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PARTISAN REVIEW
that the nature of "normal" intercourse and childbirth may be
understood. As Foucault observed in 1983 in an interview about his
History,
the Greeks "... were not much interested in sex. It was not
a great issue."
True enough, so long as one sticks, like Foucault, to philosoph–
ical texts and moral treatises. But if one looks at ancient comedy or
legal cases, Athenian society in the fifth and fourth centuries B. C.
seems almost as preoccupied with sex as we are. Aristophanes's com–
edies provide a wealth of specific information about sexual positions,
frequency of intercourse, and techniques of masturbation for both
men and women. We learn from a hilarious scene in the
Lysistrata,
where a wife tantalizes her husband and than runs away at the last
moment, something about ordinary bedroom comforts: privacy,
water to wash with afterwards, the right perfume, a blanket.
Speeches written by Lysias and Demosthenes for private clients
describe how men left their wives and lived with other women in dif–
ferent parts of town, how proper women met men at festivals and
had sexual relations with them while their husbands were dining
with their men friends in another part of the house. Nor can it be
argued that the average Greek man was likely to have been guided in
his everyday actions by what Plato or Aristotle thought. Most people
couldn't read at all, and of the few who could, many seemed to have
been content with
The Great Sayings ojEuripides
or
Plot Summaries oj Fa–
mous Dramas.
In the . fifth century, most people encountered moral
discussion only at the theater, in dramas like Euripides's
Hippolytus,
which considered the consequences of chastity and of sexual passion .
After the fourth century, in the comedies of poets like Menander,
issues were simplified to the level best known to us in soap operas:
Should the boy marry the poor girl he loves, or the rich girl next
door? Should he marry the girl he got pregnant? Shouldn't a wife be
able to get angry at her husband for having spent the income of her
family's property on his mistress and her daughter?
Note also that in comedy and lawsuits, heterosexual relation–
ships predominate, with women often in positions of influence or
power over men, even if the law did not legally recognize their
rights: illegitimate or stepchildren are sometimes preferred to legiti-
mate issue; a wife persuades her father to let her remain with her
bankrupt husband; and a man who believes that he has been
betrayed by his wife complains that "she loved me and I loved her,"
and uses three different words for love to describe the relationship:
philein
(to love friends and family),
agapan
(to cherish),
eran
(to feel
