Directed by Jean Delannoy, the film was released in 1964.

Quite rarely does a film touch one’s soul like “Les Amitiés Particulières” has touched mine.

Based on the novel of the same name, Les Amitiés Particulières tells the touching story of a romantic relationship between a beautiful 12 year old boy and an upperclassman in a 1920s French Catholic School.

Georges de Sarre, an aristocratic French youth is sent to the Catholic boarding school. He quickly develops feelings for another 14 year old boy, Lucien Rouvière. As it turns out, Rouvière is already involved in a homosexual relationship with another boy in his class, André Ferron. After Georges gets André expelled in order to be with Rouvière, Rouvière decides to embrace Catholicism and fight his homosexual impulses. But another boy, beautiful Alexandre, catches Georges attention. The film exquisitely deals with how the relationships starts and develops, and how it is dealt with the various priests in the school.

Rouvière and Georges

Beautiful Alexandre, played by Didier Haudepin

The Confessor Priest and Alexandre

The novel, written by Roger Peyrefitte in 1948, is largely autobiographical. In fact, Peyrefitte was known for his pederastic inclinations: While on the set of the film, Peyrefitte met the 12-year-old aristocrat Alain-Philippe Malagnac d’Argens de Villèle, who had been cast as a choir boy and was a big fan of the book.

The novel's front cover

Not only did Peyrefitte sign Alain-Philippe’s copy of the book but the two also fell in love, pursuing a stormy relationship that Peyrefitte chronicled in some of his later novels such as Notre Amour (1967) and L’Enfant de cœur (1978).

In order to avoid spoiling the film, I will not go into further plot details, but in my opinion, it is unlike any other films. Though released in the early 60s and being black-and-white, it is never dull, and yet always exquisite. I would dare say that it is probably one of the best films I have ever seen.

Embedded below is part 1 of the film. The rest of the parts can be found on Youtube (both in the original French version, and the English subtitled one).

Lord Byron at age 25, by R. Westall, 1813.

As it is common with many distinguished British gentleman, there is a lot of their lives we don’t know. Lord Byron’s bisexuality, for example, has only been recently unveiled, having been censored for a long time. What still has yet to be fully publicized, however, was his pederastic inclinations (both as an eromenos and as an erastes).

As a Harrow boy in 1804, he lived his first homosexual experiences, both as the younger and the older partner. Though the information is quite murky, it is believed that he had a sexual relationship with his tenant at Newstead Abbey, Lord Henry Grey de Ruthyn, a much older man. If the boy found it “traumatic”, we do not know, but the fact of the matter is that Byron went on to cultivate many “special friendships” with boys at Harrow. Byron refered to his school friendships as “passions“, and his nostalgic poems about his Harrow friendships, ‘Childish Recollections’ (1806), express a sense of melancholy at the passing of youthful freedoms, even a prescient ‘consciousness of sexual differences that may in the end make England untenable to him.’

“Ah! Sure some stronger impulse vibrates here,

Which whispers friendship will be doubly dear

To one, who thus for kindred hearts must roam,

And seek abroad, the love denied at home.”

Morning Splendour, by Henry Scott Tuke

Perhaps the most lasting of those Harrow friendships was with John FitzGibbon, 2nd Earl of Clare, a boy four years Byron’s junior. That means that even at their oldest, the boys were 18 and 14, respectively. Given the tender age of both boys, it is unknown whether the boys recognized their relationship as romantic, or just “went with the flow”. Records show, however, that a sexual relationship very likely occured.

It was at Cambridge’s Trinity College, that Byron really became a full-fledged erastes. He befriended John Edleston, a younger choirboy who Byron considered his “protegé”. In later years he described the affair as ‘a violent, though pure love and passion’. As he had done at Harrow, Byron played both the erastes and the eromenos roles. He befriended older men while at Cambridge, including Francis Hodgson, a fellow at King’s. It is unknown, however, whether these friendships evolved into something deeper. In fact, by his own admission, Lord Byron’s true love was his genuine eromenos, John Edleston.

