Wrong once more given there isn't many such depictions. Here is another food for thought for everyone out there; in K.J Dover's book, the guy who brought us the myth of what some modern academics concideres to be "the know it all" on homosexual relationships in ancient Greece, he shows us a total of 600 vases in which he says shows them depicting some sort of sexual act. Out of the 600 vases a total of about ONLY 15-25 vases can be concidered depicting sexual acts IN GENERAL. The rest 580 show nothing of the sort!! Yet from that minute samples he manages to connect ALL the sexual acts to some ridiculous assumptions of supposed "homosexual" acts, even in cases when its not warranted! This is a perfect example of what I am talking about when I said, "inaccurate interpretations."
We continue further: In Book 3 Socrates tells us the difference between homosexual relations, admiration towards beauty aka Platonic Love. It is in this book where he clearly states that platonic "physci" love and not sexual love is essential between tutor~teacher and pupil.
In Protagora Philebus And Georgias (491e -92a & 494e) we are told about a disagreement Socrates is having with Callicles. Callicles argues that a man should give full reign into his desires without worrying about the consequences and Socrates counters with "[What about] the life of kinaidon, isn't it awful and shameful and wretched? Or will you have the audacity to say that they are happy, if they have enough of the things they need?" to which Callicles exclaims, "Have you no shame!". In other words, why would a wordly man such as Callicles who was just talking about fullfilling ones passions and consequences be damned be shocked that Socrates would bring up male homosexuality during a philosophical discussion and on top of that Socrates describes the life of a kinaidon as "awful", "shameful" and "wretched". Why would Socrates describe such life styles in such a way if ancient Greece was so openly accepted of homosexual/bisexual activities; 'cause they were not.
Further yet we go: homosexual/bisexual artwork which has survived, is not much. Even Dover, the guy who brought us the myth of what some modern academics concideres to be "the know it all" on ancient Greek sexual relationships in ancient Greece, had to admit defeat in finding any such depictions and trust me he looked very long and very hard. Dover who some consider the "authority" of homosexual vase art would have been doing cartwheels if such a vase painting actually existed. The amount of ancient Greek literature which has any homosexual refrence in them is less then 5% and amount of artifact which depict such acts is even less then that figures put it between 1% - 2% and I am being generous with those figures. Here is an example, so far according to archeological records, in Attica alone, that is the region of Greece were Athens is located, there have been over 80,000 vases that have been found. Out of those 80,000 only a handful of them have any depictions of homoerotic on them, on the other hand the number of heterosexual depictions is much higher. It doesn't really tell us much but that is pretty low for a society that was supposedly openly accepted of same sex love. The point is that if it was as popular and widely accepted as some like to theorize more of it would have been found.
Mvarda replying to this post: 'Spartans were opressors yah ... sparta killed spartan babies/children who were week physcilly and mentally ... killed slaves/helots who were strong--so the spartans were just as brutal to their own kind as the helots. the Nazis were about genocide, they thought they were already superior whereas the spartans trid to keep/make that superiority.'
