History of the word pederasty

The Pédérastie (of the old Greek παιδ- paid- “child” and ἐραστής erastès “lover”) indicates in the beginning a moral and educational institution of the Antiquité built around the particular relation between a ripe man and a young boy. The word pederasty is attested in French language only starting from the end of the 16th century. He very quickly knew a series of semantic evolutions which considerably moved away it from its direction d'amour of the garçons. Almost abandoned at the beginning of the XX {{E}} century with the profit of the term Homosexuality , it is little by little reintroduced with the direction of sexual preference of an adult man for the adolescent boys , in conformity with its etymology but nevertheless different from its initial direction.

XVIe century

Of pagan origin , the word pederasty made its appearance in the last quarter of the century. The redécouverte of the ancient culture had been the occasion of an artistic and philosophical revival of first importance in the history of the European companies. According to Jean-Claude Féray, “the Rebirth (…) blew a fresh breeze, print of paganism, a breeze which embaumait the Eros garçonnier, on miasmas scholastics of the Péché against-nature or the sodomic Vice” .

Pédérastie remained despite everything a rare and erudite employment, largely preceded by its medieval predecessors sodomy and bougrery , both of religious origin.

At the 16th century however, the sexual relationships implying a man and a boy (child or teenager) were the subject of a particular treatment, which distinguished them from the homosexual relations between adults. One resorted then to the word indecent assault . At that time, indecent assault indeed indicated the sexual relationships with a widow, a virgin young girl or a boy.

XVIIe and XVIIIe centuries

At the 17th century, only one dictionary of French language includes/understands the entry pederast , defined by the erroneous recourse to the pseudo-synonym sodomite (Pierre Richelet, Dictionnaire François containing the words and the things , Geneva, 1680).

At the 18th century, it is only in its fourth edition, in 1762, that the dictionary of the French Academy accepts pederasty in its entries: “Passion, love ashamed enters of the men” .

The Encyclopedia of Diderot and D' Alembert (1750 - 1765) mentions neither the word nor what it recovers. At most one sees the subject evoked with half-word at the end of the article Sodomie : “One punishes same sorrow those which learn how with youth to make such impurities; they undergo moreover the exposure to the yoke with a sign carrying these words, corrupter of youth” .

Only a minority of well-read men will continue to use the rare term of pederasty in its etymological direction to indicate the love of the boys.

Voltaire, in particular, written in its philosophical Dictionary an article devoted to with the “Socratic love” (several editions in the years 1760). One raises four occurrences there of the word pederasty . “Often , explains Voltaire, a young boy, by the freshness of its dye, the glare of its colors, and by the softness of its eyes, resembles during two or three years a beautiful girl; if it is liked, it is because nature mistakes: one pays homage to the sex, while sticking to what has the beauties of them; and when the age made disappear this resemblance, the mistake ceases. ” “These recreations were rather common between the tutors and the schoolboys , still notes it. the monks charged to raise youth were always devoted a little to the pederasty. It is the continuation necessary of the celibacy to which these poor people are condemned. ” Further: “the love of the boys was so common to Rome, which one did not warn oneself to punish this turpitude in which almost everyone gave lowered head” , “one stuck to an young man, with leaving childhood, to form it, to inform it, to guide it; the passion which mingled with these friendships, was a kind of love, but of pure love. It is only under this veil, whose public decency covered the defects, that they were tolerated by the opinion. (…) This defect is very rare among us, and it would be almost unknown there without the defects of public education. ”

Jeremy Bentham is often introduced like one of the very first British authors to have militated for the de-penalization of the Homosexualité to the current direction, with its Essai on the pederasty (1785). Actually, it employed well pederasty in agreement with its etymology: “All documents that the Old ones left us on this subject (…) agree in this that it is during only very few years of its life that a male continues to be an object of desire, even for those in which the infection of this taste is strongest. ”

XIXe century

At the same time as the 19th century saw spreading the word pederasty , the word continued to lose with the wire of the century its significance first.

In 1835, the sixth edition of the dictionary of the French Academy marked a spectacular regression in the definition given to pederasty : Unnatural vice “” .

