<html><head><style type="text/css"><!-- DIV {margin:0px;} --></style></head><body><div style="font-family:times new roman,new york,times,serif;font-size:12pt"><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">From:</span></b> Nicholas <nickjost@yahoo.com><br>
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>" don't see where you get this from. Granted Baldanders is not shown as </span><span>having any sexual interest in >women,<br><br>Specifically, not in the endlessly desirable Jolenta.<br><br>> and by default one might assume that </span><span>such a character might (or might not) be gay. But the<br>>modified child in his </span><span>bed hardly qualifies as a man."</span></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px;">><br></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px;">>You
make two bad assumptions that the classic world didn't.<br><br>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 <span style="font-style: italic;">some</span> men who are impotent save with men like themselves.<br><br>> The first is
that sexual preference is fixed. As<br>>I pointed out this is a new (and
I think very wrong) idea.<br><br>Whether it's right or wrong, isn't it in the <span style="font-style: italic;">Symposium?</span> 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.<br><br>> Two, that the boys essential nature isn't
human and male. What is he, a female mouse? A Greek<br>> wouldn't
understand the fine difference you're driving at to protect modern
sensibilities<br>> (sensibilities trained by a halting assumption of
Christian ethics).<br><br>Sure a Greek would understand it. There's a reason for the word <span style="font-style: italic;">paiderastes</span> (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.)<br><br>> What difference does it make when I sleep with a
slave that is three or thirty?<br>...<br><br>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.<br></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px;"><br></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px;">I think you're</span> 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.<br><br>Jerry Friedman<br></div><br>
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