Pederasty

Pederasty, as idealized by the ancient Greeks, was a relationship and bond between an adolescent boy and an adult man outside of his immediate family. In a wider sense it refers to erotic love between adolescents and adult men. The word derives from the combination of paides (Greek for 'boy') with erasteio (Greek for 'to long for'; cf. eros). In those societies where pederasty is prevalent, it appears as one form of a widely practiced male bisexuality. In antiquity, pederasty as a moral and educational institution was practiced in Ancient Greece and Rome. Other forms of it were common, and also found among the Celts (as per Aristotle, Politics, II 6.6. Athen. XIII 603a) and among the Scythians (as per Herodotus 1.105). More recently, it was widespread in Tuscany and northern Italy during the Renaissance. Outside of Europe, it was common in pre-Modern Japan until the Meiji restoration, in India until the British colonization, amongst the Aztecs prior to the Spanish conquest of Mexico and in China and Central Asia until the early 20th century. The tradition of pederasty persists to the present day in certain areas of Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Middle East, North Africa, and Melanesia.

The word first appears in the English language in the Renaissance, as pæderastie (e.g.: in Samuel Purchas' Pilgrimage.), in the sense of sexual relations between men and boys. The modern restriction of that definition to the sexual component of such relationships is due on one hand to the primacy of sexological discourse in contemporary western culture, and on the other to the demise of pederasty as a social institution. Thus in its contemporary sense, pederasty figures as a sub-category of what some sexologists term ephebophilia, the attraction of an adult towards adolescents, regardless of sex. Nonetheless this medicalization of desire is not widely accepted, and these categories do not figure in any international catalogue of mental disfunctions.

Sexual expression between adults and adolescents is not well studied, and since the 1990's has been often confused with pedophilia. Such relationships raise issues of morality and functionality, agency for the youth, and parental authority. Though they have been deemed beneficial by, for example, ancient philosophers, Japanese samurai and modern writers such as Oscar Wilde, today many disapprove of them and claim that they have a negative effect on the psychological development of the youth. A study contradicting both positions, authored by Bruce Rind and others, was published by the American Psychological Association in 1998.

The Ancient World

The pederastic Greek city-states

The ancient Greeks seem to have been the first to describe, study, systematize, and establish pederasty as an institution. The ethical views held in those societies (such as Athens, Thebes, Crete, Sparta, Elis, and others) on the practice of pederasty have been explored by scholars ever since the nineteenth century. One of the first to do so was John Addington Symonds, who wrote his seminal work A Problem in Greek Ethics in 1873, but had to wait twenty eight years to be able to publish it (in revised form) in 1901 [1]. Edward Carpenter expanded the scope of the study, with his 1914 work, Intermediate Types among Primitive Folk. The text examines homoerotic practices of all types, not only pederastic ones, and ranges over cultures spanning the whole globe[2].

Philosophical discourses

The topic of pederasty was the subject of extensive analysis. Some of the principal dilemmas discussed were:

• Which form should pederasty take, chaste or erotic?
• Is pederasty better or worse than the love of women?
• Is pederasty right or wrong?

Socrates, as represented in Plato's writings, appears to have favored chaste pederastic relationships, marked by a balance between love and self-control. That did not prevent him from frequenting the boy brothel, from which he bought and freed his future friend and student, Phaedo.

Plato was among those who spoke up against the decadence in which traditional pederasty was sinking in Athens. In his early works (the Symposium or in Phaedrus) he does not question the principles of pederasty, and states, referring to same-sex relationships:

• [...] generally in countries which are subject to the barbarians, the custom is held to be dishonourable; loves of youths share the evil repute in which philosophy and naked sports are held, because they are inimical to tyranny; for the interests of rulers require that their subjects should be poor in spirit, and that there should be no strong bond of friendship or society among them, which love, above all other motives, is likely to inspire, as our Athenian tyrants learned by experience; for the love of Aristogeiton and the constancy of Harmodius had a strength which undid their power. Plato, Symposium; 182c

Later, however, in his Laws, he blames them for promoting civil strife and driving many to their wits' end. (Plato, Laws, 636D & 835E) and goes as far as to recommend its prohibition, laying out a path whereby this may be accomplished. His strategy predicts closely the one that was eventually used by the various Christian sects to drive all same-sex relationships underground.

