(urth) On Pedophillia and Homosexuality

[Jerry Friedman]

From: Nicholas <nickjost at yahoo.com>

>" don't see where you get this from.  Granted Baldanders is not shown as having 
>any sexual interest in >women,

Specifically, not in the endlessly desirable Jolenta.

> 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.

You did say specifically that Baldanders liked the attentions of "men", not "men 
and boys".  And where should I have noticed that's what he liked?  Also, you 
said that Severian noticed and grokked that men are attracted to other males.  
Where did I miss that?  I remember he mentions some men who are impotent save 
with men like themselves.

> The first is  that sexual preference is fixed. As
>I pointed out this is a new (and  I think very wrong) idea.

Whether it's right or wrong, isn't it in the Symposium?  Some of the two-backed 
beasts are male-female, some female-female, and some male-male?  And Severian 
seems to believe that at least some people's sexual preference is fixed.

> 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).

Sure a Greek would understand it.  There's a reason for the word paiderastes (if 
I got that right), boy-lover, not man-lover.  And Severian says he doesn't 
believe Baldanders practiced pederasty with the overgrown boy.  As far as I can 
tell, you're assuming that people are sexually attracted to other people's 
essential nature, whatever that is.  I think age and other superficial features 
have a lot to do with it.  If A is attracted to B when B is thirty, it doesn't 
follow that A is attracted to B when B is three (or ninety).  Most people find 
secondary sexual characteristics attractive.  (Of course, Severian may have 
meant that Baldanders might have been waiting till the boy developed those 
characteristics.  It's easier to believe B could be attractive at both thirteen 
and thirty.)

> What difference does it make when I sleep with a  slave that is three or 
>thirty?
...

They're both rape, and I believe they're both evil, but I imagine it makes a 
difference to the victim.  And as I said above, it probably makes a difference 
to the slaveowner, too.

I think you're right to call attention to the differences between ancient and 
modern beliefs, and to the possibility that the latest belief might not be the 
ultimate truth, and to the possibility that Wolfe didn't believe the latest 
belief of the time when he wrote BotNS, but I think you're taking things too 
far.

Jerry Friedman



      
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