ALGUMAS PRECISÕES SOBRE A HOMOSSEXUALIDADE NA GRÉCIA ANTIGA

É longa e antiga a discussão sobre a forma como se processava o relacionamento sexual na Grécia Antiga, no quadro da instituição cultural designada como Pederastia, comummente praticada pelos gregos antigos em muitas cidades-estados, nomeadamente em Atenas, durante os séculos VII, VI e V e o início do século IV AC.

Um dos maiores estudiosos da sexualidade grega, Sir Kenneth Dover (1920-2010), presidente da British Academy, presidente do Corpus Christi College, Oxford e chanceler da Universidade St Andrews, autor da obra, ainda hoje considerada de referência, Greek Homosexuality (1978) sustentou que a relação sexual entre o erasta (o amante) e o erómeno (o amado) não envolvia penetração anal. A idade do erómeno situava-se na faixa entre os 13 e os 20 anos, embora se apontem casos (raros) em que a idade podia aproximar-se dos 30 anos. De facto, é esta a conclusão que se pode tirar das pinturas dos vasos antigos. Existem representações de actos sexuais com penetração anal mas em que os parceiros são já adultos.

Todavia, esta opinião de Sir Kenneth Dover não é totalmente partilhada por Eva Cantarella (n. 1936), professora catedrática da Universidade de Milão e decana da Faculdade de Direito da célebre Universidade de Camerino. No seu livro Bisexuality in the Ancient World (1992/2002), tradução do original italiano Secondo natura (1988), a autora escreve:

«It has recently been maintained that Athenian sexual morality did not envisage sodomy in the pederastic relationship. According to the findings of Sir Kenneth Dover, anal intercourse (which never appears when intercourse between adults and paides is depicted in vases) seems to be reserved for relations between adults. The numerous representations of pederastic relationships describe the two successive moments of courtship and sexual union in a very particular form. In the courtship phase, the erastês is represented in the position which Beazley defines as “up and down”: in front of his beloved, with one hand he brushes his face, with the other his genitals. At the moment of union he is once again standing in front of the erômenos, but this time with his penis between his thighs.

Does this finding necessarily mean that anal intercourse was socially prohibited in the case of paides? Might one not assume that the iconography represented images better suited to highlighting the affective aspect of the pederastic relationship, almost as if to point out and emphasise the importance and nobility of this relationship, contrasting it with purely physical one which linked two adult lovers? Another quite relevant consideration springs to mind, when one thinks about the iconography of heterosexual relationships: in this case too, penetration is only represented when the woman is a courtesan. Relations with “respectable” women leave out all reference to the sexual act. Would anybody dream of thinking, on this basis, that Greeks had sex only with courtesans, and not with their wives?

I believe that, to confirm the hypothesis that anal penetration was normal in pederastic relationships, it would be helpful at this point to look once more at lexical analysis. The verb which most frequently indicates the moment when the boy yields to the lover is, as we saw, charizesthai: but often, to indicate this moment, two other highly significant verbs appear – hypourgein and hypêretein, “rendering service” and “serving as a subordinate”. If the ethics of pederasty envisaged intercrural intercourse as the only form of sexual satisfaction for the lover, why speak of the beloved “submitting”?

But the most significant confirmation of the hypothesis we are seeking to verify comes from the graffiti of Thera. More than once in these graffiti we read specific references to anal intercourse. In the inscription that we already looked at, for example, Krimon, the lover, to describe his intercourse with his beloved uses the verb oipein. This verb occurs five times in the inscriptions, and in the Dorian dialect (as shown by its meaning in the code of Gortyn) it means the male sexual act performed either on a male partner or on a female partner: which inevitably means that when used with reference to homosexual intercourse, it indicates anal penetration. In the light of this consideration it really becomes very difficult to imagine that a custom of such antiquity and with such major traditions (even though, over the centuries, the memorial of its institutional value was lost) could not only have been lost but have become an infamous practice.» (pp. 24, 24, 26)

«To finish with this point, I believe that it was absolutely normal throughout the course of Greek history for a boy to “submit” to his lover, and that this did not necessarily involve any loss of honour. Honour, certainly, was at stake: but it was lost, as we have seen, only by paides who yielded without respecting some rules of what might be called a procedural nature. These rules were established on a social level by the etiquette of courtship; they have already been described, and on examining the evidence, despite everything that has been said on this topic, we find these rules confirmed and clarified by the provisions of the law.» (p. 27)

 

Daqui, e de outras obras, pode concluir-se o seguinte:

1) As relações pederásticas podiam envolver penetração anal do erasta no erómeno e rarissimamente do erómeno no erasta;

2) Os gregos, enquanto cidadãos (excluem-se os escravos que, sendo coisas, tinham como uma das suas missões satisfazer os seus proprietários) podiam manter relações homossexuais entre si;

3) Havia prostituição homossexual masculina entre os gregos;

4) Havia prostituição heterossexual feminina entre os gregos;

5) Nunca eram representadas relações sexuais entre marido e mulher;

6) Algumas cerâmicas áticas dos séculos VI e V AC (embora escassas) representam cenas de sexo oral praticado pelo erómeno no erasta e muito mais raramente pelo erasta no erómeno.

