Lysistrata question?

Question

can anyone tell me what they think the intended audience, speaker, and rhetorical purpse of the lysistrata is? i read it and have an opinion but i would like to see what others think.

also what can you say about bodies and sexuality in classical athens from this reading. thanks a lot!

Answer 1

War has never been popular with people who have some consciousness and a clue.  As between the genders, women have more of both, (and i'm a guy with years of experience observing the behaviors of both genders, and that's my POV)

The purpose of the play is to, in a semi humorous way, make clear that belligerence needs to be put aside, and other means raised up to deal with conflict. The audience would be anyone old enough to understand the premise.

As for sexuality-- the Greeks, consciousness wise, generally, were probably no more unconscious than modern day cretins, and maybe even less so.  As i recall there was some indication that the underlying sacredness of s*x was still understood back then --something seemingly greatly diminished currently   :))