In comments to the various posts about Mark Foley's resignation people are discussing pedophilia and whether or not Mark Foley is a pedophile, a homosexual, or some combination thereof. In reality, Foley is probably a regular homosexual with the typical twist of ephebophila.
Ephebophilia has been defined as a sexual preference in which an adult is primarily or exclusively sexually attracted to postpubescent adolescents. It comes from the Greek: έφηβος (ephebos) variously defined as "one arrived at puberty", "a youth of 18 who underwent his dokimasia and was registered as a citizen (Athens)", and "arriving at man's estate"; and φιλία (-philia) "love". Despite this classical etymology it is a term of recent coinage, created by psychologist John Money in the late twentieth century. ...It is used in contrast with pedophilia, which is an attraction to pre-pubescent or pubescent individuals.
I say "typical" because I believe it is well known that homosexuals tend to be particularly attracted to youth. Maybe this is merely a stereotype, but that's how the Greeks and Romans did it. I'm not sure if this makes Foley better, worse, or the same as before, but considering that historically average marriage ages in the mid-teens were fairly common it doesn't seem to me that ephebophilia is as aberrant as pedophilia.
That's a great point, Michael. It's bizarre to confuse attraction to pre-pubescent children with post-pubescent children. It's natural, albeit socially undesirable, for an adult to want to have sex with someone who is sexually mature. Other mammal species do it all the time without regard to legal definitions of adulthood. But having sex with someone who is sexually immature is truly unnatural, in the sense that other mammals almost never do it because it can't result in offspring.
So thanks for introducing the correct term. Let's hope that people learn it.
Wow, I finally figured out why I believe that homosexuality is unnatural. It's because I'm a false intellectual! Thanks Clayton for your enlightening argument.
David, I'm certain that Clayton was being ironic there. He is no fan of homosexuality.
Clayton, I totally agree with what I think you're saying: Homosexuality is unnatural in a very literal sense, and no one can seriously argue otherwise. We ask separately whether it's immoral, should be discouraged, etc. Those questions are only marginally related to the fact that homosexuality is unnatural. We celebrate lots of unnatural practices, such as monogamy. There are many good arguments against homosexuality, but unnaturalness is not one of them.
Homosexuality is not a human-created condition or practice. It occurs quite often in nature.. so in that sense there's nothing unnatural about it.
Mark, I know that there are many cases of animal species where males hump other males, but I don't know of any legitimate examples of homosexuality in nature, not according to the modern PC account of homosexuality. A real example of homosexuality in nature would require that two male animals actually copulate and the one doing the inserting would have to ejaculate; I don't know of any examples of this. Also the two males would have to show no interest in females and I seriously doubt that there are any examples of this. Also, in a species that mates for life, two males would have to actually mate for life.
The PC version of homosexuality is that homosexuals are just like heterosexuals except that they happen to like members of the same sex. As far as I know, the examples of animal queerness are all just a behavior of dry humping as a form of social interaction (often a dominance behavior as for dogs). This is quite a different thing.
DR: That's incorrect. There are many animal species that are known to form life-long homosexual pairings: bottlenose dolphins, bison, gazelles, antelope, and sage grouse.. just to name a few.
Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity