18-09-2025, 09:05 PM
plato was... hetero and not gay...
Quote:Very likely; I will endeavour to explain myself more clearly. When I came to the subject of education, I beheld
young men and maidens holding friendly intercourse with one another. And there naturally arose in my mind a sort of
apprehension - I could not help thinking how one is to deal with a city in which youths and maidens are well nurtured, and
have nothing to do, and are not undergoing the excessive and servile toils which extinguish wantonness, and whose only cares
during their whole life are sacrifices and festivals and dances. How, in such a state as this, will they abstain from desires which
thrust many a man and woman into perdition; and from which reason, assuming the functions of law, commands them to
abstain? The ordinances already made may possibly get the better of most of these desires; the prohibition of excessive
wealth is a very considerable gain in the direction of temperance, and the whole education of our youth imposes a law of
moderation on them; moreover, the eye of the rulers is required always to watch over the young, and never to lose sight of
them; and these provisions do, as far as human means can effect anything, exercise a regulating influence upon the desires in
general. But how can we take precautions against the unnatural loves of either sex, from which innumerable evils have come upon individuals and cities? How shall we devise a remedy and way of escape out of so great a danger? Truly, Cleinias, here is a difficulty. In many ways Crete and Lacedaemon furnish a great help to those who make peculiar laws; but in the matter of love, as we are alone, I must confess that they are quite against us. For if any one following nature should lay down the law which existed before the days of Laius, and denounce these lusts as contrary to nature, adducing the animals as a proof that such unions were monstrous, he might prove his point, but he would be wholly at variance with the custom of your states.
Further, they are repugnant to a principle which we say that a legislator should always observe; for we are always enquiring
which of our enactments tends to virtue and which not. And suppose we grant that these loves are accounted by law to the
honourable, or at least not disgraceful, in what degree will they contribute to virtue? Will such passions implant in the soul of
him who is seduced the habit of courage, or in the soul of the seducer the principle of temperance? Who will ever believe this?
or rather, who will not blame the effeminacy of him who yields to pleasures and is unable to hold out against them? Will not
all men censure as womanly him who imitates the woman? And who would ever think of establishing such a practice by law?
certainly no one who had in his mind the image of true law. How can we prove that what I am saying is true? He who would
rightly consider these matters must see the nature of friendship and desire, and of these so - called loves, for they are of two
kinds, and out of the two arises a third kind, having the same name; and this similarity of name causes all the difficulty and
obscurity.
Our citizens should not allow pleasures to strengthen with indulgence, but should by toil divert the aliment and
exuberance of them into other parts of the body; and this will happen if no immodesty be allowed in the practice of love. Then
they will be ashamed of frequent intercourse, and they will find pleasure, if seldom enjoyed, to be a less imperious mistress.
They should not be found out doing anything of the sort. Concealment shall be honourable, and sanctioned by custom and
made law by unwritten prescription; on the other hand, to be detected shall be esteemed dishonourable, but not, to abstain
wholly. In this way there will be a second legal standard of honourable and dishonourable, involving a second notion of right.
Three principles will comprehend all those corrupt natures whom we call inferior to themselves, and who form but one class,
and will compel them not to transgress.
The principle of piety, the love of honour, and the desire of beauty, not in the body but in the soul. These are,
perhaps, romantic aspirations; but they are the noblest of aspirations, if they could only be realised in all states, and, God
willing, 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 least 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
honours and privileges, and be deemed to be, as he truly is, a stranger. Let this law, then, whether it is one, or ought rather
to be called two, be laid down respecting love in general, and the intercourse of the sexes which arises out of the desires,
whether rightly or wrongly indulged.