Other writers, often under the guise of "debates" between lovers of boys and lovers of women, have recorded other arguments used for and against pederasty. Some, like the charge that the practice was "unnatural" and not to be found among "the lions and the bears," applied to all relationships between men and youths. According to Lucian (a late author, writing 700 years after the apogee of the Classical period), in his Erotes, "neither the birds who ride the winds, nor the fishes fated to their wet element, nor the animals on land seek dealing with other males." Lucian also expresses the concern that the reproduction of the species will suffer: "If everyone did like you there would be no one left!" They also mock philosophers' claims that it is the "soul" that they love. Again, Lucian: "How come your love, so full of wisdom, lunges avidly for the young, whose judgement is not yet fully formed, and who know not which road to take?"

Others charges do not involve traditional pederasty, but practices devised for the sexual satisfaction of the strong at the expense of the weak. Chief among these is denouncement of the castration of captive slave boys. As Lucian has it, "Effrontery and tyrannical violence have gone as far as to mutilate nature with a sacrilegious steel, finding, by ripping from males their very manhood, a way to prolong their use.""Erotes" text at Diotima

Social Aspects

Pederastic relationships were dyadic mentorships. These mentorships were sanctioned by the state, as evidenced by laws mandating and controlling such relationships. Likewise, they were consecrated by the religious establishment, as can be seen from the many myths describing such relationships between gods and heroes (Apollo and Hyacinth, Zeus and Ganymede, Heracles and Hylas, Pan and Daphnis) and between one hero and another (Achilles and Patroclus, Orestes and Pylades). (It is interesting to note that the Greeks tried to project a semblance of pederasty (read: propriety) onto these last two pairs, despite a great deal of evidence that the two myths were originally intended to symbolize egalitarian relationships.)

Historical as well as mythographical materials suggest that pederastic relationships also had to be approved by the boy's father. As Xenophon claims in his Symposium, "Nothing [of what concerns the boy] is kept hidden from the father, by a noble lover." This is consistent with the paramount role of the Greek patriarch, who had the right of life and death over his children. It is also consistent with the importance that a son would have had for him. Besides the bond of love between them, a son was the only hope for the survival of a Greek man's name, fortune and glory.

Boys entered into such relationships in their teens, around the same age that Greek girls were given in marriage – also to adult husbands many years their senior. There was a difference between the two types of bonding: Boys usually had to be courted and were free to choose their mate. Girls, on the other hand, were used for economic and political advantage, their marriages contracted at the discretion of the father and the suitor.

The function of the relationship seems to have been the introduction of the young man into adult society and adult responsibilites. To that end the mentor (known as erastes, lover, in Athens, or eispnelas, inspirer, in Sparta) was expected to teach the young man (known as eromenos, beloved, in Athens, or aites, hearer, in Sparta) or to see to his education, and to give him certain appropriate ceremonial gifts (in Crete, an ox, a suit of armor, and a chalice (from kylix, Greek for wine cup), signifying his empowerment in agriculture, war and religion). The bond between the two participants seems to have been based in part on mutual love and desire – usually sexually expressed – and in part on the political interests of the two families. The relationships were open and public, and became part of the biography of the person. Thus when Spartan historians wrote about a personage they would usually indicate whom it was that he had heard or whom it was that he inspired.

For the youth – and his family – one important advantage of being mentored by an influential older man was the social networking aspect. Thus some considered it desirable to have had many older lovers / mentors in one’s younger years, both attesting to one's physical beauty and paving the way for attaining important positions in society. Typically, after their sexual relationship had ended and the young man had married, the older man and his protégé would remain on close terms throughout their life. For those lovers who continued their lovemaking after their beloveds had matured, the Greeks made allowances, saying, You can lift up a bull, if you carried the calf.

Pederasty was the idealized form of an age-structured homoeroticism that, like all social institutions, had other, less idyllic, manifestations, such as prostitution or the use of one’s slave boys. However, certain forms were prohibited, such as slaves penetrating freemen, or paying free boys or young men for sex. Free youths who did sell their favors were generally ridiculed and later in life were prohibited from performing certain official functions.

A speech given by an Athenian politician, Aeschines, in 346 B.C.E., Against Timarchus, is an example of how effective these regulations were. He argues against allowing Timarchus his political rights, based on his having spent his adolescence as the kept boy of a series of wealthy men. Aeschines won his case, and Timarchus is said to have taken his life upon having been deprived of his political rights. But Aeschines is careful to acknowledge what seemingly all Athens knows: his own dalliances with beautiful boys, the erotic poems he dedicated to these youths, and the scrapes he has gotten into as a result of his affairs, none of which — he hastens to point out — were mediated by money.

