Look I know academics saying embarrassing things about "eros" or "erotics" in public is easy to dunk on and there's a time honored tradition of doing so But you all know that it makes you look ignorant, right, and not just of PoMo 20th century "queer theory" shit
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"Eros doesn't literally mean sex" goes back a LONG way Freud and Jung, who were both very much NOT "postmodern" and who are in fact pretty old school, used "eros" consistently just to mean "desire" or "energy" "Lust" in the sense of "lust for life", like Iggy Pop would say
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People like to use "erotic" in the modern sense as an antonym of "platonic", their word for a pure, nonsexual friendship The problem is that "platonic" is named for Plato, and THE WORD PLATO HIMSELF USED FOR THAT KIND OF LOVE WAS "EROS"
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The ancient Greeks were ALL ABOUT the idea that eros and sex could be separated from each other! This is why there's so much debate over whether or not they had a concept of being "gay" in the modern sense! They were very willing to describe people as "lovers" without fucking!
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In fact that's why there's so much disagreement over the most controversial "eros" in Greek culture, eros paidikos (pederasty, or "boy love") Yes, they declared a man's love for an boy he "mentored" was the highest form of love No, it's not clear this meant actual child rape
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Notably, because they themselves made crude jokes about it Athenians and Spartans regularly accused each other of raping boys and making something foul of something beautiful
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Probably because there was in fact a lot of abuse going on and both sides were being hypocrites But there is quite a bit of literary stuff about the duty of an erastes not to do anything "shameful" with an eromenos, leaving unspoken what exactly their culture found shameful
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Replying to @arthur_affect
I agree in general with pushing back against the simplistic discussions you are attacking, but be careful you don't go too far the other way: I'm not sure 'intercrural intercourse' is super progressive. And though many pushed back against an abusive erastes, many did not.
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Replying to @angryshrub
Yeah I'm not in favor of the discourse over saying "the ancient Greeks said 'erotic' teacher/student relationships were the ideal, so why can't professors fuck undergrads?", at all But the fact the Greeks did fight bitterly over this is evidence the word is complicated
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Replying to @arthur_affect @angryshrub
In real life, when people talk about any kind of "eros" - or, hell, the English word "desire" - about another person, yeah, it's inevitable sex gets into it Everyone sideeyes the dude who has a massive "crush" on a celebrity dude he greatly admires but swears it's "not gay"
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And yet if you insist that sex MUST be part of it and that in every such case it MUST be gay you're pretty clearly wrong and being an asshole
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