Talk:Age-structured homosexuality

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 pais (Greek for 'boy') with erastis (Greek for 'lover'; 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 dysfunctions.

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.

--Ashley 21:51, 30 September 2005

Copied from Wikipedia

I just wanted to make aware that this article (not posted here by me) is copied directly from the Wikipedia article on Pederasty. But I don't think it matters that much, as Wikipedia is released under the same license as BoyWiki. And BTW: the Wikipedia article on pederasty is a recommended reading! Still young 16:25, 4 October 2005 (EDT)

Thanks for that. If any amount of the above is integrated into the main article, the following must be added (there's a template floating around somewhere, too) at the bottom or somewhere:

This page incorporates material from the [http://en.wikipedia.org Wikipedia] article [[Wikipedia:Pederasty|]].

--Hínandil 17:25, 4 October 2005 (EDT)

The final paragraph

I'm having trouble getting the final paragraph:

It's only fair to guess that similar regards toward man/boy relationships could be applied to this type of cultural ideal. Not until the victorian era did the label of becoming purely "homosexual" or "heterosexual" come into foundation.

Which type of cultural ideal are we talking about? And which regards? How is the final sentence connected to the one before?

I don't want to delete it if it has something useful to say, but as it stands now it is hard to comprehend.
— Asch ^{talk to me} 19:19, 5 October 2005 (EDT)

The heading

(The following has been moved from User talk:AI Peter 14:53, 1 August 2006 (EST))

Not convinced, I'm afraid, by your changes to the article head.

• aristocratic – are you sure that this applies to all instances and not only to the early Dorian custom? Isn't this like calling hunting an aristocratic pasttime?
• You replaced erotic by loving, which seems less precise, the latter being both broader and narrower,I suppose.
• sexualized or chaste – the first being an Unwort, let's concentrate on the second. You imply that such a relationship could have been unconsummated, which I doubt, the most unusual circumstance excluded. The boy would have felt betrayed, isn't it?
• Later you changed specifically to occasionally w.r.t. anal intercourse, which is perhaps wrong, as sodomy (and buggery), meant precisely this and only by implication and much less prominently homosexuality per se. For many authors, in fact, the latter meaning is very recent, but see Jordan, Invention of Sodomy, for an earlier dating. --Peter 12:02, 27 July 2006

I found the editing good, even though the article needs to be seriously expanded with references to other cultures (and subcultures, see my article on tramps) besides ancient Greece. A good idea is to start by copying material from the respective wikipedia article, especially the older uncensored versions. I could do that myself, but rather spend time on more obscure articles than go for the most obvious ones that can be edited by other members. As for the regularity of anal sex in pederastic relationships, I believe it varied from time to time and country to country. One needs to be careful with generalizations. Another interesting point that needs to be added here in reference to pederasty and sex, is that in many instances the most frequent sexual activity was not oral sex, anal sex or masturbation but intercrural intercourse.Kes 06:22, 27 July 2006 (EST)

Aren't you misunderstanding me w.r.t. the last point? I did not speak of sexual practices but about the historical meaning of pederasty, and I think there can be but little doubt about what it did mean. Regards, Peter 02:59, 31 July 2006 (EST)