Talk:Pederasty in ancient Greece/Archive 2

preview of stub
Haiduc's edit is original research by a banned editor and 'Amadscientist and his allies' are entitled to take a knife to it. Reinstating Haiduc's material on the grounds that secondary sources can be found for it later doesn't take away people's right to delete it again as original research - it's a recipe for an edit war. Putting in the primary sources before the secondary sources is also highly questionable methodology - like putting the cart before the horse - and it complicates the rewriting process enormously. Here is a preview of the stub that I intend creating. Of course it's open for negotiation. Looking at your comments above, Cynwolfe, I think you would be a good candidate as chief editor and I can see that you have an itch to do it even in spite of your other tasks. If you don't want to do it, someone else will emerge from the pack. Amphitryoniades (talk) 23:02, 26 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks very much for your effort. I think the stub is too drastically reduced; it also cuts out secondary material such as Foucault, and preserves stuff you yourself rightly questioned. Let me think about what contribution I would be willing to make.


 * Also, as a former classics major, let me assert, at the risk of repeating myself: in classical studies the primary sources are the horse, to which scholars attach their various carts. The wheels of the carts fall off over time, and they're left by the side of the road. And if I'm to worm my way out of this metaphor, the horse has to be immortal. Like the one Adrastos harnessed to his chariot, maybe, who was also a talking horse. Cynwolfe (talk) 16:59, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

This is not a regular encyclopaedia, staffed by experts in specialist fields; it is not even a mediocre university, staffed by competent scholars. This is an encyclopaedia anybody can edit. Here we don't write essays for marking by tutors; here we don't publish papers for commentary in learned journals. In those settings, people do interpret primary sources. That's not our role here. Here the secondary sources come first. If you don't grasp that distinction, you will be more of a problem than a help at WP. That's true also of leading figures in the CGR project. You are not on staff and you don't have special priviledges. I am a rocket scientist and a leading surgeon working in world-recognized hospital, as well as a PHD in classical languages and literature, specializing in Greek and Roman attitudes towards the human nose, with more than 3 200 papers on that subject published already, but that doesn't entitle me to write WP articles based on primary sources.

I hope you do work on this article. Please expand the stub but don't expect others to wait for you to get around to it. I intend stubbing the article sometime in the next few days. Amphitryoniades (talk) 23:02, 27 March 2010 (UTC)


 * There is no consensus to stub this article. Proceeding without consensus is not a good idea. --Akhilleus (talk) 00:17, 28 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I agree with Cynwolfe, Akhilleus, and Septentrionalis. This article contains (or did contain) a lot of apparently reasonable material properly cited to sources.  There may be valid reasons for carefully evaluating and improving it, but the fact that Haiduc was the editor responsible for most of it until last October doesn't render the article unfit for inclusion in Wikipedia.  Reducing it to a stub would have the practical effect of wiping out all of the article for the time being.  I think the consensus here is clearly against stubbing it.


 * I also agree with Cynwolfe about sources. The most important sources for articles in this field consist of the testimony and opinions of ancient authors and art.  Modern encyclopedias, as useful as they may be, are mainly commentary and synthesis on those sources, and of course what other writers have deduced from them.  It makes perfect sense to rely on them for that purpose, but the ancient sources are usually the only material that any later writers have to work with.  Everything else is interpretation, including Wikipedia... unless Wikipedia is meant to be limited to regurgitating material from other encyclopedias.  Somehow I don't think that was the idea.  P Aculeius (talk) 01:06, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Point of personal privilege
Amphitryoniades says above that I mean"  Haiduc is a victim of other people and they don't belong here. I do not; I have never asserted Haiduc is a victim, I do not know the evidence against him, and I trust most of those who sat in judgment on him.

What I do know is what Haiduc left as a version of this article. It is not perfect; it is sometimes careless, and overuses primary sources; it may also be that the secondary sources are dated: this is not my subfield, and plainly Cynwolfe has done more work in it. But those are the flaws endemic to Wikipedia; FAs share them. (Pericles is not much better, and Daniel Webster is much worse.)

But it was as accurate as 99.9% of our articles. Those who removed most of it have done harm, leaving out verifiable and relevant information, solely because Haiduc contributed it. It is those people who should leave.

This is a personal attack. If I do not receive a retraction, I will consider dispute resolution. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:19, 28 March 2010 (UTC)


 * You know perfectly well you're not going to get a retraction. Amphytrionades just likes baiting people. I'm not sure why we're giving him so much satisfaction. I shouldn't have tried to bring my personal experience to bear above, because I'm just an amateur scholar who does this for pleasure, and he made me feel embarrassed and presumptuous.


 * Wikipedia is an encyclopedia anyone can edit, but the idea is produce articles that are reliable as a resource to the people using them. The humanities are a discipline just as the sciences are; we shouldn't tolerate a science article written in ignorance of the basic principles of the field, because that renders the article useless for the readers for whom it's intended, and we shouldn't tolerate a humanities article written in defiance of the basic principles of the field, for the same reason.


 * Those criticizing the article have had good points to make on the specifics of what's wrong with it. Those who oppose stripping the article back to a stub seem largely in agreement as to what the defects are. The more I read over the article, the more I think it's fundamentally OK. I agree with PMA's characterization. The article needs editing, not evisceration. There is emphatically no consensus that this article should be stripped of everything but the rather feeble introduction. Cynwolfe (talk) 03:05, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't expect a retraction; but I could be wrong in my view of Amphytrioniades, as he is demonstrably wrong in his view of me; let him demonstrate this by acknowledging error. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:42, 28 March 2010 (UTC)


 * No acknowledgement of error, I see; no apology; no evidence of anything but self-righteous crusading and approval of vandalism. Is there consensus to ignore Amphy from here on? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:41, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Your words and mine do not merit an apology from me to you, Pmanderson, though I certainly think you should apologize to a 'Amadscientist and his allies', with your talk about their vandalism and the possibility of banning them. This article is largely the work of an editor who actually was banned and it reflects his priorites. The article should be a summary of positions by modern scholars not a selection of primary sources chosen by a sly propagandist. 'Amadscientist and his allies' were perfectly entitled to remove everything they mistrusted as badly sourced. Unfortunately that resulted in an article that is often quite incomprehensible. So what's the sensible thing to do? We can't revert to Haiduc's tendentious edit and we can't retain the current edit. We need to start again and let the whole process be transparent. That's the sensible thing to do. The more you protest, the worse you look. That's your choice, not mine, and it hardly requires an apology from me. Amphitryoniades (talk) 05:45, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, of course we could return to Haiduc's edit; if so, the present tag should be retained. In fact, that is the only real justification for the tag, since it is about Haiduc's edit, not the present botched condition of the article - which has as its sole justification that nobody disputes these fragments. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:50, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

The multiple issues tag is as relevant as ever - neutrality is still a major problem, the article still amounts to original research, material has been synthesized and there are still inappropropriate citations. It would be a bad idea to remove the tag. It would be a bad idea to reinstate Haiduc's edit. Stubbing the article is also not a good option now that a busload of CGR activists has arrived with chewing gum in their ears and megaphones in their hands. So the article is stuck in the mud for some time to come. Amphitryoniades (talk) 10:41, 31 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, the multiple issues tag should remain. There are multiple issues that need to be addressed with this article, as every single person visiting here has acknowledged, including the unjustly maligned G&R "activists" who are attempting to insist on appropriate methodologies for creating an article in the field of classical studies. Amphitryoniades, you are wrong about how primary sources are properly used to illustrate the points made by the secondary scholarship — the article may have too many quotations from primary sources, and they may not be properly framed, but PMA has explicitly acknowledged this, as have others. The quotation of clearly attributed primary sources hardly constitutes "original" research: it's mere typing, the equivalent of taking dictation.


 * What you don't seem to grasp is that contrary to our contemporary morals and laws ancient Greeks praised pederasty as well as recognizing the dangers of sexual exploitation and sexual immoderation. This is disturbing. It is disturbing to read Nazi justifications for the Holocaust, or the justifications of the first governor of California for "exterminating" the peoples who were living there. But to slant the primary sources to say otherwise is intellectually dishonest, and commits the same errors as Haiduc, even if for a good cause. I find it disturbing that a Vestal who violated her vow of chastity was buried alive; if I were to follow your practice, I should delete any quotation from a Latin source that presents this as the correct course of action. This kind of bowderlization could go on forever.