Por outro lado, Eva C. Keuls, professora da Universidade de Minnesota, na sua obra The Reign of the Phallus – Sexual Politics in Ancient Athens (1985/1993), embora invocando igualmente Sir Kenneth Dover, entende que a homossexualidade (pederástica, no caso vertente) grega era não só uma instituição cívica, como é amplamente sustentado, mas também uma forma de os homens se afastarem das mulheres. Escreve a autora:

«It is a common opinion of Dover and others that the peculiarity of Athenian social behavior was not that Athenian men practiced homosexuality – among what people has it not occurred at some times? – but that the Athenians sanctioned it and even glorified it as a useful institution. In contrast to this familiar argument, I will try to show that, although male homosexuality was widely practiced, in the Classical period it was, at the most, only half-heartedly condoned.

One standard explanation of Greek homosexuality is that it represented an escape from the female. As shown by the two epigraphs at the head of this chapter, some Greeks considered handsome young boys lovers as substitute for women. Indeed, neither their cowed or vicious wives at home nor the calculating hetaerai of their symposium nights can have been very satisfying sex partners in the long run. The need to escape from the rasping effect of male-female antagonism must have been just as much as a factor in the phenomenon of Greek homosexuality as it is in modern society. Yet the theory of the escape from the dreaded and despised female only skims the surface; it fails to reach the depths of the phenomenon.

If the primary impulse had been to replace a heterosexual relationship, corroded by alienation and hostility, with a nobler one, where sex could be mingled with friendship and intellectual stimulation, the ideal partnership would have been that between two men of comparable age, status, and educational level. Instead, the homosexual connection favored by the Greeks was not so much homoerotic as pederastic; the archetypal relationship was between a mature man at the height of his sexual power and need a young, erotically undeveloped boy just before puberty. The standard Greek nomenclature gives the older, aggressive partner the title of the “lover” (erastes) and the young, passive male that of the “beloved” (eromenos). This pattern parallels the ritual of initiation of the young into adult society and thus has pedagogic overtones, as has long been stressed in a number of studies (Bethe, Brelich, Bremmer). However, the evidence for homosexual practices as part of initiation points more strongly to the Dorian Greeks than to those of Attica.» (p. 275)

Transcrevo as duas epígrafes deste capítulo mencionadas no texto pela autora:

“You hate women profoundly and therefore you are now turning to boys.”

-   Fragment of the comedy The See-alls by Cratinus [152 K]

“Boys are beautiful too, for as long a time as they look like women.”

-   The hetaera Glycera, as quoted by Athenaeus [605 d]

 

Estes breves apontamentos pretendem esclarecer alguns pormenores acerca da homossexualidade na Grécia Antiga. E também derramam luz sobre a sexualidade posterior ao longo dos séculos.

O que era eventualmente criticado pelos gregos, como sendo desonroso, era o acto de submissão dos adultos, isto é, ser analmente penetrado ou praticar fellatio, situações que costumam ser designadas por atitudes passivas, em oposição às do respectivo parceiro, consideradas activas. Sendo aqui o sexo oral visto como muito mais indecoroso do que o sexo anal.

Nos países árabes de expressão francesa da África do Norte costuma-se chamar positivos aos intervenientes activos e negativos aos intervenientes passivos.

Curiosamente, no Portugal da segunda metade do século passado, em que a maioria dos rapazes heterossexuais aceitava praticar, temporária ou episodicamente, relações homossexuais, fosse em troca de dinheiro (na maior parte dos casos um pretexto para a prática dos actos), fosse pelo simples prazer, os mancebos não tinham qualquer relutância ao exercício da masturbação mútua, já punham muito mais reservas à prática de fellatio mas o que para eles era considerado realmente degradante (ao invés dos gregos) era a penetração anal. Porque havia a tradição de que verdadeiramente “paneleiros” eram só aqueles que “levavam no cu”!

Escusado será dizer que na Grécia Antiga (e em Roma) era inimaginável o conceito de “paneleiro” e que o próprio termo “homossexual” apenas começou a ser utilizado em 1869, quando criado pelo escritor austro-húngaro Karl-Maria Kertbeny. A proscrição moral surgiu na Judeia, em tempo incerto, pela aplicação da lei mosaica (a partir dos Dez Mandamentos, ou da sua interpretação errada) que viria a integrar o cânone do Cristianismo, o qual se difundiu progressivamente por todo o Império Romano na sua fase tardia.

A Igreja Católica (as Igrejas Cristãs) adoptaram acriticamente o anátema, fundamentando-se designadamente nos escritos de Paulo de Tarso, mas não é este o lugar para tratar da Sexualidade no universo cristão.