I didn't catch all of Four Corners last night about the tradition of "boy play" of Afghanistan, but it certainly was a remarkable show, painting a picture of pretty routine paedophilia between older men and young teenage boys in the north of the country. (My post yesterday mentioned the Pashtans and their routine homosexuality in the south. Seems there is little escaping it.)
There seems to be virtually none of the secrecy that men with such interests in the West keep. Who knew that Ancient Greece was alive and well just down the road and around the corner? I had thought that talk of Arab/Muslim countries where interest in boys was high had probably been exaggerated; now that generous view seems wrong.
The overall impression was not so much shock; more that this was a really weird culture. I mean, it would appear that the standard wedding feast entertainment for men is to sit in a room and watch a 15 year old boy dance; although fully clothed, this appears to hold much erotic interest for the men. (The younger boys watching just look rather puzzled.) Is this what happens as a result of centuries of the subjugation of, and separation from, women?
The height of modernity is apparently to ask your wife if you can have a boy to live in the house in the spare room. Of course, traditionalists couldn' t care less about the wife's views.
I also can't help feeling how good this must make the young, conservative Marines from mid-West America feel when they are trying to save the country from the bad guys. A greater cultural divide would be harder to imagine.
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