[Zippy]

Originally Posted by patsylimerick

So here's where our difficulty lies - because I wouldn't consider that paedophilia. Most men admire teenage girls in a sexual way. They don't act on it, but they are sexually attracted to them. However, if he had sex with an 11 or 12 year old boy, it's a completely different thing. Then, and only then, he would be a paedophile. Many girls were married at 15 and 16 when Oscar Wilde was alive. As has already been said, you cannot apply the same moral standards in a completely different set of social circumstances.

But the central point remains, he was NOT a paedophile. He fancied younger men. If he's a paedophile then so are a very, very great many men who would consider themselves to be perfectly normal.

LOL. I love how you keep using the word MEN.

Keep deluding yourself, lady.

Jonathon King also had a taste for boys around 15 too. Ended up serving 4 years in prison. I somehow doubt you view him through the same rose coloured spectacles!

the legal age of consent then was 16. The fact that homosexuality was illegal doesn't exactly help your case for taking into account the period it occured. It just also means he was knowingly committing a crime....and encouraging boys into doing so too. Rentboys and working class boys who, by all accounts, would have been extremely uneducated and easily manipulated. Or easily bought.

I called him a paedo because that is what he would be classed as today. Just like the likes of King and Glitter. Grown adult men who prey sexually on underaged children. And I know the precise definition is pre-pubescent children but it's general modern day use is not that specific. And who the hell knows how young some of those desperate, homeless Victorian rentboys were?