>>17952597
>Was ancient man really a pedophile?
Yes, modern man is as well. Plethysmographic studies show that roughly one in four men are pedophiles by definition (being more or equally sexually aroused by pre-pubescent or early pubescent children as by adults). Child marriage has been tolerated in a significant number of cultures historically (including in Europe), and teenage marriage was universal before modernity. Traditionally, age of consent laws in Europe and the United States have been set between 10 and 12. Pederasty was commonplace in Europe before the arrival of Christianity. There is sufficient reason to believe that sexual attraction to children is normative on the basis of scientific and historical evidence.

>So are academics just lying about it?
Almost everything relating to pedophilia is lied about by academia (and by people in general due to extreme cultural biases), including the prevalence of pedophilia, the nature of pedosexual relationships, the effects of both consenting and non-consenting adult-child sexual activities, the sexuality of children, historical and cross-cultural instances of sex between adults and children, the efficaciousness and necessity of sex offender registries, teenage motherhood, etc. Moral entrepreneurs are given free reign to lie about everything relating to these topics, without any pushback, because anyone who challenges them is accused of being a pedophile/a "pedophile apologist", and as a consequence, we have a massive cultural blind spot in regards to anything relating to pedophilia and child sexuality.

A great book which details the development of modern anti-pedophile hysteria is Moral Panic: Changing Concepts of the Child Molester in Modern America by Philip Jenkins.