ABSTRACT
The anthropologist Clifford Geertz has regarded symbolism as central in his approach to cultural analysis. The rituals and customs of the Melanesian culture area took as an important focus the positive symbolism of the erotic relationship between father and son. The preoccupation with dichotemous classification of men into "heterosexual" and "homosexual" which has prevailed in our culture is best understood in terms of the psychoanalytic concept of "splitting" or the mythic mechanism of doubling. The "homosexual" is a complex cultural symbol, a condensation of meanings. In our culture, a sexual action of this kind symbolizes the gross sexual abuse of a minor. The term sexual abuse also "stores" a set of meanings that the culture strives to prevent the young from ever directly experiencing. Sexuality became the focus and the phallus the prime instrument of the Devil's destructive power. A symbolic approach to sexuality facilitates an understanding of sexual attraction of man to youth.