Even when lawful, it was not uncommon for the relationship to fail, as it was said of many boys that they "hated no one as much as the man who had been their lover". See Death of King Philip II of Macedon Likewise, the Cretans required the boy to declare whether the relationship had been to his liking, thus giving him an opportunity to break it off if any violence had been done to him.

Educational Aspects

In talking about the Cretan rite, the historian Ephorus (quoted in Strabo of Amaseia's Geography X.4.21) informs us that the man (known as philetor, befriender) took the boy (known as parastathentes, one who stands beside) into the wilderness, where they spent several months hunting and feasting with their friends. His account does not discuss the educational aspects of the sojourn. However, this is clearly a coming-of-age rite culminating in a major ceremony upon the return of the pair from the mountains, and a process of acculturation into male society is implied. (See [3] for Athenian practices and philosophy)

The various mythographical materials available suggest religious training (see story of Tantalus, Poseidon, and Pelops) as well as military training (Hercules and Hylas). The theme of learning to drive a war chariot occurs repeatedly (Poseidon and Pelops, Laius and Chrysippus). Apollo is said to have taught Orpheus, one of his beloveds, to play the harp. And Zeus had Ganymede serve nectar, a theme with religious connotations.

It is thus plausible to assume that even as the loves of the gods paralleled and symbolized those of the mortals, their pedagogy pointed to aspects of the educational process that took place between a lover and his beloved.

Some research has shown that ancient Greeks believed semen, more specifically sperm, to be the source of knowledge, and that these relationships served to pass wisdom on from the erastes to the eromenos within society.

Sexual aspects

Ancient sources suggest a range of sexual activity. The majority of ceramic paintings depict the older partner importuning the younger, in a variation of the Greek gesture for pleading. Normally the supplicant embraced the knees of the person whose favor he sought, while grasping the man's chin so as to look into his eyes. Pederastic art usually shows the man standing, grasping the boy's chin with one hand and reaching to fondle his genitals with the other. The boys are shown in varying degrees of rejecting or accepting the man's attentions. Less frequently, intercrural intercourse is depicted, where the erastes is shown inserting his penis between the thighs of the younger one. Only very rarely is anal sex suggested or shown, though there are literary and epigraphic indications suggesting it was more common. All this was claimed (quite implausibly to some modern historians) to be endured by the youth without physical excitement.

Literary sources are a lot more graphic, especially ancient comedy which is downright scatological. For example, Aristophanes, in 'Peace', his parody of Ganymede riding on the back of Zeus in eagle form, has his character ride to Olympus on the back of a dung beetle.

K. J. Dover claims it was considered "improper" for the eromenos to feel desire, as that would not be masculine. In recent times, his conclusions have been questioned in light of extensive evidence of love poetry and paintings on ceramic vases, which suggest reciprocation on the part of the younger partner.

Historical and religious aspects

One school of thought, articulated by Sergent, holds that the Greek pederastic model evolved from far older Indo-European rites of passage, which were grounded in a shamanic tradition with roots in the neolithic. Mythographic material suggests that the initiate experienced ecstatic states of spirit journey leading to mystic death and transfiguration, analogous to practices still reported today in shamanic work. If so, by the fifth century the Greeks had forgotten the connection. In 476 BC, the poet Pindar, in his Olympian Ode I, claims to be horrified by suggestions that the gods would eat human flesh – in this context, an obvious shamanic metaphor. An opposite theory (discussed by Murray in his Homosexualities) gives credence to the texts that credit (or blame) the Cretans with its origination (Aristotle et al.) and notes the anomaly of an apparent path of diffusion radiating from Crete, while the areas (in the north of Greece) closest to the Indo-European sources are not known to have institutionalized the practice.

Pederastic relationships were known throughout ancient Greece. The Cretans, a people described by Plutarch as renowned for their moderation and conservative ways, practiced an archaic form of pederasty (described by Ephorus in Strabo's Geography 10.21.4) in which the man enacted a ritual kidnapping of a boy of his choosing, with the approval of the boy's father. The practice seems to have been reserved for the aristocracy: In maturity the beloved was known as kleinos, glorious, and enjoyed high status. Not surprisingly, these same Cretans were credited with introducing the myth of Zeus kidnapping Ganymede to be his lover in Olympus – though even the king of the gods had to make amends to the father. (Plato, Laws)