 * Your pattern on talk pages is clear: when you've been shown to be wrong, you resort to personal insults. If you had a case to make, you would be able to argue it on the merits, not by accusing other people of having closed minds. In fact, we've spent a great deal of time listening to you and responding. You seem to like the attention, because when PMA issues his calls, you bait and cast aspersions on the entire G&R project to draw in others. Some people who took the time to respond here don't have a particular interest in this subject, but felt it involved issues important to the field they work in. They devote countless hours toiling away to generate content of value and substance (I'm thinking, for instance, of P Aculeius and Haploidavey). Their responses here were moderate and thoughtful. You are quite out of line to insult them en masse, and for that you deserve censure.


 * However, because I cherish an ideal of free speech, I don't like the idea of banning editors — even when they're obstructionist, rude to a disruptive degree, blind to the principles of scholarship, and capricious about deletion. Cynwolfe (talk) 14:13, 31 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm part of a busload of activists? Wow, how exciting! What's "hippie" in Latin? (By the way, did you know that "bus" derives from omnibus, as in a vehicle for all? Oh, but wait, that section of bus is unreferenced—perhaps that information was inserted by a Latin propagandist. How will we know, without a footnote to tell us?) --Akhilleus (talk) 03:39, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

My image of a busload of activists is appropriate - look at the CGR talk page: Cynwolfe's invitation to this discussion was alarmist. Claims about my rudeness are contrived - I haven't called anyone a vandal and I haven't talked about banning anyone. I laughed at myself as a rocket scientist-surgeon-PHD, not to make Cynwolfe uncomfortable about her own claims, but to point out a simple fact of WP life - we don't know who anybody really is: that's why nobody here is supposed to work from primary sources (selecting and interpreting primary sources is a scholar's privilege). We are supposed to construct articles from secondary sources - that's a fact and it is idle to argue against it. The banned editor used this article to promote pederasty and I would still object to his edit if he was only using it to sell hairpins or clothespegs - he had no right to steal public space for his own agenda. I called for a complete rewrite of this article. Stubbing is the best way to achieve it. A lot of specious nonsense has been said against the proposal. Iam satis est. Amphitryoniades (talk) 09:33, 1 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, I was alarmed, and yes, it was my intention to set off an alarm to see whether others might respond. And you are rude and disrespectful toward certain visitors to this page from the G&R project (Wareh is another) who simply offered well-informed opinions without any polemics. Your unwillingness to recognize their good faith is inexcusable and completely contrary to Wikipedian principles.
 * I asked to see your prospective stub because I was unclear how you were envisioning the tone or content of the article, and I wanted us to have a fair impression of what you were trying to achieve. Your notion of a stub was to delete everything but the introduction, which you didn't rewrite, but left in its insufficient and feeble form. So I've had to conclude that you want to stub this article because deletion is the only thing you're willing or know how to do.
 * Akhilleus: barbatuli iuvenes, totus ille grex Catilinae might come close to capturing the intent. Cynwolfe (talk) 11:56, 1 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Agreed. There was every reason to believe other people would be alarmed by this proposed action, and in fact a number of people were alarmed when they saw what had happened and what was going to happen.  The clear consensus was against stubbing, and you've still announced your intention to go ahead with that process.  You're upset because other members consider this to be near vandalism, and mentioned the extreme sanction of banning users.  That's understandable too, but at the same time you seem to be willing to impose your own beliefs or agenda on articles when almost everybody else is opposed, and that's a serious problem.  You could put a stop to that talk by acknowledging that your views represent a distinct minority position and abandoning your original plan.  That would show you can work constructively with others.


 * You and one or two others keep asserting that Haiduc was promoting a pederastic lifestyle, as if the fact that he himself is banned were proof of that. Some weeks ago I looked at the record in his case during the controversy about the hoop rolling article, which didn't read like an advertisement for pederasty the way he left it, even though he described the connection between the two.  It seems to me that the main reason he was banned was for edit warring, not because of his point of view.  I don't know that he was actively promoting pederasty; all I have is the word of the people who seem most intent on removing his influence from Wikipedia, even when everybody else seems to think that extreme or unwarranted.  It seems to me that this is just as much of a personal agenda as he's been accused of.  The course of action you've proposed seems likely to cause more edit wars; in fact the history of the articles in question suggests that it already has, even though Haiduc's no longer involved.


 * You're incorrect about "primary sources." I suppose it's useless to point out that Wikipedia defines primary, secondary, and tertiary sources quite differently than they're being used in this debate.  But reducing Wikipedia to a digest of other encyclopedias would be absurd.  All the useful references quote and cite to specific ancient authors and works, which themselves frequently refer to other sources, or act as historians of their times.  Eliminating those references would make Wikipedia less useful than the sources used to compile it.  Your argument that ancient sources are subject to manipulation presents a false dichotomy, because modern references are no less subject to the same degree of interpretation.  There is absolutely no reason to avoid statements such as "this is what Pliny says about X:" or "according to Tacitus, the emperor Nero had..."  This is doubly the case when these are the only sources upon which the assertions in a later work are based.


 * The overwhelming consensus in this debate has been that the correct way to deal with an article that needs attention is to revise it carefully and respectfully. Reasonably accurate material that has been properly sourced and cited should not be deleted merely because you suspect the motives of the author or consider it a mess.  When you stop dismissing opinions other than your own as "specious nonsense" and stop declaring your intention to impose your own views or values on articles when the clear consensus is against doing so, other editors will stop being "alarmist" and talk about vandalism and banning will cease.  P Aculeius (talk) 12:48, 1 April 2010 (UTC)


 * It is very true that I have seen (in uncontroversial articles) good references to primary sources replaced by references to secondary literature in a way that degrades the article quality: in some extreme examples, secondary sources have been substituted that themselves lack the scholarly integrity to cite the primary sources well.
 * But this point has been made better and less incompletely in several places above. The parties here have been repeating themselves for some time.  It is not productive: the positions are clear.  As participants return to say what has already been said with perfect clarity, they will not say it better, and there will be more and more noise.  At this point, this talk page would serve its intended function better (though I realize this is not possible or politic) if it were reduced to a stub!  I'd take Cynwolfe's comment beginning "In what way have I not understood the issue being discussed?" as expressing my judgment, and Amphit. could have the same number of words, and then we could each take a line or two below to state the grounds of our agreeing with one or the other.  Instead, what we're doing here is creating an unreadable and pointless mess on this page.  Wareh (talk) 13:40, 1 April 2010 (UTC)


