The fact of the matter is that "pederasty" bears some connotations in modern society, and when people argue that pederasty was widespread they should put it in context of the times.
Is pederasty widespread in our modern European societies? If I want I can find a lot of relative porn on the internets, by comparison definitely more than in ancient literature and art.
Is pederasty banned by law in our European societies? I believe it is. It also was in the ancient Greek city-states according to the primary sources already posited in this thread, not the "latter scholarly consensus". This very simple statement negates the exotic homophiliac pederasty charged on the Classics that is allegedly very different from our modern christian derived societies.
Regarding the verb
erao, you are mistaken, it was used for both contexts, not just for physical sexual desire. But also for friendship and love among friends.
My main position is that, ancient Greeks were quite open about their sexual practices,much the same way today our society is quite open about her sexual life. They discussed them, that does not mean that they were a bunch of pederastic homosexuals with institutionalized pederasty. They were exactly as all humans are, and have been throughout the ages, men and women have enjoyed the company of both sexes depending on the circumstances. They were not special in any regard, they were just honest about their sexual practices and their records survived the test of time unlike any of their neighbors, who might have never had discussed on paper such matters. That does not make them sexually exceptional. In the Symposium for example a lot of gravity is given to Agathon and Aristophanes, while our Classics scholar in here has failed to notice that erastes/eromenos is eventually ideally defined in that very same book as the ultimate relationship between 2 men
at the absense of physical attraction. I mean did you miss Socrates' argument against Alciviades? On the same note, people put effort into "reading behind the lines" of the dialogue to argue about mainstream widespread acceptance but also fail to mention that the symposiasts have in their company prostitutes as was the mainstream Greek symposia. These elit aristocrats who discuss Eros -in a book that has become gospel inside Gay-rights radical activists- argue about the God of Love in the presence of
female hookers(hetaire and aulitrides).
The fact that Socrates who by and large ridicules homosexual acts, admits that some men(Charmides) are beautiful and the shtick carries on. I have said to men in here that are handsome when I saw their picture and I have never had homosexual inclinations. This is just honesty, not some undercover homoeroticism.
Regarding education, it has been general practice that men have tutored men, in all societies not just the Greco-Roman one, since they tutored them in letters but also in the art of war, as such in all societies sexual practices may or may not develop among teacher and student. Once again, discussing it, does not demonstrate widespread acceptance, much the same way that the respective scientific field in our universities analyzing the phenomeno does not demonstrate widespread acceptance for our modern societies. Vile sexual acts were condemned by the greatest of Greek philosophers just like and as much as they have been condemned by modern law and christian scripture. On top of that they were banned.
viewtopic.php?p=1183665#p1183665I sincerely, and trust you me I have a love for the classics and do not have any anti-homosexual tendencies, know that there is nothing special about Greek sexual practices, they were absolutely no different than others in that regard, their laws were on par with post-christian society regarding sexual matters, and if anything can be said is that homosexual practice merely became less visible out in the open market post-christianity but has returned to normality in the modern day and age. With the exception that today, there is a gay identity that seeks symbols and history, this I oppose when my history gets twisted to serve alien interests, just as I oppose the twisting of my history to serve Marxist scenarios, propaganda by foreign countries, or christian exceptionalism. I do not want my history to be appropriated by anybody, twisted and fucked over just so the Gay movement creates its scripture. This charge is very true and real, not just the ramblings of a Greek conservative and it is further inflated by millenia-old christian propaganda who allegedly changed the world, when in reality it made no profound social change, but merely political. This might be the only matter where radical & politicized Homosexuals and radical Christian apologists agree, each for his own reasons of coarse.
EN EL ED EM ON
...take your common sense with you, and leave your prejudices behind...