Pederasty
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The bearded man is depicted in a pederastic gesture, one hand reaching to fondle the young man's penis & scrotum, the other grasping the chin to look him in the eye. The youth is putting up symbolic resistance only.
Pederasty is a term originally coined by the ancient Greeks to describe a homosexual relationship involving anal or intercrural intercourse, between an adolescent boy and an adult man outside of his immediate family. The word derives from the combination of paides (Greek for 'boy') with erasteio (Greek for 'to long for'; cf. eros). Today the term is also correlated with pedophilia and child sexual abuse because it occurs with persons below the age of consent and is therefore illegal.
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The Ancient World
Social Aspects
Pederastic relationships were dyadic mentorships. They were sanctioned by the state, as evidenced by laws mandating and controlling such relationships. Likewise, many myths described such relationships between gods and heroes (Apollo and Hyacinth, Zeus and Ganymede, Hercules and Hylas) and between one hero and another (Achilles and Patroclus, Orestes and Pylades). (It is interesting to note that the Greeks tried to project a semblance of pederasty (read: "propriety") onto these last two pairs, despite a great deal of evidence that the two myths were originally intended to symbolize egalitarian relationships.)
Historical as well as mythographical materials suggest that pederastic relationships also had to be approved by the boy's father. As Xenophon claims in his Symposium, "Nothing [of what concerns the boy] is kept hidden from the father, by a noble lover." This is consistent with the paramount role of the Greek patriarch, who had the right of life and death over his children. It is also consistent with the importance that a son would have had for him. Besides the bond of love between them, a son was the only hope for the survival of a Greek man's name, fortune and glory.
Boys entered into such relationships in their teens, around the same age that Greek girls were given in marriage – also to adult husbands many years their senior. There was a difference between the two types of bonding: Boys usually had to be courted and were free to choose their mate. Girls, on the other hand, were used for economic and political advantage, their marriages contracted at the discretion of the father and the suitor.
The function of the relationship seems to have been the introduction of the young man into adult society and adult responsibilites. To that end the mentor (known as erastes, lover, in Athens, or eispnelas, inspirer, in Sparta) was expected to teach the young man (known as eromenos, beloved, in Athens, or aites, hearer, in Sparta) or to see to his education, and to give him certain appropriate ceremonial gifts (in Crete, an ox, a suit of armor, and a chalice (from kylix, Greek for wine cup), signifying his empowerment in agriculture, war and religion). The bond between the two participants seems to have been based in part on mutual love and desire – usually sexually expressed – and in part on the political interests of the two families. The relationships were open and public, and became part of the biography of the person. Thus when Spartan historians wrote about a personage they would usually indicate whom it was that he had heard or whom it was that he inspired.
For the youth – and his family – one important advantage of being mentored by an influential older man was the social networking aspect. 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. 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. For those lovers who continued their lovemaking after their beloveds had matured, the Greeks made allowances, saying, You can lift up a bull, if you carried the calf.
As with all social institutions, pederasty was the idealized form of an age-structured homoeroticism that had other, less idyllic, manifestations, such as prostitution, or the use of one’s slave boys. However, certain forms were prohibited, such as slaves penetrating freemen, or paying free boys or young men for sex. Free youths who did sell their favors were generally ridiculed and later in life were prohibited from performing certain official functions. And, 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". 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.
Educational Aspects
In talking about the Cretan rite, the historian Ephorus (quoted in Strabo of Amaseia's Geography X.4.21) informs us that the man (known as philetor, befriender) took the boy (known as parastathentes, one who stands beside) into the wilderness, where they spent several months hunting and feasting with their friends. His account does not discuss the educational aspects of the sojourn. However, this is clearly a coming-of-age rite culminating in a major ceremony upon the return of the pair from the mountains, and a process of acculturation into male society is implied.
The various mythographical materials available suggest religious training (see story of Tantalus, Poseidon, and Pelops) as well as military training (Hercules and Hylas). The theme of learning to drive a war chariot occurrs repeatedly (Poseidon and Pelops, Laius and Chrysippus). Apollo is said to have taught Orpheus, one of his beloveds, to play the harp. And Zeus had Ganymede serve nectar, a theme with religious connotations.
It is thus plausible to assume that even as the loves of the gods paralleled and symbolized those of the mortals, their pedagogy pointed to aspects of the educational process that took place between a lover and his beloved.
Some research has shown that ancient Greeks believed semen, more specifically sperm, to be the source of knowledge, and that these relationships served to pass wisdom on from the erastes to the eromenos within society.
