Talk:Pederasty/Archive 13

Pederasty laws
It would be interesting if relevant material could be added about pederasty laws around the world, such as pederasty laws in the United States, pederasty laws in Canada, etc. There have been numerous scandals involving pederasty in recent years, such as the Roman Catholic sex abuse crisis. There appears to be an increasing amount of LGBT people who would like to change existing laws regarding pederasty, such as Michael Jackson, who was recently described as gay and not pedophile in the media. ADM (talk) 05:05, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

"restore useful balancing perspectives, good for NPOV"
You cannot "balance" a text through the use of antagonistic, moralistic polemics like the stuff posted this morning by the anon and defended by Jheald. On the other hand, if the editorializing is excised and the remainder is properly sourced it is welcome to stay. Haiduc (talk) 14:46, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I see a great deal of latitude is granted to posters of antagonistic polemics as long as the target is homosexual behaviour that can be smeared with the child molestation brush. I will let the screed remain unsourced for a week, after which it will be trashed. Haiduc (talk) 14:09, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Baha'i reference
"We shrink, for very shame, from treating of the subject of boys [...] Commit not that which is forbidden you in Our Holy Tablet, and be not of those who rove distractedly in the wilderness of their desires."

Can we remove this phrase since the other religions do not get a full line from their sources. Faro0485 (talk) 21:51, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Editing the Christian Section
Levitical law seems plainly relevant to many, many Christians today...at least where homosexuality is concerned; Christians make issue of this constantly in, for example, American politics. The views of Christian scholars may differ, but I'm not privy to them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.209.12.67 (talk) 05:56, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

The Christianity section seems awkwardly out of place here. The section has nothing to do with the topic of Pederasty but rather homosexuality in general. If this section belongs here then why shouldn't every wikipedia article have a "Christianity" section stating what it is the Christians believe about whichever topic.

Pederasty is a form of paedophilia
As adolescent boys and teenagers in general are still children, then pederasty and indeed adult attraction to teenage girls is paedophilia! Just because someone has past the age of ´puberty´ that does not make them mature adults. Children become adults around the age of 19 to 20, or perhaps 22 years.

Even though it is more difficult to perceive in girls as teenage girls were make-up and young women wear similar clothes, it is evident that the appearance of teenage boys and young (adult) men are clearly different, in that stubble and a muscular physique are adult traits in males. Therefore, gay men usually prefer stubble on men as it is a signal that they are no longer children. (Many men in their 20s have stubble in order NOT to resemble adolescent children.) Lack of facial hair and slight physique are child traits in males and therefore, pederasts (adult men attracted soley or mainly to teenage boys), mainly for these children´s traits, are paedophiles as it is children, not adults that they find sexually attractive.

Many people find that pederasty, or homosexual or gay paedophilia, as I prefer to call it, is the worst type of sexual abuse and abusing a 17-year-old boy is worse than abusing an 8-year-old girl as you are stripping the young boy of his sex identity as a male.

Even in the gay community, pederasty is abhorred due to it being paedophilic and twink porn is just the gay version to Lolita porn. The age of consent for gay sex in the UK is 21 for a reason. Boys mature psychologically, emotionally and sexually rather later than girls by around 5 years. All children have to be protected from sex with adults! Children includes teenage boys who, with their lack of facial hair, are not post-pubescent! 86.156.199.119 (talk) 22:24, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
 * was that some kind of satire or what? Very funny. 82.113.121.192 (talk) 00:03, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Age of consent for same-sex acts is 16 in the UK. Not that i disagree that that is too young, but the law says otherwiseYobMod 15:32, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

POV check
This article needs to better distinguish between institutionalized pederasty, such as that practiced in Ancient Greece, but also in a number of other societies, which indeed appears not to have always involved sex, and the use of the word for a (common) subtype of (male) age–structured homosexuality, which by definition involves at least homoerotic attraction (not necessarily reciprocal), if not intercourse. Another name for the latter notion is transgenerational homosexuality, but this is less often used. (Do a google books search if the red links throw you off). There is obviously a large overlap between these two notions, but a distinction needs to be made because the parenthetical "(usually erotic)" from the lead is highly confusing otherwise. The French Wikipedia article manages for instance to make that distinction: fr:Pédérastie and fr:Pédérastie. A caveat: some texts completely avoid the word "pederasty", and uniformly use age-structured homosexuality, even for the institutionalized practice in Ancient Greece, but these are in a minority.

