Talk:Homosexuality in ancient Greece/Archive 2

message: It is not proven that those ancients were among those who say homosexuality was prevalent in Ancient Greece. The whole theory was not introduced until 1907! False material should be taken out. Sac222 22:33, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: An argument that an editor is violating Wikipedia policy is hardly a fallacy. At any rate, your recent edits don't observe WP:V or WP:NPOV. If you'd like to include Georgiadis' argument, you need to provide a citation, and rephrase the section so that it is neutrally worded. You will also need to establish that Georgiadis is a notable scholar, which I doubt you'll be able to do. --Akhilleus (talk) 22:47, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: While correcting the deletion I stomped on your edit...my mistake.I already forgot 23:06, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: My Recent Edits which have been omitted

message: :I share your speculation regarding those users (actually, I think there are a couple more who showed up on the VfD page and made identical arguments).  -Smahoney 00:34, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Don't worry, it won't be speculation for long.--Aldux 00:43, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Isn't there a checkuser utility or something for situations like this?  -Smahoney 00:47, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You guys can't even argue against me so you are making accusations and deriding my sources. Cretanpride 02:34, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Same users. The IPs are from the same ISP, and the other user only popped up after I pointed that fact out. -- Consumed Crustacean | Talk | 03:59, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: User:Phallanx: Another sockpuppet to add to the list?  -Smahoney 05:08, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

text: I don't think so. I was going through the talk page history to track down all the unsigned posts, to see if we had more sockpuppets, but User:Phallanx only made one post, back on 4 September 2005. Probably someone else, but I don't know how to do IP checks and stuff like that. --Akhilleus (talk) 05:12, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Wellity wellity wellity, would you look at this? Up above, Cretanpride changed the signature of a comment made by one of the IPs to his own username. If this doesn't seal the deal, I don't know what does. :/ -- Consumed Crustacean | Talk | 07:40, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ugh.  Well, I hate to be the one to break Wikipedia:Assume good faith, but when does this guy get blocked (his other account already has been, for WP:3RR, and he's using a sockpuppet to evade that block) permanently?  His sole mission, and that of his alter egos, is to ensure that a particular POV enters this article, and his continuing comments on this page (and responses to them) are not helping the article in any way.  And then, when do the citations start to appear in this article?  -Smahoney 19:15, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Don't worry, it's only that since it's the first time with this guy I decided to extend AGF beyond even the limits of good sence. But I've made a checkuser request, and if positive, I'll block all his socks and know how to proceed if Cretanpride tries the trick again.--Aldux 21:43, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: As suspected, they're all socks of Cretanpride; checkuser has just confirmed this.--Aldux 17:03, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Not so much of a surprise, I guess.  Now for the obligatory "they're not me you guys are conspiring against me you can't even argue with my amazing points so you're trying to discredit me" nonsense.  -Smahoney 17:06, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Given the verification (Wikipedia:Checkuser#Cretanpride), I will be placing indefinite blocks on all of these accounts for repeated sockpuppetry, per Wikipedia:Blocking policy. --Madchester 00:42, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Never mind, seems like it's already been done.  I have tagged Cretanpride as a sockpuppeteer. --Madchester 00:48, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Sockpuppets?

message: In light of the recent guerilla edits and possible sockpuppetry, this article has been semi-protected until editors can work towards  consensus.  Thanks. --Madchester 23:48, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Semi-protection

message: User:Cretanpride has twice tried to put  tags on the page after they were removed by User:CaveatLector (see this diff and this diff, both without edit summaries). Given Cretanpride's combative history on this article, this strikes me as vandalism, rather than constructive editing. Would other editors agree that placing one of the vandalism warning templates on Cretanpride's talk page is appropriate? --Akhilleus (talk) 01:38, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  vandalism in progress? 

