Bibliography

Man/Boy Love in Greek Poetry

Homosexuality, mainly in the form of Pederasty lingered on through the Roman Empire until the emperor Justinian banned it in 535 in his Novella.

Food for thought: What allowed the institutions of democracy, philosophy, and art to linger into today's contemporary society with the same respect they held in Greco-Roman times but, lost the accepted practice of Homosexuality and Pederasty in translation?

Images of Greek Homosexual/ Pederastic Relations

The depicted relations most likely occured in the Greek Symposium: A dinner party type occasion that included males as guests, had entertainment, wine, and discussions of politics and philosophy, and about the beauty of Man-Boy love.

Many Greeks viewed homosexuality as one of the highest forms of love because it existed between "equals." With the rise of Hellenism and increased status of women, however, heterosexual relationships became the basis for romance.

NAMBLA

The National Man Boy Love Association bases it's ideology on the ideals that formed part of Ancient Greek homosexual relations between men and boys-that had an educational function.

o Goals:
- Building understanding and support for such relationships
- Educating general public on benevolent nature of man/boy love
- Cooperating with LGBT movements
- Supporting the liberation of persons of all ages from sexual prejudice and oppression (ageism) (talk about rationality and childhood)
- Stands for empowerment of youth
- Condemns sexual abuse and all forms of coercion

"Youth Liberation has argued for some time that young people should have the right to have sex as well as not to have it, and with whom they choose. The statutory structure of the sex laws has been identified as oppressive and insulting to young people. A range of sexual activities are legally defined as molestation, regardless of the quality of the relationship or the amount of consent involved. ...
The recent career of boy-love in the public mind should serve as an alert that the self-interests of the feminist and gay movements are linked to simple justice for stigmatized sexual minorities. ... We must not reject all sexual contact between adults and young people as inherently oppressive."

~ Gayle Rubin, lesbian feminist, in Leaping Lesbian, February, 1978.

"It is quite difficult to lay down barriers [particularly since] it could be that the child, with his own sexuality, may have desired the adult."

~ Michel Foucault

"When children are constantly warned by parents and teachers against contacts with adults, and when they receive no explanation of the exact nature of the contacts, they are ready to become hysterical as soon as any older person approaches, or stops and speaks to them in the street, or fondles them, or proposes to do something for them, even though the adult may have had no sexual objective in mind. Some of the more experienced students of juvenile problems have come to believe that the emotional reactions of the parents, police officers, and other adults who discover that the child has had such a contact, may disturb the child more seriously than the sexual contacts themselves. The current hysteria over sex offenders may very well have serious effects on the ability of many of these children to work out sexual adjustments some years later..."

~ Alfred Kinsey

In & Out (1997)

In & Out is a good example of the stigmas attached to homosexual educators in America. When Howard Brackett is outed on live television by one of his former students, the media and society bombard this small town teacher’s life as a result of his alleged homosexuality.

In the film there is a scene with the principle where it becomes evident that his job is on the line because he decides not to pursue his wedding plans, giving further suspicion of his homosexuality. (Luckily the town rallies for him, saying they are all gay, to get him off the hook.) As an unmarried, possibly homosexual man, he is seen as a threat to the students in the form of a poor model of heteronormative society and is also threatening in that he might spread his homosexual tendencies.

There is also a scene where he walks into the boys locker-room (after the outing) and the boys instantly scrimmage to conceal their unclothed bodies under towels etc. This is an example of the stigma of sexual predators that society gives homosexual educators—in particularly males.

Political Satire

For a Lost Soldier (Voor een verloren soldaat) (1992)

Dateline: To Catch a Predator in the News

New York Times
March 10, 2008
EDITORIAL OBSERVER
What’s on TV Tonight? Humiliation to the Point of Suicide

By ADAM COHEN
In November 2006, a camera crew from “Dateline NBC” and a police SWAT team descended on the Texas home of Louis William Conradt Jr., a 56-year-old assistant district attorney. The series’ “To Catch a Predator” team had allegedly caught Mr. Conradt making online advances to a decoy who pretended to be a 13-year-old boy. When the police and TV crew stormed Mr. Conradt’s home, he took out a handgun and shot himself to death.

“That’ll make good TV,” one of the police officers on the scene reportedly told an NBC producer. Deeply cynical, perhaps, but prescient. “Dateline” aired a segment based on the grim encounter. After telling the ghoulish tale, it ended with Mr. Conradt’s sister decrying the “reckless actions of a self-appointed group acting as judge, jury and executioner, that was encouraged by an out-of-control reality show.”

Mr. Conradt’s sister sued NBC for more than $100 million. Last month, Judge Denny Chin of Federal District Court in New York ruled that her suit could go forward. Judge Chin’s thoughtful ruling sends an important message at a time when humiliation television is ubiquitous, and plumbing ever lower depths of depravity in search of ratings.

