the
proceedings of two conferences held in the construction of the subject. In antiquity, sexual
United States in 1986.28 Both took place two orientation does not “tell us” anything about
years after the publication of the last volume of the individual. Certain practices may tell us
Foucault’s History of Sexuality (Volume I was something about his political or economic
published in 1976 and the following Volumes II abilities (one cannot have sold one’s body and
and III in 1984). Foucault’s work here closely later hold a function in the city; one cannot
followed the late 1970s and 1980s research on frequent brothels without restraint and at the
Roman sexuality, which brought a new approach same time manage his household adequately),
to the study of antiquity: the work of Kenneth but they tell us nothing about the subject’s
Dover (Greek Homosexuality, 1978, on which psychological identity, nothing about his mental
Foucault’s own work draws extensively) and of health and nothing about his sexual identity:
Paul Vayne, with whom Foucault later became “sex” does not reveal a hidden continent.
friends. These “new” works represented by the Whenever we try, in our contemporary reading
Before Sexuality conference advocated that of antiquity, to look for “our ancestors” or for
scientific disciplines take into account the forms the origins of homosexuality in “Greek love”, we
of sexuality about which they had previously have a tendency to categorize what we see
been silent. Their research, published firstly in according to what is meaningful for us today, to
the form of articles, fuelled Foucault’s later ask questions which we would ask of the
work. The Before Sexuality conference is to be present-day period: looking for a cause always
situated at the crossroads of these approaches: speaks louder about the seeker than about the

it took on the task of demonstrating that what object sought… The stakes of the political
we now consider sexuality is only, as David arena—the current political issues of historians,
Halperin puts it in One Hundred Years of anthropologists and psychologists—have to do
Homosexuality, “a relatively recent and highly precisely with this: with the need to resist this
culture-specific form of erotic life”29 and does psycho-categorizing and psycho-pathologizing
not cover the whole field of what we would tendency. Our approach to the past is
call—and which too is probably an predicated upon the present-day desire to
anachronism—Greek and Roman eroticism. uncover a truth, or rather something that we
The above-referenced sources therefore show might believe to be a truth. Because it is itself
us that the concept of love in Greece and Rome historical and variable, sexuality can offer us no
was not the same as in our own historical such invariable truth or absolute message. If any
period. The very idea of “sexuality” is—as truth (verité) indeed exists, should we not look
Michel Foucault shows in The History of for it in the variation of things, or, more
Sexuality—a cultural and social construction of precisely, using Lacan’s word much appreciated
the Western world, one that is extremely by Jean Allouch, in their “varity” (varité)? Yes,
recent: the fact of separating sexual practices our sexuality does have a past and this past is
and amorous feelings from other types of social extremely recent: we may therefore legitimately
activities and grouping them together is an ask about its future.
17
Bibliography:
Halperin, D. M. (2000). Cent ans d’homosexualité et autres
Adams, J. N. (1982). The Latin Sexual Vocabulary. London: essais sur l’amour grec. Traduction de I. Châtelet (1990).
Duckworth. Paris: Epel.
Boehringer, S. (2007). L’homosexualité féminine dans Halperin, D. M. (2002). How to Do the History of
l’Antiquité grecque et romaine. Paris: Belles Lettres. Homosexuality. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Boehringer, S. (2007b). Comparer l’incomparable. La Henderson, J. (1975). The Maculate Muse. Obscene
sunkrisis érotique et les catégories sexuelles dans le Language in Attic Comedy. New Haven & Londres: Yale
monde gréco-romain. In Perreau, B. (dir.), Le choix de University Press.
l’homosexualité. Recherches inédites sur la question gay Manuli, P. (1983). Donne mascoline, femmine sterili,
et lesbienne (p. 39-56). Paris: Epel. vergini perpetue: la ginecologia greca tra Ippocrate e
Boehringer, S. (2007c). Comment classer les Sorano. dans Campese S., Manuli P. & Sissa G.. Madre
comportements érotiques ? Platon, le sexe et érôs dans le materia. Sociología e biología Della donna greca. Turin:
Banquet et les Lois. Études Platoniciennes, 4, 45-67. Boringhieri.
Brisson, L. (1973). Bisexualité et médiation en Grèce Pigeaud, J. (1999). Poésie du corps. Paris: Payot.
ancienne. Nouvelle Revue de psychanalyse, 7, 27-48. Snyder, J. M. (1991). Public Occasion and Private Passion
Brisson, L. (1994). Platon, les mots et les mythes (1982). in the Lyrics of Sappho. dans Pomeroy S. B. (éd.).
Paris: Maspero. Women’s History and Ancient History (p. 1-19). Chapel
Brisson, L. (1986). Neutrum utrumque. La bisexualité dans Hill.
l’Antiquité gréco-romaine. dans L’Androgyne, Les Cahiers Snyder, J. M. (1997). Lesbian Desire in the Lyrics of
de l’hermétisme, 27-61. Paris: Albin Michel. Sappho. New-York: Columbia University Press.
Brisson, L. (2008). Le sexe incertain. Androgynie et Veyne, P. (1978). La famille et l’amour sous le Haut
hermaphrodisme dans l’Antiquité gréco-romaine (1997). Empire romain. Annales E.S.C., 33, 35-63. Réédité dans La
Paris: Les Belles Lettres. société romaine (1991) (p. 88-130). Paris: Seuil.
Brisson, L. (1998). Platon, Le Banquet. Traduction, Veyne, P. (1981). L’homosexualité à Rome. Histoire 30,
introduction et notes de L. Brisson. Paris: Garnier- 71-78 (légèrement augmenté. L’homosexualité à Rome.
Flammarion. Communication (1982), 35, 26-33). Réédité dans Duby, G.
Brunet, P. (1998). L’égal des dieux, Cent versions d’un (éd.), Amour et sexualité en Occident (1991) (p. 69-77).
poème de Sappho. Paris: Allia. Paris: Seuil.
Calame, C. (1977). Les Chœurs de jeunes filles en Grèce Veyne, P. (1983). L’élégie érotique romaine. L’amour, la
archaïque, I. Morphologie, fonction religieuse et sociale, II. poésie et l’Occident. Paris: Seuil.

