From: Michael S. Lorrey (retroman@turbont.net)
Date: Mon Nov 13 2000 - 10:55:02 MST
Harvey Newstrom wrote:
>
> J. R. Molloy wrote,
> > It seems to me the most extropic people have either avoided marriage,
> > tolerated it as a necessary evil, or abandoned it.
> >
> > I'm thinking of Socrates, Turing, Galileo, Oscar Wilde, Siddhartha, and
> > others.
>
> That's because these were all gay.
>
> Another fun fact: Plato's "Platonic love" (taught from Socrates) was not
> really non-sexual. He was espousing the virtues of homosexual love over
> heterosexual love. The catholic church took out all the sexual referenceswhen they translated the classics from Latin.
Galileo, AFAIKR, found his primary relationship with is daughter, who was a nun
in a convent, and who was as well educated in astronomy as he was. Whether there
was anything between them beyond the father daughter thing (as some snarkily
surmise) I don't know.
>
> For bonus points: Why did Plato think that gay relationships were superior?
> It was not just his own preferences. Under the Roman Empire, only men were
> educated, could own land, could run businesses, or could be citizens. Plato
> was actually arguing that an equal relationship with an intellectual
> partner, a business partner or fellow citizen was more satisfying than an
> unequal relationship between a Master and his servant girl or concubine. He
> was arguing that men would be happier if they chose partners for their
> intellectual, business or political savvy rather than just for procreation
> or domination.
Women were illiterate for the most part in Greek society, little more than
chattel. Most all significant social and personal relationships among Greek
intelligentsia were between males, and I presume that since such intelligent
males had such difficulty finding 'intelligent' educated women to have true
relationships with that the homosexual relationship was resorted to.
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