The Dictionnaire of the dictionaries published under the direction of Paul Guerin was the first to include/understand a definition of the word pederasty which referred to the boys: “criminal Passion of a man for a young boy or men between them. ”

The other dictionaries encased the step then to him. The semantic slip however continued to take place towards the direction of love or sexual relations between men . As for the pederast, he generally definite like “Was devoted to the pederasty” . In all the cases, the lexicographers posted in their same definitions their moral judgment of this desire and these sexual practices (real or pretended judgment, at all events awaited ).

Some personalities dared to be expressed about the pederasty in very an other manner, such Proudhon (1809 - 1865): “Why to astonish us so extremely, after all, of an attachment which even has roots in nature? Don't we know that there exists between the teenager and the man makes a reciprocal inclination, which is composed of thousand various feelings and of which the effects go well beyond the simple friendship? ” ( Of justice in the revolution and the Church )

“All, we like to see, cherish the young boys, when their figure has attraction. The pederasty comes much less, as it is imagined, of the deprivation or the abuse the marital pleasures, than of this vague intuition of the male beauty, which éprend suddenly the inattentive heart of an incomprehensible love. ” ( Notebooks , Volume 3)

Proudhon was however also a virulent destroyer of the pederasty. But did it then employ this term always in the same direction or in that which ended up being essential, namely that of sexual relationships between men ?

In second half of the century, the medico-legal speech still restricted this last direction with that of anal coitus between men , then with that of anal coitus very short, and this use with misinterpretation of the word pederasty ends up becoming more common.

The described relations generally implied male partners, independently of a possible difference in age, but sometimes also of the partners of opposite sex ( “pederasty marital” in Brouardel, “marital Sodomy”, Gazette of the Hospitals , 1887 or “the pederasty is also practiced by the man on the woman” (Dr. Auguste Lutaud) in the article PEDERASTY in Dr. Paul Labarthe and Al , popular Dictionnaire of usual medicine of public health and deprived , 1887), even of different species ( “the pederasty between the dog and the man” in Yearly of Public health and legal medicine , 1888).

This particular direction was so present in the spirits that some as the Prussian medical examiner Johann Ludwig Casper (1796 - 1864) considered it necessary to add qualifiers when they described a homosexual activity without anal coitus ( “pederasty masturbatoire” ). Sometimes, to describe the case of men having had sexual relationships with boys without anal penetration , one used the words reversed or sexual inversion but nor those of pederast or pederasty . The roof of the paradox was reached at Kraft-Ebing, which believed good to specify, in connection with a man finding pleasure to practice masturbatoires exchanges with boys from thirteen to fourteen years with which it was in love, that it “hated the pederasty” ( Psychopathia sexualis, with special research on the sexual inversion , translation of the eighth German edition, 1895). Instead of calling in question the skew taken by the word pederasty in the medico-legal language, Casper defended the relevance of it, with the contempt of the etymological direction: “Already the name, love for the young boys, whom one finds in the former authors, is not exact, because we will quote in the observations of the cases where the sexual desires were appeased between male individuals of a advanced age. ” ( Treated practical of legal medicine , 1862).

If this definition which had course in the medico-legal medium could appear in a small number of specialized dictionaries (medicine and sexology), it illustrated forever in any universal dictionary of French language. And while the medical examiners continued to confuse pederasty and anal coitus , writers or well-read men were several to use the word pederasty in its etymological direction of love of the boys (Nicolas Blondeau, erotic Dictionnaire Latin-French , 1885).

To escape confusions from the time, other authors preferred however to exhume the word philopédie , used in certain translations of the Greek, and to derive philopède and from it philopedic . Others still rather resorted to the expression of Greek love to indicate passion in love with certain men for boys. Expression to be brought closer to English boylove and German Knabenliebe , more explicit.

The 19th century in addition saw the development of the vice squad, in answer to the problems involved in an increasing urbanization. In France, the police speech then associated quickly pederasty and homosexual prostitution (without consideration of the age of the male prostitutes). It is surprising to see surviving this direction at least until in 1999 under the feather of Canadian sexologists (restricted however with the prostitution implying of the minors): “In the opposition, the pederasty is rather the fact of seeking the infantile prostitution. The pederasty is well established within the framework of a trade where there is money in exchange of the favors obtained.” (Elysa (Canadian site on human sexuality, taking part in the Canadian Network of health - Canadian Health Network), 1999).

