Wilde's Children

Oh this is utter rubbish. Of course Oscar Wilde liked children. Anyone who's read his children's stories will know that. They were after all, his only genuine stab at great literature, including some genuine religious work.

Similarly no one can really doubt that he also had sex with children. In Victorian London it was perfectly normal for rentboys to be children - or "underage", as we would (hypocritically) say nowadays, even though it's now legal to have sex with children over the age of sixteen. The Law, moreover, often knew when to turn a blind eye to such goings on - at least until Wilde came along and mindlessly trampled on the polite but convenient hypocrisies of Victorian morality.

But why would anyone pretend that he didn't - unless they're trying for some reason to deny their own interests and at the same time maintain the reputation of one of their own saintly gay martyrs. The Law nowadays may be less hypocritical (moderately!). But where it is still hypocritical it is a good deal more brutal.