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I was reading Conservapedia's article on John Maynard Keynes and pederasty:

Keynes and his friends made numerous trips to the resorts surrounding the Mediterranean. At the resorts, little boys were sold by their families to bordellos which catered to homosexuals.

The article references an external source, KEYNES AT HARVARD - Economic Deception as a Political Credo:

He and his fellow leftist reformers however, had no compunction in exploiting human degradation and misery in Tunis, Algeria, Morocco, Egypt and Constantinople (Istanbul). These served as convenient spawning grounds for the establishment of enclosed brothels filled with children, who were compelled to satisfy the unnatural lusts of high-born English socialists

Zygmund Dobbs is his article SUGAR KEYNES for The Review of the News wrote:

His particular depravity was the sexual abuse of little boys. .

The idea that Keynes was a child molester sounded a little strange to me, so I looked on Wikipedia's article on John Maynard Keynes. I couldn't find any hint of child molestation allegations.

Is there any truth to the claims that Keynes was a child molester?

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Mark Rogers
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  • Huh. I get 403 – forbidden on Conservapaedia (even without referrer). Did they finally decide to ban the ol’ Europe completely? – Konrad Rudolph May 04 '11 at 08:33
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    Please note that "pederasty" and "child molester" is not the same thing. Pederasty is having sex with young but sexually mature males. "Pedophilia" is having sex with children who are not sexually mature. "Child molester" usually refers to the latter. We have no idea what age the "boys" in question were, and you should therefore change your question to not refer to child molestation, but call it "pederasty" consistently. – Lennart Regebro May 04 '11 at 10:12
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    The question whether the person behind some theory was/is a good person is next to unimportant (unless private behavior is in direct conflict with what you stand for and plan or recommend to impose upon others). The example quoted above sounds more like an instance of a "poisoning the well"-fallacy. – flitzwald May 04 '11 at 10:57
  • @flitzwald - my understanding is that the point being made was that the person who championed liberal/scocialist political and economic news is claimed to use the services of young people likely forced into prostitution by poverty. **If** that claim is true, it's evidence of hypocritical behavior and thus relevant. – user5341 May 04 '11 at 13:50
  • @LennartRegebro: I don't think **pederasty** necessarily only applies to "**sexually mature males**". From [Pedastry on Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pederasty): "The word pederasty derives from Greek (paiderastia) "**love of children**" or "love of boys", a compound derived from παῖς (pais) "**child**, boy" and ἐραστής (erastēs) "lover"." In the context of Conservapedia, it seems they are using it as a euphemism for male child abuse. – Mark Rogers May 04 '11 at 14:11
  • By the way, what specifically was the reason for downvote? – user5341 May 04 '11 at 14:17
  • @Sejanus: I'm not getting 403, but I'm not from old Europe. – Andrew Grimm May 05 '11 at 06:48
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    @Mark Rogers: Conservapedia wants you to think that it's a euphemism for child molester, when they in fact know very well it's not. They write "Pederast" and they hope you think "pedophile". It's a part of their efforts to throw mud. – Lennart Regebro May 05 '11 at 07:24
  • That's interesting point, the word Pederast is certainly a term not used often anymore. – Mark Rogers May 05 '11 at 13:40
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    @DVK: This may be a whole subject in itself, but why is hypocritical behaviour relevant? – Oddthinking Jun 04 '11 at 07:12
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    The book is an extremist hatchet job designed to discredit Keynes for political reasons. The fact that Conservapedia quotes it is just more evidence of its bias. – DJClayworth Nov 28 '11 at 14:49
  • Whats with the down votes? Isn't part of the function of skeptics to explore whether unusual claims are true or not? If people are taking snipes at Keyes, in order to discredit him, why not throw down the gauntlet and see if it has any truth. – Mark Rogers Nov 28 '11 at 15:37
  • @Chad I disagree, people are literally claiming Keynes had direct sexual intercourse with underaged boys. I've heard this claim multiple times from multiple sources. Do you have any suggestions on how to make that more clear? – Mark Rogers Aug 21 '12 at 15:03
  • @Chad - does that help? feel free to try and edit. – Mark Rogers Aug 21 '12 at 17:23
  • @MarkRoger Yes thank you. Vote reversed :) – Chad Aug 21 '12 at 18:56

2 Answers2

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Your definition of "molesting" and "pederasty" are likely based on your personal beliefs, so I do not know if this is helpful or not.

There is a reference in the original Conservapedia article to this article in the Economist

That article examines Keynes' own sex diaries:

The first diary is easy: Keynes lists his sexual partners, either by their initials (GLS for Lytton Strachey, DG for Duncan Grant) or their nicknames ("Tressider," for J. T. Sheppard, the King's College Provost). When he apparently had a quick, anonymous hook-up, he listed that sex partner generically: "16-year-old under Etna" and "Lift boy of Vauxhall" in 1911, for instance, and "Jew boy," in 1912.

Born in mid 1883, he would have been about 28 in 1911.

So, according to his diaries, he had sex with a 16-year-old, while aged 28, and others that he described as "boys" (which can be a broad term for ages).

I don't know if the age of consent has changed recently in Italy (which I assumed is the Etna referred to), but it is currently 14 years old, so if he did that today, he would not be committing a crime.