 * I must assure anyone inexperienced with Wikipedian procedures that since User:Haiduc says "This user has been banned from editing Wikipedia by the Arbitration Committee", we know that ArbCom has concluded that Haiduc performed extremely serious actions. Promotion of pederasty is one of a very small number of actions which might lead to such a result; I noticed another example at User:Tyciol because I was one of several trying to convince that user to stop refactoring talk pages when this happened. For stuff like edit warring, as suggested above, or even threatening violence, an editor would simply be blocked by an admin (without reference to ArbCom).
 * I was previously unaware of the fuss at WT:WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome, and the lengthy discussion there is possibly the reason that some comments above are somewhat brusque. Nevertheless, I ask that we all agree with the assertion that secondary sources are required, and that picking tidbits from primary sources is original research (see the policy). Johnuniq (talk) 01:03, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, that is correct. This question is addressed directly in the policy page at WP:No original research.  There are many statements in this article that extend and interpret primary sources. Until reliable secondary sources are found to support that content, there is no way to know that it's accurate and in line with contemporary scholarship.  If it's not verifiable, it should be removed.   That's the policy. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 04:45, 2 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Do you not see the number of secondary sources in the footnotes? Let's not beat dead horses. I had hoped Wareh's would be the last word. He's right that this page is no longer useful to anyone hoping to improve the article. I'd like to see this discussion archived, and a new talk page begun with a statement of consensus, or at least an outline of the issues. Toward that end, I present the following section. Contrary to ordinary practice, I would ask that editors do two things. First, edit the four guidelines I'm offering as a starting point. That includes inserting links to the relevant policy statement sections, with which Akhilleus seems most familiar. Second, do not leave comments within the section. Create a new section following for comments and discussion conducted in the usual manner, without editing someone else's words. If anybody wants to be bold and archive this page, great; we can start a fresh talk page with the proposed guidelines. But please do not mention Haiduc again, as this gets us nowhere; the only thing we should care about at this point is making a good article. Cynwolfe (talk) 15:22, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Please edit the following section
Following are guidelines for approaching what all editors agree is a sensitive, difficult, and controversial topic.
 * 1) As with any other Wikipedia article, original interpretation of the primary sources is inappropriate.
 * 2) Secondary sources recognized as authoritative in the fields of classical studies and history of sexuality must generate and frame the topics and views to be covered in this article.
 * 3) Primary sources — including literary texts, inscriptions, art, and archaeological findings — should be provided for readers in order to illuminate the topics as presented in the secondary sources and in due proportion to them; the secondary sources will cite and point to relevant primary sources to be used for this purpose.
 * 4) Although primary sources are not transparent (that is, cannot be taken at face value and are subject to interpretation), they are fundamental to the presentation of articles pertaining to classical studies. Properly cited primary materials presented in support of the points made by the secondary sources (see guidelines 2 and 3) are not subject to deletion.

Thanks in advance to all those willing to contribute constructively to improving this article. Cynwolfe (talk) 15:22, 2 April 2010 (UTC)


 * This should probably be presented to WT:CGR, (generalizing #2); this discussion seems dead. One comment first: most ancient sources aren't primary in the relevant sense (Thucydides, Xenophon, and Caesar being the most obvious exceptions), which is one reason to treat them differently. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:58, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree w/PMAnderson about sending this to WT:CGR; this may be worth making into an essay/guideline. I often find that Wikipedia discussions about primary/secondary sources get caught tied up in knots trying to define exactly what a primary source is—e.g., according to most definitions, Dio Cassius is not really a primary source on Augustus. But he's not a secondary source in the sense that we apply the term to Syme, or even Gibbon. In dealing with classics articles on Wikipedia the pertinent distinction is usually ancient vs. modern sources. --Akhilleus (talk) 01:00, 5 April 2010 (UTC)


 * OK, I will leave this to you guys. My thinking was that Wareh was right to say this page was no longer useful to anyone hoping to improve the article, and I just wanted to summarize the outcome in the hope that it would be archived. I don't have any interest in dancing-angels-on-heads-of-pins arguments about primary vs. secondary; it's quite clear in classical studies what this means (primary sources are written in ancient Greek and Latin, the ones you have to learn to read with grammar books and lexicons by your side), but hey, it makes my job a lot easier if I can consider Dio a secondary source on Augustus. Not to mention considering Plutarch a secondary source on Solon, for instance. At any rate, I've decided that there's no point to discussing this any longer, and I'm going to try to work on the article's introduction and structure for a couple of days. Its poor structure makes it hard to take one section at at time to edit. Cynwolfe (talk) 13:20, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Fine. The only reason to harp on the dancing angels, or dance angels with harps, is that we will be predictably misunderstood if we call Dio, much less Pliny or Aulus Gellius, a primary source. But without the other party, we don't need a guideline here; we are agreed on the sort of thing we should be doing. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:35, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Should one then hope that the era of editing-by-deletion has passed? Cynwolfe (talk) 17:50, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Moved on may be more accurate. But it doesn't seem to be here. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:48, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Agendum
When we get through with this, Harmodius and Aristogeiton needs serious work; the deletionists haven't gotten there yet, but a certain unnamed editor seems to have buried Herodotus' restrained account deep in the article. This is genuinely flawed. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:52, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Democracy
Reading through this (is it the fuller version back again?), there seems one recurring error. Harmodius and Aristogeiton were heroes of the Athenian aristocracy, not of the demos; and Plato was vehemently and consistently opposed to democracy - in which he included not only Pericles, but the very old-fashioned statesmanship of Miltiades.

If Plato had indeed called Eros a friend to democracy (which he does not), that would have been bitter condemnation. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 05:25, 6 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Interesting. Will keep my eyes open for relevant stuff. You refer to the "favorable to democracy" bit? That was one of the passages that had been subtly slanted for the pro-pederastic POV; the original editor paraphrased the secondary source as saying pederasty was fundamental to democracy, but the secondary source (which I saw online the other day) said "favorable." This of course assumes "democracy good", therefore anything favoring it must also be good.


 * Apart from Plato, I suspect what you say has to do with the usual ambivalence about democracy/demagoguery in Athens. Or anywhere else. And note the 'resistance to tyranny' theme, tyranny being a state that can result from the demos elevating a particular ruler and thus rejected by the elite would-be oligarchs. Also the dangers of synthesizing some picture of 'what the Greeks thought,' when individual Greeks thought quite different things. Plato's view of pederasty should be discussed under the "Philosophical views" section as his thoughts, not as 'what the Greeks thought.' The sections on the social and political aspects should focus on the known practices (as presented in the secondary sources): what does it mean when we say paiderastia was a social custom? As distinguished from philosophical ideals.


 * Re: democracy, here's a juicy bit for you:


 * "According to a report in Athenaeus (Deipnosophistae 561CD), the qualities of Eros led the Stoic Zeno to make him the tutelary god of his ideal state: Pontianus said that Zeno of Citium took Eros to be the god of love and freedom, and even of concord, but nothing else. This is why he said in his Republic that Eros was the god who contributed to the safety of the city. … Now Eros is the god, specifically, of passionate, sexual relationships, but this need not raise a significant difficulty, as it happens, because there is a certain kind of sexual relationship which was considered by many Greeks to be very important for the cohesion of the city: sexual relations between men and youths."
 * This is from the improbably named George Boys-Stones, "Eros in Government: Zeno and the Virtuous City," Classical Quarterly 48 (1998) 168–174. It raises the question of whether someone (even the published scholar who is cited on "favorable to democracy") confused the polis with its particular form of government.


 * See following as pertains to your other questions. Cynwolfe (talk) 15:51, 6 April 2010 (UTC)


 * There are some modern scholars who think that in Athens pederasty had a particularly democratic flavor. Whether Harmodius and Aristogiton were elite or popular heroes depended on who was doing the talking: "But, in fact, this latter text shows just how important this brand of eros was to the demos, as well as to the elite: whereas his opponent, the general, lauds Harmodius and Aristogiton's as a specifically elite sort of love, Aeschines—in a move that he hopes will appeal to his democratic jury—offers the tyrannicides as the paradigm for a democratic eros that is prudent and just...These democratic heroes clearly belonged not just to the elite but to the entire citizen populace, and their love, regardless of who actually practiced it, was part of the sexual ideology of the democracy as a whole." (Victoria Wohl, Love among the ruins, p. 6 ). --Akhilleus (talk) 16:48, 6 April 2010 (UTC)


 * They would be an odd couple to represent strictly aristocratic values since they were a mixed couple: Aristogeiton was of the middle class, only Harmodius was an aristocrat. An even more powerful democratic signal is sent by the fact that it was the common man who was lover (and presumably mentor) to the aristocrat. Un.revenant (talk) 19:15, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

General remarks on recent editing
The more I work with the material in the article and read the relevant scholarship, the more I think the POV biases were subtle, not pernicious or fatal. The right materials were being used, but evidently by an editor who liked the idea of pederasty. Materials were also used ineptly: Foucault appeared in the first section after the intro under the ambiguous subhead "History," whatever that was supposed to mean. There was a lot of work done by editors who don't know the difference between using secondary scholarship, and writing "history of scholarship" (we have the the final section for this). As far as I can see, the requests for citations are mostly specious, attached to every sentence that is not a quotation or not already footnoted; the statements are mostly innocuous: "the paramount role of the Greek patriarch, who had the right of life and death over his children." This is an unsurprising remark for anyone who knows anything about antiquity, but yes, it does require a citation; however, it's possible that the next footnote extends back to this assertion. We don't know unless someone adopts the section and checks it out. I suspect the list of references at the end provides sources for almost all of these uncited statements, and that when a number of secondary sources agreed, and there was no disagreement, that was taken as "common knowledge" within the topic.

