Even more blatant was the legitimation given erotic ambivalence by Cretan society with its peculiar custom of harpagmos, a ritual homosexual rape of boys by their lovers. The rape began with a conventional gift-exchange and ended with the rapist carrying off his beloved on horseback for a two-month sojourn in hiding. As the couple rode away, the boy’s family and friends would stand around uttering token cries of distress: “If the man is equal to or superior to the boy, people follow and resist the rape only enough to satisfy the law but are really glad …” confides the fourth-century historian
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