“Oh! ever loving, lovely, and beloved!
How selfish Sorrow ponders on the past,
And clings to thoughts now better far removed!
But Time shall tear thy shadow from me last.
All thou couldst have of mine, stern Death! thou hast;
The Parent, Friend, and now the more than Friend:
Ne’er yet for one thine arrows flew so fast,
And grief with grief continuing still to blend,
Hath snatched the little joy that Life had yet to lend.”

Lord Byron’s “To Eddleston”. 1817-1818.

√ May I suggest History Channel’s documentary on Lord Byron, mainly beacause it is freely available on YouTube. As it is common with most documentaries, a great deal of censure is present, so bear that in mind. Embedded below is the passage that deals with Byron falling in love with young Edleston.

Despite the safety and anonymity that the internet offers, there is no escaping the fact that publicly stating a pederastic attraction is not only frowned upon by the vast majority of people, but can also have some serious consequences.

Calling someone a pederast (remember that modern mainstream thought functions to-wit: pederast means “pedophile” which in turn means “child molester”) is akin to calling someone a Muslim terrorist. Pederasty is by no means an easy thing to advocate for.

But there are millions and millions of people in the world with such inclination. Make no mistake about it. I would even suggest that there might be more pederasts than androphile gay men (that has been, after all, the norm throughout history). This humble blog receives about 4500 daily visits. That’s almost 32000 people a week. Yet only a  small minority vote on the polls, an even a smaller minority comment on the posts. This mirrors the situation in the real world. There are millions of pederasts out there, but only a small fraction accept that attraction, and only an even smaller fraction are involved in some sort of activism.

There are four main ways of dealing with pederastic inclinations in modern society:

1. Rejection: Those who are attracted to teenage boys will repress all attraction, be it sexual (by not looking at pictures, for example) or emotional (by staying away from any place with a large concentration of adolescent boys).
2. Assimilation: A pederast adapts his inclinations to fit in with current norms and standards. Sexual pederastic impulses are repressed (or limited to self-stimulation), while emotional pederastic impulses can be nurtured, but never publicly acknowledged.
3. Semi-Activism: A pederast can anonymously fight to change public opinion. Thanks to the internet, it is quite an easy task. Offline, however, he likely will choose the assimilation route.
4. Activism: He stands up publicly for what he believes is right. He overtly challenges the status-quo. Often with dire consequences.

While certainly tongue-in-cheek, Jonathan King (here posing as Oscar Wilde) exemplifies the position of outright defiance:

Film is our era’s entertainment channel par excellence, and it is one of the best ways to capture a time’s values and customs. Had film existed in Classical Greece, there would be thousands of movies dealing with pederasty. Whenever pederasty was accepted, however, film, unlike other art forms, had not yet been invented. That is why there is no extensive pederastic filmography… At least not as extensive as the hundreds of thousands of paintings, sculptures, novels or plays dealing with it.

Luckily, I have had the opportunity to watch a decent sample of pederastic filmography, however. I believe the following five movies are quite representative of the different approaches filmmakers have taken in dealing with such a taboo subject.

• Death in Venice (1971): Directed by Luchino Visconti, it is the film adaptation of Thomas Mann’s novella Death in Venice. It is the story of Gustav von Aschenbach, a German composer who becomes obsessed with a Polish boy (Tadzio, played by Björn Andrésen) while visiting Venice. The film can be quite dull for the modern viewer, but some people say it’s worth watching just to see Andrésen, who they claim is the “most beautiful boy in the world”. Personally, though I love the story’s leitmotif, I find the film adaptation to be rather tedious, and Andrésen’s beauty much overrated.

• Du Er Ikke Alene (You are not alone, 1978): An endearing Danish coming-of-age film, it tells the story of two boarding school boys, Bo and Kim, who fall in love with each other. It was one of the first films that dealt with boy-exclusive pederasty, that is, a homosexual relationship between two underage boys, with one being older than the other. It has a very 1970s “liberated” feel to it. Too bad Kim’s hair makes him look a tad too girlish.

