Quote:Lloyd DeMause

The Journal of Psychohistory, Fall 1991, Vol. 19, No. 2

Quote:Ancient Japan resembled both India and China in having institutionalized Greek-style pederasty of boys - by priests as well as warriors - temple prostitution of both boys and girls, and widespread child prostitution, including the ancient geisha system.(149) Japanese brothels would start girls in sexual service at S to 7 years old.(150) Pederasty (shudo) by the aristocracy and priesthood is well documented since at least the 14th century, with young boys given by their parents to be used anally by samurais and by priests in monasteries - the buggered boys sometimes having been worshipped as gods incarnate in religious cults similar to those of the cult of the Virgin in the West.(151)

Quote:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pederasty_in_ancient_Greece

Quote:Pederasty in ancient Greece was a socially acknowledged erotic relationship between an adult male and a younger male usually in his teens.[1] It was characteristic of the Archaic and Classical periods.[2] Some scholars locate its origin in initiation ritual, particularly rites of passage on Crete, where it was associated with entrance into military life and the religion of Zeus.[3]
The social custom called paiderastia by the Greeks was both idealized and criticized in ancient literature and philosophy;[4] it has no formal existence in the Homeric epics, and seems to have developed in the late 7th century BC as an aspect of Greek homosocial culture,[5] which was characterized also by athletic and artistic nudity, delayed marriage for aristocrats, symposia, and the social seclusion of women.[6] The influence of pederasty was so pervasive that it has been called "the principal cultural model for free relationships between citizens."[7]
Scholars have debated the role or extent of sexual activity, which is likely to have varied according to local custom and individual inclination.[8] The English word "pederasty" in present-day usage might imply the abuse of minors in certain jurisdictions, but Athenian law, for instance, did not recognize consent and age as factors in regulating sexual behavior.[9] As classical historian Robin Osborne has pointed out, historical discussion of paiderastia is complicated by 21st-century moral standards:
It is the historian's job to draw attention to the personal, social, political and indeed moral issues behind the literary and artistic representations of the Greek world. The historian's job is to present pederasty and all, to make sure that … we come face to face with the way the glory that was Greece was part of a world in which many of our own core values find themselves challenged rather than reinforced.[10]