Sex and Punishment: Four Thousand Years of Judging Desire by Eric Berkowitz Page A

still visible on a seaside rock wall in the former Spartan colony of Thera. There, a few dozen meters from the old temple of Apollo, Spartan men brought in expert stone carvers to record their accomplishments: “Here Krimon had anal intercourse with his pais [boy], the brother of Bathycles,” reads one inscription.
    Cultures that permitted homosexual sex established regulations as to how and when it could occur, especially in Athens, where young males were protected from unauthorized advances. Slaves suffered fifty lashes for courting free boys or even following them around, and death awaited any man who walked into a school without permission. Those allowed to teach boys were required to be older than forty, when their ardor was believed to have diminished. Athletic coaches were trusted least. According to one source:
A wrestling master, taking advantage of the occasion when he was giving a lesson to a smooth boy, forced him to kneel down, and set about working on his middle, stroking the berries with one hand. But by chance the master of the house came, wanting the boy. The teacher threw him quickly on his back, getting astride of him and grasping him by the throat. But the master of the house, who was not unversed in wrestling, said to him, Stop, you are smuggering the boy.
     
    None of this seems to have stopped the likes of Socrates and the orator-statesman Aeschines from passing days at the gymnasium, where they spent much of their time ogling pretty boys. The temptation was evidently too great. 8

ONCE A HUSTLER . . .
     
    If the idealized union of Greek males was an exchange of sex for learning and social connections, such arrangements were rare. Far more frequent were men and boys selling their bodies for money. These male pornai (prostitutes) hustled the brothels and streets and took all comers, even slaves. Higher-end gigolos were kept by one man or shared among a group. Athenian men, married or not, suffered no penalty or shame for using male prostitutes so long as they were not adults or wellborn. The idea of sex between adult men was especially distasteful, and bachelorhood was avoided.
    Prostitutes carried on their trade legally and paid taxes, but were forever barred from participating in public life, including court cases. Many former male pornai presumably kept themselves far enough below the radar to avoid trouble, but not everyone could. In one well-known case, a man rose from a youthful career as a prostitute to the cream of Athenian society, only to have his past return in court decades later and swallow him up. The main issues in Against Timarchus , as the case was known, had nothing to do with whoring. Timarchus’s accuser, the aforementioned Aeschines, happily admitted to being a “nuisance” in the gymnasia and getting into fights over boys. He also had no quarrel with male prostitution per se. He did, however, vehemently object to Timarchus’s right to appear in court against him. In one of legal history’s great “gotcha” moments, Aeschines defeated Timarchus in a major case by exploiting his past as a dockside hustler.
    The original question was whether or not Aeschines had sold out Athens in negotiating a peace treaty with an aggressive foreign power. In 347 BC, Athens had sent Aeschines and two other prominent citizens to discuss peace with Macedonia’s King Philip II. The irascible king, best remembered as the father of Alexander the Great, had the better strategic position, and forced Athens into a deal that put it at a disadvantage. The agreement was received badly back home, and resulted in finger-pointing between the diplomats.
    The result was a series of court clashes between some of Athens’s most outsized personalities. The orator Demosthenes rounded on Aeschines, but his charges against the latter were grave enough to prompt him to seek the prestigious support of Timarchus, who had already authored one hundred pieces of legislation. Timarchus and Demosthenes accused Aeschines