paederasty

Greek paederasty is explained by gender inferiority but then accounted for by the "peculiar nature" of the Greeks.

The Uses and Abuses of Historicism: Halperin and Shelley on the Otherness of Ancient Greek Sexuality 2006

It was probably at this comparatively late period that certain foreign customs of a sadly lowering character were adopted by this plastic and impressible people, who learnt the vice of paederasty from the Greeks, and adopted from the

The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia The History, Geography, And Antiquities Of Chaldaea, Assyria, Babylon, Media, Persia, Parthia, And Sassanian or New Persian Empire; With Maps and Illustrations. George Rawlinson 1857

Halperin's sense of how Greek paederasty renders masculinity is complicated by his view that modern homosexuality is about the absence of gender difference.

The Uses and Abuses of Historicism: Halperin and Shelley on the Otherness of Ancient Greek Sexuality 2006

And by refusing to separate both sexual intercourse between men from love, and paederasty from same-sex love, Shelley posits something like homosexuality.

The Uses and Abuses of Historicism: Halperin and Shelley on the Otherness of Ancient Greek Sexuality 2006

He has thus refined his notion of alterity from a "priggish" one that would not acknowledge any resemblance (14) between ancient paederasty and modern homosexuality, to an alterity that now "acknowledge [s], promote [s], and support [s] a heterogeneity of queer identities, past and present"

The Uses and Abuses of Historicism: Halperin and Shelley on the Otherness of Ancient Greek Sexuality 2006

Halperin wants to make Greek paederasty an inverted form of our inversion: paederasty makes Greek men more manly.

The Uses and Abuses of Historicism: Halperin and Shelley on the Otherness of Ancient Greek Sexuality 2006

And the poet not only explains the alterity of Greek sexuality in terms of gender inequality, but he also denies the existence of gender inequality in Britain to make love between men and paederasty now impossible.

The Uses and Abuses of Historicism: Halperin and Shelley on the Otherness of Ancient Greek Sexuality 2006

At very least, Shelley inadvertently explains why paederasty and/or love between men exists in Italy: like Ancient

The Uses and Abuses of Historicism: Halperin and Shelley on the Otherness of Ancient Greek Sexuality 2006

Eric Clarke largely passes over Shelley's essay; he notes that Shelley could not get over an incongruity between Greek paederasty and Greek philosophy as thus he "postulated wet daydreams as the true source" behind homoeroticism (127).

Notes on 'The Uses and Abuses of Historicism: Halperin and Shelley on the Otherness of Ancient Greek Sexuality' 2006

Shelley cannot conceptualize paederasty as a form of homosexual sex that is pleasurable sex, and without pleasure there can be no consent.

The Uses and Abuses of Historicism: Halperin and Shelley on the Otherness of Ancient Greek Sexuality 2006