• Voor Een Verloren Soldaat (For a Lost Soldier, 1993): Walking the line between pedophilia and pederasty, this Dutch film, based on a true story, portrays the romantic and sexual relationship between a 22 year-old Canadian soldier and a 12 year-old Dutch boy during the North American liberation of Nazi-occupied 1944 Holland. The film is an adaptation of the book written by choreographer Rudi van Dantzig, who viewed his relationship with the soldier in a very positive light. The film is a bit slow at times, but the story and its treatment definitely make it worth watching.

• The Man Without a Face (1993): Probably the most mainstream of these titles, this Mel Gibson film is a beautiful coming-of-age story about the friendship between Chuck, a 13-year-old boy (superbly played by Nick Stahl) and a deeply scarred former teacher (Gibson). The film is an adaptation of Isabelle Holland’s 1972 novel of the same name, and, while the book makes it clear that the relationship was also sexual, the film is much more ambiguous. It is nonetheless a beautiful story, with excellent acting, and a truly great portrayal of an emotional pederastic relationship, and of people’s irrational fears towards it. Quite probably one of the best films ever made.

• L.I.E. (2001): Long Island Expressway (L.I.E.) is one of the most recent films dealing with pederasty.  Directed by Michael Cuesta, it’s the story about a tumultuous relationship between a 15-year-old boy (played by Paul Dano), and an older man, known as “Big John”. The film differs from the previous titles in that it does not seem to romanticize the relationship, but rather realistically explores it. Released in the 21st Century, in the middle of the Hysteric Era, the film received an NC-17 rating from the MPAA, even though it does not graphically portray any sexual activity between the boy and “Big John”. The film does carry some 21st century prejudices in its portrayal, but it is nonetheless a refreshing film… And a brave one at that.

All of these films can be watched or bought online, and most of them are available on YouTube or other online streaming websites. If you can suggest other titles, please feel free to do so.

"Socratic Love". Erotic painting by Edouard-Henri Avril, depicting Socrates getting ready for sexual intercourse with his pupil, Alcibiades.

The Uranians were a small group of poets, who constituted a pederastic artistic fellowship during Victorian England. While their exact membership is unknown, three major figures stand out: Gerard Hopkins, Walter Pater, and, of course, Oscar Wilde. The Uranians saw themselves not as a “subculture”, but as the culture, the true heirs of the Western Greco-Roman tradition. As Pater wrote in his piece, The Renaissance (1893), “Hellenism is not merely an absorbed element in our intellectual life; it is a conscious tradition in it”.

This profound admiration for the Classical world is probably rooted in their elite education. In fact, all of the Uranians were educated at Eton and/or Oxford in a ‘Greats curriculum’ based on the close reading of Greek and Latin texts. As a result, they all shared an appreciation for a Greco-Roman world in which ‘paiderastia, or boy-love, was a phenomenon of one of the most brilliant periods of human culture’. Hence, even at their most oblique, these writers were Classically allusive enough to have been understood by their Oxford-educated coterie, a coterie to which they were often responsive, a coterie that can rightly be said to have constituted a ‘fellowship of pederasts’.

"The Hit", by Lord Frederick Leighton

Far from a means of evasion, allusions to the Greeks were a tool for valorization in a strategy for social acceptance. Surveying the allusions, one sees that they are largely to asymmetrical relationships, either clearly age-structured, or between a god and a mortal, or a warrior/hero and his protégé […], or various combinations thereof. […] Such relationships today are regarded as inherently morally culpable, paternalistic and patronizing at best, exploitative or even ‘abuse’ at the worst; to hold up such relationships as an ideal is accordingly viewed either as self-justification on the part of the ‘superordinate’ party, or hypocrisy. Yet this inequality is part of the objective outline that Uranians saw in their Greek mirror; the Greek relationships were asymmetrical, and the Uranians saw themselves in this outline and filled in their own features. After all, the Uranians believed that Grecian pederasty had not only been sanctioned by the gods, but had also seeded Western philosophy, had spurred military bravery, had inspired the highest arts, and had cradled democracy.

