Dream

[felephant]

I had a dream last night in which I kissed a girl who was surprised by how agreeable that was and so whose boyfriend I found myself. But it was a little more subtle than this, and I confess I'm a little proud of my dreaming self's psychological acuity. When I kissed her, she didn't just reciprocate; I felt with my lips that hers clenched in

Comments

[ext_2623341]

Watch as I swoop in and say some things!

First, if I remember correctly, and also read this wikipedia entry correctly, the weird double-person sphere peoples in Aristophanes' story in The Symposium come in three varieties, Woman-Woman, Man-Man, and Woman-Man, so that is supposed to account for both same-gender and cross-gender love. Also, yeah, it's Aristophanes that tells that story, so insofar as Plato generally agrees with Socrates, I would guess it's not too accurate to call this Plato's account of love? But my ability to interpret ancient texts is probably worse than yours, James.

Second, actually I guess you pretty much already said this but my understanding is that the term "men who have sex with men" is really useful precisely because "gay" is often understood to be a particular kind of social construction, and so it can be inaccurate applying it to people from certain non-western backgrounds, or can be not general enough for some uses. Of course, this seems to ignore the degree to which "men" is also a culturally specific social construction, but yeah.

[felephant]

Hi Bren! I had no idea you would see this. But cool. I thought Socrates was the speaker for this story, but yeah, Wikipedia is on your side. And anyway, yeah of course it is Plato who's really saying this, even if Aristophanes inspired him in some way.