In bed with the Romans: a brief history of sex in Ancient Romeĭid pederasty extend to young girls as well?.The older partner would instruct the younger, would be their mentor, while the junior partner provided sexual satisfaction and companionship in a society where, before you were married, it was actually very difficult to have any relation with the opposite sex.”
“In other words, as part of the educational cycle in Sparta you were paired up with an adult Spartan warrior for mutual benefit. “In Sparta, it seems that pederasty was not optional at all,” says Cartledge. (Photo by World History Archive/Alamy Stock Photo) “Part of the educational cycle”: Spartan boys and pederasty
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In other cities – and Sparta, I would argue, was one, it was a rite of passage for all males, it was part of transitioning from adolescence to full civic adulthood.”
At Athens, for example, where elaborate courtship rituals and protocols were in place, it was probably a practice mostly confined to the socially elite, the wealthier classes. “The evidence suggests that, although it was really quite widespread and in that sense ‘normal’, on the other hand different Greek societies operated with different kinds of social tolerances. “It is difficult to generalise about the frequency of pederasty in the ancient Geek world,” says Cartledge. How common was pederasty in ancient Greece?
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There were various rules around gymnasiums – for example, slaves were barred from using them because it was thought it would be too easy for a free citizen, an adult male, to do what he wanted to them. Which is why it’s called a gymnasium – gymnós means ‘naked’. Lots of Greek cities had areas where you could exercise – the Greeks were very keen on athletics, especially wrestling, and they typically exercised nude. “There were also rules forbidding sexual congress or sexual arrangements in the gymnasium, for example. However, even if you were 17, you weren’t a legally independent adult. “At 17 you might well be the junior partner in a homosexual relationship with a man only a few years older than you – in other words, it might have been considered to be quite an equal relationship. “A 12-year-old boy was going to be less able to have a say in resisting or in manipulating or determining the nature of the relationship with the older man, than, say, a 17-year-old boy,” Cartledge explains. The crucial point, says Cartledge, was the age of the younger, junior, subadult party, and how much agency that junior partner had. And if you were a young man offering sexual services – in other words if you were, let’s say, 17, and you openly or covertly offered your body for purely sexual reasons to an adult male – well that could be subject to an accusation of criminal prostitution, which would have political consequences.” Predators who went around looking for young boys to get off with and to have sex with were frowned upon very strongly. “If it was thought that the junior partner was being forced into it, then that was not good, that was frowned upon. There was a voting age for males, an age of majority, 18 at Athens for example, but there was no ‘age of consent’ as we understand that legal concept. There were many, many different Greek societies, each with their own social and sexual norms and legal regulations. “Very rarely was pederasty criminalised, but there were rules and regulations, it was not a ‘free for all’. “It was extremely complicated, there were lots of shades of grey,” says Cartledge. The erastes might be what you and I would call ‘exclusively’ homosexual, but they might be married to a woman as well – and that is, of course, not unknown in our society today.” Was pederasty considered to be socially acceptable in ancient Greece? “The relationship was between an adult male over the age of 20 (the erastes) and a younger male (the eromenos). “But ‘pederasty’ ( paiderastia) refers specifically to boys. “In ancient Greece it could be of either sex – the word pais is unisex – it could involve an underage sub-adult, either male or female,” says Cartledge. An illegal and totally unacceptable practice today, the subject of pederasty is a highly sensitive one, he adds. “Pederasty literally means lust for, or love of, in a strong sexual sense, children,” says Professor Cartledge.