Of course, their views were at odds with the social and moral norms of Victorian England, so the poets were forced to navigate between the Victorian norms and those of the ancient Greeks. As a result, there were different approaches on how to deal with the “boy issue” among the Uranians. On one hand, there was a compromising view, that which was conciliatory to the era’s social orthodoxies. Gerard Hopkins (a Jesuit priest) sublimated most, if not all, his pederastic desires. So did, for the most part, Walter Pater (though he did actualize his desires once, which threatened his academic career). On the other hand, there was a perversely dissident view. Instead of adjusting boy-worship to the time’s norms, Uranians like Oscar Wilde overtly rebelled against them, and in fact actualized almost all of his the pederastic impulses.

There was also a common distaste for women among the Uranians. Unlike today’s “gay men”, the Uranians were strongly masculine, and were frontally opposed to feminism or egalitarianism (theories in which today’s gay rights movement are actually based on). Uranian poet John Addington Symonds’ translation of the ancient Greek dialogue Erôtes is, in this regard, quite paradigmatic:

Not only did the poets voice a clear preference for boys, but Uranian writers, such as Frederick Rolfe were deeply misogynistic. The Uranian landscape was dominated by men – their bodies and activities, their forms of beauty – often hailed at the direct expense of women. A scathing passage from Rolfe’s The Desire and Pursuit of the Whole expresses the author’s view about the body of women, and indicates a strong revulsion towards females, to the point of describing their bodies as a “a parrot crossed with a jelly-fish”. These sentiments were not caused by, as many  politically-correct critics hold, the “homosocial environment” the Uranians lived in. The Uranians did not repudiate women because they were surrounded by men. They repudiated women because they thought that even in the field of beauty, boys were much superior to women. Consider these other two poems:

√ This concludes part I on Pederasty and Victorian England. Since it is a very extensive topic, I deemed it better to divide the posts into two or three instead of concentrating everything into one single post.Comments are suggestions are welcomed (and remember, they are totally anonymous, you do not need to provide your email or name, just leave it blank).

It is common for many homophobes to denounce homosexuality and pederasty as unnatural, since, as they claim, it goes against the l”aws of nature”. They argue that since two males cannot have children, homosexuality will end up altering the natural course and even bringing the human race into an “endangered species” level.

Beautiful boy by Pierre Joubert

While this sounds blown out of proportion and absurd, there is some validity to what they say. Current androphile “gay men” cannot procreate, and most likely will never do so in their lives. Since they are in a “partnership” with another man their age, and they have assumed a “gay identity”, they will never even consider having children with a woman. That is where pederasty differs from androphile homosexuality. Historically, men who engaged in pederasty did not stop getting married, and many had children. In fact, many pederasts (especially the emotional kind), have a strong desire to be fathers and have children of their own. Pederasty was something parallel to marriage and family, and it never intended to substitute it.

Homosexual relationships among teenage boys are also immune to the procreation argument. In the past, a large number teenage boys “fooled around” with other boys, and very few of them ended up not marrying, or living permanently with another man. Fooling around was just a way to experiment, just another sexual outlet, which, like pederasty, was totally unrelated to future plans of marriage or children. When homosexuality became an “identity”, all homosexual conduct had to submit to the new “gay” (or even worse, “queer”) rules. Nowadays, doing something homosexual means you are gay. That is one of the reasons that explains that homosexual experimentation among teenage boys might be decreasing. Not too long ago jacking off your friend was “fooling around”, today, it’s “being gay”.

Gorgeous boy by Vladimir Timofeev

This change in paradigm has removed two healthy outlets adolescent boys used to have (pederasty and fooling around), and have left them with very limited options. This could explain why so many teenage boys are having sex with girls so early (and thus getting them pregnant), or why there has been a rise in violence or sadistic trends among teens.