As pointed out in this article with valid sources (and more can be found in google books), many conceptual problems here stem from the fact that he word "pederasty", just like "sodomy", has changed its English meaning a fair bit in the past few centuries. The French Wikipedia has a separate article just for the history of the word fr:Histoire du mot pédérastie; I'm fully aware that the French use of the word need not coincide with the English one, but the discussion there includes some English sources. I do not exclude the option to create a separate article for pederasty (term) to discuss how that evolved. Note that we have Greek love already, which discusses that term. In general, Wikipedia articles should be about concepts, not words, but some dictionary-like discussion appears unavoidable here. A couple more recent sources in that regard:


 * This 2007 encyclopedia says it may involve just homoerotic desire between a man and a boy (12-17 usually), but not necessarily actual sex. So, "erotic relationship" seem to best describe it then (which is wider that realized sexual relationship).


 * This 2009 psychiatric dictionary notes that "pederasty" may be used with different meanings by different authors, but identifies anal sex practiced on boys (no age group given) as the most common meaning. This probably one of the reasons that it's sometimes assumed to coincide with pedophilia, normally defined as age group < 13, but sometimes including adolescents too (based on the entry in the same source). Insofar, I'm unable to find a source that attempts to compare the two notions; well the French wiki does it, but it's not citable as a WP:RS.

Looking at the talk archives here, I see the issue of the definition has been debated many times in the past. The "usage" section in the article is a rather repetitive, voluminous compromise as a result of that. It's also obvious that it's hard to find authoritative sources that will completely agree with each other. However, inflating the definition too much to accommodate all the sources will result in definition that no source uses. I'm still contemplating how to concisely incorporate the above in the lead.

Another issue is that this article omits any prevalence estimates in favor of vague generalizations, even for Greece. It's estimated that only 1-2% of the boys in Crete (those meant to become "knights") were and only 10% in Sparta took part in institutionalized pederasty. 

Also, I've removed a couple of paragraphs that were directly citing and contrasting multiple ancient sources per WP:SYNT. There is considerable controversy whether anyone else in ancient Europe besides the Greeks had an original form of institutionalized pederasty, or just borrowed it from them. See Percy. Listing every country/region (modern or ancient) where some casual pederasty occurred seems a rather unencyclopedic collection of facts.

While the argument extrapolating child abuse to ancient Greeks seem tenuous in itself, the way it the rebuttal is made even more so. I did not check the sources, but they don't seem to directly refute the point. The whole issue is best moved to the Greece sub-article, as it's only about that.

I have more comments, but not a lot of time now. Later, Pcap ping  03:53, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Rind's chapter
There have been dozens of books about pederasty published in the past few decades. Singling out one that has been withdrawn in the USA, and dedicating 90% of the "academic controversy" section to it seems very WP:UNDUE. Pcap ping  12:56, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I concur and have removed those two paragraphs as original research. Their inclusion was argued by Haiduc a year or two ago, as part of his claim that there is some sort of academic censorship or ban against writing about the topic of pederasty. But none of the sources in those two paragraph mention such a ban, which was the point of the section.  By the way, the Rind paper has been widely discredited. There have been many attempts to use it on Wikipedia to advocate for normalization of pedophilia and child sexual abuse.  Wherever it appears in support of text, it's usually an indication that there is a problem requiring attention. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 18:07, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

