I like your alternate suggestion from several posts ago that he might have enjoyed being made to work like no one's business for domination but in the end succeeding.
That's one of the possibilities I see. I have another, more boring and kink-free theory after having read Ziebura. Heinrich was a helper in a way that could be healthy--he liked taking young people under his wing and funding their educations and such--and could turn into trying to fix people who didn't want to be fixed. And it's possible that, when combined with a partner with a charismatic personality and possibly good sex, the more dysfunctional a relationship was, the more energy Heinrich tried to invest in helping the young man live up to his potential. It's the old "I can change him!" story.
It's often the case that the people you love the most are not the ones who've done the most for you, but the ones you've done the most for. There's also the sunk costs fallacy: the more you've invested in something, the more compelled you feel to keep investing, to justify your past investment, in hopes of getting an eventual payoff, instead of cutting your losses.
More dysfunctional than kinky, imo. But that's not to say that Heinrich might not also have been a pushy bottom in bed! Kinks can be independent of any other aspect of your life. And regardless, fiction can do whatever fiction wants, and Heinrich either as bottom or someone who works like nobody's business to finally win is a great dynamic. :D
Doesn't mean he trades them in once they're closer to 30
Yup, that's why I was careful to say "started relationships" and say that it was not only his sexual attraction to this particular age that mattered--the relationships clearly gathered momentum as they went on.
Heinrich not having an erastes: I was thinking exactly that, both that we have much less data and that he had that gay steward.
Heinrich had a sexual type, and that type was young, handsome, in his early 20s, energetic, charming and none too reliable.
Re: Not his type?
I like your alternate suggestion from several posts ago that he might have enjoyed being made to work like no one's business for domination but in the end succeeding.
That's one of the possibilities I see. I have another, more boring and kink-free theory after having read Ziebura. Heinrich was a helper in a way that could be healthy--he liked taking young people under his wing and funding their educations and such--and could turn into trying to fix people who didn't want to be fixed. And it's possible that, when combined with a partner with a charismatic personality and possibly good sex, the more dysfunctional a relationship was, the more energy Heinrich tried to invest in helping the young man live up to his potential. It's the old "I can change him!" story.
It's often the case that the people you love the most are not the ones who've done the most for you, but the ones you've done the most for. There's also the sunk costs fallacy: the more you've invested in something, the more compelled you feel to keep investing, to justify your past investment, in hopes of getting an eventual payoff, instead of cutting your losses.
More dysfunctional than kinky, imo. But that's not to say that Heinrich might not also have been a pushy bottom in bed! Kinks can be independent of any other aspect of your life. And regardless, fiction can do whatever fiction wants, and Heinrich either as bottom or someone who works like nobody's business to finally win is a great dynamic. :D
Doesn't mean he trades them in once they're closer to 30
Yup, that's why I was careful to say "started relationships" and say that it was not only his sexual attraction to this particular age that mattered--the relationships clearly gathered momentum as they went on.
Heinrich not having an erastes: I was thinking exactly that, both that we have much less data and that he had that gay steward.
Heinrich had a sexual type, and that type was young, handsome, in his early 20s, energetic, charming and none too reliable.
Yep.