People with a History: An Online Guide to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Trans* History
Site Maintainer:
©1997
Contents:
Section X: Frequently Asked Questions
Go to the following pages for other parts of People with a History
FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions
Please do not write to me before you have looked through
here. If the answer to any question is on this site, I shall not
respond.
Gay and Lesbian General Interest Questions
Gay and Lesbian Hostile Questions
-
Gerbils [At QRD]
Gay men do not put gerbils in condoms into their rectums. People
of all sexual orientations do, in fact, put an amazing variety
of objects inside themselves, but the Gerbil myth has been especially
common. There is no basis in fact for the story.
- Pedophilia
There is no topic more controversial than the issue of inter-generational sex. There are many web pages on the net
which promote "boy love". I will not link to them. GLAAD and the ILGA [International Lesbian and Gay
Association], about as mainstream LGBT organizations as one can find, take a specific stance
Against Pedophilia and NAMBLA [Jan 16, 1994, At GLAAD]. Other non-pedophile gays have argued
that the issues at least deserved to be raised - for instance
the Ad Hoc
Spirit of Stonewall group at Stonewall 25. Judged by the boos the pedophile groups meet at LGBT Pride Parades, they have little support in the LGBT community.
There is nothing specifically homosexual about pedophilia - some pedophiles are attracted to children of the same sex, others to children of the opposite sex, and some to children in general. There is little doubt, furthermore, that the vast majority of cases of childsex involves men, usually fathers or stepfathers, with girls.
One final point: although historic formulations of homosexual eros often are called "pederasty", as in Greece and Rome, these formulations were NOT about adult-child sex. The proposed younger partners were what we would now call "older teenagers", i.e. young sexually mature adults, not "boys". The advent of industrial society has created a situation in which people reach sexual maturity before they reach social maturity, but this was not the case in the periods when age-dissonant homosexuality was the norm.
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© 1997, Paul Halsall, [a picture!]
Note: I read all mail, and keep much of it, but I will
not be able to reply to all notes.
Last updated April 12, 2007
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