In Thebes, another renowned center of pederasty, the practice was enshrined in the founding myth of the city. In this instance the story was meant to teach by counterexample: it depicts Laius, one of the mythical ancestors of the Thebans, in the role of a lover who betrays the father and rapes the son. For his crimes the gods meted out exemplary punishment, visited not only upon him, but upon his own son, Oedipus, and his children. (In an apparent attempt to emphasize Laius' criminality, ancient artistic convention had his victim depicted not as an adolescent – the usual representation of beloved boys in Greek paintings on ceramic – but as a child.) See [4] on the protection of Athenian boys against unlawful acts. Theban pederasty, however, was not the result of the "disaster of Laius," but it was the Theban lawgivers who instituted pederasty as an educational device for boys, in order to "soften, while they were young, their natural fierceness," and to "temper the manners and characters of the youth." (Plutarch, Life of Pelopidas)

The Spartans required all their adult men to engage a boy in a pederastic relationship, a law given to them by their quasi-mythical founding legislator, Lycurgus, who fashioned the Spartan state into an idealistic community that lasted hundreds of years. However, unlike in Crete, in Sparta, Athens and most other Greek city-states the man first had to win the affection of the boy he sought.

See also Mythology of same-sex love It was a pederastic couple, the Athenians Harmodius and Aristogeiton, who were credited (perhaps symbolically) with the overthrow of the tyrant Hippias and the establishment of the democracy. Others, such as Aristotle, claimed that some states encouraged pederasty as a means of population control, by directing love and sexual desire into non-procreative channels.

Roman times

In Roman times, pederasty largely lost its status as a ritual part of education – a process already begun by the increasingly sophisticated and cosmopolitan Greeks – and was instead seen as an activity primarily driven by one's sexual desires and competing with desire for women. The social acceptance of pederastic relations waxed and waned during the centuries, reaching its last zenith during the time of emperor Hadrian, who erected statues of his beloved and prematurely deceased Antinous throughout the Roman Empire.

The rise of Christianity led to the suppression of pederasty, as it was one of the mainstays of a classical pagan culture which the church fathers saw as an obstacle to their proselytizing. This campaign was rationalized by quotations from the Old Testament, where Leviticus condemned homosexual activities, as well as by appeals to long-standing Israelite tradition.

Post-classical and modern forms

Non-Western examples

Before the 20th century, relationships with a more or less pederastic element were the usual pattern of male same-sex love.

China

In tenth-century China courting male couples consisted of the older ch’i hsung and the younger ch’i ti. Boy marriages, which lasted for a set period after which the younger partner would find a wife (often with the help of the older one) appear to have been part of the culture in the province of Fujian in pre-modern times. The marriages were said to have been celebrated by the two families in traditional fashion, including the ritual "nine cups of tea." The popularity of these pederastic relationships in Fujian gave rise to one of the euphemistic expressions for same-sex love in China, "the southern custom." Men's sexual interest in youths was also reflected in prostitution, with young male sex workers fetching higher prices than their female counterparts as recently as the beginning of the twentieth century.

Japan

In Japan, the practice of shudo, the "Way of the Young" paralleled closely the course of European pederasty. It was prevalent in samurai society from the medieval period until the end of the 19th century. Its legendary founder is Kukai, also known as Kobo Daishi, the founder of the Shingon school of Buddhism, who is said to have brought the teachings of male love over from China, together with the teachings of the Buddha. Monks often entered into love relationships with beautiful youths known as "chigo," which were recorded in literary works known as "chigo monogatari."

Australasia

In the Melanesia, many native cultures employed boy insemination rites as part of their coming-of-age rituals, as documented in the writings of Gilbert Herdt. In Papua-New Guinea and nearby islands, the natives consider sperm to be the essence of masculinity and a source of strength, and a substance that does not form spontaneously but must be introduced. As a result, a mentor, chosen by the father and ideally the mother's brother, has the duty of planting it in the body of the boy as part of extended initiation rites. The mentor also has the duty of educating the boy and seeing to his proper entry into manhood. They sleep and work together until the boy is mature. Men who have had their first or second child are expected to relinquish the mentoring function to younger adults. Casual encounters between boys and men are also accepted, but the boy must be the recipient, to avoid damaging his growth.

Thus the Melanesian male would go through a sexual cycle beginning with homosexuality, passing through bisexuality and ending with heterosexuality. These practices have become less common in recent years as a result of contact with western culture.