In reaction to speech-medical and police centered on the body and the infamy was born in the years 1860 the concept of Homosexualité , term forged by the German-speaking Hungarian Karl-Maria Kertbeny (1824 - 1882). The medical speech tried to substitute its concept of sexual inversion for it, copied on that of homosexuality but seeking to dissociate itself some by the reference to a sexual standard. In vain. The increasingly frequent recourse to the concepts of homosexuality or sexual inversion could have resulted in the progressive disappearance of the term pederasty .

XXe century

The scientific speech will almost never resort again to pederasty or pederast . Even when saw itself tackled the subject of the love of the boys among old Greeks, one more readily resorted in first half of the 20th century to the expression d' “Greek Homosexualité” .

In parallel, the substantive pederast survived in the literature like erroneous synonym of homosexual , to which it would end besides little by little up leaving the place. In the language running, fag , which results from this by Apocope, completes to leave the gay place to homo and / merry , and hardly survives today than like insult, moreover often without reference to the sexuality of the person concerned.

The dictionaries of the 20th century finally ceased employing a vocabulary axiologic. Is remained however the tendency to associate this word with a practice. The illustrated Larousse and the Dictionnaire of French of Hatchet thus continued to define the pederast as “That which devotes to the pederasty” . The the Petit Robert for its part persists in today still defining the pederasty as the “Trade carnal of the man with the young boy” (by adding “and by ext. Toute practical homosexual male” ).

These definitions, centered on the sexual practice, do not make it possible to think the phenomenon as a whole. Thus passed under silence, the love, the desire, the feelings tested by certain men for one or more boys, and who can exist very well independently of very practical sexual, indeed see their ignored if not denied existence.

The definition which gives the illustrated Petit Larousse word pederasty escapes however this criticism partly: “sexual Attraction of an adult man for the young boys; physical relation founded on this attraction. ” the definition of the Dictionnaire of French published by Hachette in is very close: “sexual Attraction felt by a man for the young boys; physical relation between a man and a young boy. ” By separating attraction and practical, these two dictionaries offer a more general description of the pederasty.

The Grand Larousse universal in its edition of 1994 marks nevertheless a flashback by evacuating the idea of attraction: “For a man, choice of a young boy or a teenager like sexual partner. ” This definition, by distinguishing young boy and adolescent , in addition highlights a certain terminological blur: if it seems that the expression of young boy usually designates a young teenager, in opposition to little boy which designates a boy impubère, one is brought to suppose that young boy must indicate, for the authors of this definition, a boy prépubère (old from ten to twelve years on average). The definition of the Grand Larousse universal thus overlaps thus partially pederasty and Pédophilie (definite like the sexual attraction of an adult for the individuals impubères, old of less than thirteen years on average).

In spite of a basic difference, the three last quoted definitions reduce each one the pederasty to its sexual component. The feelings in love are still field of impensé.

Apparently, only is distinguished here the Trésor from the French language , which gives for definition of the first direction of pederasty : “Attraction in love or sexual of a man for the young boys, child or teenager (with or without corresponding homosexual reports/ratios). ” One will note that this definition includes completely the homosexual Pédophilie male, which presents matter to debate.

In short, the dictionaries of the 20th century gave up the still frequent value judgments at the previous century and give word pederasty a definition in conformity with its etymological and historical direction. Perhaps this evolution is explained by the recovery of the term, during the century, by the defenders of the love of the boys, after it had been given up by the medical environment and legal.

The literature of the beginning of the 20th century does not seem to have granted specificity to the relations of the pederastic type. Thus the narrator of Pédérastie activates (1907) maintains as well it the sexual relationships with boys of twelve and fifteen years as with young men. The pederasty and what one names today Homosexualité concerned the same marginality then.

