Boy-Love: A Culture of Pedophilia in The Ottoman Empire

A sunny day in the harem, two hands clasped, male lovers intertwined. It could have been love, yet the air of innocent promiscuity dries up upon hearing the shockingly young age of the passive-penetrative party.

What may seem like a social taboo in western countries was all too common in the streets and peg houses of Turkish cities. Far from being an acceptable model for modern-day LGBTQ+ acceptance and activism, this form of homosexuality was and always will be pedophilia.

West Versus East

“Sodomy is honorable, because he who supports boys has more status. Men like them more than their own wives. Many of the Turks and renegades [European Christians converted to Islam], even senior, influential men only want boys for wives. They boast of never having had sex with a woman their whole lives. Rather, they despise females and don’t want to set eyes on them.” — Spanish historian Diego de Haedo, 1600

It is well known that the West was the bringer of hetero-normative relationships and expectations to the East during the Industrial Age of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Before the influences of modernization and globalization began, however, homosexuality was not a socially erroneous prospect in the Ottoman Empire. Nor was the sexual appetite for young boys.

One can compare the positive attitude that existed amongst the Turks towards sodomization to be comparable to that of ancient Greece…