Another flagged example: For the youth – and his family – one important advantage of being mentored by an influential older man was an expanded social network.[citation needed] Thus, some considered it desirable to have had many older lovers / mentors in one’s younger years, both attesting to one's physical beauty and paving the way for attaining important positions in society.[citation needed] Typically, after their sexual relationship had ended and the young man had married, the older man and his protégé would remain on close terms throughout their life. This is all true, is it not? And the wording hews closely to the most general discussions of paiderastia; a footnote could cite a dozen sources easily available on Google Books. I've found the most general statements (and those most useful to the first-time reader of the page) to be the hardest to footnote in any article. This is a problem that increasingly impairs the utility of Wikipedia.

In short the "original research" claim in the "Multiple issues" box is utterly bogus. Some pro-pederastic bias remains; nothing whatever is "original."

I didn't do anything to pederasty in ancient Greece that had to do with edit history or reverting to earlier versions. I rewrote the intro based on questions raised in the discussion, by looking through the sources myself. Sorry for cluttering it with all the online links, which make it difficult for others to read in edit mode, but I provided these in anticipation of demands for verification; I'm not going to waste time restating the secondary sources on the talk page or looking them up again. I restructured the article by topic, so that interested parties could more easily take one aspect of Greek pederasty to develop. I changed the content very little. When I say that deletion is not constructive editing, implicit in that was also the view that the article has to be rewritten one section at a time by actually reading the cited sources and doing further non-original research into others to make sure the POV is balanced. I'm interested in working on the following sections: Origins; In art; Sexual practices; Poetic conventions; In myth and religion (which ought to be more than a list; Orpheus is of particular interest, since he supposedly spawned a religion).

Someone needs to tackle "Philosophical views." Note the absence of Aristotle, who seems to have disapproved of pederasty, according to a secondary source I saw yesterday. This absence likely owes to lingering pro-pederastic bias. The Stoic passage above suggests that we ought to at least mention some philosophical views other than Plato. Stuck now in a note is a remark by Peter Green that in the anything-goes Hellenistic era, pederasty was just another item on the menu; this raises the question of what social changes led to the decline of pederasty as a custom supporting something other than individual desires.

One thing I did notice was that some utterly verifiable earlier content had been deleted, pertaining to pederasty in military life. I don't know when that was deleted, because I do remember seeing it at one time, in almost the exact words of the secondary source. This was in regard to Xenophon. It's my impression that the role of pederasty in military life will grow naturally from the discussion under Origins. Cynwolfe (talk) 15:51, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Athenian pederasty merge proposal
The article Athenian pederasty was proposed for merge to this article a couple weeks ago by another editor, who also entered a comment on the talk page there. I've formated the merge tag to link here and added a merge-from tag to this article.

The other article generally duplicates content of this article. There is not enough reliably-sourced information to support separate articles at this time, so they should be merged. Since both articles currently require trimming of essay-like content and verification of sources, this would be a good time to perform the merge so we can create one solidly sourced article. Later, if it turns out that the section on pederasty in Athens as differentiated from Ancient Greece in general becomes too long for this article, it can be split off at that time.--Jack-A-Roe (talk) 04:09, 24 March 2010 (UTC)


 * The Pederasty in ancient Greece article would benefit from sections on regional variants, and it's hard to see why a separate article would be needed for Athens or anywhere else — an awful lot would have to be repeated from this one. But like Jack, I'm not opposed to a separate article on Athens later, if exploring the topic fully as a section would create problems of proportion in this article. Cynwolfe (talk) 14:35, 24 March 2010 (UTC)


 * It may also be worth considering the article on Cretan pederasty. Nev1 (talk) 15:22, 24 March 2010 (UTC)


 * The Cretan article has its own problems; I'd agree that it's subtly slanted. However, there are cultural reasons to treat Crete separately. Cynwolfe (talk) 16:12, 24 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Oppose the merge. I've been working with this article a little, and I see no reason to merge. Both articles have similar problems, but to cover the special circumstances of Athens might create an imbalance within pederasty in ancient Greece, as well as making it too long. This is true also of Cretan pederasty, which provides background, but potentially TMI for the casual reader. In fact, "Spartan pederasty" now redirects here, and it could be argued that Sparta merits its own article, since to cover the topic thoroughly would likewise be disproportionate, though of use to someone specially interested in Spartan culture. Cynwolfe (talk) 23:04, 5 April 2010 (UTC)


 * I followed a link since i didn't know what the word pederasty meant. I wonder if the casual reader of wikipedia will need the detailed differences between Athens, Sparta, Crete and the larger Greek culture. I'm not sure i see the differences, just more discussion of evidence and examples. I think each should be a section of one Pederasty page, with external links for more reading.  Wikipedia should be more like an encyclopedia than a dissertation. But then, I don't have a dog in this fight.--Paddling bear (talk) 21:49, 8 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Good, 'cause we need fewer fighting dogs. Do I understand you to say that Pederasty in ancient Greece should be more streamlined and aimed at the general reader, with sections of a paragraph or two to clarify any meaningful regional differences? For instance, the question of Spartan chastity, or pederasty and the Spartan military, would be of interest in this article, but not too detailed in terms of scholarly debates or in disproportionate depth. (If that's what you're saying, I agree.) I don't object to separate articles on pederasty in Athens, Sparta, or Crete, with art or literary examples from the respective cultures that would be too much for the general Pederasty in ancient Greece. The sections here would then cross-reference to the longer articles. Does that sound OK? Cynwolfe (talk) 14:40, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

moral disclaimer
I've been able to find an unimpeachable source — a general Greek History by Robin Osborne — who helps us out a great deal by explicitly stating the moral question paiderastia raises. For most articles, such a 'moral disclaimer' might be needlessly PC, but given the contentious history of this article and the special sensitivity of a topic that in modern Western society constitutes criminal behavior, I thought it was worth confronting up front, just to get the article off on the right foot.

I've been working on a "Terminology" section that has proven to be more time-consuming than I anticipated. It will appear immediately after the lead section, and will explain the terms paiderastia, eromenos, erastes, and a few others associated with the topic. Cynwolfe (talk) 14:48, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Nice work
This is the first time I've checked out this article since before the Easter break. The current edit of the article represents a big improvement! It's no longer a billboard promoting pederasty, shredded by indignant passers-by - it now looks like a sincere attempt to represent pederasty as an historical phenomenon. Pederasty is a key topic in ancient history and it needed an objective treatment, such as we now have. Congratulations to those responsible - I mean editors like Cynwolfe (who seems to have done the bulk of the rewrite) but also editors like Amadscientist, whose fierce editing got the ball rolling. That's democracy in action! Amphitryoniades (talk) 01:56, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

First paragraph of "Terminology"
I have looked at this and feel it could be improved, so I share some questions and suggestions here. (1) What "cited source" (edit summary) derives παιδεραστία specifically from ἐραστεύω? Not LSJ. All of the dictionaries here correctly derive it from ἐραστής. (2) I think Johnson and Ryan's glossary is a low-quality source for this purpose & is better removed, especially if (as it seems) it just repeats what is in LSJ.

