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Greek love is a term originally used by classicists to describe the primarily homoerotic customs, practices, and attitudes of the ancient Greeks. It was frequently used as a euphemism for both homosexuality and pederasty. The phrase is a product of the enormous impact of the reception of classical Greek culture on historical attitudes toward sexuality, and its influence on art and various intellectual movements.[1]: xi, 91–92
'Greece' as the historical memory of a treasured past was romanticised and idealised as a time and a culture when love between males was not only tolerated but actually encouraged, and expressed as the high ideal of same-sex camaraderie. ... If tolerance and approval of male homosexuality had happened once—and in a culture so much admired and imitated by the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries—might it not be possible to replicate in modernity the antique homeland of the non-heteronormative?[2]: 624
Following the work of philosopher Michel Foucault, the validity of an ancient Greek model for modern gay culture has been questioned.[3]: xxxiv In his essay "Greek Love", Alastair Blanshard sees "Greek love" as "one of the defining and divisive issues in the homosexual rights movement."[3]: 161
- ^ Blanshard, Alastair J. L. Sex: Vice and Love from Antiquity to Modernity (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010)
- ^ Buchbinder, David (2003). "Queer Diasporas: Towards a (Re)Reading of Gay History". In Petrilli, Susan (ed.). Translation, Translation. ISBN 9042009470.
- ^ a b Blanshard, Alastair J. L. "Greek Love," essay at p. 161 of Eriobon, Didier Insult and the Making of the Gay Self, transl. Lucey M. (Duke University Press, 2004