Eros

This book offers a comprehensive account of ancient Greek sexuality free of currently fashionable theoretical jargon and pretensions. It is about what the literary remains from 700–100 b.c. say about sex, for it is those remains that most influenced subsequent Western culture.

---

Eros: The Myth of Ancient Greek Sexuality is a controversial book that lays bare the meanings Greeks gave to sex. Contrary to the romantic idealization of sex dominating our culture, the Greeks saw eros as a powerful force of nature, potentially dangerous, and in need of control by society: Eros the Destroyer, not Cupid the Insipid, fired the Greek