Talk:Mwanga II of Buganda

LGBT

The LGBT-related categories are supported by this text: "...defied the king by rescuing the young royal pages in their care from Mwanga's pederastic sexual exploitation..." Mwanga was a king who had sex with boys. His bio therefore justifies the LGBT and pederasty categories. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:56, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

I removed it because I thought it was offensive to comflate forcible pederasty with homosexuality. Do you not agree? Lobojo (talk) 17:37, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

While it would be mislabeling to cateforize the pages as LGBT, since it was forced on them, I think it is acceptable to state the somebody who is into porking said pages is indeed homosexual. Jeffpw (talk) 18:06, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

So consistency would imply that you would support including all the pedarsts who have articles on wikipedia in a Category:LBGT pederasts in cases when the abuser and the abused were of the same sex? I really think that this is offensive frankly. Diddling boys does not mean a man is gay; a man that abuses boys is sick and twisted and should not be grouped as though they were part of some LGBT community. Lobojo (talk) 18:14, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Lobojo, I don't think that it's offensive to acknowledge the actual, historical facts in a specific situation, even if these two ideas have been conflated into an offensive stereotype in modern Western culture. I'm sure that you would agree with me that a man can have sex with other males and also never eat meat (for example) without gay men typically being vegetarian. Similarly, it's entirely possible that a specific man could have sex with other males and also have sex with people who are younger than our social conventions permit, without anyone thinking that MSM are typically pederasts.

I believe that Mwanga's social conventions would have allowed him to have sex with girls of the same age; it was primarily the gender of his targets, and the abuse of his royal power in forcing their submission to his sexual advances, that offended his community, not the age of his targets. Furthermore, his sexual behavior was not merely a minor detail in his reign: command rape of these teenaged boys, and the execution of their protectors, is what triggered his eventual fall from power.

Since "being gay" is a modern political identity instead of a descriptor of behavior, I think it would be more accurate to file this article under Category:MSM than under Category:LGBT, but that category doesn't seem to exist. LGBT is the closest option that I could find in my search today. I'd be happy to hear alternative suggestions from you, if you can find anything more appropriate than what's currently in the article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:16, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

• Thank you for clearing this up, in the light of your comments I am inclined to agree the label should apply. Lobojo (talk) 22:36, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
• I think Lobojo is also not grasping the difference between Pederasty and pedophilia. Perhaps he should read the two articles before he continues this discussion. Personally, I get tired of having to explain the differences and distinctions to well-meaning editors. Jeffpw (talk) 20:18, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Why is everything a personal attack with you? I'm going to ignore the insults again, though this particular attack on my inteligence is very revealing. Lobojo (talk) 22:36, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
    • You apear to be saying that Mwanga is a pederast not a pedophile is that it Jeff? Dosent seem to be much of a mentor to the boys he is raping does he? Are NAMBLA pedoes or pederasts? Not many 10 year old members of NAMBLA last time I counted. Lobojo (talk) 22:47, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
      • I think it's frankly rather inappropriate to describe Mwanga II as guilty of "pedophilic sexual exploitation" given that discourses of paedophilia are very recent, and properly only date from the 1960s and 1970s. However exploitative we may judge Mwanga's escapades to be, in a different cultural context and at a different time in history, it seems to me to be rather incongruous to use such a neologism as 'p(a)edophile' (for that matter, it's also quite bizarre to describe him as LGBT!). 'Pederastic' (which as I understand it describes sexual acts rather than an intrinsic 'orientation') is still not great (having strong Greco-Roman overtones), but is at least more value-neutral and perhaps less emotive than the heavily loaded term 'paedophile'. I would remove the LGBT label, and change the terminology. 131.111.220.10 (talk) 16:16, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

(Unindent) So what categories would you prefer? Let's pretend that we have a reader who wants to find information about historical men who had sex with other males. Remember that we're not trying to definitively label the person when we categorize articles; we're just trying to group this article with others that might be related. We're getting a lot of "Oh, not that category -- that's not a perfect match" comments, but what we need is "I think this category is better than what we have now." If you have a suggestion for a more suitable category, I'm all ears. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:14, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Error

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• I am cited as the source for the Mwanga II article. I agree with many of the thoughful contributions above, except for the fact that Mwanga, sharing the same AGE as most of the pages in general, should not, therefore, be called a pederast. Though it is an archaic term [and I understand the frustration around terminology], isn't it still a term that supports the idea of an older man being with younger "boys?" Additionally, there is the subtext of effiminacy that goes with many accounts.