Central Asia

In central Asia the practice is reputed to have long been widespread. In the Terminal Essay of his translation of the Arabian Nights, Richard Francis Burton notes that, "The Afghans are commercial travellers on a large scale and each caravan is accompanied by a number of boys and lads almost in woman's attire with kohl'd eyes and rouged cheeks, long tresses and henna'd fingers and toes, riding luxuriously in Kajawas or camel-panniers: they are called Kuch-i safari, or travelling wives, and the husbands trudge patiently by their sides."

In the aftermath of the US-Afghan war, western mainstream media have reported derisively on patterns of adult/adolescent male relationships, documented in Kandahar in Afghanistan (The New Yorker) and in Pakistan (The Boston Globe), often conflating them with pedophilia. The youth in these relationships, usually in his early- to mid-teens, is known alternatively as haliq, "beautiful boy," or ashna, "dear friend," and the man as mehboob, "lover," from the Farsi mahab, "love." The prevalence of homosexual relationships in Kandahar and other Pashtun areas has been explained in these articles as a behavior resulting from strict gender segregation (Los Angeles Times) and "without any moral or educational value."

These reports however have been characterized as "privileging a political spin over more precise and informative writing," and as suffering from ethnocentric bias (Stephanie Skier, in queer.). Brian James Baer, writing in the Gay and Lesbian Review (March-April, 2003), claimed that "their subtext was clearly aimed at discrediting the Pashtun tradition by equating it with the ultimate American taboo, adult sex with minors," and that "Western journalists insisted on reducing relationships that are often long-term emotional bonds to a crude sexual bargain." In contrast, alternative media have carried accounts by native sources describing married men engaging youths in mutually affectionate long term relationships (Trikone).

Besides relationships following the pederastic model, cases of sexual brutality by men against youths – in this instance as one aspect of the military use of children – have also been documented J. Gettleman in the L. A. Times.

In the northern, Turkic-speaking areas, one manifestation of the pederastic tradition were the entertainers known as bachá (a Turkik Uzbeki term etymologically related to the Farsi bachcheh, "catamite"). A bachá, typically an adolescent, was a performer practiced in erotic songs and suggestive dancing. He wore resplendent attire and makeup, and would also be available as a sex worker. These Muslim bachás were trained from childhood and carried on their trade until their beard began to grow. Though in the Soviet Union the tradition eventually succumbed to Stalinist homogenization and western morality, early Russian explorers were able to document the practice.

Middle East

The construction of same-sex love in the Middle East has been influenced by its history and geography. Helenistic elements can be recognized in the use of the wine boy as a symbol of homoerotic passion, and in such ideas as that pederasty is absent from primitive cultures since there a boy can learn all he needs from his father, but that people of high civilization require the erotic attraction of boys to motivate experienced men to teach the boys lovingly (found in the Rasa'il Ikhwan as-Safa', a tenth century Iraqi philosophical and religious encyclopedia).

Islam has been another force shaping the ways in which same-sex love is understood and practiced in the Middle East. Men are expected to be universally attracted to beautiful boys, and religious injunctions exhort them to resist this great temptation. It is related that the prophet Muhammad enjoined his followers to Beware of beardless youth for they are a greater source of mischief than young maidens. Likewise, the great imam and legal scholar Sufyan At-Thawri (d. 783 CE) asserted, regarding sexual temptation, that If every woman has one devil accompanying her, then a handsome lad has two.

The manifestations of pederastic attraction vary. At one extreme they are of a chaste nature, incorporated into Islamic mysticism (see Sufism) as a meditation known as nazar ill'al-murd, "contemplation of the beardless," or Shahid-bazi, "witness play" in Farsi. This is seen as an act of worship intended to bring one into the presence of God, as beautiful youths are held to be the closest that the human form came to the divine. Modern Sufi thought asserts that this contemplation uses imaginal yoga to transmute erotic desire into spiritual consciousness. Nazar was a principal expression of a male love that, according to the teachings, could not be consummated physically.

Conservative Islamic theologians condemned this custom of contemplating the beauty of young boys. Their suspicions may have been justified, as some dervishes boasted of enjoying far more than "glances", or even kisses. Nazar was denounced as rank heresy by such as Ibn Taymiyya, who complained, They kiss a slave boy and claim to have seen God! but the practice has survived in Islamic countries until only recent years, according to Murray and Roscoe.