(Modern) pederasty vs. pedophilia
Book that seems to have a discussion. Off-line only, unfortunately. The basic idea seems to be: it depends on the country. Another source, which is surprisingly balanced given the title. What can be summarized from there is that whether pederasty overlaps with pedophilia depends how one defines pedophilia: inclusive or exclusive of adolescents. Pcap ping  22:25, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Recent mass blanking
I disapprove of indiscriminate removal of contents in this article. The edit summary gave an inappropriate rationale. Most of the articles deleted were deleted as POV forks of this one. Also, articles like Shudō were not, and likely will not ever be deleted. The contents should be checked for accuracy though. It's what I encourage above. Pcap ping  12:24, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

This user also removed large swaths of a Featured Article, and unilaterally demoted it from FA status:. Pcap ping  13:19, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

revert in "Romans" section
I just reverted this edit by User:Nev1, which had the summary "that's not what the source says". The sentence in question is cited to Craig Williams' Roman Homosexuality, p. 23. You can find the book on Google Books. On p. 23, Williams writes: "In short, there seems to have been a traditional understanding among Roman men that, while effeminacy might lay a man open to abuse, it was perfectly normal for a man to desire and pursue boys as well as girls or women." The article text says: "From the early Republican times of Ancient Rome, it was perfectly normal for a man to desire and pursue boys." That's supported by what Williams says, and for people who have studied ancient Rome, this is hardly a controversial statement. The only objection I can think of is that the article text doesn't mention that it was normal for men to pursue girls and women, but this is something that can be fixed through editing, not deletion. Maybe I'm missing something here? --Akhilleus (talk) 00:16, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm sorry about that, I'm not sure how I missed that when reading through. In the article on pederasty in ancient Greece I found some claims misattributed, and it seems I was in the same frame of mind here. Once again, sorry for the mistake. Nev1 (talk) 00:41, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * No problem, thanks for the reply. --Akhilleus (talk) 01:30, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Albanian pederasty
What happened to this section? It was deleted long time ago, with no explanation. It's important cultural tradition in history of Albanian people, and have many scientific references.109.93.46.42 (talk) 09:41, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Child Abuse Issues Section
The statements in the article about the Ancient Greeks regarding sodomy between males as abusive, so that even in that historical context the activities would be regarded as constituting child abuse, are inaccurate, since sexual relations between adult males and male minors in Ancient Greece occurred via interfemoral intercourse, not sodomy. Interfemoral (or intercrural) intercourse was practised precisely to avoid the shame of sodomy.
 * Though some historians have discussed intercrural sex, I do not believe there is any hard evidence to suggest that this was to "avoid the shame of sodomy" or that penetrative sex was not a common same-sex activity. Perhaps you have a reliable source to show otherwise? I think you could find evidence that sodomy was celebrated, a subject of amusement and interpreted as abusive. The complexity of the historic record should be conveyed in the article. Fæ (talk) 18:03, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Although the issue may be controversial, the fact is that as the article now stands it is inconsistent, since the 'Child Abuse' section reads as though sodomy was predominant, while the 'Greeks' section above indicates that it was not, and that the whole orientation of the practise was to avoid sodomy. Even Wikipedia's own article on 'Intercrural Intercourse' is inconsistent with the 'Child Abuse' section here, since it also subscribes to the correct view (as set out by Dover) that intercrural intercourse was the accepted and normal form of Greek pederasty.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.198.12.4 (talk) 18:21, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * In 1989 Dover argued that sex between an older man with a younger was often portrayed as face to face and from that he came up with his theory about intercrural sex. Later authors have disagreed with his interpretation (e.g. Clark, 2001, "Looking at Lovemaking", p.20) so to say this is the "correct view" is misleading. Fæ (talk) 19:04, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Cohen 1991 and recommended sources for penetrative sex
In follow up to the previous thread, I have removed what appeared to be a misuse of Cohen 1991 "Sexuality, Violence, and the Athenian Law of 'Hubris'" (diff). Cohen's paper discusses various interpretations of 'Hubris' including the statement that "Using a free male (adult or minor) in a passive role for certain kinds of sexual services (particularly anal or oral sexual intercourse) constitutes hubris", however to interpret this legal interpretation as proof of a general "Greek sexual morality" is a misuse if not clearly qualified that this only applies to free males (so anal sex with a non-free youth might be acceptable) and does not apply to anal sex where the free male (or free male youth) is the penetrator. I remain concerned that the sources may be being poorly used elsewhere based on this example where an analysis of ancient texts is being misused to support modern moralistic interpretations of homosexuality or pederasty.

