ABSTRACT

“The more things change, the more they stay the same.” The old cliché immediately comes to mind on looking back over the last twenty-two years of Der Kreis and comparing what was reported there with the current situation in Europe and North America. There have been many changes-and some are clearly for the better. For example, the legality of (male) homosexual acts-at least when the persons involved are beyond an arbitrary “adult” age-has increased. This is a welcome development. In the process, however, a large segment of the historical expression of homosexuality, namely age-differentiated sexuality, has been excluded from the liberation discourse. This process can already be seen in the pages of Der Kreis, as was pointed out in chapter 9.