The attitudes towards rape that are shown in New Comedy are also male-centric, as many of plots revolve around a rape and many rapists make amends by marrying their victims or, in the case of Menander’s Epitrepontes, returning to their raped wife when they realise that they themselves were the rapist, at the demands of the victim’s kyrios. It is debated how realistic such plots are but Robson argues that “New Comedy is often singled out for its realism by ancient writers… so the same remedy may have been made available to rapists in classical Athens too.” This consequence of rape certainly shows that the citizen body was masculine and assertive. As Robson argues, an offer of marriage would indicate to the victim’s family that the rape was not
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Athenaeus’ Deipnosophists is a late text, from 2nd-3rd century CE, which quotes earlier texts and gives us access to sources which are lost otherwise. It is important to note that as we only have later quotations, we may lose some of the context of the original piece and as these are comic fragments, they are hyperbolic. He quotes Philemon in Brothers as saying that Solon created the first brothels in Athens to control young men’s urges and to stop them from committing “the wrong kind of mistakes”, which I take to mean the rape of respectable citizen women; it is later stated that “[the prostitute] doesn’t pull away”, which suggests that the women whom young men had been having sex with before would pull away, which suggests rape. Even if she didn’t physically resist, unmarried sex was a property law violation, as a woman and her chastity belonged to her kyrios, and so the young men would have been making ‘mistakes’. These brothels allowed an outlet which was otherwise legally unavailable. In addition, the brothels allowed men to “immediately get the girl you want, however you want her”, and so allowed men to have sexual relations which were inappropriate with one’s wife, such as fellatio. Such acts only costed “one obol”, and so were available to every citizen, no matter what their income was. Halperin suggests …show more content…
If a citizen is willing to sell his bodily autonomy then this suggests that he would make the city as an entity “vulnerable to penetration by foreign influence or to corruption by private enterprise.” If he is willing to sell his body, then he is willing to sell his morals, and no such man could be allowed to speak before the people in the public assembly. This is argued by Davidson as well as Halperin: “the crucial part about prostitutes is not what they get up to in bed, for ultimately that is speculation; it is that they are for sale.” They can become subject to another man’s power, both socially and economically: they are willing to give up the autonomy that being a citizen grants them, and so are not worthy of their other rights. Therefore, the punishment of atimia for male prostitution demonstrates the importance of masculinity and assertiveness to the Athenian citizen body: a man who has willingly feminised himself is not worthy of citizen rights; and a man who sells his body can be bought by anybody for anything, and so can not be trusted to speak
Athenaeus’ Deipnosophists is a late text, from 2nd-3rd century CE, which quotes earlier texts and gives us access to sources which are lost otherwise. It is important to note that as we only have later quotations, we may lose some of the context of the original piece and as these are comic fragments, they are hyperbolic. He quotes Philemon in Brothers as saying that Solon created the first brothels in Athens to control young men’s urges and to stop them from committing “the wrong kind of mistakes”, which I take to mean the rape of respectable citizen women; it is later stated that “[the prostitute] doesn’t pull away”, which suggests that the women whom young men had been having sex with before would pull away, which suggests rape. Even if she didn’t physically resist, unmarried sex was a property law violation, as a woman and her chastity belonged to her kyrios, and so the young men would have been making ‘mistakes’. These brothels allowed an outlet which was otherwise legally unavailable. In addition, the brothels allowed men to “immediately get the girl you want, however you want her”, and so allowed men to have sexual relations which were inappropriate with one’s wife, such as fellatio. Such acts only costed “one obol”, and so were available to every citizen, no matter what their income was. Halperin suggests …show more content…
If a citizen is willing to sell his bodily autonomy then this suggests that he would make the city as an entity “vulnerable to penetration by foreign influence or to corruption by private enterprise.” If he is willing to sell his body, then he is willing to sell his morals, and no such man could be allowed to speak before the people in the public assembly. This is argued by Davidson as well as Halperin: “the crucial part about prostitutes is not what they get up to in bed, for ultimately that is speculation; it is that they are for sale.” They can become subject to another man’s power, both socially and economically: they are willing to give up the autonomy that being a citizen grants them, and so are not worthy of their other rights. Therefore, the punishment of atimia for male prostitution demonstrates the importance of masculinity and assertiveness to the Athenian citizen body: a man who has willingly feminised himself is not worthy of citizen rights; and a man who sells his body can be bought by anybody for anything, and so can not be trusted to speak