in the classical roman period, pederasty had a partial religious function and was very normal amongst the (pagan) roman priesthood. when christianity was either created by the state or adopted by it, that institution of roman priesthood was converted into what eventually became the roman catholic church (there's a thousand years before the orthodox church split off, then another 500 until the reformation). christianity might publicly oppose pederasty on moral grounds, but the priesthood carried over the tradition from the pagan period (as northern europe carried over santa claus and chistmas trees from the indigenous german religions). it's been with us for the entire history of christianity, coming in and out of the public spotlight as social attitudes about the practice have changed in favour of or violently against it.
so, this whole thing is embedded deeply within the church hierarchy. pederasty seems to be carried down from mentor to student within the framework of the church hierarchy itself. it's really questionable whether the church is going to be able to reform itself of the practice, or if the whole structure needs to be abolished.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0M1XVE9W67g
when i was in my early 20s, i took part in an experiment that tested what kind of sexual reaction adults have to sexualized portrayals of children. i want to be clear that this was a voluntary (and paid) study, rather than something mandated by the state as part of an evaluation of some sort. i wasn't told that the study had to do with children, i was just told it was a study an sexual arousal. i'm not sure i would have taken part if i knew it was about children. i was mostly attracted to it because i was a big thomas pynchon fan at the time; i had this idea that i'd be conditioned to imipolex g, or something.
but, what they did was hook my penis up to some electrical equipment, ask me to wear some glasses that flashed erotic images of children at me and measured the physical response. i didn't demonstrate a response, and passed the control (which flashed me adult porn and then asked me to think about making out with my girlfriend), so i can officially declare myself not a paedophile. i guess there's some relief in that.
afterwards, i spent some time talking to the students that carried out the experiment and i was apparently rather unusual in my complete lack of response. apparently, the vast majority of adult men will demonstrate a sexual response to sexualized images of children - and of either gender. i didn't tell them, but i happen to have identified as transgendered even at that stage and was between periods of treatment for it. so, maybe i wasn't the best subject. i may have even skewed the data, mildly.
....but i was an outlier, either way, and what i learned from listening to the students really changed my understanding of the factors that lead men to physical arousal. up until that point, i had a standard pseudo-scientific quasi-leftist position that sexuality is a complex mix of environment and genetics, but that it's mostly genetic. the "born this way" perspective. the results of this experiment forced me to modify my views to male sexuality as being fundamentally opportunistic in nature. that is, men will become aroused when they have an opportunity to be aroused and considerations such as age and gender are mostly secondary to that opportunism.
extrapolating that to a biological context actually makes a lot of sense. logically, the optimum behaviour for men from an evolutionary perspective ought to be simply to maximize the amount of offspring. that should mean that men should be physically aroused by just about anything, as it's a game of probabilities for them - the more sex they have, the more offspring they produce and the greater the probability that their genes will carry on. as is the case with most species, the quality control in choosing mates is largely a responsibility of the females of the species, who are consequently much more difficult to arouse.
what i'm getting to is that pederasty may end up being a more natural aspect of human sexuality than our culture currently acknowledges. i think this is very complicated, as i agree that consent is a blurry concept when applied to children. but, if the studies state that most men are aroused by sexual portrayals of children then dealing with the ramifications of that needs to be more subtle than stamping a social taboo on it.