(3) I'm also not quite comfortable with how Nagy and Blake et al. are digested into the final sentence. The latter can be cited for the view that pederasty was "educational in purpose." The former attests to the pervasive presence of pederasty in old-fashioned aristocratic education, so that (A) paideia and paiderastia (the things, not the words) are linked in an Aristophanic evocation of a sympotic atmosphere, and (B) the two are suggested together by the adjective paideious in Pindar, Isthm. 2.3. "Etymologically" seems definitely misleading (it would falsely suggest to many readers that one word is derived from the other), and if we get rid of "etymologically," saying the words are "conceptually" linked may not be the best way to convey the cited sources' meaning either. I don't believe Nagy even means to say "Pindar's word paideioi can be taken on the verbal level as a reference to the word paiderastia"; his translation makes it clear that it's the word's reference to paides that connotes pederasty and education together (using the Greek words to keep the fact of their common connection to paid- in view). My conclusion here is that these citations are great sources for a statement in another section that, "Pederasty has been understood as educative,[Blake fn.] and Greek authors from Aristophanes to Pindar felt it naturally present in the context of aristocratic education (paideia).[Nagy fn.]" The sources are less at home in the "Terminology" section, where the point they could make is narrower (Blake et al. is not commenting on terminology at all, and I don't believe this is really Nagy's thrust either).

I hope this is not too much of a quibble over Cynwolfe's impressive contributions. Wareh (talk) 16:19, 10 April 2010 (UTC)


 * No, not a mere quibble, and not a problem. I don't like working with Greek, so please fix it. To tell the truth, I find this a depressing topic to work with, and would rather move on to other things now that are more related to my interests. The literature is vast, and my main goal was to provide a structure within which people could "adopt" sections. I've fostered a couple temporarily, but don't plan to do more. The only section I may revisit is "Origins," because both Dover and Ferrari seem to misunderstand the point of the initiation material, which is not to explain away homosexuality, but to provide a context for understanding Greek pederasty as something socially constructed. And religion and "society" are permeable in antiquity. Anyway, let me leave this in the hands of others. Cynwolfe (talk) 21:02, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't think Dover would disagree; his dispute with the initiation model is that it does not explain why pederasty is unattested before 650 and leaps into prominence all over Greece so quickly thereafter; this is, he argues, unlikely for a survival - and is in any case ducking what he sees as the chief question: why the efflorescence? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:54, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Now this is a very interesting subject finally
If someone knows more about the ancient techniques ,please feel free to enrich the page. I am sooo interested. Tks--Joe The Dassaret 04:19, 28 January 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Joe The Dassaret (talk • contribs)

For goodness..
About the Symbsosium Image : Thats a roman / italian one and thats after Ancient Greece had been taken by the Romans.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.107.56.15 (talk) 17:13, 30 May 2010 (UTC)
 * You're a couple of centuries out on both counts: the image is from the Tomb of the Diver and was painted circa 470 BC, when Paestum was part of magna graecia. Haploidavey (talk) 17:42, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Robotic pederasty
A robot called AstaBOTh15 has attached a foreign language edition of the Pederasty in ancient Greece article (a copy is here), which looks to me like a recreation of the last Haiduc edit (26 July 13:32). Much of the phrasing appears to be the same, even identical in parts, though I am using only my Latin/Italian to decipher it. I think it's Portugese. Its appearance here in this article, where there has been a struggle to weed out Haiduc's crap, introduces some interesting issues. Amphitryoniades (talk) 10:50, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't know if you think that spanish version of this article is not good, but that article has passed the local requirements there and is a good article, as you can see here, linking to others languages GA is allowed --by Màñüé£†¹5 talk 18:59, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
 * The discussion Manuel links did not, in fact, contemplate interwiki good-article symbols (as opposed to symbols on English GA's). I am addressing this on that same linked talk page.  Wareh (talk) 19:30, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree. I voted "Support" for the English wiki only. I did not think my vote was meant to support it's use on other wikis. Xtzou ( Talk ) 19:59, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

etymology of paiderastia
It's incorrect, though in a minor way, to say that paiderasteia "is a compound of pais ("child", plural paides) and erastês." It is a compound of pais and the abstract noun erasteia. Erasteia may be formed from the agent noun erastês, which in turn is formed from the verb "to love" with a standard suffix for an agent noun; or perhaps the abstract noun paiderasteia is formed from the verb paiderasteuein. I originally had something like this, to which Wareh objected because I cited L&S and a grammar book on word formation. Wareh was right to note that a dictionary, even the standard dictionary of ancient Greek, and a student grammar are not ultimate sources, but they are better sources for the formation of Greek words than the general-purpose English dictionaries now cited. The agent noun erastes and the abstract noun erasteia should be distinguished. Paiderasteia is an abstract noun. The agent noun paiderastês exists, and seems to have a specific and (I gather) negative connotation. I'm rather mystified as to why English dictionaries (with no editions or other info cited) should supersede the standard Greek dictionary and Greek grammar books on the formation of Greek words. I doubt this was Wareh's intention. Cynwolfe (talk) 04:23, 4 July 2010 (UTC)


 * A few clarifications. The version prior to my change derived paiderastia (not paiderasteia, by the way) from "erasteuein ('to love, be a lover of')."  This was simply an error, and not, I believe, one for which any correctly understood source has been cited.  I wonder whether the connection between paiderasteuo and paiderastia is based on an imperfect understanding of the conventions of LSJ; the fact that the second lemma is given in abbreviated form in a block of type that begins with the first is only a space-saving convention and has no etymological import whatsoever.  As far as I can tell, any suggestion of an etymology in "the abstract noun erasteia" is new; but no such abstract noun is extant. One way or another, the truth of the matter is that paiderastia is a noun built from paiderastes, which in term is composed of pais and erastes.  If the only real point of disagreement is that the intermediate step should not be omitted, by all means I support its insertion into the article.  In any case, the etymology given by the American Heritage Dictionary is basically correct (and Calvert Watkins is no mean authority), and I am not yet aware of any "standard Greek dictionary and Greek grammar books" that contradict it.  I'm not sure anything except perhaps a better source can be added to the revision I've just made; I do feel that any mention of erasteuo or erasteia would be erroneous.  (P.S. The "negative connotation" business--I think you're thinking of LSJ's "lover of boys, mostly in bad sense"--probably deserves a bit of caution before ushering into the article.  In fact I'll go out on a limb and say it does not even mean to say "used pejoratively in Greek" but is simply their way of saying "in a sexual sense."  Just have a look at LSJ's first citation, Acharnians 265, in which Phales, the personification of the processional phallos, is hailed by the chorus in sheer comic delight as μοιχέ, παιδεραστά: "lover of lads and lover of lasses," as translated by Jeffrey Henderson, who as the author of The Maculate Muse I'd put high above LSJ on sexual vocabulary.) Wareh (talk) 16:59, 5 July 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm not really arguing with you (and actually I thought someone else had made a change after you had), though high horses may have sounded so. One of the major sources used in the article said paiderastes had negative connotations in contrast to erastes, but I forget who at the moment. My question has nothing to do with semantics, actually, and is simply about word formation: it's my (perhaps wrong) understanding that an abstract noun of this type is formed from a verb, not from an agent noun, which is why I said it was a minor point — of morphology, not meaning. Cynwolfe (talk) 22:31, 5 July 2010 (UTC)


 * I hope my hurried response did not come off as argumentative. The suffix -ia is equally used with verb-stems and substantives (Smyth 840a.9), and in this case the derivation is from the noun paiderastes.  I'm not sure what verb you had in mind; paiderasteo and paiderasteuo are both likewise derived from the noun.  Now, perhaps the most important point in my long answer was that the noun is paiderastia not paiderasteia, because the (non-existent) paiderasteia could in fact have been derived from paiderasteuo.  I hope my edit to the article itself is looking like an improvement to you--let me know if not.  Cheers, Wareh (talk) 18:51, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

No dispute or controversy section at all?
I'm not an ancient greece expert, however I think it is rather curious that the article does not present any section about possible controversies about this whole pederastic theory. Since all the documents and artifacts art are so ambiguous, and the theory showing classical greeks as critical sodomites being relatively recent, it seems only logical that at least some historians may have adopted a more skeptical view over that and maybe they should be mentioned too. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.157.19.14 (talk) 12:23, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

I've looked for possible dissidents and found about Adonis Georgiades. I don't know anything about the validity of his claims but perhaps the fact that there is some dispute going on should at least be mentioned. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.157.19.14 (talk) 12:30, 30 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't understand what you're saying. I don't know what the phrase "critical sodomites" means. You'll have to be more specific if you'd like your questions addressed. Cynwolfe (talk) 14:14, 30 December 2010 (UTC)