At the other extreme, non-sublimated pederastic relationships were widespread, and widely documented in the poetry and art of the cultures involved, including in The Book of One Thousand and One Nights. Libertine poets such as the 8th century Baghdadi poet Abu Nuwas flaunted their sexual conquests, often Christian wine boys, some of whom they plied with wine in order to subdue.

Persian art and literature also made frequent use of the pederastic topos. Hafez Shirazi's ghazals and Omar Khayyam's quatrains also celebrate the love of the wine boy, as do the paintings and drawings of artists such as Riza Abbasi, whose patron was Shah Abbas I. Much of the artistic output of the shah's workshops celebrated love between men and youths. He also ordered the building of Chehel Sutun (Forty Columns) in Isfahan, a palace decorated with many pederastic paintings on ceramic.

See also Homosexuality and Islam

Central America

Bernal Diaz del Castillo, in his The Conquest of New Spain, reported that the Mexica peoples regularly practiced pederastic relationships, and male adolescent sacred prostitutes would congregate in temples. The conquistadores, like almost all Europeans of the 16th century, were horrified by the widespread acceptance of sex between men and youths in Aztec society ; of all customs of the Nahuatl-speaking peoples, only human sacrifice produced a greater disapproval amongst the Spaniards in Mexico. The custom died out with the collapse of the Aztec civilization.

Though early Mayans are thought to have been strongly antagonistic to same-sex relationships, later Mayan states employed pederastic practices. Their introduction was ascribed to the god Chin. One aspect was that of the father procuring a younger lover for his son. Juan de Torquemada mentions that if the (younger) boy was seduced by a stranger, the penalty was equivalent to that for adultery. Bernal Diaz reported statues of male pairs making love in the temples at Cape Catoche, Yucatan.

Western models

The social, artistic and literary history of pederasty in the west is quite rich. It has become inseparable from that of homosexuality, in that a number of artists with pederastic leanings have been absorbed into gay culture. However, modern categories do not map well onto earlier constructs of homoerotic expression, and until the beginning of the twentieth century the love of youths and the love of men went hand in hand.

The Renaissance, with its re-discovery of the ancient world, was a fertile time for such relations. Florence in particular was famous for the popularity of pederasty, becoming even a by-word for the practice (in German, the term for having relations with a youth was florenzen). Among the luminaries of the time who had romantic liasons with youths were Théophile de Viau, Benvenuto Cellini, Caravaggio, Leonardo da Vinci, and Michelangelo. At the same time, the Catholic Church, working through the Inquisition courts as well as through the civil judiciary, used every means at its disposal to fight what it considered to be the "corruption of sodomy." Men were fined or jailed; boys were flogged. The harshest punishments, such as burning at the stake, were usually reserved for crimes committed against the very young, or by violence.

In England, Shakespeare's sonnets and Marlowe's poetry, among others, defied religious proscriptions, flaunting love for beautiful boys and celebrating their androgynous beauty. At least in Shakespeare's case the object of that passion is thought to have been one of the boy actors, youths who played all the female parts on stage (and sometimes off).

In contrast, pederastic love was at times featured by artists who in all likelyhood were not pederasts themselves, such as Johann Sebastian Bach in the air of Phoebus-Apollo dedicated to young Hyacinth, in his secular cantata BWV 201, Geschwinde, ihr wirbelnden Winde (Der Streit zwischen Phoebus und Pan) [The contest between Phoebus and Pan]. Many artistic representations of pederasty reflected an unfavorable light upon it. In that category are works by Albrecht Dürer (The Death of Orpheus) and by Rembrandt, whose Rape of Ganymede satirizes the love of boys, turning the youth into a squalling toddler and the lover into a bird of prey.

In the 19th century, the gradual re-discovery of the sites of antiquity in Italy and Greece fueled a new interest, if not almost a hysteria, in these old civilizations, particularly in Britain and Germany.

Accordingly, pederastic relationships again became en vogue in the life and work of artists, for example in poetry (Walt Whitman, Lord Byron, Paul Verlaine, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe), literature (Oscar Wilde), paintings (Henry Scott Tuke), and photography (Wilhelm von Gloeden).

The end of the 19th century, marked by the trial against Oscar Wilde, more or less brought the end for the social acceptance of pederasty. This is exemplified by the Young Wandervogel movement, an organization similar to the Boy Scouts, but emphasizing a more romantic view of nature. Young Wandervogel was itself spawned by the Wandervogel movement, which took flight in 1896, the same year that the journal Der Eigene went to press. It was published by a twenty two year old German, Adolf Brand (1874–1945), and it advocated classical pederasty as a cure for the moral flabbiness of German youth. Influenced by the ideas of Gustav Wyneken, the Wandervogel movement was quite open about its gay / pederastic tendencies, although this kind of affection was supposed to be expressed in a mostly nonsexual way. The founding of Young Wandervogel happened largely as a reaction to the public scandal about these erotic tendencies, which were said to alienate young men from women.

