Were early accounts of ancient child prostitution accurate?
Upvote:5
There is another fundamental problem in projecting back current sexual classification onto Rome. They didn't think of it as h*m*sexuality versus heterosexuality. Rather, they thought of it as being the penetrator or the submissive partner.
For a grown man to be penetrated was the shameful act. To be the dominant one, not so much. And since women were always on the penetratee side, well, that's another reason why they were the inferior sex.
This is why the Roman army had ferocious penalties for h*m*sexual acts. Forcing that kind of shame on a Roman soldier was seen as a terrible thing, and was punishable by death.
Upvote:8
Even when the Roman children were protected by law, these laws didn't apply to slave children. There was that loophole in roman law concerning slave children. So there was a little if not nothing romans (citizen) could do.
Because slaves weren't considered persons,but objects instead.
Something similar could happen with greeks, but as you correctly say, it's rare since prostitution by males, was restricted to teenagers.
But that aspect doesn't mean that these societies approved or condone such acts.
For example in ancient Greece a men who had a sexual intercourse with a child (12 or younger); were generally looked down upon for such actions.
Upvote:13
The modern view of ancient civilization, including that of Greece and Rome, has been heavily censored. Ancient writings on these topics have been systematically expunged or destroyed over the centuries. In general, the ancients were far more promiscuous than society is today. Pederasty was considered somewhat amoral, but was widely practiced. In Rome, forcing somebody else's kid was illegal by the Scatinian law, technically speaking. The reality was a lot of people broke the law. Using slave boys as catamites was more a convenience than a legal necessity, as you could keep the slave boy around 24-7, something that could not be done for a free-born boy. In cases where boys were foster children or had been put into the care of another family, the likelihood of abuse was high, especially if it was a military base or encampment.
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