NBC’s “To Catch a Predator” franchise is based on an ugly premise. The show lures people into engaging in loathsome activities. It then teams up with the police to stage a humiliating, televised arrest, while the accused still has the presumption of innocence.

Each party to the bargain compromises its professional standards. Rather than hold police accountable, “Dateline” becomes their partners — and may well prod them to more invasive and outrageous actions than they had planned. When Mr. Conradt did not show up at the “sting house” — the usual “To Catch a Predator” format — producers allegedly asked police as a “favor” to storm his home. Ms. Conradt contends that the show encourages police “to give a special intensity to any arrests, so as to enhance the camera effect.”

The police make their own corrupt bargain, ceding law enforcement to TV producers. Could Mr. Conradt have been taken alive if he had been arrested in more conventional fashion, without SWAT agents, cameras and television producers swarming his home? Judge Chin said a jury could plausibly find that it was the television circus, in which the police acted as the ringleader, that led to his suicide.

“To Catch a Predator” is part of an ever-growing lineup of shows that calculatingly appeal to their audience’s worst instincts. The common theme is indulging the audience’s voyeuristic pleasure at someone else’s humiliation, and the nastiness of the put-down has become the whole point of the shows.

Humiliation TV has been around for some time. “The Weakest Link” updated the conventional quiz show by installing a viciously insulting host, and putting the focus on the contestants’ decision about which of their competitors is the most worthless. “The Apprentice” purported to be about young people getting a start in business, but the whole hour built up to a single moment: when Donald Trump barked “You’re fired.”

But to hold viewers’ interest, the levels of shame have inevitably kept growing. A new Fox show, “Moment of Truth,” in a coveted time slot after “American Idol,” dispenses cash prizes for truthfully (based on a lie-detector test) answering intensely private questions. Sample: “Since you’ve been married, have you ever had sexual relations with someone other than your husband?” If the show is as true as it says it is, questions in two recent episodes seemed carefully designed to break up contestants’ marriages.

There are First Amendment concerns, of course, when courts consider suits over TV shows. But when the media act more as police than as journalists, and actually push the police into more extreme violations of rights than the police would come up with themselves, the free speech defense begins to weaken.

Ms. Conradt’s suit contains several legal claims, including “intentional infliction of emotional distress,” for which the bar is very high: conduct “so outrageous in character, and so extreme in degree, as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency, and to be regarded as atrocious, and utterly intolerable in a civilized community.”

Reprehensible as “Moment of Truth” is, it doubtless falls into the venerable category of verbal grotesquery protected by the First Amendment. The producers of “To Catch a Predator”, however, appear to be on the verge — if not over it — of becoming brown shirts with television cameras. If you are going into the business of storming people’s homes and humiliating them to the point of suicide, you should be sure to have some good lawyers on retainer.

Law and Order SVU: Season 11, Episode 5

Law and Order SVU hits home in this episode, as it brings a chilling glimpse into the reality and consequences of holding the stereotypical view South Park, so mockingly, presents of pederasts in contemporary society. In this episode a school’s discovery that one of their young male students contracted Chlamydia leads them to learn that the boy has been sexually abused. The case quickly developed into a witchhunt To Catch a Predator. Shortly into the episode the boy’s stepfather is targeted as his abuser. In pleas for an amnesty agreement, the boy’s stepfather reveals the information about the child-adult civil rights group he was involved in and it’s leader.

The stepfather is found guilty straight away; however, if the leader of the group was not tied to the child pornography—his “ex-girlfriend’s” testimonial appeared at one point to be convincing enough to get him off of the charges. She discloses that their relationship (which at the time was illegal because of her age) was the most normal one she had ever been in. She claims to have come onto him and that he responded saying society would not understand. When asked what her parents thought she disclosed the fact that her mother was an alcoholic and that her father abused her. She said that he encouraged her in ways no one else had and that he was the reason she was now getting her master’s degree. She says that it was this man who made her into the woman she is today.

Although this was not a pederastic relationship, it does bring to mind the circumstance of the proper age of consent. Her guardians were not caring for her and in this position she was perhaps the most rational person to be making the decisions.

Sexual abuse can be defined as a situation in which an adult uses his or her age or authority over a young person to make any type of sexual contact. This is, of course, a serious matter just as any type of unconsentual sex is. If a minor can be tried as an adult for a criminal offense, then why can a minor not be seen as an adult in the eyes of the court if he or she can prove the rationality of his or her decisions.

In some countries the age of consent is as young as thirteen. Most countries, however, range somewhere between fourteen and seventeen—around the time of puberty in most teens. If kids are physically mature enough to be sexually active, perhaps they are mentally as well. If sexual education was more widespread and filled with facts rather than fear tactics young adults would likely be more rational about their sexual decisions.

