https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pederasty_in_ancient_Greece
In ancient Greece, homosexuality between adults was considered ridiculous. The only socially acceptable same-sex relationship was between an adult man and a teenage boy, past puberty but too young to have a beard. (Lesbianism was mostly something nobody talked about, apart from Sappho. But you may be sure Spartan girls found solace with each other while all the boys were being buggered in the agoge.)
This attitude persisted throughout classical antiquity. Edward Gibbon, in "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," pointed out that Emperor Commodus (the villain in "Gladiator") had a harem of 300 woman and as many boys. Not men -- boys.
Even the god Zeus had a bed-boy, the Trojan prince Ganymede, whom he kept eternally young. Officially he was Zeus' cupbearer, but the cup Zeus was interested in was between his buttocks. ("Catamite" derives from "Ganymede.")
The thinking appears to have been that teenage boys are legitimate sex objects because they are beautiful in a way fully grown men are not.
And I guess they are, if you can look past the acne.
The point of all this is that the existence of NAMBLA is not all THAT hard to understand. Make some allowances for the pederasts. You don't need to let them at your sons -- just don't despise them as something similar to rapists.
In ancient Greece, homosexuality between adults was considered ridiculous. The only socially acceptable same-sex relationship was between an adult man and a teenage boy, past puberty but too young to have a beard. (Lesbianism was mostly something nobody talked about, apart from Sappho. But you may be sure Spartan girls found solace with each other while all the boys were being buggered in the agoge.)
This attitude persisted throughout classical antiquity. Edward Gibbon, in "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," pointed out that Emperor Commodus (the villain in "Gladiator") had a harem of 300 woman and as many boys. Not men -- boys.
Even the god Zeus had a bed-boy, the Trojan prince Ganymede, whom he kept eternally young. Officially he was Zeus' cupbearer, but the cup Zeus was interested in was between his buttocks. ("Catamite" derives from "Ganymede.")
The thinking appears to have been that teenage boys are legitimate sex objects because they are beautiful in a way fully grown men are not.
And I guess they are, if you can look past the acne.
The point of all this is that the existence of NAMBLA is not all THAT hard to understand. Make some allowances for the pederasts. You don't need to let them at your sons -- just don't despise them as something similar to rapists.