Nonetheless, the twentieth century saw its own share of artists with pederastic leanings. André Gide, Rudyard Kipling, Thomas Mann, Henry de Montherlant, Eric Satie, Benjamin Britten, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Fernando Vallejo, and Allen Ginsberg were inspired in various degrees by their pederastic attractions — even if these may at times have been denied or hidden.

Recent developments

In the modern age the term has been appropriated to describe any sexual relations between an adult male and a boy, or sometimes (as in France), two adult males. In the English-speaking world the term is now used to describe sexual relations between adults and boys below the age of consent in their respective community. In the news media, the term tends to be used incorrectly as a synonym for pedophilia, even though the latter designates the sexual obsession of adults with prepubescent boys or girls.

The gay liberation movement was in part inspired by, and included, prominent pederasts such as Oscar Wilde, André Gide, Paul Goodman and Allen Ginsberg. However, progress in several countries in having the laws against sodomy lifted coincided with a separation between the pederast and egalitarian camps of the gay liberation movement (though, as part of the sexual revolution, the legal age of consent was lowered somewhat and usually set equal for heterosexual and homosexual sex). In the late 1970's the defense of pederasty appeared to have been picked up by NAMBLA, an organization that also supports pedophiles and militates for the abolition of age of consent laws. The expulsion of this organization from the International Lesbian and Gay Association in 1994 seemed to create a definitive break between the egalitarian and age-structured homsexualities camps. In concert with this shift, gay male archetypes continued their change from boyish to masculine, and relationships to become more equalized in terms of age difference. A progression from pre-modern pederasty to modern homosexuality has been hypothesised, but is not fully accepted (see first external link).

At the present time no society is openly making use of liminal same-sex love – relations with young people who have just reached legal age – to accomplish social goals. Though the laws of many countries (such as those in the European Union, Canada, and other jurisdictions granting erotic emancipation to adolescents sixteen years of age or even younger) would seem to have created a space within which lawful pederasty could manifest, the lack of a social framework, as well as the stigma still attached to same sex love in the minds of many, has prevented the establishment of any institution resembling pedagogic pederasty. Likewise, parental control, a key element of the traditional practice, is also rare. Only one modern country, Holland, experimented with a statute granting parents a measure of oversight over their offsprings' early sexual lives by not prosecuting adults in relationship with adolescents between the ages of twelve and sixteen unless a parent (or social worker) filed a formal complaint. That law was in effect from the 1970's to 2000 when it was repealed in favor of a blanket proscription of sexual contact between adults and youths under sixteen.

Sexual liberation and the presence of media like the Internet cause gay youths to discover their sexuality and have their coming out at a much younger age than before, and frequently they enter first relationships with males significantly older than themselves.

Though instances of spontaneous legal pederasty are occasionally reported, the traditional social structures have been lost. Thus many present-day intergenerational relationships either involve youths below legal age, or remain on a physical level, or both. Currently, intergenerational relationships have a difficult, polarized social status. On one hand, the media, playing to a presumed public fascination with illicit sexuality, capitalize on sex scandals (such as the one involving the Catholic Church) that may also involve pederasty, conflating it with pedophilia. The Catholic Church itself is also conflating pederasty with pedophilia and child abuse, and working for its suppression. In 1992, the Church organized an international congress in Bangkok on "The Abuse of Children in Prostitution and Pornography," but used the occasion to call for pederasty to be declared a "crime against humanity."

