Richard Burton on "Sotadic zone", where pederasty would be prevalent

[Marcus Marulus]

Richard Burton, a known British anthropologist from the 19th century, one of the founders of the modern anthropology, polyglot and polymath, world traveler and explorer, among his many writings, left a small treatise on pederasty. According to his hypothesis, the pederasty or buggery (he never uses the world homosexualism) is more spread in some parts of the world than in other. Those parts of the world where the pederasty is widely practiced and quite tolerated, he name the Sotadic zone, after a hellenistic poet of obscene poetry, Sotades. The treatise was first published as appendix to his translation of the Arabian Nights in 1885.

His views are highly debatable.

The text:

Sotadic zone

[Caesar Princeps]

Sodomy diffusion can depend on the relative tolerance or intolerance of different cultures, but the idea of such a "Sotadic zone" is ridiculous. There are perverts in all peoples, it only changes the attitude (right or wrong) of the society about this problem.

[Marcus Marulus]

Originally Posted by Caesar Princeps

Sodomy diffusion can depend on the relative tolerance or intolerance of different cultures, but the idea of such a "Sotadic zone" is ridiculous. There are perverts in all peoples, it only changes the attitude (right or wrong) of the society about this problem.

This "Sotadic zone" is just Burton's hypothesis. I don't agree with it, I just put it in this section as an interesting (though not necessarily accurate) view on this subject.

[Caesar Princeps]

I obviously was not speaking about you, but about Burton's opinion. Thank you anyway for the post. I have read something by Burton and I have heard some about his adventure (most from J. P. Farmer's sci-fi novel cycle "Riverworld", but I do not know much.