“Good morning sir, ma’am! Good morning Sir!” shouted the fastfood guy, attempting to greet each and every one entering the restaurant. It was Sunday and the crowd was thick and, not unlike the crew, noisy.
I was at one of the busier McDonald’s branches in Quezon City, with friends waiting for some other friends, when I saw a young cute guy, must be in his late teens, queuing up at the food counter. He’s got a pretty face partly obscured by his baseball cap which matched quite well with his sporty shirt, walking shorts, and immaculately white sneakers. He saw me looking at him, and his gaze stayed on for more seconds than necessary. He let go of the stare only after the girl in the counter called his attention, perhaps clarifying something on the food he was ordering. He was really cute. Yummy by any standards. He was not alone though. Towering behind him, obviously a companion, was a balding man with a bouncing belly, perhaps in his 50s, his right hand on the boy’s left shoulder.
Based on their looks and their body language, I thought he cannot possibly be the boy’s father, nor any family member.
“Mag-jowa,” I whispered to my seatmate, my lips puckering to point to the odd couple’s direction.
“Judgmental ka!” my seatmate replied, his eyes betraying his words. I knew he thought the same way I did about boy and bundat, but was trying to be the more world peace-ish one.
I took out my camera, jokingly said “Picture-an ko kaya… tapos i-blog ko sa MGG?”
My seatmate got all stern and sarcastic, “sige, palaganapin mo ang pagiging judgmental!”
The couple, after getting their orders from the counter, walked past our table and sat at the most inconspicuous corner of the restaurant. Shooting glances to where they were seated, I continued to observe. Their conversation was choppy, not fluid, and they were speaking, seemingly, in unnecessarily quiet whispers. All these amidst the bustling, jostling noise of McDonald’s crew and crowd.
Youth, holding a net shopping bag filled with walnuts, a love gift, draws close to a man who reaches out to fondle him; Attic red-figure plate 530-430 BCE; Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.
In antiquity, pederasty as an educational institution for the inculcation of moral and cultural values, as well as a form of sexual expression, entered history from the Archaic period onwards in Ancient Greece, though Cretan ritual objects reflecting an already formalized practice date to the late Minoan civilization, around 1650 BCE.
The ancient Greeks, in the context of the pederastic city-states, were the first to describe, study, systematize, and establish pederasty as an institution. As keystone of the Greek paideia, the relationship between lover and beloved (erastes and eromenos) was valued for fostering excellence in the youth as well as in the man who loved him.
The topic of pederasty was the subject of extensive analysis. Some of the principal questions discussed were:
* Is pederasty right or wrong?
* Which form should pederasty take, chaste or sexual?
* What kind of sexual acts are legitimate?
[Source]
Sponsor — that’s how some people call it nowadays. It first entered my consciousness several years ago when I was dating this tall, hot guy who I later found out had a “sponsor” — according to him, just a friend, who is so wise he loved every minute talking to him. He just missed to tell me he was also so kind he would lavish him with expensive gifts supposedly without expecting anything in return. A repeat performance with the actor I dated who also had, rumors have it, a history of having rich gay sponsors.
As in the referenced studies above, I too have questions in my mind on this topic –
* It seems that pederastic relationships have weathered time and culture that they have, while in incrementally different forms, persisted to this day. Why? What is it about this type of relationship that, despite sneers and jeers, made it a template with considerable longevity?
* Is there something fundamentally flawed in such relationship? Is it wrong?
* Between the lover and the beloved, the sponsor and the one being sponsored, the older and the younger, who wins? Who loses?
* On a more personal level, do you see yourself being a participant of such setup, either as a beloved young man, or a mature lover to the young, fresh one?
Feel free to express your thoughts here.
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