If anyone wishes to improve this area, I suggest they refer to as a recent approachable and detailed analysis of the issues and evidence for contemporary attitudes to same sex relationships or the highly relevant  (in particular ch.3 'Consummation' which explains the evidence for pederastic couples having anal sex) rather than what appear to be superseded or less appropriate sources. Fæ (talk) 10:00, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Women and boys
Some of the teacher-student scandals of the last several years come to mind. One even bore a child and married the boy (grown by then) when she was released from prison. Where would this topic belong? Lionel (talk) 03:16, 29 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Pedophilia? Child sexual abuse?  Abuse of power?  May-December relationship?  Exploding Boy (talk) 05:39, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Statutory rape would be accurate if the boys consented, but were too young to give consent as explained by local laws. In the case of teachers having relations over a long span of time (over 300 times for Debra Lafavre and the student) it most certainly qualifies as statutory rape or unlawful conduct with minor. Peter Moulton (talk) 22:51, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Dover never said this
Dover never said 'most Greek men had sex with boys'. It is nowhere in his books. 71.98.133.88 (talk) 03:24, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Why nothing on New Guinea?
This seems like rather an important omission, as it's a very (in)famous part of some tribes' culture and rituals. Why is there nothing on them? I'll look up some tribes to add if I may. Kielbasa1 (talk) 21:29, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

LGBT Portal
Why has the LGBT portal and flag been removed from the main page? This is an important part of our orientation and history. 74.209.22.29 (talk) 21:56, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Nudity
Is there really any need for naked picture on this page? The picture doesn't provide any information that is useful, it's really unnecessary. Mspence835 (talk) 22:40, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
 * side note, I mean the first picture on the page. The rest are fine for me Mspence835 (talk) 22:41, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Suggestion that pederasty can be non-erotic
I am rather confused by the opening that includes a description of pederasty as possibly non-erotic and also gives a Greek route. The "er" in "pederasty" and in "erotic" both refer to the god of lust Eros. The greeks had other words for a non-sexual type of love but Eros was always about lust. The use of the term "paedophile" is a solecism that replaces the reality of adults sating their lust with the impression that the self-described "paeedophiles" in the likes of the Paedophile Information Exchange like children in a way that has nothing to do with lust.--Peter cohen (talk) 21:40, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Removed Non-Korean related text under Korean section.
There was a smal section about open pederasty during 1800s in Korea, but the reference given was about Vietnam and syphilis. So I removed it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.242.28.197 (talk) 01:23, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Let's clarify the distinction between pederasty and pedophilia
In the early paragraphs of the article, there is a distinction made between pederasty and pedophilia, but the nature of the difference is never clarified. Based on the Wikipedia article on pedophilia, the difference appears to be that pedophilia is desire for pre-pubescent children, while pederasty is the desire for young people who have reached or are on the cusp of puberty, but are not yet fully adult. I'm no expert on this, so I'm not going to try to put this in the article, but perhaps those who do have such expertise can contribute to clarifying these two concepts. (comment by User:98.224.220.173 on July 10, 2013‎)


 * This question is what I came to comment on, as well although it doesn't seem like that editing change (above) stuck.
 * The article keeps saying that they are not the same (implying that pederasty=beneficial, pedophilia=harmful) but doesn't distinguish what is different. As far as I can see, they both involve sex between an adult and a minor (below the legal age of consent). I think many other readers will assume they are synonyms unless this article is more direct and bluntly spells out why pederasty is any different from pedophilia. Newjerseyliz (talk) 19:42, 3 August 2013 (UTC)


