ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to demonstrate that what can be found in Richard Burton’s work, especially in his translations of erotic classics, are a plethora of satirical textual games in which he mocks western attitudes to sexuality, and elevates eastern mores and practices as superior, more ethical, more honest. Fundamental to Burton’s representation of Oriental erotology is a valuing of some aspects of Arab culture, but this is joined with a defensiveness about the content of the texts, which leads to effective self-censorship by Burton. While lauding the eastern male, Burton cannot be regarded as anti-racist, since he establishes a hierarchy of non-white races. Burton’s racism admits of differences between the Arab and the ‘negro’, the former emerging as far superior to the latter. The difference that is foregrounded is that of penis size. Scholarship is used to produce a different version of the history of pederasty. Christianity is presented in two other relationships to pederastic practice, outside the Pentapolis myth.
