16 What is Pederasty?

Pederasty is a difficult and strange topic to discuss; however, it is imperative to speak about pederastic relationships when examining sexuality in Ancient Greece, and, more specifically, Symposium. In short, a pederastic relationship was one that took place between a man and a younger boy. In terms of defining “young boy,” we do not mean child, but rather someone who has reached mid-to-late adolescence and is entering early adulthood. While these relationships were a social construct to gain and pass along power, they were also sexual. The erotic relationship was one that involved consent of the young boy, as well as the man. The older man was, thus, expected to be involved in the education of the young man as we can see in examples from Symposium. Despite consent, it is important to state and realize that we, and our society, do not condone these sorts of relationships in modern times, and recognize relationships of this sort as pedophilia in many cases. Of course, this is our modern view, and the Greeks did not hold this similar set of values.^[1] Alissa Martinez, former Claremont Colleges student, discusses the ethics and history of pederasty and its relationship to queerness at length in this article, linked here.