 * No one ever called them "critical sodomites".(?) The idea of buggery was highly frowned upon as making men effeminate and "sexually incontinent", to use Thornton's term (see ref. 40). You need to define where this "critical" sodomy is coming into the picture, as well as how you are defining it. --DanielCD (talk) 15:39, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Population control
I'd like to see more discussion of the population issue, as regards the male population. In a course on Ancient Greek history I remember hearing that the Greeks strongly preferred male children to the extent that they would "expose" female infants (meaning leave them to die), and this produced an excessive male population. The Greek form of pederasty, in this theory, was actually adapted to control excessive male-male sexual interaction in a majority male population. This may have been just an idea presented by one author somewhere, but I think it might be interesting enough to make a comment on. --DanielCD (talk) 15:45, 12 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Well, for what it's worth, the Greek myths mostly show males being exposed. Ancient demographics are tricky, but life expectancy is often misunderstood (bear with me for an apparent digression): neither Greeks nor Romans seem to find it particularly remarkable for a person to reach age 60, and regard the death of a young person as tragic (in our sense of the word) or at least a waste. What brings down the average age of life expectancy is the staggering rate of infant mortality (including up to age 1), and the fact that the "flower" of youth was regularly culled: by war for males, and childbirth for females. Although it seems strange under those circumstances that there would be concerns about overpopulation, the passage in the article is indeed intriguing; however, the things that come to my mind address an excess of young males. (An excess of females could be addressed by turning them into concubines, or prostitutes, or handmaids.) But young men are usually trouble; hence the Spartan agoge — ya gotta do somethin with 'em. See also fianna in early Irish society, or the Italic ver sacrum. This is an extremely roundabout way of saying I would agree that this is an interesting point, but although I've done a lot of organizational work for this article, and some research, I didn't delve into that particular section. Please feel free to track down your recollections and contribute yourself, or drop any more specific sources or leads you might come up with here, and I (or another editor) will try to read and incorporate what you find. Cynwolfe (talk) 17:08, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Final section
I changed the title of the last section Modern scholarship because the whole article is supposed to be modern scholarship. Reception is more appopriate and, since reception often goes by the name 'Greek love', I made it Reception: Greek love. That is far better than what was there before. McOoee (talk) 22:06, 5 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Then how about just "reception"? We're not really supposed to have creative subsection titles, use standard and recognizable titles wherever possible. — Jeraphine Gryphon (talk) 22:51, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

Hi: thanks for talking it through. Greek love is the standard acardemic term for the reception of ancient Greek pederasty. McOoee (talk) 23:14, 5 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't think I understand what you're saying. — Jeraphine Gryphon (talk) 23:41, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

'Greek love' is the term used by academics for the 'reception' of ancient Greek pederasty; 'reception' is the more general term used by academics for the way posterity responds to ancient phenomena. McOoee (talk) 00:24, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Ganymede image: pederasty?
I removed the terracotta image of Zeus abducting Ganymede because it is not clearly pederast but may point to the earlier tradition, according to which Zeus abducted the boy for aesthetic reasons not sexual. McOoee (talk) 12:23, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
 * What evidence is there for this "earlier tradition"? --Akhilleus (talk) 14:06, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm guessing McCetera's "earlier, aesthetic tradition" is his interpretation of H.H.Aphr. 202–6 and Iliad 20. 232–5. — [dave] cardiff &#124; chestnut — 16:46, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

It's not just my interpretation. You only have to look in your OCD, under Ganymedes: Though early versions emphasize the boy's beauty, Zeus's motivation is given as the need for a noble and presentable wine-steward; a homoerotic interest on the god's part does not become explicit until later. It cites Theognis as an example of 'later', also Attic pottery and Helenistic art. It's well known that there is no explicit pederasty in Homer's epic and if Akhilleus isn't aware of this maybe it's because he was never really there. He might wish he was as it is just about the only way he could rewrite it to prove his point. McOoee (talk) 21:24, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
 * "does not become explicit until later" is not the same thing as "is not present until later"; you seem to be reading the latter, however. Why the presence or absence of pederasty in Homer is a justification for removing an image of a 5th century terracotta sculpture is beyond me, since at this time the sexual interpretation had become, in the OCD's words, "explicit." --Akhilleus (talk) 01:14, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

You're wrong on several counts. Nobody knows exactly when, where or to what extent pederasty became established in ancient Greece and the OCD certainly isn't making any judgement about this figurine, even though it actually mentions it:
 * "His kidnapping is usually said to have been effected by Zeus, either in person (as in fine fifth century BC terracotta from Olympia), or in the shape of his eagle-avatar. As reparation his father received a marvellous breed of horses (Iliad 5.265-7), Homeric Hymn Ven. 202-17) or a golden vine (Little Iliad). Though early versions emphasize the boy's beauty, Zeus's motivation is given as the need for a noble and presentable wine-steward; a homoerotic interest on the god's part does not become explicit until later (Theognis 1345-8), but Attic vase painting and Hellenistic art stress this aspect"

The figurine is not an Attic vase, it is not Hellenistic, and dating for Theognis is notoriously uncertain. In fact the cited lines from Theognis are known to be later interpolations. I'll point out also that "not explicit" does not mean "implicit" and the OCD does not make any judgement about pederasty in 5th century Greece. When I look at that figurine, I see an adult male carrying a child. It is only in the context of this article that it seems to have sexual significance. And that's the problem. Original research doesn't seem to bother you. It bothers me. I see that you have re-instated the image. I am removing it again since you have not addressed my concerns. McOoee (talk) 06:46, 8 May 2012 (UTC)


 * You haven't addressed mine, either. Are you seriously arguing that the abduction of Ganymede wasn't interpreted sexually in 5th century Attica? --Akhilleus (talk) 13:24, 8 May 2012 (UTC)


 * It might be noted that the representation under discussion here also figures in J.M. Barringer, "The Temple of Zeus, Heroes, and Athletes", Hespeira 74 (2005) 211–41, at 229–31, where its pederastic connotations are placed within a broader social and archeological context. — [dave] cardiff &#124; chestnut — 16:57, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Of course the abduction was interpreted sexually in the 5th century Attica but other 5th century audiences might not have done so and this image is not Attic. Moreover you are using the the 5th century Olympia image to llustrate archaic Cretan customs. If the image is discussed in a scholarly text about pederasty, I would like to know what the specific context is. It might be discussing the non-pederastic origins of some pederastic motifs. I've now included an image of 5th century pottery. Notice that it is clearly about a sexual relationship between an adult male and a child. It's at the pedophile end of the pederastic spectrum. It makes me want to vomit but I can't object to its inclusion here. The image from Olympia is a very different matter. It's a non-sexual image that requires the reader to re-construct it sexually, and that involves a shift into a pedophile mode of thought. You have no right to inflict that on readers. I am removing the image again because it is cleary inappropriate here until a relevant context is supplied. McOoee (talk) 21:32, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
 * The article that I mention isn't on pederasty, it's on an interpretation of the pediments and metopes on the Temple of Zeus at Olympia, with discussion of different motifs, mythological and iconographic, at play in the temple's Olympic environment. The bit that touches on pederasty begins: "This vision of military and athletic valor and arete is reinforced by the sexual associations of Olympia and its games. In the divine favor version of the myth, Pelops received special horses from his former lover, Poseidon.  Another mythological pederastic couple also is associated with Olympia: Zeus and Ganymede, represented at Olympia by a terracotta sculptural group of ca. 470 ..."  Then comes Pindar, Olympia 1 on these myths, their relation to the athletic spectacle, and then the author moves on to her next set of themes. If that's too vague, I can email the article.  It's just the first one that popped up on JSTOR for this sculpture.  — [dave] cardiff &#124; chestnut —  21:55, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

No that doesn't satisy me. The image is mentioned very casually by someone writing on a different topic. If you can locate something specifically about this figurine, that should provide an appropriate context. McOoee (talk) 22:17, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Dover's several citations of the piece might give a more appropriate context, but I don't own the book. — [dave] cardiff &#124; chestnut — 23:03, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

I find McOoee's objections insufficient to justify removing the image from this article. Aside from the fact that any person with a knowledge of the Ganymede myth and the conventions of archaic and classical art will understand why Zeus is abducting Ganymede (unless one is being tendentious), Barringer is sufficient to establish that scholars interpret this particular piece as representing a pederastic episode. McOoee's objection that Barringer's article doesn't have pederasty as its main subject is beside the point—in fact, if a classical art historian "casually" describes this statue as depicting a pederastic couple, this is an indication that this is the natural interpretation of the work.

