>>508902374
It's not propaganda. The Greeks were renowned for practicing pederasty even by the Romans. Anyone who has any familiarity with Greek texts knows that it was an actual practice. The three most famous Greek philosophers (Socrates, Plato, Aristotle) all talk about pederasty, and Greek texts tell us that the practice was common and legal in most cities:
>[12] It seems to me that something must also be said about the love of boys; for this too has a bearing on education. The other Greeks either do as the Boeotians do, where man and boy are joined as couples and live together, or like the Eleans, who get to enjoy the charms of boys by making them grateful; there are also those who wholly prevent boy-lovers from conversing with boys.
>[13] But Lycurgus’ views were opposed to all of these: if a man who was decent and upright admired the soul of a boy and tried to spend time with him and to make him his friend without bringing blame on him, he approved this and called it the noblest form of education; if, on the other hand, someone seemed to lust after a boy’s body, he laid down that this was the most shameful of all things and that in Lacedaemon boy-lovers should keep their hands off boys just as parents do not lay hands on their own children or brothers on their own brothers.
>[14] It does not, however, surprise me that certain people do not believe this: in most of the Greek cities the laws do not oppose men’s desire for boys. Thus the Laconian education system, as well as that of the other Greeks, has been explained. Which of them produces men who are more trustworthy and more modest and more self-controlled when it is necessary, anyone who is interested may judge for himself.
Xenophon, Constitution of the Lacedaemonians