"Unfortunately there is a myth today about ancient Sparta, which has been gradually constructed since the second half of the 17th century AC, when various totalitarian ideologies/regimes (even racist ones such as that of Hitler) claimed that they were patterned upon the Spartan way of life/principles/ideal. As a result the most people today (even historians/researchers among them) have a stereotype view of the Spartans which has nothing to do with historical actuality. A part and parcel of this myth is the alleged “unprecedented/unique” cruelty of the Spartans, who were throwing down from Kaeadas (a chasm of Taygetus mountain) deformed newborn babies, haunted by the ideal of a superior race (i.e. something like the Nazis :-)) First, it is evidenced from both, ancient sources/texts and archaeological findings too, that the Spartans threw down from Kaeadas not babies but only either adult alive convicts condemned to death or their dead bodies. This was a practice common to many other ancient Greek cities-states, too. In Athens for instance, they threw their own convicts down from the northwest side of the Acropolis. The Spartans actually exposed deformed babies in places called “Apothetes” (the verb “apotheto” in Greek means “lay/put something down in a specific place”). The Apothetes were places such as a temple, a house, a cave, a forest or a chasm. No ancient text identifies the Apothetes with Kaeadas chasm. On the contrary from the 17th century AC and on, the texts about ancient Sparta take to identifying arbitrarily the Apothetes with Kaeadas, which is a distortion of historical actuality. Second, it is also evidenced that the exposure of deformed babies wasn’t a particularity of the Spartan society but A COMMON PRACTICE all over the ancient Greek world. The monstrous baby caused the community fear (any community, not only the Spartan community) and it was undesirable by everybody, so it was abandoned/exposed. I know that this strikes us as extremely cruel in the light of our modern/Christian morality. But we should keep in mind that we talk about societies of a radically different era, during which the whole known world in general was more rough than it is today (theoretically at least ). Third, actually in other Greek cities-states (as opposed to ancient Sparta) were exposed not only deformed babies but healthy/able-bodied babies, as well. Please note that the exposure of able-bodied babies, which the father wouldn’t own as his legitimate children or wouldn’t like/couldn’t afford to bring up (due to social/financial reasons), was a custom wide spread over the Greek world and constantly increasing, until the Byzantine times that emperor Ioustinianos (527-565 AC) forbade it on the penalty of death. Back to antiquity, in the city-state of Athens for instance, a father would initially own the newborn baby as his. Then, in order to become an Athenian citizen, the baby had to be accepted as a member of the “fratria” of the father. (The city-state of Athens included 4 Ionian “fyles”, i.e. 4 tribes, and each tribe included a number of fratrias. Each fratria consisted of kindred groups of people who had a common ancestor). Thus during the Athenian feast called “Apatouria” the father would present his newborn baby to his fratria and would ask to be enrolled as a member of the fratria. If the baby was deformed it was not accepted and thus it was exposed (just like in Sparta). But even in the case that it was an able-bodied baby, if someone doubted the legitimacy of the child (i.e. if someone claimed that one of the parents was not an Athenian) and managed to persuade and the others, then the baby wasn’t accepted as an Athenian citizen and it was inevitably exposed, too. The same happened in other Greek city-states, as well. Similarly in Sparta a father would initially own the newborn baby as his. Then the father had to present the baby to his “fylH” (i.e. to his tribe) in order to be accepted as a member of the tribe, so that to be able to participate in the training called “agogH” and become someday a “homoios”, i.e. a Spartan citizen with full civic rights. If the baby was deformed it was exposed, just like in Athens and various other Greek cities-states. But in Sparta -as opposed to other Greek cities- an able-bodied baby was never exposed if someone doubted its legitimacy, because in Sparta there were enacted social classes such as the “perioikoi” and the “helotes” in which the able-bodied baby was always accepted. Thus in Sparta such children could remain members of the paternal family/house, without being intended for becoming “homoioi” someday. From the aforementioned it is obvious that the custom of exposure was actually in Sparta MILDER than it was in other Greek cities. Fourth, only after 1700 AC the Spartan practice (in relation with babies) is isolated from the widespread all over the ancient Greek world custom of exposure of babies and it is characterized as a savage and ruthless action dictated by “eugenism” (i.e. by the longing for the creation of a superior race). On the contrary ANYONE of those much later views (frequent in texts after 1700 AC) about the Spartans’ alleged particularity or savagery with regard to babies ISN’T REPORTED IN ANCIENT TEXTS. This means that the ancient Greeks didn’t reckon the attitude of the Spartans towards babies unusual, extreme or reprehensible (as we tend to reckon it today). Conclusively, the exposure of deformed (and not only deformed) babies was a common practice in the ancient Greek world, and in Sparta in particular it wasn't motivated by the creation of a superior Spartan race, as some contemporary researchers claim. The alleged “unprecedented/unique” cruelty of the Spartans towards babies is a myth constructed in our modern times (after 1700 AC) within the framework of our modern ethics. Another part and parcel of the modern Spartan myth is the maltreatment of the helotes by the homoioi, which supposedly caused the hatred of the helotes towards the homoioi and vice versa the homoioi’s fear of the helotes and had as a consequence the idiosyncratic constitution of the Spartan society. The aforementioned also belong to a great extent in the sphere of hyperbole. I could analyze that more extensively, but it would took me ages to construct a brief account of the existed evidence and translate it into English, so I'm finishing this post at this point."
~mvarda