As for Dover, on p. 93 of Greek Homosexuality he writes: "Whereas men and youths are often depicted as mauling and hauling women—not, of course, women of citizen status—the protection afforded to freeborn boys by the law on hubris is reflected in the rarity of homosexual assault in the visual arts. Rarity, that is, when the aggressor is human, for gods could not be indicted for hubris. Zeus in B186 and R348 commands Ganymede in a manner that will not accept refusal (so too Poseidon in pursuit of Pelops, who looks back apprehensively on the point of flight), and in R405, R829, R833 he simply grasps Ganymede, who struggles violently; in the Olympia terracotta he has tucked Ganymede (no longer struggling) under his arm and is striding off to Olympos." (I've left footnotes and some catalog numbers out of this quote, which can be accessed on Google Books at ; I'm not sure if that link will work outside the U.S.) Dover, obviously, has pederasty as a major subject. The terracotta is also covered in Davidson's Greeks and Greek Love, pp. 223-24, in a very interesting chapter about the Ganymede myth and its reception. Davidson argues that our focus on the sexual aspect has caused us to lose sight of other, more significant aspects of the myth—but he still makes it plain that this abduction scene has a sexual aspect.

I do agree that this image doesn't belong in the "origins" section, since the image doesn't have anything to do with Crete and doesn't seem directly relevant to the origins of this practice. "In myth and religion" might be a better fit. --Akhilleus (talk) 03:05, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I think the image was originally placed there because it represents well key pieces of Koehl's construction: there's the love gift, there's the abduction, there's a representation of a myth that is key to the source cited for the paragraph. A better contextualizing caption would probably have prevented editing by gag reflex, and we do often describe "origins" with examples of later forms.— [dave] cardiff &#124; chestnut — 03:41, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Firstly thanks for not restoring the figurine. Secondly, trying to explain origins by later forms is the kind of desperation we engage in when there is a lack of other evidence. Try explaining Pindar's life from scholia! It is reasonable for me to ask for modern scholarship dedicated to this figurine, considering how sensitive this topic is. I'd be surprised if the scholar ventures a conclusion one way or the other. The image is not obviously sexual and it is not obviously produced for a pederastic market. The image would be better used in the Ganymede article where the context is ambivalent. McOoee (talk) 05:52, 9 May 2012 (UTC)


 * "The image is not obviously sexual and it is not obviously produced for a pederastic market." — and that is not required to keep it in the article as an illustration. It's still relevant. — Jeraphine Gryphon (talk) 14:41, 9 May 2012 (UTC)


 * McOoee, you appear not to be reading my post carefully enough, since I have already given you modern scholarship that concludes the sculpture has sexual connotations, and in fact that those connotations are obvious. The image is relevant. --Akhilleus (talk) 15:16, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

OK I got it here. That's the context you need for its inclusion in this article. Otherwise it looks gratuitous. I'll accept it in a section on art and pederastic symbols since it's only the rooster that indicates a pederastic context. I reserve the right to protest again every time people contributing to pederastic articles don't explain their content properly. McOoee (talk) 00:26, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

source?
I removed this source about pederasty in ancient Sparta:

The agoge, the education of the ruling class, was thus founded on pederastic relationships required of each citizen. (Erich Bethe,Die Dorische Knabenliebe: ihre Ethik und ihre Ideen, 1907, 441, 444)

Surely WP can do better than a 1907 German source on such a controversial topic. I'm happy to be corrected. McOoee (talk) 06:45, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Placement of 'difficult' material
I moved the section on sexual practices lower down the article. This is a sign to the reader that the article is aware of its wide-ranging audience and the editors are doing something in the way of discretion. I note that the kissing couple (pictured above) has pedophile connotations. My own preference is to use that picture lower down too. Looking to ancient Greece for a model is problematic for modern gay culture, which is why Blanshard says 'Greek love' is highly controversial. I am not trying to hide this aspect. I'm not gay myself and I don't have to wear the consequences. However, surely in the interests of discretion, the pedophile picture should be lower down in the article, where many readers will never go. Anyway, it's your choice. McOoee (talk) 22:43, 10 May 2012 (UTC)
 * There is no "difficult" material in this article, you're just being squeamish. (Note: Wikipedia is WP:NOTCENSORED and we don't practice making articles child-safe or religious-safe.) I currently don't object to the restructuring you did, it looks fine and makes sense.
 * I definitely don't agree that the kissing image currently under the "Social aspects" title should be moved any lower, mostly just because it's nice to have illustrations and to have them placed in a visually appealing way — currently they're more or less balanced but if we moved this one lower then the illustrations' placement in the article would look out of balance.
 * I personally don't see anything wrong with the image, there's just two people kissing. The younger person doesn't look like a child; if it were a prepubescent child AND if there was anything sexual going on in the image, maybe then we could call it "pedophilia", but evidently neither is true. And this article is about pederasty afterall, people should know what to expect. — Jeraphine Gryphon (talk) 23:22, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm amazed that you think there is no difficult material here. The intro to Greek love includes the observation: In his essay "Greek Love," Alastair Blanshard asserts that "Contrasting attitudes toward Greek love is one of the defining and divisive issues in the homosexual rights movement."(ref name="BlanshardGreek">Blanshard, "Greek Love," p. 161.) Greek love is the reception of ancient Greek pederasty and it is to be covered in the end section of this article (the present edit is a mess and needs quite a bit of work). The problematic aspect lies in the age of the boys and the difference between ideals and realities. The man kissing the boy would be breaking the law in my country, since the boy looks about 11 yo, maybe a small 12 yo. I can't believe that picture does much for future gay marriages, or gay rights. Anyway, it's not my quarrel. I'm just aiming for a well balanced article. McOoee (talk) 08:55, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
 * What do gay rights have anything to do with this? Whether this article is harmful or beneficial to some people's ideologies is absolutely not important. Whether I or you personally disapproves of adult men kissing preteens is absolutely not important. If it happened and if there's illustrations of it then we're going to have them here since that what the article is about. — Jeraphine Gryphon (talk) 15:07, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

I agree. But unseemly truth-telling is a bit like breaking wind: we should try to do it as quietly as possible. McOoee (talk) 10:26, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

title for end section
The end section is currently titled Modern scholarship. I guess the rest of the article isn't modern scholarship. I have twice changed it to Reception: Greek love for reasons already explained above. Reception is a major aspect of recent scholarship and it is now usual to regard it as a fundamental part of any topic. The end section is currently a mangled review of the debate between Halperin and others and it concerns the nature of 'Greek love'. Halperin used the term ironically, whereas some emphasize the idealized aspect of pederasty, and still others seek out a 'middle path'. That debate is part of a centuries-long debate within and across cultures as they each attempted to process Greek pederasty. If the projects responsible for this article are happy with its present state, that's fine by me. There are more enjoyable articles I can work on. McOoee (talk) 02:32, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Consent
"but Athenian law, for instance, did not recognize consent and age as factors in regulating sexual behavior."

Am I reading this right? Rape was legal? If consent wasn't a factor, what was? — DanielLC 04:03, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that James Davidson (Courtesans and Fishcakes, Greeks and Greek love) demonstrates that rape was a crime in Athens and that it was the first city we know of to allow even prostitutes to sue for rape. And where in this article are references to Davidson's work, surely a scholarly touchstone on this area? Φωκίων (talk) 17:39, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Section headed "Sexual Practices": last paragraph needs editing and sources.
The last paragraph reads:


 * Censorship It is important to note that the fact that ancient Greeks practiced homosexuality and pederasty has been strongly censored throughout History. Many art despicting it was destroyed. Even today is better known by general public that Spartans practiced infanticide, than the fact that Ancient Greeks practiced pederasty. Many in the scientific community are uncomfortable with this notion due to present day sexual values.

