Re: wow
Submitted by Jules on March 18 2002 16:37:54
In reply to Re: wow submitted by Splash! on March 18 2002 01:19:42
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Hi Splash! I've been hanging around at the back for a while, wondering what to say, but what can I say?! You've said it all! there'd be a good chance I'd harm the boy -- even if the only harm to him is that he later tells someone about it and they make him feel bad.Now that's enough of a reason for anyone, I should think! It's certainly enough of a reason for me. Nate says that the only harm comes from other people's views, and that the sex wouldn't be wrong in itself. This might be true, in some cases at least, but the problem is that it's purely hypothetical. We don't actually live in a world where no-one thinks it's wrong, and so the possibility of the boy not getting any doubts from other people doesn't exist. We might try to imagine a different world, in which no-one objects to boysex, and in which it therefore does no harm, directly or indirectly, but assuming our world will never be like this, it's a futile argument. Or rather, to be fairer, it has theoretical value in helping us think about which things are harmful, and which are not, and why, but it doesn't actually change our behaviour in practice. It doesn't actually allow any of us to engage freely in such sex in real life, because the possibility of harm is still there, and I suspect always will be. We can look back on the Greek or Roman culture, or at least the parts of them where there was no particular stigma attached to boysex, and perhaps argue that in those societies, it did no harm. Such discussions have academic value, in helping to think about the issues, but again they don't affect our practical lifestyle, because we could never change our society back to the way those societies were. How ever much we idealise Greek or Roman society in relation to boylove, the fact is that there were a lot of other things in that society that allowed boylove to flourish, which we no longer have today, and without which it cannot return. For example, soceity then was patriarchal (male ruled), so that boys were trained by men. We've replaced this with coeducation and a belief in equal rights of men and women, and the right of either to fulfil the same function in society. It would be hard for the West to go back on this now! Curtis' post at BC that he linked from here provides a fascinating analysis of the position of boylove in the patriarchy of the church in past centuries, and to some extent I agree that we have lost something when boys are no longer trained by men, but is it really possible that we could return to this sort of education without rejecting the modern belief in equal rights for men and women? We've also introduced a stronger concept of childhood so that, whilst in the past a 14 year old was considered a young man, he is now still a boy. Whether we like this or not, it's a fact that can't be ignored, and can't be reversed. Neither of these factors are likely to change in our lifetime, and so neither could the general acceptance of boylove. I'm not sure whether this is really relevant to the argument, or whether I've just wandered off on my own, but that's how it came out anyway! I've enjoyed reading this discussion! Thank you Splash and others! With Christian love, Jules |
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