 * The difference is pretty clear. Paedophilia is sexual attraction to pre-pubescent children. Pederasty is sexual realationship between an adolescent and an older partner. "Minor" is a semi-meaningless concept, certainly in ancient culture, as there was no such thing as a 'legal age of consent' in most cases. Even in modern culture that's a fluid concept as there is no single 'age of consent' nor is there any single age of 'maturity'. 62.31.212.101 (talk) 20:26, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

The ancient Greeks did not unfavorably compare carnal love with chaste love
Pederasty is by definition erotic and romantic. This sentence seems to be refering to Plato's Symposium one of the only Greek works dealing solely with the ethical and axiological implications of pederasty. The discussion concludes that sex in the context of a relationship with an eromenos (boy) is better than simply having sex with him, a one night stand or butt buddy as it were. No where in the history of ancient Greece do we find any indication that pederastic relations were not carnal (sexual), by definition ped-erastes (boy-erotic love) entails sex. Erastes comes from the Greek word eros meaning erotic love, sexual desire. Another poster made clear the problem with the opening paragraph as well, it simply misrepresents Greek pederasty as well as all other forms of pederasty across cultures which have always been erotic. The only instances where boy-man relationships were sometimes chaste were in repressive Christian or Muslim societies. The real reason I suspect for the prudishness of the opening paragraph is because many people in countries with Christian heritage are extreamly squimish about the idea of kids and adolescents engaging in romantic and sexual relationships. They find the idea that a great civilization condoned them, and that many sensitive highly aware geniuses like Plato and Socrates praised them to be disturbing. So lets just change history so that the Greeks condomed sexual intimacy between boys and men and only promoted chaste friendships with boys, like our society. Sorry it just didn't happen that way. Read any chapter of Symposium. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.39.43.77 (talk) 21:42, 29 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Are you sure they "condomed sexual intimacy"? I don't think safe sex was not major issue at the time. Paul B (talk) 22:27, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Suggestion to edit definition of παῖς (pais) "child, boy" to remove "boy"
I just wanted to point out that several sources for the definition of "Pais," including Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedo), do not include "boy" as a part of the definition. Although it is true that "Pederasty" is more focused on boys throughout history, I find this slightly misleading considering that "Pederasty" includes girls as well and the definition of "Pais" is "child or slave." Since this occurs in the introductory paragraph I was unable to edit and I hope whoever has the authority to makes this edit does so because a vast majority of Wiki readers go by the first paragraph as their main source of information. 24.22.53.166 (talk) 20:18, 24 June 2014 (UTC)


 * We go by the WP:Reliable sources, and they (as the article shows) define pederasty as being about adult men involved in a homosexual relationship with adolescent boys (those who are pubescent or post-pubescent). To add or imply that pederasty refers to girls, even if one or a few WP:Reliable sources state that, it would be a big violation of the WP:Due weight policy. Flyer22 (talk) 01:52, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Look up pederasty in a dictionary dude, it does include girls. The ancient Greeks knew exactly what they meant when they said the word παῖς 'pais', and it means boy, not man, woman, or girl.--24.42.116.19 (talk) 02:12, 16 August 2014 (UTC)


 * I stand by what I stated above; no need to repeat myself. Flyer22 (talk) 02:26, 16 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Your first sentence seems to contradict your second. Also look up etymological fallacy. Of course we know that Pedo means "child". In the context of the word pedophilia, it's used for both sexes, but in this context it isn't. Words are not defined by etymology but by usage. If that were the case, pedophile and anglophile would both have identical usages of the "phile" part, but they don't. Paul B (talk) 17:21, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

I am confused
I don't understand why this information, which is quoted in academic journals cannot be published for the public to read, for the reasons you stated. Isn't that WP:POV?--Newmancbn (talk) 13:59, 1 September 2014 (UTC)