message: As for the evidence to support the argument that homosexuality was not commonplace in Ancient Greece, there is plenty. There are also scholars such as Robert Flaceliere and Bruce Thornton who agree.
Here is just some evidence:
:In Plato’s laws the anonymous Athenian states “in the matter of love we may be able to enforce one of two things-either that no one shall venture to touch any person of the freeborn or noble class except his wedded wife, or sow the unconsecrated and bastard seed among harlots, or in barren and unnatural lusts; or at elast we may abolish altogether the connection of men with men; and as to women, if any man has to do with any but those who come into his house duly married by sacred rites, whether they be bought or acquired in any other way, and he offends publicly in the face of all mankind, we shall be right in enacting that he be deprived of civic honors and privileges, and be deemed to be, as he truly is, a stranger.” (laws 841) 
What this basically means is that no man shall touch a woman except his wedded wife and that love between males should be prohibited.
:Megistess responds “I, for my part stranger, would gladly recieve this law.” 
:The Athenian would shortly later say “We had got about as far as the establishment of the common tabels, which in most places would be difficult, BUT IN CRETE NO ONE WOULD THINK OF INDRODUCING ANY OTHER CUSTOM.” Meaning that the Cretans would adopt the law.
Here are more quotes:
:If someone, being himself an honest man, admired a boy's soul and tried to make of
:him an ideal friend without reproach and to associate with him, he [Lycurgus] approved,
:and believed in the excellence of this kind of training. But if it was clear that the attraction lay in the boy's outward beauty, he banned the connection as
:an abomination; and thus he caused mentors to abstain from boys no less than parents abstain from sexual intercourse with their children and brothers :and sisters with each other. (Lacedaemonian Constitution, II. 13.)
Regarding the myth of Ganymede and Zeus, the myth is compared to 
:“[as in] Homer pictures us Achilles looking  upon Patroclus not as the object of his passion but as a comrade, and in this spirit signally avenging his death. So we have songs telling also how Orestes, Pylades, Theseus, Peirithous, and many other illustrious demi-gods wrought glorious deeds of valor side by side, not because they shared a common bed but because of mutual admiration and respect.” (Symposium, VIII. 30 - 32.)
:Affectionate regard for boys of good character was permissible, but embracing them
:was held to be disgraceful, on the ground that the affection was for the body and not
:for the mind. Any man against whom complaint was made of any disgraceful embracing
:was deprived of all civic rights for life. (Ancient Customs of the Spartans, 7. 237 - c.)
Robert Flaceliere writes
:"[I]t appears extremely likely that homosexuality of any kind was confined to the prosperous and aristocratic levels of ancient society. The masses of peasants and artisans were probably scarcely affected by habits of this kind, which seem to have been associated with a sort of snobbery. The available texts deal mainly with the leisured nobility of Athens. But they may give the impression that pederasty was practiced by the entire nation. The subject, however, of the comedy by Aristophanes entitled Lysistrata suggests that homosexuality was hardly rampant among the people at large. It would be an error to think so.
(Robert Flaceliere’s Love in Ancient Greece pg 49-50)
He also writes "The permanent popularity of courtesans [hetairai] in ancient Greece is surely the best proof that homosexuals were either not consistently so or not particularly numerous. We have already suggested that inversion was never very prevalent except in one class of society and over quite a limited period." (pg 140)
:"Whether such matters are to be regarded jestingly or seriously, I think that the pleasure is to be deemed natural which arises out of the intercourse between men and women; but that the intercourse of men with men, or of women with women, is contrary to nature, and that the bold attempt was originally due to unbridled lust." (Plato's Laws 636)
:"The teachers of the boys shall open the school-rooms not earlier than sunrise,
:and they shall close them before sunset. No person who is older than the boys 
:shall be permitted to enter the room while they are there, unless he be a son of
:the teacher, a brother, or a daughter's husband. If any one enter in violation of
:this prohibition, he shall be punished with death. The superintendents of the 
:gymnasia shall under no conditions allow any one who has reached the age of
:manhood to enter the contests of Hermes together with the boys. A gymnasiarch
:who does permit this and fails to keep such a person out of the gymnasium, shall
:be liable to the penalties prescribed for the seduction of free-born youth. Every
:choregus who is appointed by the people shall be more than forty years of age."
::(Contra Timarchus 12.)
So as you can see, not only is there strong evidence to suggest that homosexuality and pederasty was not commonplace in Ancient Greece but there are also qualified scholars who think this way as well. For Example Robert Flaceliere and Bruce Thornton.Cretanpride 03:29, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: More evidence that suggests homosexuality was not common in Ancient Greece