philerast

See also: Philerast

English

Alternative forms

philerastes

Etymology

From Ancient Greek φιλεραστής (philerastḗs), from φίλ(ος) (phíl(os), “dear”, “friend”) or φιλ(έω) (phil(éō), “I love”) + ἐραστής (erastḗs, “lover”) (compare the English cognates phil- + erast(es)); φιλεραστής (philerastḗs) was used by Plato in his Symposium as an alternative to ἐρώμενος (erṓmenos, “eromenos”), to imply greater equitability and reciprocity and to avoid the latter term’s denotational passivity.

Pronunciation

(Received Pronunciation) enPR: fĭʹlərăst, IPA^(key): /ˈfɪləɹast/
(US) enPR: fĭʹlərăst', IPA^(key): /ˈfɪləˌɹæst/

Noun

philerast (plural philerasts)

(chiefly in historical usage pertaining to Ancient Greece) A boy who feels philia or more specifically anterōs, for his paederastic lover.
- 1924, Plato et al., Symposium, page 40:
  When in turn they reach man’s estate they love youths themselves[; i]n general terms such people are either paiderasts or philerasts, being always attracted by kindred kind. But when a boy-lover, or any other, chances to meet his own original half, they are both seized with an ecstasy of affection and intimacy and love, and can hardly bear to be separated for as much as a single instant from each other.
- 1990, David M. Halperin, One hundred years of homosexuality: and other essays on Greek love, page 20:
  […] “while they are still boys [i.e., pubescent or pre-adult], they are fond of men, and enjoy lying down together with them and twining their limbs about them, . . . but when they become men they are lovers of boys. . . . Such a man is a paederast and philerast [i.e., fond of or responsive to adult male lovers]” at different stages of his life […]
- 1997: “Leo”, uk.politics.misc (Google group): Broome House: Paedophiles, the 31st day of August at 8 o’clock a.m.
  [The Ancient Greeks] also had a word which can be rendered ‘philerast’, meaning a boy who loves his lover.
- 2005, Thomas H. Luxon, Single Imperfection: Milton, Marriage, and Friendship, page 140:
  Milton strained to redefine marriage as the friendship Socrates recommended — an erotics beyond the sexual. As a result, his notion of marriage sometimes looks a lot like a heteroerotic paederasty, with Adam as the paederast and Eve the philerast destined never to outgrow the role of student and beloved.
- For more examples of the usage of this term see this entry’s citations page as well as the citations page for philerast.

Usage notes

In the intended meaning, the form of love (anterōs) which a philerast feels for his erastes emphatically does not derive from sexual desire (although it may have a physical component).[1]

Synonyms

(the junior partner in a paederastic relationship): beloved, boy, catamite, darling, erōmenos, pais

Derived terms

philerastic
philerasty

References

A quotation from the cited authority

1999: Same Sex: Debating the Ethics, Science, and Culture of Homosexuality, edited by John Corvino (1999; Rowman & Littlefield; →ISBN, 9780847684830), page 370, footnote № 25
To be sure, the pederastic ethos of classical Athens did not prohibit a willing boy from responding enthusiastically to his lover’s physical attentions: Aristophanes himself maintains that a philerast both “enjoys” and “welcomes” (khairein, aspazesthai: 191e–192b) his lover’s embraces. But that ethos did stipulate that whatever enthusiasm a boy exhibited for sexual contact with his lover sprang from sources other than sexual desire. The distinction between “welcoming” and “desiring” a lover’s caresses, as it applies to the motives for a boy’s willingness, spelled the difference between decency and degeneracy; that distinction is worth emphasizing here because the failure of modern interpreters to observe it has led to considerable misunderstanding (as when historians of sexuality, for example, misreading the frequent depictions on Attic black-figure pottery of a boy leaping into his lover’s arms, take those paintings to be evidence for the strength of the junior partner’s sexual desire).

Anagrams

prelatish

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[SS-1] 1999: Same Sex: Debating the Ethics, Science, and Culture of Homosexuality, edited by John Corvino (1999; Rowman & Littlefield; →ISBN, 9780847684830), page 370, footnote № 25
To be sure, the pederastic ethos of classical Athens did not prohibit a willing boy from responding enthusiastically to his lover’s physical attentions: Aristophanes himself maintains that a philerast both “enjoys” and “welcomes” (khairein, aspazesthai: 191e–192b) his lover’s embraces. But that ethos did stipulate that whatever enthusiasm a boy exhibited for sexual contact with his lover sprang from sources other than sexual desire. The distinction between “welcoming” and “desiring” a lover’s caresses, as it applies to the motives for a boy’s willingness, spelled the difference between decency and degeneracy; that distinction is worth emphasizing here because the failure of modern interpreters to observe it has led to considerable misunderstanding (as when historians of sexuality, for example, misreading the frequent depictions on Attic black-figure pottery of a boy leaping into his lover’s arms, take those paintings to be evidence for the strength of the junior partner’s sexual desire).