Pederastry

Reply to an email:

I like pretty boys well enough but was looking more for images lacking the contemporary focus on hypermasculinity. I'm mostly strongly drawn to androgyny (which was why the images of Giton in Fellini's Satyricon were so pivotal for me).

I empathize with your dislike of gay assimilation since assimilation entails commodification and conformity. I think it is a necessary accomplice of acceptance. I can’t see wishing anything other than acceptance for the average gay person. Let me draw a parallel: African-Americans have been the primary driving force of much of 20th century popular music. As racism decays I wonder if that will cease. But I can’t wish for racism to continue.

I identify with gay, queer, fag, most any word of phrase that denotes same-sex attraction. I do reject homosexual. It was coined by a psychiatrist and for me implies that my love of other guys is something that needs to be suppressed or cured.

I don’t identify as a pederast. When I was young I was only attracted to boys my age or younger. That bias evaporated. Thankfully I fear I have to say. There’s a hysteria surrounding it that didn’t exist in the 1970s. And it would’ve limited my choices. They guy that I live with is twenty years younger but he’s an adult of thirty.

Not that I look ill upon your own identification as a pederast. I don’t envy it. I can’t imagine understanding of youthful sexuality ever being sanely perceived. Particularly when sexuality crosses socially constructed barriers of chronological age.