Gide uses this evidence to insist that homosexuality is more fundamental and natural than exclusive heterosexuality, which he believes is merely a union constructed by society.
The dialogues use evidence from naturalists, historians, poets, and philosophers in order to back up Gide's argument that homosexuality is not unnatural and that it pervaded the most culturally and artistically advanced civilizations such as Periclean Greece, Renaissance Italy and Elizabethan England.