On Pedophillia and Homosexuality

Matthew Weber · 21 Jul 2010, 20:12 · from 2010-July.txt.gz

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From: palaeologos at gmail.com (Matthew Weber)
Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2010 13:12:57 -0700
Subject: (urth) On Pedophillia and Homosexuality
In-Reply-To: <620951.93527.qm at web37908.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <620951.93527.qm at web37908.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <AANLkTikLP41yCAiBPN4qZONq7EZcphAzSGwNMwUjHXwl at mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Jul 21, 2010 at 1:05 PM, Nicholas <nickjost at yahoo.com> wrote:

> " don't see where you get this from.  Granted Baldanders is not shown as having
> any sexual interest in women, and by default one might assume that such a
> character might (or might not) be gay.  But the modified child in his bed
> hardly qualifies as a man."
>
> You make two bad assumptions that the classic world didn't. The first is
> that sexual preference is fixed. As I pointed out this is a new (and I think
> very wrong) idea. Two, that the boys essential nature isn't human and male.
>  What is he, a female mouse? A Greek wouldn't understand the fine difference
> you're driving at to protect modern sensibilities (sensibilities trained by
> a halting assumption of Christian ethics). What difference does it make when
> I sleep with a slave that is three or thirty?
>
>
I wouldn't even say a halting assumption of Christian ethics; it's the
influence of the late 19th-century construction of the innocence of
childhood (of course, only middle- and upper-class children were innocent,
as a perusal of the literature on Victorian child prostitution
will show).

Nicholas' comments about sexual orientation are spot-on--see Foucault's
History of Sexuality for some very illuminating thinking on this subject.
-- 
Matt +

A grudging and infrequent worshipper of the gods.
    Horace [Quintus Horatius Flaccus] (65-8 B.C.), Odes, bk. I [23 B.C.],
ode xxxiv, l. 1
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