 If what Socrates learned from Diotima was about all love, however, it would be refuted by the very fact of Alcibiades, whose love for Socrates has not led him to love the beautiful itself. It would be equally refuted, indeed, by all the other symposiasts, none of whom has been led there by his love. But Diotima’s love story is not so general. It is self-advertised as a story about “loving boys correctly (to orthôs paiderastein)” (211b5–6)—as a lesson in “the correct way to go or to be led by another to the art of love” (211b7-c1). To be sure, it doesn’t itself explicitly provide us with a story about how Erôs can act as a force which retards development. But that isn’t because Plato thought Erôs could not act as such a force—consider Alcibiades. Rather, it is because Diotima’s story is a story about successful or correct love. 