mick writes:
in ancient greece, the military believed that homosexuality was a good thing because it generated a sense of comradeship
The Theban Sacred Band, the unit that finally broke the Spartan Hoplites, was 300 men. 150 pairs of homosexual lovers. They were hand-picked by Epaminondas and they were the ones who marked the end of Sparta and the beginning of the Theban Hegemony.
mick writes:
it was definitely considered normal and virtuous for an adventurous young man to have plenty of gay sex before time came for them to be a good member of society and have a family.
It is known that during the 400's and into the 300's Sparta suffered a serious decline in full-citizen population. Many different explanations have been offered over the years (men too busy fighting wars and repressing the helots, increase in Spartan-outsider marriages that created half-caste people not considered full citizens are the two most popular explanations). One of them that is considered a bit outside but not impossible is that the Spartans got so into the sex with boys thing that the number of men who had sex with women declined.
Here are some of the supporting arguments that they use. It is known that Spartan men did not eat with their wives, but in communal halls; that they were supposed to sneak away from their barracks to have sex with the wife for the first couple of years of marriage (and their male friends were supposed to try and catch them and make fun of them on the way); that having an attachment to your wife was looked down upon as much as having an attachment to money or anything other than repressing the helots and fighting wars; and that by the end, at least, Spartan women were dressed as boys for their wedding night.
Does it mean that Sparta declined because they were too homosexual? Probably not, but it is a possibility that can't be ruled out by the evidence.
Chris