South Park, Episode 406: June 21, 2000

This episode’s theme surrounds the stereotyped ideals of the North American Man Boy Love Association. The way NAMBLA is presented is an extreme stereotype, one which NAMBLA strives to convince society that it is not. Stereotypes are popular culture’s way of understanding (or misunderstanding) a counter culture. Mainstream society often can not deal with the complications of socially deviant issues, like pederasty, so they simplify the problem (the man in this case) into a one dimensional stereotype.

The stereotype that is most commonly held about the members of NAMBLA is that they use toys, candy, alcohol, pornography, etc to lure unsuspecting boys. The evidence of wine in Sister Aloysuis’ case against Father Flynn in Doubt would be an example of alcohol as a sign of pedophillic coercion taking place-Alcohol is problematic in any individuals ability to consent, at any age. This stereotype of course does raise the point that there are likely to be members who will use these methods, but does that rule out the members who do stand for the stated “beneficial” aspects of NAMBLA that rely on a mutually consenting and honest relationship?

Doubt (2008)

Director, John Patrick Shanley presents an ironically thought provoking perspective with his 2008 premier of Doubt starring Meryl Streep, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, and Amy Adams. With all of the commotion in the media condemning Roman Catholic priests of sexual abuse involving young boys, many of which may have been guilty of, Doubt leaves the viewer to decide for him or herself. The plot of the film develops around the alleged relationships one of the priests appears to be having with a schoolboy. The young boy Father Flynn (Hoffman) is in question of abusing is Donald Miller—St. Nichols first black student. In the film he is excluded socially and after suspicions of his relations with Father Flynn arise it is his place in the school which is most threatened. A movie review from the Washington Post said it well in that “Just when you think you know who the cat and the mouse really are, in steps Viola Davis …As the mother of the student in question, Davis presents ‘Doubt’ with its most sobering and finally haunting philosophical qunaderies, which gave even the implacable Sister Aloysius [Streep] a glimpse of life beyond her own unassailable ideals.”



Sister Alysious, outraged, raises the question of “what kind of mother” Mrs. Miller is and reprimands her for not condemning the “improper relationship” that appears to be developing between Father Flynn and her son. Mrs. Miller proposes that perhaps this relationship would be more beneficial to her son than harmful. That if Father Flynn the only one to befriend her son and be there for him in ways no one else is willing to be then so be it. It seems as though the film portrays a hierarchy of sins as, Sister Aloysius is more concerned with the age facet of the relationship than the homosexual aspect. The film ends in Streeps character admitting that she, “still has doubts,” which until I analyzed from the perspective of this blog I never really read much into. The scene with Mrs. Miller perhaps was an awakening for Streep’s character and instilled doubt in her previously steadfast Christian moral codes.

This film brings the definition of “improper relationship” up for debate. Is it improper if it goes against contemporary social code? Or, if it is a relationship more harmful than beneficial for the parties involved? The age of consent is also up for debate. Since, Donald Miller is a minor he is never asked for his say in the matter of his alleged relationship with Father Flynn. When his guardian, his mother is confronted, her opinion is basically disregarded for being one that is devoid of social, heteronormative, and Christian ideologies—deeming both Mrs. Miller and her son as irrational.



Shanley reveals in the interview with IGN.com that he never intended to disclose whether or not any sexual act actually transpired between Father Flynn and Donald saying that, “one can never know the secrets of another person’s heart of mind.” The film he says, “is not meant to assume knowing more than it knows.” There is really not enough evidence in the movie to prove Father Flynn guilty or innocent of Sister Aloysius' accusations, although there is enough to argue both sides. The determining factor, however, is society. Society has conditioned many of its viewers to instinctively throw the book at Father Flynn without taking a close look at the situation at hand. By omitting a verdict, Shanley invites viewers to go out and have a conversation of their own and to do less “yelling” and more “talking” in order to come to a conclusion.

Overview

Relationships between adults and minors—man/boy—in particular have been controversial in American history since the creation of the nation, which was founded on Puritan Christian social codes and beliefs. In addition to social codes, State and Federal laws now exist prohibiting such sexual relationships. Yet, an association now exists, NAMBLA (North American Boy Love Association,) which follows an ideology that is founded on the concept of healthy sexual relations between older men and boys.

In recent decades it seems as though this pederastic counter culture has become a popular subject of mainstream media attention, perhaps provoking an appeal for the socially deviant institution. The question remains; however, are media representations mirrored reflections of contemporary society? Or are media representations of society dictating and manipulating contemporary society itself?

Ancient Greek culture (among others) had an accepted role for such man-boy relationship but also allowed for heterosexual relations later in life. This mutually consenting relationship typically existed between an erastes (an older man of 20-30 years of age) and his eremonos (teenage boy of about 12-18.) Still in Ancient Greek culture, laws and social codes regulated this type of relationship. Man boy interaction was seen as an important tool for an aristocratic boy’s education. Literature, art, philosophy, and law were all major aspects of life in the ancient world; each of which showed outright expressions and acceptance of love between males and young boys.