Sexual aspects
Ancient sources suggest a range of sexual activity. The majority of ceramic paintings depict the older partner importuning the younger, in a variation of the Greek gesture for pleading. Normally the supplicant embraced the knees of the person whose favor he sought, while grasping the man's chin so as to look into his eyes. Here the man is usually shown standing, grasping the boy's chin with one hand and reaching to fondle his genitals with the other. The boys are shown in varying degrees of rejecting or accepting the man's attentions. Less frequently, intercrural intercourse is depicted, where the erastes is shown inserting his penis between the thighs of the younger one. Only very rarely is anal sex suggested or shown, although it occurred en masse. The man and boy would share a bed chamber, with the boy typically entirely in the nude. All this was claimed (quite implausibly to some modern historians) to be endured by the youth without physical excitement.
Literary sources are a lot more graphic, especially ancient comedy which is downright scatological. For example, Aristophanes, in 'Peace', his parody of Ganymede riding on the back of Zeus in eagle form, has his character ride to Olympus on the back of a dung beetle.
Historical aspects
There are strong indications that the Greek pederastic model evolved from far older Indo-European rites of passage, which were grounded in a shamanic tradition with roots in the neolithic. Mythographic material suggests that the initiate experienced ec-static states of spirit journey leading to mystic death and transfiguration, analogous to practices still reported today in shamanic work. However, it appears that by the fifth century BC the Greeks themselves had forgotten the connection. In 476 BC, the poet Pindar, in his Olympian Ode I, claims to be horrified by suggestions that the gods would eat human flesh – in this context, an obvious shamanic metaphor.
Pederastic relationships were known throughout ancient Greece. The Cretans, a people described by Plutarch as renowned for their moderation and conservative ways, practiced an archaic form of pederasty (described by Ephorus) in which the man enacted a ritual kidnapping of a boy of his choosing, with the approval of the boy's father. The practice seems to have been reserved for the aristocracy: In maturity the beloved was known as kleinos, glorious, and enjoyed high status. Not surprisingly, these same Cretans were credited with introducing the myth of Zeus kidnapping Ganymede to be his lover in Olympus – though even the king of the gods had to make ammends to the father. (Plato, Laws)
In Thebes, another renowned center of pederasty, the practice was enshrined in the founding myth of the city. In this instance the story was meant to teach by counterexample: it depicts Laius, one of the mythical ancestors of the Thebans, in the role of a lover who betrays the father and rapes the son. For his crimes the gods meted out exemplary punishment, visited not only upon him, but upon his own son, Oedipus and his children. (In an apparent attempt to emphasize Laius' criminality, ancient artistic convention had his victim depicted not as an adolescent – the usual representation of beloved boys in Greek paintings on ceramic – but as a child.)
The Spartans required all their adult men to engage a boy in a pederastic relationship, a law given to them by their quasi-mythical founding legislator, Lycurgus, who fashioned the Spartan state into an idealistic community that lasted hundreds of years. However, unlike in Crete, in Sparta, Athens and most other Greek city-states the man first had to win the affection of the boy he sought.
The state benefitted from these relationships, according to the statements of ancient writers. The friendship functioned as a restraint on the youth, since if he committed a crime it was not he but his lover who was punished. In the military the lovers fought side by side, with each vying to shine before the other. Thus it was said that an army of lovers would be invincible, as was the case until the battle of Chaeronea with the Theban Sacred Band, a batallion of one hundred and fifty warriors, each aided by his beloved charioteer. Pederastic couples were also said to be feared by tyrants, because the bond between the friends was stronger than that of obedience to a tyrannical ruler. It was a pederastic couple, the Athenians Harmodius and Aristogeiton, who were credited (perhaps symbolically) with the overthrow of the tyrant Hippias and the establishment of the democracy. Others claimed that some states encouraged pederasty as a means of population control, directing love and sexual desire into non-procreative channels.
In Roman times, pederasty largely lost its status as a vital part of education – a process already begun by the increasingly sophisticated and cosmopolitan Greeks – and was instead seen as an activity primarily driven by one's sexual desires and competing with desire for women. The social acceptance of pederastic relations waxed and waned during the centuries, reaching its last zenith during the time of emperor Hadrian, who erected statues of his beloved and prematurely deceased Antinous throughout the Roman Empire.
The rise of Christianity led to the suppression of pederasty, as it was one of the mainstays of a classical pagan culture which the church fathers saw as an obstacle to their proselytizing. This campaign was rationalized by quotations from the Old Testament, where Leviticus condemned homosexual activities, as well as by appeals to long-standing Israelite tradition.
Post-classical and modern forms
Chehel Sutun (Forty Columns) was a palace built at the behest of Shah Abbas I, who was famous for loving beautiful pages and wine boys. Much of the artistic output of his workshops celebrated love between men and youths. This can be seen in a series of homoerotic ceramic panels (of which this is an example) as well as in the paintings and drawings of artists of his time, such as Riza i-Abbasi (see the Persian Hall of Male Love).