See also

• Age disparity in sexual relationships
• Childlove movement
• Mythology of same-sex love
• Sex in advertising
• Shudo

Filmography

• Satyricon, dir. Federico Fellini (1969)
• Les Amis [The Friends], dir. Gérard Blain (1970)
• Les amitiés particulières [This Special Friendship], dir. Jean Delannoy (1964)
• Morte a Venezia [Death in Venice], dir. Luchino Visconti (1971)
• Il Fiore Delle Mille e Una Notte [The Flower of the Thousand and One Nights, more generally known as The Arabian Nights, last part of his Trilogy of Life], dir. Pier Paolo Pasolini (1974)
• Un enfant dans la foule [A Child in the Crowd], dir. Gérard Blain (1976)
• Ernesto, dir. Salvatore Samperi (1979)
• For a Lost Soldier, dir. Roeland Kerbosch (1993)
• Gouttes d'eau sur pierres brûlantes [Water Drops On Burning Rocks], dir. François Ozon (2000)
• Pianese Nunzio, 14 anni a maggio [Pianese Nunzio, 14 in May], dir. Antonio Capuano (1996)
• I Piso Porta [The Back Door], dir. Yorgos Tsemberopoulos (2000)
• La ville dont le prince est un enfant [The Land Where the King is a Child], television film, dir. Christophe Malavoy (1997)
• La virgen de los sicarios [The Virgin of the Assassins], dir. Barbet Schroeder (2000)
• L.I.E. (Long Island Expressway), dir. Michael Cuesta (2001)

References

General

• Growing Up Sexually: A World Atlas
• Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Vol. 2: Sexual Inversion, by Havelock Ellis

Ancient Greece

• Greek Homosexuality, by Kenneth J. Dover; New York; Vintage Books, 1978. ISBN 0394742249
• Die Griechische Knabenliebe [Greek Pederasty], by Herald Patzer; Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1982. In: Sitzungsberichte der Wissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft an der Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main, Vol. 19 No. 1.
• Homosexuality in Greek Myth, by Bernard Sergent; Beacon Press, 1986. ISBN 0807057002
• Homosexualité et initiation chez les peuples indo-européens, by Bernard Sergent, Payot & Rivages, 1996, ISBN 2228890529
• Pederasty and Pedagogy in Archaic Greece, by W. A. Percy III; University of Illinois Press, 1996. ISBN 0252022092
• Homosexuality in Greece and Rome, by Thomas K. Hubbard; U. of California Press, 2003. [5] ISBN 0520234308

Muslim Lands

• Islamic Homosexualities: Culture, History, and Literature, by Stephen O. Murray and Will Roscoe, et al.; New York: New York University Press, 1997. ISBN 0814774687
• Khaled El-Rouayheb. The Love of Boys in Arabic Poetry of the Early Ottoman Period, 1500 – 1800. Middle Eastern Literatures; January 2005, vol.8, no.1.
• Lacey, E.A. (Trans.) The Delight of Hearts: Or, What You Will Not Find in Any Book. Gay Sunshine Press, 1988.
• Emilio Garcia Gomez. (Ed.) In Praise of Boys: Moorish Poems from Al-Andalus Translated from the Spanish by Erskine Lane. Gay Sunshine Press, 1975.
• Ritter, Hellmut. Das Meer der Seele, 1955 (English translation The Ocean of the Soul, 2003). (Chapters 24, 25 ,26).
• Peter Lambourn Wilson. Contemplation of the Unbearded – The Rubaiyyat of Awhadoddin Kermani. Paidika, Vol.3, No.4 (1995).
• Yoginder Sikand. A Martyr for Love – Hazrat Sayed Sarmad, a Sufi gay mystic. Perversions, Vol.1, No.4. Spring 1995.
• Maarten Schild. The Irresistible Beauty of Boys – Middle Eastern attitudes about boy-love. Paidika, Vol.1, No.3.
• Norman Roth. "The Care and Feeding of Gazelles" – medieval Hebrew and Arabic Love Poetry. Poetics of Love in the Middle Ages, 1989.
• Roth, Norman. Fawn of My Delights – boy-love in Hebrew and Arabic Verse. Sex in the Middle Ages. 1991.
• Norman Roth. Boy-love in Medieval Arabic Verse. Paidika, Vol.3, No.3, 1994.
• Casey R. Williamson. Where did that boy go? – the missing boy-beloved in post-colonial Persian literature.
• J. Wright & Everett Rowson. Homoeroticism in Classical Arabic Literature. 1998.
• 'Homosexuality' & other articles in the Encyclopædia Iranica

See also: Abu Nuwas, Hafez.

Japan

• The Love of the Samurai. A Thousand Years of Japanese Homosexuality, by T. Watanabe & J. Iwata; London: GMP Publishers, 1987. ISBN 0854491155
• Male Colors: The Construction of Homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan, by Gary Leupp; Berkeley, University of California Press, 1995. ISBN 0520209001

External links

• Intergenerational and Egalitarian Models
• The Androphile Project – The World History of Male Love: Male Love in Greece
• Ephorus on Cretan pederasty