I wonder whether Pharmakon's original observation (with which I agree) is a side effect of the West's identity politics, that is, of its obsession with sexual identity. Men with erotic attraction to boys are arguable not any fewer than in times past, but unless that's your sole attraction, you're not likely to see it as a part of your sexual identity, or even to want to have anything to do with it at all. Whereas previously men interested only in boys "stood out" from BLs generally only by being less likely to marry and were not a sexual type per se, now they appear as a specific sexual type, and in this age of "sexual communities/liberation" they will find each other, and not the rest. |