The book takes the reader all around the Greek world, which included, besides Greece, Southern Italy and Asia Minor. He does not see any continuity between Greek pederasty and the hypothetical forms homosexual activity might have taken among the much earlier Greeks or the Indo-Europeans. He attributes the growth of pederasty both to population pressures which necessitated a later date for marriage and to the all-male groups that were created by the enforced separation of the sexes during a male's time of intense sexual feelings. He also asserts that much of what we admire about Greek cultural accomplishments comes from the educating and affectional bonds that were established between men through pederastic relationships. A weakness in the book stems from the frequent invisibility of the lower classes.
Greek pederasty seems to have been primarily an upper class activity.
If one of the reasons that it arose was to control population, it is not clear how the lower classes would have had their population controlled if they were not engaging in it also. What the diffusion of pederasty was to the lower classes we will probably never know, but the limits of what we can tell from the evidence about all of Greek society, upper and lower class, could have been more clearly articulated. I also wonder about his assertion that institutionalized pederasty spread from Crete in the space of about fifty years. There is, however, much to praise about this book. Percy has provided a description of the institution of Greek pederasty that is needed.