There is of course a wider “not natural” argument against pederasty: Since boylove is completely absent in all other species, it is unnatural. The Greeks responded to that criticism arguing that precisely because of that, pederasty was superior, since it necessitated the smartest and more capable of the species to envision it. But perhaps Goethe said it best:

Pederasty is as old as humanity itself, and one can therefore say that it’s natural, that it resides in nature, even if it proceeds against nature. And what culture has won from nature will not be given up at any price.

-        Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, April 1830

I have been extremely busy lately. That’s why I couldn’t post last week. And that’s why I still haven’t finished a couple of historical research pieces on pederasty in the Renaissance and in Victorian England. So today, instead of unwrapping historical truths, I will explore the psychological (or sexologist) theories behind pederasty.

The pederastic attraction usually starts as an emotional attraction towards boys entering adolescence

As many of you are aware of by now, pederasty and homosexuality were not two distinct phenomena until the late 20th Century, when the feminist and “gay-rights movement” completely changed the paradigm and tossed away any pederastic elements from the newly defined homosexuality. In part because of that, the study of pederasty became something linked to a marginal group, and the only research done on the subject was framed in “child abuse” or “mentally disorder” paradigms. As we have seen, these theories are absurd, but most of the researchers still subscribe to them.

Despite its obvious bias, psychologists usually distinguish four groups of sexual attraction, each of which is linked to the “age of attraction”:

• Pedophilia: Sexual attraction to children, especially prepubescent children. In our society, almost synonymic to child abuse. Many “strict pedophiles” do not have much of a gender preference.
• Hebephilia: Attraction to pubescent individuals, especially those in the early stages. Age range: 12-15. Some absurdly see it as a type of pedophilia since they regard anyone under 18 a “child”, without noting that many countries in the world, such as Spain or Japan, have 13 as the age of consent.
• Ephebophilia: Attraction to teenagers, especially those in their latter teenage years. Age range: 15-19. While its reputation is not as tarnished as hebephilia, the confusion between how a child is defined clinically and how a child is defined legally is still strong, to the point that the media will label anyone who has an intimate relationship with a minor (<18) as a “pedophile”.
• Teleiophilia: Attraction to adults (20-60 aprox). Also known as androphilia when dealing with homosexuality.
• Gerontophilia: Attraction to the elderly (>60).

Historically, pederasty can be described as a mix between hebeophilia and ephebophilia.

Sometimes, pederasts might be attracted to boys as young as 11, but the attraction is usually emotional (not sexual) in nature.

However, many believe these definitions are incomplete, and pederasty cannot be limited to any of them. The above clinical definitions tend to treat sexual orientation as part of an unbreakable sexual identity, though some do admit that there are individuals that may display certain “tendencies”, and not not necessarily be limited to them. The rule of thumb they use, however, is that someone belongs to the group that he prefers. That is, an adult man who prefers teenage boys to men will be labeled as an “hebephile” or “ephebophile”, while one that generally prefers adults but also likes teenagers, will be labeled as a “teleiophile” with “hebephiliac/ephobhiliac” tendencies.

Let me suggest my own definition of a pederast:

1. A pederast is a male who feels an attraction (be it sexual, emotional, or both) towards adolescent boys (12-19).
2. He need not be attracted to all of the ages included in the above definition, and might have a preferred “age of attraction” (which is generally strongest in the 13-16 range).
3. He does NOT feel the same way about adolescent girls.
4. He might display other sexual preferences, the most common being heterosexual teleiophilia.
5. He is usually very good at establishing friendships with adolescent boys, and generally will make excellent fathers (especially to sons, to whom is unlikely that he will be sexually attracted).

How about you? Do you agree with the above definition? What is your ideal age of attraction? Any comments are welcomed, and poll votes are encouraged, since it helps with the research.

