To assuage fears about the violation of youth, homophile sexual scientists keen to present a socially acceptable model of male same‐sex relationships rejected affirmative framings of age‐differentiated relationships. They constructed an influential alternative model of homosexuality that was increasingly at odds with existing Hellenising accounts of same‐sex erotics that celebrated bonds between older and younger men.

This sexual scientific model had four interrelated elements. First, male homosexuality was framed as involving adults rather than boys and children. Second, the concept of consent was marshalled to distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate same‐sex acts. Third, the homosexual was constructed as a person who was driven by gendered desires, rather than the desire for youth: the key characteristics of the homosexual became his attraction to other men and his lack of desire for women. Fourth, homosexuality was constructed as an inborn and unchanging lifelong orientation that was not caused by seduction or experiences in youth. This new model excluded men whose desire was directed towards younger partners. The category of the paedophile came into existence to describe such individuals and to establish clear distinctions between homosexuality and age‐differentiated desires. [Footnotes omitted]