Our Great British Public Schools

[poliphilo]

I don't know where paedophilia comes from and I may be barking up entirely the wrong tree but it occurs to me that if you place young males of the ruling class in schools where it's covertly (or not so covertly) accepted that bigger boys take smaller boys as their bitches you shouldn't be entirely surprised if some of them carry this behaviour over into adult life.

Comments

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Frank Harris was notorious for making things up. I understand his book on Wilde needs to be read with a salt cellar to hand.

If Wilde were around today we'd be collaring him as a paedophile. Some of his boys- in particular the ones he purchased in the Middle East- were almost certainly below our current age of consent.

[michaleen.livejournal.com]

I shall repeat that it is well-written.

Harris's defence of Wilde isn't credible on the face of it, actually. What comes across is that he was very fond of Oscar and devoted a lot of effort to, if not exonerating him then, at least searching earnestly for a more favourable light in which to cast him. I suspect however that the utter contempt in which Harris held England, English morality, and the English themselves, was entirely genuine. I'd even venture that's why Mencken sung his praises so.

Honestly? If Michelangelo Buonarotti were around today you'd be collaring him as well. I rather think that was Harris's point and it's as valid today as it was a hundred years ago.