Alcman. Rome: Edizioni dell’Ateneo & Bizarri. Williams, C. A. (1999). Roman Homosexuality, Ideologies
Calame, C. (1983). Alcman. Introduction, texte critique, of Masculinity in Classical Antiquity. New York & Oxford:
témoignages et commentaire. Rome: Edizioni dell’Ateneo. Oxford University Press.
Calame, C. (1986). Le récit en Grèce ancienne. Énonciation Winkler, J. J. (2005). Désir et contraintes en Grèce
et représentation des poètes. Paris: Belin. ancienne. Traduit par Boehringer, S. & Picard, N. (1990).
Calame, C. (1996). L’Éros dans la Grèce antique. Paris: Belin. Paris: Epel.
Dover, K. J. (1978). Greek Homosexuality. Londres:
Duckworth. Traduit par Suzanne Saïd (1982).
Homosexualité grecque. Grenoble: La Pensée sauvage.
Notes:
Dover, K. J. (1974). Greek Popular Morality in the Time of
1
Plato and Aristotle. Oxford. Sappho, Fr. 130 (Voigt). [Transl. note: all English
Dupont, F. & Éloi T. (2001). L’érotisme masculin dans la translations of Sappho are from Cox Edwin Marion
Rome antique. Paris: Belin. (1925).]
*
Foucault, M. (1976-1984). Histoire de la sexualité (3 vol.). Anacreon Fragment 413. [Campbell, David A. (1982)]
2
Paris: Gallimard. This fragment (number 31) has been adapted, imitated
Halperin, D. M., Winkler J. J. & Zeitlin F. I. (éd.) (1990). and translated by many authors, since the antiquity till
Before Sexuality. The Construction of Erotic Experience in present day. On this topic see the excellent work by
the Ancient World. Princeton. Brunet Philippe. L’égal des dieux, Cent versions d’un
Halperin, D. M. (1992). Historicizing the Subject of Desire: poème de Sappho. [Richard Wilbur’s translation.]
*
Sexual Preferences and Erotic Identities in the Pseudo- Priam in The Iliad. [Translation by Rodney Merrill in
Lucianic Erotes. dans D. C. Stanton (éd.). Discourses of Homer, Merrill Rodney (2007)].
3
Sexuality: From Aristotles to AIDS (p. 236-261). Ann Arbor: On the expression of eroticism and love in the epic, see
University of Michigan Press. Calame Claude (1996). L’Érôs des poètes épiques (p. 53-
63).
18
4
Fr. 130. Boehringer Sandra & Sebillotte Violaine. Lire le genre
5
The text is very fragmented. (forthcoming in 2011).
6 19
[Partheneion 3 PMG.For a discussion of this translation On the gender codes of the erotic elegy in Rome, cf
see Stehle, Eva (1997), p. 91] Veyne Paul (1983).
7 20
Sappho, fragment 31, translation in Davenport, Guy The question is of king Candaulus, whose history
(1980), p.84. Herodotos follows in his Histories, I, 8.
8 21 st
Anacreon, fragment 358 PMG, translation in Hubbard, Tebt, P., I 104 (the document dates from the 1 century
Thomas K. (2003). BC).
9 22
Fragment 359 PMG, Idem. Freud mentions this story several times (Cf Brisson Luc
10
Peithô (Persuasion or Charm) and Charis (Grace) are (1973)). In Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, he
divinities. refers to it as “a legend full of poetry according to which
11
Fragment 123, translation Stehle, Eva (1997), p. 254. the human being was divided into two halves—man and
12
Halperin, David (1998), p. 18-19. woman—which since then tend to unite themselves in
13
For the different aspects of this synthesis, I refer the love” (Trois essais sur la théorie de la sexualité. transl. B.
reader to the work of Foucault Michel, Histoire de la Reverchon-Jouve. Paris. 1962, p. 18).
23
sexualité (1976-1984) and to Dover Kenneth (1978), Regarding erôs: “Any excessive disjunction or
Veyne Paul (1981), Halperin David (1990), p. 59-63, conjunction excludes his intervention.” (Brisson Luc
Calame Claude (1996), Williams Craig (1999), Dupont (1973), p. 36). Érôs can exist when the halves are neither
Florence & Éloi Thierry (2001), Boehringer Sandra (2007). completely disjoined (as in the first time of their
14
See the lexical studies by Adams James N. (1982) and de separation, when their sexual organs did not allow for any
Henderson Jeffrey (1975), but also the research on the reunion), nor completely fused (as in the the previous
different contexts in which these terms appear in Winkler time, or in the case when Hephaistos managed to forge
1990 ; Dover Kenneth (1978) ; Dupont Florence & Éloi them together): for an anthropological analysis of the
Thierry (2001). “good distance” and its cosmological aspects see Brisson
15
Cf Manuli Paola in Campese Silvia, Manuli Paola & Sissa Luc (1973).
24
Giulia (1983), p. 201, n. 1. These two discourses differ from the four preceding
16
Cf Foucault Michel (1976) et Halperin David (1990). ones also by the fact that they do not fall back on
17
I would nevertheless like to make a quick clarification. traditional and well-known theology, derived from
The lines of separation and the limits of these categories Hesiode and the poets, but they are inspired by more
in Rome are not quite the same as in Athens. Contrary to atypical currents of thought (on the one side by

the Athenian custom, where it usual to love a free young Empedocles and orfism, on the other sinde by the
boy, in Rome it is forbidden to love a young man, a future eleusinian mysteries). The story told by Aristophanes is
citizen. This however does not mean that the Romans most closely related to Socrates’ speech, yet the latter
loved young boys less than the Greeks: the Roman does not at all agree with what the character says and
prohibition does not concern relations with children or neither does Plato (let us not forget—at the time in which
young people in general, but only sex with a young citizen the Symposium is supposed to have taken place, around
is considered as a serious damage to bodily integrity. In 416 BC—that Aristophanes had already written a number
this way, the prohibition does not derive from any will to of pieces in which he violently attacks Socrates). Cf the
“protect childhood” but belongs to the order of politics analysis of the dialogue by Brisson Luc (1998), in the
and a number of texts testify to the widespread interest Garnier Flammarion edition
25
for the beautiful pueri delicati (non-free men), who are Platon, Symposium, 191 e-d, translation by L. Brisson.
26
the pleasure of the Roman citizen during—and after—the Cf Brisson Luc (1982). Platon, les mots, les mythes.
27
symposium. For more on the reasons for this difference in For a more extensive analysis of this passage cf
the Roman attitude towards “pederasty” (with young citizens), Boehringer Sandra (2007a), p. 91-119, and Boehringer
cf Dupont Florence and Éloi Thierry (2001), p. 45-82. Sandra (2007c).
18 28
Pline Le Jeune. Lettres, VI, 4 and VII, 5. I refer the reader Halperin David, Winkler John & Zeitlin Froma I. (1990).
29
to the analysis of Adam Adelin in the collection edited by Halperin David (1990), p. 25.
19
The author: Electronic reference:
Sandra Boehringer Sandra Boehringer, “Does sexuality have a

Associate professor in Greek history, Faculty of past?; From the Greek erôs to contemporary
Historical Science, University of Strasbourg sexuality: a modern question in the ancient
4, rue Blaise Pascal world”, Research of Psychoanalysis [Online],
CS90032 10|2010, published Dec. 23, 2010.
67081 Strasbourg
France This article is a translation of La sexualité a-t-elle
un passé ? De l’érôs grec à la sexualité
Translated by Kristina Valendinova contemporaine : questions modernes au monde
antique
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Association Recherches en psychanalyse | « Recherches en psychanalyse »

2010/2 n° 10 | pages 189a à 201a

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Does sexuality have a past?

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