One of the three charges on which Socrates was condemned to death was that he was “a corruptor of youth;” the identic charge that landed Oscar Wilde in prison. But neither of these geniuses ever corrupted any youth. The prevalent idea that the association of an older androgyne with a sexually full-fledged younger man corrupts the latter is absolutely groundless. The androgyne only benefits, in several ways, the adolescent |Plato.| whom he loves far more than a father loves an only son. Socrates’ two most brilliant disciples, Plato and Xenophon, wrote books, still extant, one of the purposes of which was defence of Socrates from the charge mentioned.
Plato, the St. Paul of the pagan classic world—as was its Jesus (Socrates)—was an androgyne. His voluminous “Dialogues”—one of the world’s two score of literary masterpieces—are permeated with homosexuality. In the Symposium, Plato confesses himself a homosexualist. In his day, homosexuality was not regarded a disgrace any more than heterosexuality. The charge against Socrates was largely a pretext, the politicians having to give some plausible reason for ridding themselves of him.
Plato’s falsetto voice—a common characteristic of androgynes—is commented on in writings of his day still extant. He never married nor procreated.
Alexander the Great has been adjudged by sexologists an androgyne of the mild type. He was the first prominent Greek to dispense with hirsute decorations. The probability is that he was naturally beardless. But in imitation of the genius and leader of their generation, all the men who wished to be somebody started to shave clean. Knowledge of the razor first became common in Greece because Alexander the Great happened to be congenitally beardless!
As a monarch, Alexander was compelled to espouse a woman. But he spent nearly all his married life absent from his legal spouse, and was incapable of procreation. All the evidence is that his real soul-mate was a young warrior of his entourage. The two were inseparable. His strange affection for other |Alexander the Great.| young men of his entourage is remarked by contemporaries. He bewailed the death of favorites in battle as only a wife can mourn a husband.
Androgynes, because they possess the feminine psyche in greater or less degree, are generally very much opposed to war. But it is possible for a less extreme androgyne—of the psychic hermaphrodite type—to be a great general when the leadership of armies is thrust upon him. Genius occurs far oftener in connection with androgynism than with full-fledged masculinity. The rare keenness of mind of an androgyne like Alexander would enable him to plan successful campaigns. But his feminine cowardice would always keep him far from the battle-front, where there was no danger of a hair of his head ever being touched. And that is what happened with Alexander. Above all things else, he was a sybarite.
Androgynes, though never mixing in a fight themselves, are particularly attracted toward the war-loving “hero.” Much more than half of my own associates during my female-impersonation sprees belonged to a profession whose object was to kill their fellow man. For almost twenty years of my “youngmanhood,” I was an habitué of barracks, etc., and a worshipper of swords and rifles, although I would have been horrified if required to take them into my own hands. I have known other androgynes whose female-impersonation sprees were staged before professional common soldiers. A young androgyne acquaintance actually enlisted in the hospital corps in the war with Germany because he wished to be surrounded continually with warriors—the type of manhood which androgynes in general most servilely worship. Walt Whitman is |Julius Cæsar.| celebrated for his work among the wounded in America’s War of the Rebellion. I read in a medical journal that during the World War, a problem with the Italian army heads was to debar androgynes, who were said to demoralize the army because of their cowardice and seductive influence on their sexually full-fledged comrades. I heard of an androgyne who received a dishonorable discharge from the American conscript army because wrongly judged to be the incarnation of deepdyed moral depravity.
Perhaps the reason why Alexander and the next mild androgyne to be described were two out of the three greatest generals and conquerors of history was their craze to pass practically all their adult lives surrounded by warriors!
Alexander the Great
(Ancient Coin)