DID THE GREEKS PEDICATE THEIR LOVED BOYS?

Daemonic Rise   Wednesday, 22 November 2017

It just fails the pub test, this no-pedication argument. It's very hard to imagine these passionate, curious, life-loving Greeks agreeing to hold back from full body-and-soul union -- and then there's the men's wishes to consider! Odysseus was their archetype—to the very ends of the known universe and beyond! No truth un-tested or un-savoured. No, we can safely mark that one down as settled.

The standing of fellatio is intriguing, though. I take it there's no grounds for conjecture on its actual practice? I guess, coming from a strongly masculine warrior culture, man fellating boy might mess with their psyche somewhat, be too much a dereliction of a man's role as protector and mentor. Then again, sex thrives on subverting our daylight personae—could the satyr depictions be a way of expressing that which was but couldn't be publicly acknowledged? I actually hope they did shun the oral arts—the Greeks have no more right than anyone else to be perfect.

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Edmund Marlowe   Wednesday, 22 November 2017

Anything may of course have gone on in private between Greek men and boys, but there is no positive evidence for fellatio. Some must have tried it out, and this must have been generally known, otherwise neither the depictions of satyrs doing it nor the defamatory accusations of men doing it would have made much sense, would they? All I think that can be inferred from the literary and artistic evidence is that fellatio was generally disapproved of, which is not at all true of pedication.