The plot of Oedipus
Rex is frequently described as the working out of a curse laid upon the
children of Laius, Oedipus’ father and victim. The story is familiar enough:
despite Laius’ attempted infanticide, Oedipus returns to Thebes and, in
ignorance of his biological parentage, kills his dad and fucks his mum. This
terrible fate was ordained by the Gods, is frequently called a curse, and its
inexorable revelation exposes the feckless maliciousness of the Greek deities.
Oedipus
is
some play: Aristotle would use it as the template for the ideal tragedy in the Poetics, its careful elaboration of
Oedipus’ crimes is a masterful display of Sophocles’ skill of building dramatic
tension and the final understanding of Oedipus of his own nature makes it a
prototype for a horror story, in which the hero suddenly discovers that they
are actually the villain. The skilful development of Oedipus ensures that the
audience is drawn in and feels sympathy for the protagonist (his mother and
wife, Jocasta, however, is inevitably a stock character whose death is a mere
prelude to Oedipus’ blinding. So much for the female experience).
Because of Sophocles’ delicate yet inevitable description
of fate finally catching up with the unfortunate monarch, the play is
frequently understood as fatalistic and the curse itself a simple
representation of ‘original sin’ (although the Christian term is anachronous).
The fate is arbitrary, a bitter fact of a universe that doesn’t so much not
give a fuck about humans but actively fuck with them. Oedipus’ peripeteia is to realise his actual
nature, and he’s a mother-fucker.
Yes, that works, only it is only part of the story, isn’t
it? Laius wasn’t just the victim of a curse. He was cursed because he fucked
kids. He was supposed to be the tutor to Chrysippus, only he raped him and
provoked the boy to suicide. The punishment, to be killed by his biological son
– and to have his wife seduced by the same child – is a punishment for
child-abuse. It has a bit of a gangster edge, but is clearly a moral response
to criminal behaviour. Oedipus
demonstrates the social and personal consequences of child-abuse: it stays
around to fuck up the next generation.
And let’s just remind ourselves of the culture in fifth
century Athens. Kenneth Dover’s Greek
Homosexuality has a close look at the various sexual relationships enjoyed
in the cradle of civilisation. Basically, he concludes that men would engage in
relationships with young teenagers – at their most attractive just before
puberty – because the legalistic nature of marriage (and the oppression of
women, who were banished to the back of the house) meant that romantic love
needed an outlet.
Contrary to some optimists, who like to believe that
before Christianity, there was no homophobia, gay adult men (as far as they
could be said to exist in any terms that overlap with contemporary notions of
sexual identity or behaviour) were mocked and castigated. Wanting sex with a
man of the same age was effeminate, and there’s plenty of jokes at the expense
of such men in Aristophanes. An adult relationship between men wasn’t
happening. What was okay in Athens of the fifth century was an adult male
having with a child, in exchange for a few bits of educational advice.
So – to be clear: Sophocles wrote a play demonstrating the
consequences of a relationship that was common in the city in which his plays
were performed. It’s not just a meditation on a hostile universe (although this
quality adds an apparent universality to the script).
It is about how damaging paedophilia is. Of course, admitting that the same men who invented democracy and equality before the law (isonomia, the principle that led to democracy) were involved in something like a paedophile ring is upsetting, so that gets ignored. And pointing to the treatment given to adult men attracted to other men, it’s a homophobic one, too.
It is about how damaging paedophilia is. Of course, admitting that the same men who invented democracy and equality before the law (isonomia, the principle that led to democracy) were involved in something like a paedophile ring is upsetting, so that gets ignored. And pointing to the treatment given to adult men attracted to other men, it’s a homophobic one, too.
The amount of evidence that Dover marshals for the
prevalence of pederasty suggests that they were doing a fair job of making it
seem acceptable. And even a classicist like Dover, who must have known that the
word ‘homosexual’ was not even invented until Karl-Maria Benkert coined it in
1869 (Havelock Ellis was like, it’s a ‘barbarous… monstrous mingling of Greek
and Latin’ (Studies in the Psychology of
Sex, Vol. II, 1921)), uses it to describe behaviour that is better
described as kiddy-fiddling. Congratulations on forging a link between the
healthy desire of adult men for each other and systemic abuses of power.
I have two points here. One is that there is a further
reading of Oedipus that is probably
discussed in some classical scholarship but not generally known that makes the
play fiercely moral and more connected to its specific historical genesis than
the typical ‘it’s a universal play’ or ‘it’s about a subconscious desire all men
have to sleep with their mum’. It doesn’t replace those readings, but it adds a
layer.
My other point is that the conflation of homosexuality and paedophilia, which is bullshit and still hangs about in conservative homophobia, has one hell of a pedigree and is enforced by respectable sources that misapply the terms. I first discovered Laius’s antics in an encyclopedia of queer mythology, which coyly tries to reclaim Laius within some kind of hidden history.
Apart from suggesting I didn’t pay much attention when I studied Classics at St Andrews, this is supposed to be a queer positive handbook revealing the occluded queerness of mythology and that. I know I shouldn’t have faith in a book that discusses William Burroughs without mentioning heroin use, or has a longer section on astrology than Islam or Christianity (it’s bullshit mysticism), but the need to discover lost heroes doesn’t necessarily involving adding to the long list of attempts to misunderstand the simple fact that paedophilia is not homosexuality.
Add that next to Peter Ackroyd’s description of pederasty
as a queer sexuality in Queer City,
or the mistranslations of St Paul that assume his prohibitions on fucking kids
are a general message against same-sex desire (he can’t have had a thing
against homosexuality because, remember, the word wasn’t invented until the
nineteenth century), and there’s a nice historical context for that big load of
Daily Mail paranoia.
I think I need to make this clear. Homosexuality is a
manifestation of same-sex desire, an orientation. Paedophilia is rape that is predicated on the replacement of compassion with a drive to
dominate. A paedophile ring is a group of criminals enabling each
other, a bit like the Involuntary Celibate communities online. I am tired of
the homophobia that conflates them, especially in books that are supposed to be
all about liberating queerness from oppression.
I am aware that intergenerational relationships do have a pedigree within recent gay society, but if the law is able to recognise equality for the age of consent, so can chicken-hawks. There's a long tradition of an older lover introducing a younger person to the intricacies of sexual desire and intimacy, which goes into heterosexuality as well, but informed consent needs to be part of that. Children have trouble with giving informed consent.
I am aware that intergenerational relationships do have a pedigree within recent gay society, but if the law is able to recognise equality for the age of consent, so can chicken-hawks. There's a long tradition of an older lover introducing a younger person to the intricacies of sexual desire and intimacy, which goes into heterosexuality as well, but informed consent needs to be part of that. Children have trouble with giving informed consent.
Oh yeah, and Ackroyd: there is no reason to think that
female gladiators are lesbians. No reason not to, sure, but skeletal remains
with no inscription don’t tend to have a sexual identity. And you might want to
interrogate what the word sodomy means in medieval society before assuming it
is all about anal sex. It’s not that Christianity hasn’t got a problem with homophobia,
but a bit of context might provide some clues as how to disentangle a decidedly
Unchristian attitude from the prejudices of fundamentalists.
Just saying.
