Women between them in antiquity

At the crossroads of the historical investigation and the Gender Studies, a synthesis of female homoeroticism in Greece and Rome has long been waiting for a synthesis. Apart from a few confidential publications, privilege was generally granted to male desire: so much were the references to theGreek lovewhich often served as cultural legitimization (which we think of the Arcadia movement in the 1960s or “ The unnashing vice of the Greeks »Mentioned in key scenes of Mauritiusfrom Em Forster), and which thus played a significant role in the affirmation of the modern concept of homosexuality. Socrates and Alcibiade, Achilles and Patroclus, Alexander and Héphestion made screen as much as the poems of theGreek anthologya composite collection whose book XIIexplicitly homoerotic and having the boys, was often translated. Even the pioneer book of Kj Dover, Greek homosexuality (1978), which marked its time by proposing the first detailed investigation into all ancient sources, devoted only a few pages to women and homosexuality, in a chapter entitled “ Special aspects and additional questions ».

Relations between women, a particular aspect of male homosexuality ? The main argument, often repeated to justify this reduction, is that of sources: apart from a few scattered references, mainly in the poets Sappho in the Vi^e s. Before our era, and at the Lucien rhetorician at II^e A century AD, there would not be much to find or to study: of course there were homosexual women in antiquity, but only in the secret of alcoves and gynecas. Sappho served as a model since the end of XIX^e century to female homosexuality, both modern and antique, and the debate stopped there. More insidiously was also taking shape there perhaps in some a form of sexism, including some reactions to the book by S. Boehringer recently carried the violent trace: was it possible, was it interesting to speak of a sexuality of women between them ? Was it possible to talk about it seriously ?

S. Boehringer reverses the arguments, and makes silence proof. Or rather she reinterprets the silence of the sources, tracks down the slightest information not to draw argument, not to rebuild the reality of the relationships of women with each other, but to draw the contours of the sources themselves. S. Boehringer is a specialist in Greek and Roman antiquity, both historian and literary, capable of reading and understanding her sources of the first hand, and therefore to justify his analyzes. Ancient documents are for them a system of representations, they do not refer directly to reality: if portraits of women among themselves are taking shape in certain sources, if allusions are made, it is because these portraits, these allusions serve particular strategies, specific to each author. There lies the particular strength of the work: he manages to deconstruct ancient documents to better reorganize them and understand them, taking care to ancient devices, then to our preconceptions, which make a double screen game for us. What we can achieve from antiquity is only a representation of reality, and not the reality itself. The documents obey their own logic, and the very representation of a possible homoerotic relationship is a bias, obeys rules and choices. References to ancient female homoeroticism are radically redesigned over the pages, thanks to the emergence of a new questioning, on the source itself and not what it claims to say, or what we understand. S. Boehringer does not transform into general historical judgment what it detects in the texts. It does not take as a cash silver what the sources seem to say, it reconstructs their discourse, gives them a framework of interpretation which renews their approach, without never being trapped either of the references and university reflexes: if the published book keeps of the doctoral thesis that it was a serious and a thoroughness in the analysis, it is generally clear and accessible, often exciting and always useful for reflection.

The influence of M. Foucault is claimed both in the preface by D. Halperin and in the introduction of the author, with some nuances: sex is a natural factwhile the sexuality is a construction (p. 21). In the Willingness to knowMr. Foucault claimed to demonstrate that even sex, as it is a component of the body, is a construction, an interpretation of our materiality, and S. Boehringer partially takes up this thread: what we analyze as sexual was not necessarily for Greeks or Romans, or was not in the same way, according to the same lines of sharing and the same ruptures (p. 27). One could even, always in the perspective of Foucault, to state more suddenly things: ancient societies did not govern themselves according to our standards, because they did not obey the standard, not in any case as Foucault dismantled it, in the context of an invasive power, centered on the body of individuals and masses, and summarizing it to say. In any case, for S. Boehringer, there is no possible sexuality for antiquity, but practices, a priori released from the shackles of categorical identification. Sex for the Greeks and the Romans is not united, it is the conjunction of two dissymmetrical attitudes, which cannot be summed up in the active/passive distinction.

This new story of eroticism is doubled, it is parallel to both men, and that of men with women. It exists with its particular rhythms and ruptures, which the sources themselves organize: “ There is a genre for each era and an era for each genre (P. 33). Some of the most striking examples: the archaic era (Vi^e century BC) and its difficult poetic compositions, those of Sappho of course, but also those of Alcman (Partéénées) and perhaps at least a poem by Anacréon, integrate the homoerotic relationship between women in the general celebration of theEros (A form of love desire), without concealment it seems or particular judgment. In classical era, silence seems to be done, even if the same indifferentiation (or indifference ?) Seems to be able to detect yourself here and there.

The analysis of the famous myth known as “ androgynous », In the Banquet de Plato, is exemplary: this myth, stated by the character Aristophanes, defines sex as a consequence ofEroswhere the categories are set up in discourse according to social rules, that of marriage and procreation. Eros is common to all human nature, which is now divided into two species for sex and three species for behavior (man / man, woman / woman, man / woman), without possible binary distinction between homosexuality and heterosexuality (p. 109). But this myth is only a speech, which is not necessarily assumed in the first place by Plato, and first refers to the discourse of Diotime at the end of the banquet. Modern categories are inadequate to account for it, but the very categories that build it do not directly refer to reality. Change of tone in Roman times: raw satire appears, or in any case is better known to us, in a society where in the division of the sexes or sexualities are superimposed other divisions, that of free / non -free men, or that which opposes the pudicitia (a form of reserve) at theinfamia (a social dishonor). There “ tribade “Appears, a complex figure which has often been identified too quickly the homosexual. Rather than sappho, staged in the Heroids From Ovid, it is Philaenis, an author (perhaps generic) of pornographic works which is associated with the sexual intercourse between women by drawing the general portrait of excess and non-self-to-self and its body. Homoeroticism is only one element, one of others in this literary charge.

In general, there is “ No coherent representation of a human type with specific physical characteristics linked to sexual practices between women (P. 341). These are “ an off-champ, an unmarked field where standards and evaluation criteria do not find support (P. 342). If there is a difference in the sexes in Greece and in Rome, it is not at the heart of the definition of a subject (which itself does not exist as such): gender exists between different poles defined in cultural and social terms, and does not directly refer to the modern distinction between “ male ” And “ female ».

Since 1997 and the conference Homosexuality, expression / repressionwhose acts were published by L.-G. Tin in 2000, S. Boehringer had revealed himself as a pioneer ; The revised edition of his thesis makes accessible to a wider audience a question that affects those who would like to know the world and the ancient imagination as well as those who are generally interested in the questions of gender. The author is very generous, because she gives all the means to his reader to accompany him, but also to stay behind. It provides detailed texts in a detailed manner and proposes without imposing them excavated, relevant reflections, which generally take advantage of membership, or even seduce … This book is a conversation, between an author, a reader and documents. It is the occasion for measured conclusions, which may disappoint activists and more generally those who want definitive and easy-to-replace responses. It is a discourse of the method as much as a collection of detail analyzes. S. Boehringer shows that in certain areas, to be cautious requires more courage than to advance unfounded conclusions.