Moreover, despite the difference in power, who knows the sexual content, the desire, the 'drama,' in the royal court?...a drama that radically changed when the Christians targeted anal sex and coveted the discursive power that condemnation of it [anal sex ie] would gain them. Kenneth Hamilton, Ph.D.

Thanks for your comment! We really appreciate it.

Certainly at the time of the Uganda martyrs scandal, Mwanga was a young man and might have been sexually exploiting males relatively near his age. But do you think that he stopped doing this when he was older? I suspect that most people would consider a 30-year-old man having sex with a 15-year-old to qualify as pederasty. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:54, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

The Uganda Martyrs were executed in 1887. Mwanga was himself 19 years of age! This image of an old man exploiting young boys is a clear case of demonisation. Contaldo80 (talk) 11:22, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Sources

Does anyone know the age of the boys Mwanga was having (or wanting to have) sex with? If I did the math right, Mwanga was about 16 when he came to power, and he started killing the pages and their protectors almost immediately. If the pages were pretty much his age, then we have a case of neither pedophilia nor pederasty, but a pair of careless assumptions: that sexually abusive kings are middle-aged, and that sexually victimized pages are pre-teens or young teens.

I have also not seen any sources which discuss his sexual practices in his 20s and 30s (and he was only 35 when he died in exile). Can anyone else find anything? WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:45, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm. Maybe I am no expert on the subject, it is clear the pederasty is not approriate here either way. Even if it was I would opose the LGBT cat here, since pederatsy advocacy is generally rejected by the LGBT community, NAMBLA the most famous pederast advocacy group is widely shunned, though they try to present themselves as the "cutting edge" of the grouping. I wont remove the cat again though since I don't need any more abuse from Jeffpw for the next few days. Lobojo (talk) 18:54, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Lobojo, I don't understand your objection. If a 17-year-old male has sex with another male of exactly his own age, then you don't think the 17-year-old should be considered gay or bisexual, on the grounds that if a 50-year-old male has sex with a 17-year-old male, then it's pederasty or pedophilia? What exactly do you call a 17-year-old male who has sex with other teenaged males? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:56, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm just argeeing with you and pointing out that based on the current information that we have we cannot say. But also adding that pederasty is certainly *not* the correct language, since this is rape. I do not know but if it is forced he isnt called a pederast. That much I know. Lobojo (talk) 21:02, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

So what exactly does your above statement, "I would opose the LGBT cat here" mean, if it doesn't mean that you don't think Mwanga was LGBT? Am I supposed to interpret "I would opose the LGBT cat here" as meaning "I would oppose the history of pederasty cat here"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:52, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

I think it's a mistake to imply that Mwanga was a paedophile. Researching about the Uganda Martyrs (the pages that rejected his sexual advances) it's clear that the bulk of the them were in the 20s and late teens when they died. The youngest, St. Kizito, was 14 when martyred. If we assume that Mwanga did away with them fairly soon after they spurned him (rather than wait 10 years or so) then it's wrong to see them as children. The word 'page' implies someone young but in fact at least one of them was in his 50s. More likely that the local churches deliberately conflated the issues in order to demonise the king (who was hostile to missionary christianity). Contaldo80 (talk) 10:45, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Sources for Mwanga II's relationships with his page boys

I don't see a source for the section which details Mwanga II's main opposition to Christian missionaries being that his page boys turned to Christianity and insolently refused his sexual advances. It's not that this is an extraordinary claim; in fact, it's quite believable, but what evidence is there to back up this claim? Can anyone provide me with a source that shows this was the reason for his purging of Christians and missionaries? There would certainly be other factors for a King in such an area, like the cultural aspects of such an invasive ideology, etc. If anyone has a verifiable source for this claim, it would be nice to include it in that section of the bio. Thanks. Mavriksfan11 (talk) 23:26, 20 January 2013 (UTC)