Re: Hysteria triumphant

Indeed, and the important thing about data of this kind (and the studies are referenced properly in the original -- I just didn't include the notes in my quote) is that it shows, without a shadow of a doubt, that the current intolerance of pederasty is based on nothing but Presentist prejudice supported by historical illiteracy. For what is the story that contemporary ideology must tell itself about cases like these, before the hysteria that gripped the West persuaded all boys that any sexual contact with adults must be traumatising? Are we supposed to believe that the boys who were willing participants all secretly harboured trauma for decades afterwards? And are we supposed to believe the same about the loved boys in ancient Greece or seventeenth century Japan? Sorry, but this is simply not credible. Isn't it as clear as daylight that boys were never traumatised by such interactions in the past because they were never indoctrinated to believe that they should be? Look at the relationships that a man like Norman Douglas had with his boys. Even Rachel Hope Cleves has to admit that the boys in Douglas' affairs viewed their relationships as a source of pleasure for decades afterwards -- and she spends several chapters of her book in absurd handwringing over how this is impossible to fit in with contemporary ideology. TRUTH - real, objective truth - is 100 per cent on our side, and absolutely NOTHING can change this. Even if we are persecuted for ever more, even if we never gain any tolerance or acceptance to the end of human history, it is still the case that truth is now, and always was, on our side. Nothing and no one can take that from us.