Knullade albaner unga pojkar i hundratals år?

Albanian pederasty was a custom reported by Western travelers in the 19th century."[1][2] Among these are counted Edvard Westermarck[3] John Hobhouse, 1st Baron Broughton, who in his travel journal[4] reports that pederasty was "openly practiced," and Johann Georg von Hahn[5], also known as "the father of Albanian studies.[6] According to these reports it was common and socially accepted for young men between sixteen and twenty-four to court boys from about twelve to seventeen. [5]

In the literature, the older lover is called ashik (after the Arabic ishq, "passionate love") and the beloved, or dyllber (after the Turkish dilber, "beautiful")[7]. A Geg married at the age of 24 or 25, and then he usually, but not always, gave up boy-love.

The practice was curtailed by the advent of communism in 1944.[8]

In the Balkans, same-sex marriage survived until modern days, in the form of the Albanian rite of vellameria, "brother bond."

According to Naecke, "The Skipetars (North Albanians) entertain for handsome youths a quite enthusiastic love

främande för mig har aldrig hört talas om något sådan men men det betyder inte att det har förekomit hos en del personer uppe på bergen där sedan 3-4 utländska resenärer råka komma i kontakt med.

Erich Bethe, Die dorische Knabenliebe: ihre Ethic und ihre Idee 1907
Robert Elsie, A Dictionary of Albanian Religion, Mythology, and Folk Culture
J.G. von Hahn, Albanische Studien, 1854, p.166
Paul Näcke, Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen, vol. ix, 1908, p. 327
Edward Westermarck, "Homosexualität." Translated by L. Katscher

[edit]
Notes
^ Bethe, Rheinisches Museum für Philologie, 1907, p. 475
^ Näcke, Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen, vol. ix, 1908, p. 327
^ Robert Deam Tobin, Warm Brothers: Queer Theory and the Age of Goethe (New Cultural Studies Series) p.58
^ The Diary of John Cam Hobhouse (October 20th, 1809)[1]
^ a b J.G. von Hahn, Albanische Studien, 1854, p.166
^ Robert Elsie, A Dictionary of Albanian Religion, Mythology, and Folk Culture p.202-3
^ http://www.eskimo.com/~nickz/orth_gay.txt
^ Michael Worton, Nana Wilson-Tagoe National Healths: Gender, Sexuality and Health in a Cross-Cultural Context p.48-50
^ Havelock Ellis, Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Sexual Inversion, Ch.I
^ Edward Carpenter, Intermediate Types among the Primitive Folk p.127
^ Stephen O. Murray and Will Roscoe, Islamic Homosexualities, p.189-191
^ Murray, op.cit.

. François Pouqueville, Napoleon's consul general in Albania between 1805 and 1815, blames the Albanians for being "no less dissolute in this regard than the other inhabitants of modern Greece, without seeming to have any idea of the enormity of the crime

But I am not merely relying on books. There are parishes both here and abroad which have never stopped doing adelphopoeia, and know exactly what it is for, particularly in Albania. Now, John Boswell knew many languages, but not Albanian, but even he found some references in translation to what went on there. I know Albanian, and interviewed Albanian Orthodox in 1991, when the churches were just reopening after decades of communist oppression. In the same year, there were rites of vellameria (the Albanian name for the rite) performed in the Orthodox church in Elbasan. All Albanians I spoke to (not Albanian Americans, I might add, who do not seem to generally be familiar with vellameria) knew about the rite, but only the ones from Elbasan had witnessed one. I talked with an individual from the late dictator Hoxha’s birthplace, Gjirokaster (also known as Argyrokastro, Greek for “silver castle”) who gave a simple but moving account of how Hoxha’s attempts at promoting both atheism and homophobia miserably failed; in his hometown people now practiced their religion, and as far as the anti-gay violence and sentiments found elsewhere, “that is unknown where I come from; everyone eats at the same table and those differences don’t matter”. As far as vellameria and the fact that some researchers in the U.S. think it is a gay marriage, he simply said, “Yes, that’s what it is for”. No shock, no need to explain it away or make elaborate theories to obscure the fact. Other Albanians had no difficulty, despite their heterosexuality, with going over my translations, word for word, of a number of Albanian gay love songs and giving their insights on the terms. Not one of over 20 Albanians I spoke to about this was uncomfortable with this, unlike most Albanian Americans who seem to have acquired American homophobia in many cases.

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