...It is a measure of the inherent good-heartedness of Americans that they evince a low threshold of horror. ...That is understandable, but also unfortunate, for America still has a great deal of killing left to do around the world, and might as well get used to it.
...but the basic case is as original as this article, and one hopes, similarly wrong-headed.
As far as pederasty being an expression of love for an idealized self, it is an interesting model, and it explains to a degree the frequent callous disregard of the real humanity of the junior partner in that relationship. What genuine human being could live up to someone's idealized self-image?
It isn't every author that can work Sufi Islam, Persian poetry, Goethe's Faust, and rampant buggery into the same article quite so seamlessly. For some reason I find that vaguely disturbing. Nevertheless, I'd love to hear a reply from a genuine Sufi - the printable parts, that is. (And yes, I read the dirty bits of Faust some years ago and knew exactly what Goethe was implying. How he knew what he was implying is quite another matter, but I doubt it had a great deal to do with Sufism.)
A fine, erudite, thought-provoking essay, IMHO, with whose conclusions I'll have to reserve judgment. There may be a mystic, cosmic element to it, but to paraphrase Freud, sometimes buggery is only buggery. ;-)