Can you imagine any of these magazines (which were freely sold not only in gay bookstores but in newsstands) being published (yet alone sold) today? Some of these magazines were published as late as the 80s… Who would’ve thought that society would so severely censor anything boy-related just a few years down the road? Today, only Destroyer Magazine tries to do something remotely similar to what these vintage joys did. And the backlash it faces is staggering.

(Click on thumbnail to enlarge pictures)

Pre-Nazi Germany was a unique period in history. The inhibited way the Germans looked at body culture, and the way they used it in raising their youth in exploring comradeship, nature and sports was laden with many classical Greek and pederastic signals. It is not at all surprising then, that the first modern pederastic publications arose during that time.

Ludwig Von Hofmann

The roots of the modern homosexual movement can be found in fin-de-siècle Germany. After a few years of a rather united existence, there was an important rift within the movement. On one hand, there were those who supported Magnus Hirschfeld and his “Scientific Humanitarian Committee”, and, on the other, those who opposed his views, such as pederasts Adolf Brand and Benedict Friedländer.

Hirschfeld’s views were uncanny similar to today’s LGBT theory. Influenced by the spread of the “medical model” in studying homosexuality, the Scientific Humanitarian Committee supporters believed that homosexuals were part of a “third sex” (Zwischenstufen), a group of “physic hermaphrodites” that, as a minority, had to be “protected” and “tolerated”. Today, the “LGBT” groups, in a kind of throwback to the nineteenth century, argue that homosexuality is inborn, that it is genetically determined (“we can’t help it that we’re gay, we were born that way, so please don’t discriminate against us”). The “gay movement” today seeks special treatment for a special kind of person who has adopted a “gay” identity – “gay people” – rather than seeking to liberate the repressed sexual potential of everyone. For them, what matters is identity, not practice.

One of the first "Der Eigene" covers

Brand and Friedländer were frontally opposed to such absurd theories. Brand and Friedländer were heirs to the classical homosexual tradition, that is, pederasty. Organized around the Gemeinschaft der Eigenen and its flagship publication Der Eigene, these men believed in an inherent bisexuality of human beings and felt that younger and older males were naturally attracted to each other. Furthermore, they argued that pederasty was a positive good for society because it helped to socialize young males and provided them with a safe and necessary sexual outlet.

Friedländer, for example, ridiculed the “third sex” concept of “a poor womanly soul languishing away in a man’s body” branding the concept as “degrading and a beggarly pleading for sympathy.” He insisted on a historical approach that also took into account anthropological evidence, and wrote: “A glance at the cultures of countries before and outside of Christianity suffices to show the complete indefensibility of the Zwischenstufen theory. For example in ancient Greece, under such theory, most of the military leaders, artists, and thinkers would have had to be “psychic hermaphrodites”.

Pre-World War II anonymous Austrian drawing depicting two Wandervogel boys

The Gemeinshaft views inspired many in the nationalist movement of the time as well. Many in the youth Wandervogel movement, such as Hans Blüher, believed that pederasty and male bonding provided a basis for a stronger nation and state. Indeed many of these men believed that, as Friedländer wrote: “Only he who is a good pederast can be a perfect pedagogue.” Thus, they supported a pederastic society, in which a system similar to the erastes-eromenos mentoring would be established in order to help adolescent boys become both men and citizens. Later on, many of these views were adapted to fit in with Nazi ideology, which is what gave rise to organizations like the Hitlerjugend.

As time went by, however, with the rise of egalitarian/gender theories and feminism, the Hirschfeld view ended up prevailing and the homosexual movement ended up lumped with the “LGBT” movement… as if transgendered people had anything to do with the noble and ancient practice of pederasty.

√ For those interested in learning more about the homosexual and pederast movement during the Weimar Republic, may I recommend Harry Ooesterhuis’s “Homosexuality and Male Bonding in Pre-Nazi Germany”, which includes original transcripts from “Der Eigene”.

There will be no posts during the month of August, since I will be on a Mediterranean vacation (related interesting posts will likely follow). Hope everyone enjoys what’s left of the summer!