Pederasty

Pederasty or paederasty (or ) is a sexual relationship between an adult man and a boy. It was a socially acknowledged practice in Ancient Greece and Rome.
In most countries today, the local age of consent determines whether a person is considered legally competent to consent to sexual acts, and whether such contact is child sexual abuse or statutory rape. An adult engaging in sexual activity with a minor is considered abusive by medical authorities for a variety of reasons, including the age of the minor, the likelihood of the minor developing one or more mental disorders, such as post-traumatic stress disorder, physical injury to the minor, and the minor's propensity for further victimization in adulthood.
Etymology and usage
Pederasty derives from the combination of with (cf. eros). Late Latin pæderasta was borrowed in the 16th century directly from Plato's classical Greek in The Symposium. (Latin transliterates as æ.) The word first appeared in the English language during the Renaissance, as pæderastie (e.g. in Samuel Purchas' Pilgrimes), in the sense of sexual relations between men and boys.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines it as "Homosexual relations between a man and a boy; homosexual anal intercourse, usually with a boy or younger man as the passive partner".
History
Ancient Greece
Pederasty in ancient Greece was a socially acknowledged romantic relationship between an adult male (the erastes) and a younger male (the eromenos), usually in his teens. This age difference between a socially powerful and socially less-powerful partner was characteristic of the Archaic and Classical periods, in both heterosexual and homosexual relationships. The influence of pederasty on Greek culture of these periods was so pervasive that it has been called "the principal cultural model for free relationships between citizens." The practice was viewed with concerns and disapproval by certain social groups. In some Greek cities, such as Sparta, pederastic relationships were explicitly accepted; in other locations, such as Athens, laws were eventually enacted to limit such relationships, though not explicitly prohibit all instances of them.
In the writings of Xenophon, Socrates condemned such practice without further qualification; however, in the writings of Plato, he considered pederasty as a superior form of love compared to the love of women. Such conflicting statements could have resulted from each authors using Socrates as a spokesman for their own viewpoints. The Socratic writings of the two authors were one of the main texts that led to Kenneth Dover's and Michel Foucault's understanding of pederasty as a matter of debate in Ancient Greece.
Some scholars locate its origin in initiation ritual, particularly rites of passage on Crete, where it was associated with entrance into military life and the religion of Zeus. It has no formal existence in the Homeric epics, and seems to have developed in the late 7th century BC as an aspect of Greek homosocial culture, which was characterized also by athletic and artistic nudity, delayed marriage for aristocrats, symposia, and the social seclusion of women.
Pederasty was both idealized and criticized in ancient literature and philosophy. The argument has recently been made that idealization was universal in the Archaic period; criticism began in Athens as part of the general Classical Athenian reassessment of Archaic culture.
Scholars have debated the role or extent of pederasty, which is likely to have varied according to local custom and individual inclination. Athenian law, for instance, recognized both consent and age as factors in regulating sexual behavior.
Enid Bloch argues that many Greek boys in these relationships may have been traumatized by knowing that they were violating social customs, since the "most shameful thing that could happen to any Greek male was penetration by another male." She further argues that vases showing "a boy standing perfectly still as a man reaches out for his genitals" indicate the boy may have been "psychologically immobilized, unable to move or run away." One vase shows a young man or boy running away from Eros, the Greek god of desire.
Ancient Rome
In Latin, mos Graeciae or mos Graecorum ("Greek custom" or "the way of the Greeks") refers to a variety of behaviors the ancient Romans regarded as Greek, including but not confined to sexual practice. Homosexual behaviors at Rome were acceptable only within an inherently unequal relationship; male Roman citizens retained their masculinity as long as they took the active, penetrating role, and the appropriate male sexual partner was a prostitute or slave, who would nearly always be non-Roman. In Archaic and classical Greece, paiderasteia had been a formal social relationship between freeborn males; taken out of context and refashioned as the luxury product of a conquered people, pederasty came to express roles based on domination and exploitation. Slaves often were given, and prostitutes sometimes assumed Greek names regardless of their ethnic origin; the boys (pueri) to whom the poet Martial is attracted have Greek names. The use of slaves defined Roman pederasty; sexual practices were "somehow 'Greek when they were directed at "freeborn boys openly courted in accordance with the Hellenic tradition of pederasty".
Effeminacy or a lack of discipline in managing one's sexual attraction to another male threatened a man's "Roman-ness" and thus might be disparaged as "Eastern" or "Greek". Fears that Greek models might "corrupt" traditional Roman social codes (the mos maiorum) seem to have prompted a vaguely documented law (Lex Scantinia) that attempted to regulate aspects of homosexual relationships between freeborn males and to protect Roman youth from older men emulating Greek customs of pederasty.
Theologian Edith Humphrey commented that "the Graeco-Roman 'ideal' regarding homosexuality entailed erotic love, not of children, but of young (teenage) males of the same age that a young woman would be given in marriage, and that frequently the more mature male was only slightly older than the partner."
Modern view
In the modern world, an adult engaging in sexual activity with a underage person may be considered child sexual abuse or statutory rape, depending upon the local age of consent. In the case of underage heterosexual relationships, which were also practiced by the Greeks, it may also be considered child marriage. Age of consent laws exist because minors are considered incapable of meaningfully consenting to sexual activity until they reach a certain age. Prepubescent and adolescent children are not socially equal to adults, and abusers emotionally manipulate the children they victimize. These laws aim to give the minor some protection against predatory or exploitative sexual interaction with adults.
The effects of child sexual abuse can include depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, complex post-traumatic stress disorder, propensity to further victimization in adulthood, and physical injury to the child, among other problems.
Contemporary homosexual pedophiles may describe themselves as "boy lovers", and sometimes appeal to practices in Ancient Greece as a justification of sexual relationships between adults and minors.
Though outlawed, bacha bazi is still practiced in certain regions of Afghanistan.
See also
Bacha bazi
Catamite
Greek love
History of erotic depictions
History of homosexuality
History of human sexuality
Homoeroticism
Homosexuality in ancient Greece
Homosexuality in ancient Rome
Homosexuality in China
Homosexuality in India
Homosexuality in Japan
Intercrural sex
Kagema
Köçek
Korephilia (female counterpart)
List of pedophile advocacy organizations
North American Man/Boy Love Association
Pederasty in ancient Greece
Sexuality in ancient Rome
Wakashū
References
External links
Child sexual abuse
Chronophilia
LGBT history
LGBT and society
Violence against children
Violence against men