Pederasty, Pederasty

Greek pederasty's various forms were the subject of philosophic debates in which the carnal type was unfavorably compared with erotic yet spiritual and moderate forms.

Illegal forms of pederasty for the purposes of law enforcement fall under child sexual abuse.

Bruce L. Gerig, "Homosexuality in the Ancient Near East, beyond Egypt", in HOMOSEXUALITY AND THE BIBLE, Supplement 11A, 2005 According to Plato, Plato, Phaedrus ; passim in ancient Greece, pederasty was a relationship and bond whether sexual or chaste between an adolescent boy and an adult man outside of his immediate family. While most Greek men engaged in relations with both women and boys, J.K. Dover, Greek Homosexuality ; passim exceptions to the rule were known, some avoiding relations with women, and others rejecting relations with boys. In Rome, relations with boys took a more informal and less civic path, men either taking advantage of dominant social status to extract sexual favors from their social inferiors, or carrying on illicit relationships with freeborn boys. Crompton, op.cit., pp.79-82 Analogous relations were documented among other ancient peoples, such as the Thracians, Ovid, Metamorphoses, 10.67-85 the Celts. According to Plutarch, the ancient Persians, too, had long practiced it, an opinion seconded by Sextus Empiricus who asserted that the laws of the Persians "recommended" the practice.

Among the Greeks, a few cities prohibited it, and in others, such as Sparta, only the chaste form of pederasty was permitted, according to Xenophon Xenophon, Constitution of the Lacedaemonians, 2.12-14 and others. Likewise, Plato's writings devalue and finally condemn sexual intercourse with the boys one loved, while valuing the self-disciplined lover who abstained from consummating the relationship. Plato, Phaedrus , passim Judaism and Christianity also condemned sodomy (while defining that term variously), a theme later promulgated by Islam and, later still, by the Baha'i Faith. Within the Baha'i faith, pederasty is the only mention of any type of homosexuality by Bah'u'llh. "We shrink, for very shame, from treating of the subject of boys [2] Commit not that which is forbidden you in Our Holy Tablet, and be not of those who rove distractedly in the wilderness of their desires." Bah'u'llh, The Kitab-i-Aqdas, p. 58 "The word translated here as boys has, in this context, in the Arabic original, the implication of paederasty. Shoghi Effendi has interpreted this reference as a prohibition on all homosexual relations." [3] Within this blanket condemnation of sodomy, pederasty in particular was a target. The second century preacher Clement of Alexandria used divine pederasty as an indictment of Greek religion and the mythological figures of Herakles, Apollo, Poseidon, Laius, and Zeus: "For your gods did not abstain even from boys. One loved Hylas, another Hyacinthus, another Pelops, another Chrysippus, another Ganymedes. These are the gods your wives are to worship!" Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Greeks 2.28P . Early legal codes prescribed harsh penalties for violators. The law code of the Visigothic king Chindasuinth called for both partners to be "emasculated without delay, and be delivered up to the bishop of the diocese where the deed was committed to be placed in solitary confinement in a prison." The Library of Iberian Resources, The Visigothic Code: (Forum judicum) ed. S. P. Scott, Book III: Concerning Marriage, Title V: Concerning Incest, Apostasy, and Pederasty These punishments were often linked to the penance given after the Sacrament of Confession. At Rome, the punishment was burning at the stake since the time of Theodosius I (390). Nonetheless the practice continued to surface, giving rise to proverbs such as With wine and boys around, the monks have no need of the Devil to tempt them, an early Christian saying from the Middle East. Abbott, E., A History of Celibacy, New York, 2000; p.101 Pederasty was notable in Moorish Spain, Ari, Rachel.

T. Watanabe & J. Iwata, The Love of the Samurai: A Thousand Years of Japanese Homosexuality, London: GMP Publishers, 1987 Sexual expression between adults and adolescents is not well studied and since the 1990s has been often conflated with pedophilia. Nonetheless, such relationships have raised issues of morality and functionality, agency for the youth, and parental authority. They also raise issues of legality in those cases where the minor is below the age of consent. Homosexual pederasty has been deemed beneficial by ancient philosophers, Japanese samurai, and modern writers such as Oscar Wilde. In many societies, it was justified on the grounds that love was the best foundation for teaching courage as well as civic and cultural values, and that man-boy relations were superior to relations with a woman.

Athenaeus in the Deipnosophists states that the Celts also partook and despite the beauty of their women, preferred the love of boys. Some would regularly bed down on their animal skins with a lover on each side. Other writers also attest to Celtic pederasty: Aristotle (Politics, II 6.6. Athen. XIII 603a.), Strabo (iv. 199), and Diodorus Siculus (v. 32)). Some moderns have interpreted Athenaeus as meaning that the Celts had a boy on each side, but that interpretation is questioned by Hubbard, who reads it as meaning that they had a boy one side and a woman on the other. (Hubbard, 2003; p.79) The Sibylline oracles claim that only the Jews were free from this impurity: Jews are mindful of holy wedlock, and they do not engage in impious intercourse with male children, as do Phoenicians, Egyptians and Romans, spacious Greece and many nations of other, Persians and Galatians and all Asia, transgressing the holy law of immortal God, which they transgressed. Where is boasting? By Simon J. Gathercole; p.175 Persian pederasty and its origins was debated even in ancient times. Herodotus claimed they had learned it from the Greeks: "From the Greeks they have learned to lie with boys." Herodotus, Histories, I.135, tr. David Grene; p.97 However, Plutarch asserts that the Persians used eunuch boys to that end long before contact between the cultures. Plutarch, De Malig. Herod.

As well as other forms of homosexuality, pederasty was very common.The beardless youth was seen as alternative to women, and shaving was seen as an invitation to sodomy for men.The banya, traditional Russian-style bath houses in particular were places where men would go and have sex with teenage boys who worked there and beat the men with birch branches, and rubbed their backs.

Feminist and postmodern theory paint such relations as an abuse of power when the older partner is in a position of educational, religious, economic, or other form of institutional authority over the younger partner. Pederasty therefore remains widely censured, whether legally or illegally expressed, and instances of it have had severe political repercussions (for example, the Mark Foley scandal, or "Pagegate" John Fortier, "Pagegate to cost GOP a seat" in The Hill, October 4, 2006 which broke out in the United States in 2006, may have contributed to the Democratic capture of the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate in the following fall elections) "Warning Signs;" New York Sun Editorial, October 4, 2006 The United States appears to be moving towards a more rigid approach to such relationships: 23 years earlier, in 1983, Democratic Congressman Gerry Studds admitted having had an affair with a 17-year-old page and was censured by the House of Representatives, but continued his career in Congress.

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