(urth) On Pedophillia and Homosexuality

[David Stockhoff]

I agree. Although I am skeptical that the "boy" is a catamite. Severian 
thinks so, but he can be wrong.

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