Sensational post title?

Maybe. Some thoughts on responses. -- I don't think Malcolm set out ostensibly to "blow up" queer theory. What he did is to marshal all the evidence available to the historian to suggest what actually happened in certain places at certain times and the language used to discuss it. -- He is very clear that that's why he uses the term "sodomy" in referring to what went on in Florence and other western Mediterranean polities. The term "homosexual" is an anachronism -- even more so the term "gay" or "LGBTQ+" "Sodomy" is the term that would have been understood at the time. -- His talk is such a deadly blow at "queer theory" because implicit in what he is saying is a demand that any theory of human nature or human behavior start with an analysis of what we can demonstrate actually happened. "Queer theory" attempts to write pederasty out of history -- to ignore it; why impeccable scholarly demonstrations that pederasty from an anthropological and historical perspective is male homosexuality's dominant form is such a blow at queer theory. -- Yes, he says little about pedophilia as opposed to pederasty (which doesn't prevent some of the hysterical comment posters to his lecture to conflate the two as if the two words are interchangeable; as I've indicated elsewhere, some pederasts are pedophiles and some pedophiles are pederasts but the terms are not interchangeable if precisely used.) He notes that the median age in the Italian city states for boys involved in "sodomy" was a little over 15, while also noting that the onset of facial hair happened somewhat later than it does today, thanks to superior contemporary nutrition. This leaves room, of course, for affairs with pre-pubescent boys and I -- and I'm sure he -- would readily agree that such surely happened. But given his and Roche's description of the way boys were "picked up," one would not expect that younger boys would be easily available, even if that's what you wanted. -- When he talks about the onset of facial hair indicating the end of a boy's sexual desirability, it's clear he is talking about sexual desirability to men. (In the second lecture -- I've listened to about half of it-- he alludes to debates among Christian theologians about whether the sexual desirability of boys was something "natural" -- but acting on it was wrong in the same way that some married women are sexually desirable but acting on it is wrong unless you are married to one -- or whether the desire itself put you outside of the circle of "normality" -- which of course it does today.) He implies that Islam accepted the desire of men for beautiful boys as completely natural (my understanding is that there were debates within Islam about the morality of acting on it, but pederasty was rarely condemned the way it was in Christendom). Of course, young men with facial hair were desirable to some people -- e.g., women -- but they were no longer thought of as potentially desirable to other males except in what were regarded at the time as freakish circumstances which he discusses. (e.g.,., men seeking the passive role in anal intercourse). Much of what he says about male homosexuality in the early modern Mediterranean could apply almost word for word to pre-modern Japanese understanding/practice. Differences: it was the onset of hair on the shins rather than hair on the face that spelled the end of a boy's general desirability to men. Boys were widely considered sexually appealing from the age of 7 or 8 on up (that was the age at which boys from the samurai and wealthy merchant classes were sent off to schools run by Buddhist monks.) Certain forms of pederasty were celebrated in Japan particularly if they involved a sort of lifetime commitment on both sides (the sex was supposed to end when the boy started showing leg hair but the friendship and affection was thought to be appropriately lifelong) As indicated, I've got a lot of demands on my time at the moment, but I did watch the first half of the second lecture. Topic is the medieval Christian understanding of/treatment of male homosexuality. Malcolm does a close textual analysis of the relevant Biblical passages (no, the sins of Sodom did not specifically refer to homosexual activity despite later reflexive treatment thereof, but there's no getting around Paul's explicit condemnation)then moves on to the theological debates of the time. SR