Gay life and culture - A world history

Aldrich's contributors must be applauded for treating boy-love in so unfashionably calm a manner: Gert Hekma bravely utters some unsayable truths - "in general young people suffer no negative consequences from intergenerational sex unless it happens inside the family or unless violence is used against them" - and intelligently contextualizes the prevalent Western hysteria about the sexual abuse of children. Sexual desire, which in Western societies used to be based on differences of gender, age and class, must now be founded (according to the bien pensants) on equality: "power relations have become unacceptable, and this is especially true for intergenerational contact".

source: Article 'The throne trembles' by Richard Davenport-Hines; About the book 'Gay Life and Culture - A world history' by Robert Aldrich, editor; Thames and Hudson; tls.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,25549-2529473,00.html; Times Online; 3 January 2007