Linking the Ivory Tower with the Street
CAS prof as scholar, activist, mentor
BU Today
By Leslie Friday
1-29-2013
With her delicate features, blue eyes, and blonde hair, Carrie Preston could double as a porcelain doll, but she hardly handles life with kid gloves. Halfway through an early morning lecture on The Invention of Heterosexuality and Homosexuality in an Introduction to Women’s Studies class, Preston tells students about the practice of pederasty in ancient Athens, in which Greek men developed relationships with adolescent boys they chose as sexual partners and mentored. The practice was completely accepted at the time, she notes, because sex was about power and virility. That’s hard to imagine in today’s world, where Penn State football coach Jerry Sandusky’s sexual contact with young boys led to his imprisonment and a raft of lawsuits against the school.