Abstract

As Michel Foucault describes it, the homosexual paideia in classical Greece was an erotic bonding between a boy who had to learn how to become a man, and a mature man who paid court to him. In many of his dialogues, Plato plays with this scheme: he retains the erotic atmosphere, but he inverts and purifies the whole process in the name of virtue and wisdom. In the Republic, however, Socrates' pupil forsakes this model in favor of a bisexual education for the shepherds and shepherdesses of the State. Aristotle resolutely opposes this move. He thus reverts to a kind of homosexual paideia for the future citizens of his ideal state, but this choice fosters many unspoken problems.