Public activities in “traditional” Mediterranean societies were organized on the basis of interpersonal relationships between men. The intense emotion and the close physical contact between men have led many Western scholars to the conclusion that these relationships are homosexual . For a better understanding of these relations we think it necessary that one take into consideration the meaning each society has placed upon the terms sexual / sexuality, emotions/frendship, masculinity /femininity as well as the manner in which the above phenomena are expressed in the overall social and financial structure of each society.Bearing this in mind we can approach Greek “traditional” society, a society both heterosexual and homosocial.
Heterosexual, because all sexuality is confined to the relationship between males and females, that is, between the sovereignty of men and the submission of women.
The fear of feminization and the display of virility do not only lead to the submission of women to men as a prevailing symbol of sexuality. It also eatablishes the relations between men within the framework of homosociality and defines its limits.