Apart from the lack of references, the phrasing is stilted and the last sentence is an irrelevant assertion.

I'm guessing that someone wanted to create a section discussing the censorship of the topic, which is possibly worthwhile, and the last sentence would make more sense if it referred to the (relevant) academic community.

Perhaps even just delete the whole paragraph? If I was to edit it, it would be something like:
 * (Section header: Censorship) The fact that ancient Greeks practiced institutional pederasty has been censored throughout history. Many artworks depicting the act have been destroyed or modified to conceal the images or descriptions. Even today it is better known by the general public that Spartans practiced infanticide, than that the ancient Greeks practiced pederasty. Many in the academic community are uncomfortable with this notion (the pederasty or the censorship?) due to present day sexual values.

But I don't have any references or the research resources to obtain them, so I'm going to leave it alone.

Any thoughts?

Wayne 16:14, 3 March 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wayne aus (talk • contribs)

EDIT: I guess I must have been distracted before I read the last section "Modern Scholarship". This deals with the subject matter that the para I discussed above relates to. So I'm going to go out on a limb and delete this one, and suggest that if anyone really wants this para in, it should be re-written and moved into the last section.Wayne 00:26, 4 March 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wayne aus (talk • contribs)

Lead section too vague
The lead should be a self contained article. A "socially acknowledged erotic relationship between..." If the definition is intentionally broad, this should be enunciated, perhaps with examples. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.137.156.36 (talk) 16:00, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Should this be removed?
In the 'Social aspects' section of this article, the final paragraph states:

''Even when lawful, it was not uncommon for the relationship to fail, as it was said of many boys that they "hated no one as much as the man who had been their lover" (see, for instance, " Death of King Philip II of Macedon '"). Likewise, the Cretans required the boy to declare whether the relationship had been to his liking, thus giving him an opportunity to break it off if any violence had been done to him. [citation needed] In Classical times there appears a note of concern that the institution of pederasty might give rise to a "morbid condition", adult homosexuality, that today's eromenos may become tomorrow's kinaidos, defined as the passive or "penetrated" partner.[41] (where reference [41] is Bruce Thornton's book Eros: The Myth of Ancient Greek Sexuality''; pp103-109; Westview Press, 1998; ISBN 0-8133-3226-5)

The writer of this section nor anyone else has provided any source(s) for the claim that pederastic relationships frequently failed. Similarly, the writer nor anyone else has provided any source(s) for the claim related to the Cretans even though the 'citation needed' template has been up since April 2010.

Furthermore, the line "hated no one as much as the man who had been their lover" is not present in the only citation provided (i.e. Thornton's book) nor was I able to find it through the internet. The writer gives the example of the death of King Philip II of Macedon to support his claim and has linked to Philip's wiki article but a reading of the section about Philip's assassination reveals that it does not at all prove that eromenoi frequently hated their erastai and all accounts about the king's assassination are regarded as "improbable".

Then a claim (which I feel needs a more objective source to seem reliable) found in a controversial book by Bruce Thornton is mentioned and "morbid condition" is defined as "adult homosexuality", a definition not found in the cited part of the book. The exact sentence from the book is as follows:

"Even pederasty, that supposedly accepted institution of the city-state, is here seen as possibly contributing to what Aristotle considers a morbid condition. Today's kinaidos is yesterday's eromenos or "boy-favorite."

From the text it seems the fear was that the eromenos may become a "kinaidos" in later life. Kinaidos does not mean "adult homosexual" nor does it simply mean "the passive or penetrated partner", rather it connotes a type of adult person who chronically plays the passive role in anal sex and is willing to accept money for sex. So the "morbid condition" is not adult homosexuality itself but chronic/habitual anal passivity in adult men which Nussbaum notes was problematic for the Greeks not because of the implication of same-sex copulation but because the passive position in that particular context was viewed as "womanish" (note that intercrural passivity in men did not carry any stigma and was accepted sexual behaviour). So it is unjustified to claim that the Greeks viewed adult homosexuality itself as a problem, and to imply, as the current wiki paragraph does, that the Greeks viewed everything that encompasses "adult homosexuality" negatively rather than just chronic anal passivity in adult men (regardless of what their orientation may have been).

Because of all these reasons I feel this paragraph should be removed (or at least edited in a way as to remove its current problems). Human10.0 (talk) 18:38, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

Quote needing verification for context
User:Weotherideas claims that a quotation in the lede 'The influence of pederasty on Greek culture of these periods was so pervasive that it has been called "the principal cultural model for free relationships between citizens." ' has been taken out of context from the cited source (pg 193 Dawson's "Cities of the Gods". Meters (talk) 21:20, 27 September 2016 (UTC) The conventional type of paiderastla was not an equal relationship, but its hierarchy...
 * The user challenging this quote has now been indeffed, and I don't have access to the book. Meters (talk) 01:15, 29 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Snippet view shows us this much:
 * Their ideal of friendship was egalitarian because it was heavily influenced by paiderastla [sic], the principal cultural model for free relationships between citizens.
 * so the use of the quote may be considered verified Noyster (talk),  08:08, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

Reference to Aristotle citing Cretan lawmakers should be removed
At the end of the section "political expression", the statement that "Aristotle claimed that the Cretan lawgivers encouraged pederasty as a means of population control, by directing love and sexual desire into non-procreative channels" is a glaring distortion of Aristotle's words. The quote that is being cited mentions nothing of homosexuality, let alone pederasty. The quote reads:

"and the lawgiver has devised many wise measures to secure the benefit of moderation at table, and the segregation of the women in order that they may not bear many children, for which purpose he instituted association with the male sex"

Since when is "association" equated with sexual intercourse? In another translation, by Benjamin Jowett, the excerpt in question reads:

"The legislator has many ingenious ways of securing moderation in eating, which he conceives to be a gain; he likewise encourages the separation of men from women, lest they should have too many children, and the companionship of men with one another." 

Here it is even clearer that the idea was of men getting together and spending more time with each other than with women for the purposes of reducing male-female intercourse and controlling procreation, and ultimately, food supplies management, and there is not even a hint of homosexuality or pederasty in the text. For the sake of historical accuracy, the original reads in Greek "και προς την διάζευξην των γυναικών ίνα μή πολυτεκνώσι, την προς τους άρρενας ποιήσας ομιλίαν", which could be literally translated as "the separation of the women so that they do not have too many children, and encouraging speaking (or conversation) among men". The general context of that excerpt is a discussion of the ways Cretans were better than the Lacedaemonians at managing food ratios and the institution of the common (public) meals. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.146.244.211 (talk) 18:38, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

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Questionable changes made in Feb 2018
I would encourage knowledgeable people to look at this diff.--Pharos (talk) 02:30, 6 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Excerpt from the user's bio: "I have heavily edited wikipedia's article on "Pederasty in ancient Greece" as it featured significant and deliberate alteration of fact to fuel a homosexual agenda and shame our European heritage." --88.230.96.225 (talk) 14:49, 5 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Anyone who speaks of a "homosexual agenda" should be recognized as a conspiracy wacko, and their remarks treated accordingly. rowley (talk) 16:33, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Proposed merge of Eros paidikos into Pederasty in ancient Greece
Eros paidikos appears to be an unnecessary content fork of this article. –&#8239;Joe (talk) 11:30, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Support. It should be merged as it is the same topic. Crossroads -talk- 15:17, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Support. As above, with #redirect of Eros paidikos to Pederasty in ancient Greece. Magnovvig (talk) 09:01, 8 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Support. There's no reason for two separate articles. Creador de Mundos (talk) 15:52, 18 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Support. —Cote d&#39;Azur (talk) 09:31, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Support per everyone above.★Trekker (talk) 17:00, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Support. Note that the creator of the new article is one of the “support” votes above. Presumably the new article was created in error, unaware of the existence of the large prior article. — tooki (talk) 22:25, 17 December 2020 (UTC)