Scholar blows up 'queer theory' -- attn. Edmund!

A group called the Pharos Foundation has posted a four part lecture series on the "The History of Homosexuality" by the formidable scholar Sir Noel Malcolm. (I looked him up -- he has been knighted for what appears to be lifetime of scholarly achievement on early modern European history.) I watched part one yesterday. (linked below). In his dry, scholarly presentation Malcolm lays out what seems to me an incontrovertible case that the overwhelmingly dominant form of male homosexuality in the early modern Mediterranean world lay in pederastic affairs between men and boys in their teens -- that the onset of facial hair spelled the end of a boy's sexual desirability. Malcolm marshals extensive historical records in the Italian city states, Spain, Spanish colonies, and the Ottoman Empire to make his case. (He refers frequently to Michael Roche's book on Renaissance Florence). At one point, he notes that the overwhelming majority of surviving Ottoman love poetry from the period concerned boys, not women. The importance of this kind of scholarship cannot be overemphasized. I've been following the argument between Eric Tazelaar and diogenes over whether we should call ourselves "gay" or not. But I think it misses the point. The contemporary LGBTQ+ /Queer Theory champions have constructed a false picture of the human condition, one that not only corrupts language and distorts history, but actively falsifies it. They needed to do this in order to buy a degree of social acceptance. But the intellectual foundations are built on sand. Careful, scholarly two pronged attacks from people like Malcolm on the one hand and Rind on the other could blow them up and I see that as necessary first step in undoing the implicit contract that the "queers" made with Power 45 years ago -- we will stay away from your sons and write pederasty out of history and acceptable discourse if you throw us some crumbs from the Table of Power. There are three more lectures in the series. I have some fairly heavy demands on my time over the next few days, but I fully intend to watch them. SR (https site) 'How Historians Study Gay History' [@nonymouse] [Guardster] [Proxify] [Anonymisierungsdienst]