It would seem that André Gide had been the first writer to want to establish a clear distinction between the two concepts. Nevertheless, he recognized his failure at the end of his life, in Ainsi is he (published in 1952): “I tried for my part to make the departure between pederast according to the Greek meaning of the word: love of the boys, and reversed, but one did not agree to see only one rather vain discrimination there, and forces was to me to fold up itself. ”

Henry de Montherlant, although it had been also attracted to him by the young teenagers, wanted to never open publicly about the pederasty, contrary to Roger Peyrefitte which was often expressed on the question. For the first as for the second, the pederasty implied sexual relations and anal coitus. For this reason, Roger Peyrefitte could write of Andre Gide (who did not practice the Sodomie, to the current direction of the term) which it was “patriarch of a sect of which it was not” . It was a very contestable opinion: first of all, within the framework of a sexual relationship, whatever it is, sodomy seems a practice among many others; moreover, among Greeks, at the origin of the word pederasty , in fact the intercruraux reports/ratios (intromission of the sex of the adult between the thighs of the boy) were, seems it, the most practiced; finally, the existence of an attraction in love and sexual for the teenagers can exist independently of any effective sexual relationship. The restriction of direction operated by Roger Peyrefitte thus tended to exclude from the linguistic field a multitude of men attracted by the boys.

Today, only some French writers of homosexual orientation give a report on the pederasty, among which Dominique Fernandez.

Whatever could be the role of these writers, the frequency of the erroneous use of pederast and pederasty instead of the terms homosexual and homosexuality did not cease decreasing in second half of the century.

In the wake of the Business Dutroux and generalization of the media treatment of the businesses known as “of Pedophilia” , one could attend in 1998 an attempt at recovery of pederast and pederasty by two French psychiatrists, Arnaud Martorell and Roland Coutanceau, which chose to nominate by the term of pederast a person having made at least a passage to the act of sexual nature on at least a child, preferring to hold the term paedophile with the person in catch with pedophilic attractions but not having passed with the act. That does not have in oneself anything absurdity, erastes evoking indeed to act it, contrary to philes . This terminological option is not less contestable, not only because it despizes history of the word pederasty at the 20th century but also because the Greek word referred concretely to teenagers and not to children. The neologism pédosexuel , if it is hardly happy on the lexical level, makes it possible however to make the distinction desired by these two psychiatrists without canting the direction of a preexistent word.

XXIe century

It is seen that the word pederasty knew a passably animated and chaotic history so that today still its employment can involve misunderstandings or give rise to a feeling of uncertainty: is one sure to be included/understood or of speaking about the same thing as his interlocutors?

For various reasons, some thus prefer to avoid employing this term. The ones think that it would be advisable to hold the use of the word pederasty at the institution of the old Greece, and prefer speech d'homosexuality pédérastique or d'homosexuality of the pédérastique type to indicate attraction in love and/or sexual that certain men test for the teenagers. Jean-Claude Féray chooses another solution. He is the author of a research task deepened on the history of the word pederasty in the French language, on which the essence of this heading is based; to indicate the love of the boys (with the Platonic direction, “not necessarily platonic” ), he proposes the following C-W communication, paidérastie , in the intention to raise ambiguities of the word in his original C-W communication.

Nowadays, a great number of pederasts throughout the world are identified like servant boy-lovers , boylovers or BL . These terms, if not forged at least reactivated by the group of the poets uraniens (poets English and American pederasts of the end of the 19th century and the first quarter of the 20th century), owe this unexpected popularity with the development of the World Wide Web, gathering place of all kinds of minorities. However the Web was initially anglophone, and much of English terms could pass such as they are in the other languages, without being the subject of translations. In French, the history of pederasty and pederast , thus undoubtedly that their pejorative connotations (due mainly to the abundant use of the insult Pédé ), can moreover explain the reserves of many French-speaking pederasts to the use of these two terms, as well as the promptitude with which they were so numerous to make the their words servant boy-coils and boylovers , virgins of any history in their eyes. Even if these Anglicisms translate exactly the etymological direction of pederasty and pederast , they present nevertheless in practice the disadvantage of designating today as well the homosexual paedophiles as the pederasts. It would seem moreover which under the label boylove the Pédophilie is represented on the Web than the pederasty. However much of pederasts do not wish to be comparable to the paedophiles, would be this only within sight of the opprobrium which strikes the latter today. Lastly, these terms of English origin are seen disputed by the movements of child welfare, for which pedophilia is incompatible with the idea even of love ( coils ).

It would thus seem that the history of the word pederasty is far from being finished.

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