Judging historical figures' behaviour by today's/local social mores is often tricky. (Somehow, I don't think he would have written it in his diary if he knew, a century later, the semantics would be debated in public.)

And, of course, his ideas should be argued on their merits, not on his taste in sexual partners.

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    The claim (inferred though not actually said) is that he used the child brothels where children were forced to serve as prostitutes. Further there is no claim that because he may have had these tastes that western society now deems shameful, despite the prevalence into the 1970's, that this invalidates his ideas. They are invalidated solely because they do not work. – Chad Aug 21 '12 at 14:50
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    I see your point. This addresses the claim in the question title, but not those implied claims in Conservapedia. I have no comment on the actual validity of his economic ideas; I just reject the implication (again, of the original article) that they should be rejected based on his sexual activity. – Oddthinking Aug 21 '12 at 17:32
  • "Boy" can cover a *very* broad range of ages: it has historically been used to refer to any lower-class or servant male. – Mark Nov 18 '14 at 01:07
  • @Mark: Agreed. It is impossible to categorically determined the age of those men, which is why I focussed on the 16-year-old where the age is known. – Oddthinking Nov 18 '14 at 01:14
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The linked Zygmund Dobbs write-up is kind of thinner on hard references than on flowery rhetoric when it comes specifically to pederasty, but it did provide one verifiable reference - a quote from Keynes's letter to Lytton Starchey:

... "Tunis, “where ‘bed and boy’ were also not expensive.” - Vol. I, p. 80.

  • Michael Holroyd, Lytton Strachey: A Critical Biography, Heinemann, London, 1967. Printed in two volumes. Vol. II printed in 1968. An American edition distributed by Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York.

Please note that the quote is accurate - I was able to find it via Google books.

Does it constitute full incontrovertible proof by itself? No.

Does it sound like a solid enough circumstantial evidence, in light of what is generally know about both Keynes and the type of people he was hanging around? In my personal opinion, at least it sounds plausible - I can't find any possible second meaning to the quote given the extent of sexual tourism in the area.

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    It might have been a comment on sexual tourism in general. Without context it’s *impossible* to say whether Keynes benefited from it. So it’s not even circumstantial evidence. It’s a comment without context. – Konrad Rudolph May 04 '11 at 08:37
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    Note that this only implies that he is homosexual (which we already know from other sources) and that he was a client of male prostitutes. It doesn't imply that he was a child molester, as we don't know what age these "boys" were. – Lennart Regebro May 04 '11 at 10:15
  • @Lennart - first, unless there is a well established fact that "boys" referred to adult male prostitutes in homosexual cultural circles of the time (which is possible but not known to me), Occam's Razor dictates that we go with the theory that he meant the word with the connotation that implies. Second, in mediterranean/middle east (especially places like Tunisia), child boy prostitution was a more likely phenomenon to occur than adult one, for cultural reasons, especially as related to sex tourism. – user5341 May 04 '11 at 11:02
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    @DVK: No, you can't assume either way. "Boy" can both mean child, teenager and young adult. You can not assume that they mean "child". You'll also need a source to claim that male child prostitution was more likely in Tunisia than teenage or adult male prostitution and even then "more likely" doesn't actually mean that this is what Keynes meant. – Lennart Regebro May 04 '11 at 13:05
  • @Lennart - I believe your intterpretation of "boy" is completely unlikely, but not being a native English speaker, am not 100% certain. Thus, let's resolve this argument like true gentlemen - I will post the question on English SE :) – user5341 May 04 '11 at 13:55
  • @Lennart - by the way, "teenager" vs "child" is irrelevant in this context. The problem highlighted wasn't the moral issue of the age of the prostitute (well, at least not for me) but an issue of whether they were a victim of poverty-enforced underage prostitution trade as opposed to adult male prostitute who presumably had more choice of vocation. – user5341 May 04 '11 at 14:15
  • @DVK: In that case, child vs adult is irrelevant, as even if it would have been an adult prostitute it would have likely been forced into prostitution by poverty. So no, it's not irrelevant. Conservapedias claim is an effort to stamp Keynes as a pedophile. And as the answers on english.SE conclusive shows, "boy" can mean adult as well. – Lennart Regebro May 05 '11 at 07:26
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    @Lennart - no able-bodied **adult** is **forced** into prostitution, outright of actual slavery which rarely happens to men. OTOH, child prostitutes don't have 2 benefits of said adult - ability to get another job and ability to resist someone forcing them to do so. The former's more important. P.S. Haven't read all the EnglishSE responses but it sounds that i might have been mistaken in my knowledge of slang. – user5341 May 05 '11 at 07:48
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    @DVK: Then you are now assuming both a modern economy, where teenagers can't get jobs for different reasons (which is not the case here) and you are assuming that they are physically forced into prostitution, which you have no reason to assume. Your assumptions pile up on each other here, and you now have to make a whole pile of assumptions to have anywhere to go on this. Again, I need to suggest chat if you want to continue this fruitless path. – Lennart Regebro May 05 '11 at 07:54
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    @DVK By your understanding of the word "Boy" meaning *only* underage males, should we assume the equivalent and send Child Protection Services to raid every establishment saying "Live Nude Girls" or such? – Shadur Nov 18 '14 at 08:18