The kidnapping of Ganymede. Homosexuality o Greek institution?

Homoerotism in archaic Greece and its subsequent representations

Abstract

In this paper we will discuss the myth of the kidnapping of the Trojan Ganymede by the god Zeus in one of the most famous Cretan mythical stories; we will examine its sexual connotative and its relation with homosexual practices during the archaic Greece, more punctually its ritual connection with sexual relations during the process of education of the citizens; later we will talk about how the myth was represented in the puncture in several episodes of the history of art, in order to demonstrate that the myth of the kidnapping of Ganymede during archaic Greece was not a reflection of the consent of an open sexual inclination towards male homosexuality, and it is not until after his classical interpretations, with a progressive eroticization, where the story begins to accompany in the plastic art the ideas of the homosexual re- lations, until the counter-reformation, where this myth is stripped of its erotic characteristics.