Non-Western examples
Before the 20th century, homosexual relationships with a more or less pederastic element were possibly the usual pattern of male same-sex love. In Japan, the practice of shudo, the "Way of the Young" paralleled closely the course of European pederasty. In the South Pacific, many native cultures employed boy insemination rites as part of their coming-of-age rituals, as documented in the writings of Gilbert Herdt. In the Moslem lands age-structured homosexual practices were widespread, and amply documented in the poetry and art of the cultures involved. Arab literature in particular displays a rich homoerotic tradition, featuring such luminaries as the 8th century Baghdadi poet Abu Nuwas and surfacing even in The Book of One Thousand and One Nights.
Western Models
In Europe, the Renaissance not only revived the Roman and Greek art and literature, but the more open social climate, certainly at least in part based on the economical prosperity of the time, allowed more freedom in sexual ways, even if those strayed from what the Bible allowed. Shakespeare's sonnets and Marlowe's poetry, among others, defy religious proscriptions, flaunting love for beautiful boys and celebrating their androgynous beauty. At least in Shakespeare's case the object of that passion is thought to have been one of the boy actors, youths who played all the female parts on stage (and sometimes off).
In the 19th century, the gradual re-discovery of the sites of antiquity in Italy and Greece fueled a new interest, if not almost a hysteria, in these old civilizations, particularly in Britain and Germany. Accordingly, pederastic relationships again became en vogue in the life and work of artists, for example in poetry (Walt Whitman, Lord Byron, Verlaine, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe), literature (Oscar Wilde), art (Henry Scott Tuke), and photography (Wilhelm von Gloeden).
The end of the 19th century, marked by the trial against Oscar Wilde, more or less brought the end for the social acceptance of pederasty. This is exemplified by the Young Wandervogel movement, an organization similar to the Boy Scouts, but emphasizing a more romantic view of nature. Young Wandervogel was itself spawned by the Wandervogel movement and was quite open about its gay / pederastic tendencies, although this kind of affection was supposed to be expressed in a mostly nonsexual way. The founding of Young Wandervogel happened largely as a reaction to the public scandal about the erotic tendencies in Wandervogel, which was said to alienate young men from women.
Recent developments
In the modern age the term has been appropriated to describe any sexual relations between an adult male and a boy, or sometimes (as in France), two adult males. In the English-speaking world the term is now used to describe sexual relations between adults and boys below the age of consent in their respective community. In the news media, the term tends to be used incorrectly as a synonym for pedophilia, even though the latter designates the sexual obsession of adults with prepubescent boys or girls.
Starting in the 1960s, the gay liberation movement made progress in having the laws against homosexual sex lifted that had existed in several countries. Also as part of the sexual revolution, the legal age of consent was lowered somewhat and usually set equal for heterosexual and homosexual sex. With a change in the homosexual beauty ideal from boyish to masculine, homosexual relationships tended to become more equalized in terms of age difference. The assumption of a progression from ancient pederasty to modern homosexuality is not fully accepted (see first external link).
At the present time no society is openly making use of liminal homosexuality – relations with young people who have just reached legal age – to accomplish social goals. Though the laws of many countries (such as those in the European Union, Canada, and other jurisdictions granting erotic emancipation to adolescents sixteen years of age or under) would seem to have created a space within which lawful pederasty could manifest, the lack of a social framework, as well as the stigma still attached to same-sex love, has prevented the establishment of any institution resembling pedagogic pederasty. Likewise, parental control, a key element of the traditional practice, is also rare. To date, only one country, Holland, has enacted a statute granting parents a measure of oversight over their offsprings' early sexual lives by not prosecuting adults in relationship with adolescents between the ages of twelve and sixteen unless a parent (or social worker) files a formal complaint.
Though instances of spontaneous legal pederasty are occasionally reported, most present-day intergenerational homosexual relationships either involve youths below legal age, or remain on a physical level, or both. As a result, intergenerational relationships have a difficult, somewhat polarized social status. On one hand, the media capitalize on sex scandals (such as the one involving the Catholic Church) that may involve pederasty, conflating it with pedophilia because people take an (perhaps partly voyeuristic) interest in these matters. On the other hand, sexual liberation and the presence of media like the Internet cause homosexual youths to discover their sexuality and have their coming out at a much younger age than before, and frequently they enter first relationships with males somewhat older than themselves, prompting mixed emotional reactions from their parents. This lack of parental control combined with a culture of casual encounters is associated with a high sexually transmitted disease infection rate, including HIV and AIDS, for the young people engaged in these relationships.
See also
References
- Homosexuality in Greek Myth, by Bernard Sergent; Beacon Press
- Greek Homosexuality, by Kenneth J. Dover; Vintage
- Lovers' Legends: The Gay Greek Myths, by Andrew Calimach; Haiduk Press
- Homosexuality in Greece and Rome, by Thomas K. Hubbard; U. of California Press
External links
- Intergenerational and Egalitarian Models
- The Androphile Project – The World History of Male Love: Male Love in Greece
- Ephorus on Cretan pederasty
de:Päderastie fr:Pédérastie ja:少年愛
