Date: Sun, 27 May 2007 14:13:13 -0500
From: dionysus@mail.org
Subject: Growing Up Confused

# # #

This is a story about a sexual coming of age, a story of struggle and
pleasure, of fear and confusion, told in the first person. It is fiction
but it is based in reality because it is someone's story, and as with any
literature that connects with the reader, it is true to the extent that it
resonates with the reader's own experience. More than that I will not say.

If you the reader are offended by sexual acts between minors, or if stories
of sexual conduct or misconduct are illegal or forbidden to you, be warned
that the story you are about to read contains graphic details of sexual
activities between young males.

# # #

As I sit down to write this I must admit that I have not yet
resolved basic questions about my sexuality, in particular, whether
or not I am gay, heterosexual or bi-sexual. I have never accepted
the premise that I may be gay despite early sexual experiences with
males that I will recount in this collection of random memories. I
have reminded myself through the years when I have thought about my
earlier experiences with young males, that I am not now and never
have been sexually attracted to men and that therefore I conclude
that I am not gay. Others may disagree on that point. However, I
have not had any sexual contact ever with a male older than about
18 years old, and I have not had any sexual contact with any male
in more than 40 years. That does not mean that I have not found
myself attracted to some young males through the years, but those
feelings have not been strong enough, or my courage sufficient
enough, for me to act on them or initiate or engage in any sexual
contact with a male.

Several years ago I started writing down various incidents and
experiences of my life as I remembered them, as notes in
preparation for writing an autobiographical history for my family,
primarily for my grandchildren. I remembered and jotted down some
notes about a number of sexual incidents but was unsure what to do
with them. On the one hand these early sexual experiences are part
of who I am. Some of these early experiences were overtly sexual
and, quite frankly, they are embarrassing to me and I do not want
to share these sexual incidents with members of my family. I
considered deleting them, but thought better of it and put these
notes in a secure file in my computer until I had thought it
through a bit more.

Lately I have read several writings by others, both young and
older, some who had come out, others who for one reason or another
decided not to, but all detailing their struggle with their sexual
identity. Some had circumstances similar to mine, others vastly
different experience, but it seemed to me possible that others may
find my journey helpful to their own struggle with sexual identity.
The incidents and events I recount in the following paragraphs
are written with the hope that telling my story may be as helpful
to someone else as it was to me in having to write it out. I have
tried to write sensitively and accurately, in graphic detail to the
extent necessary to convey authentic experience. If anything I
write strikes a chord with you, please write and let me know.

I acknowledge that I am troubled by the fact that some of the
incidents that I remember and have described in this essay involve
young children or young men and today might be considered by some
readers as indications of disturbed sexuality or even molestation
because the boys involved were generally younger than me. I was
young also, and largely ignorant of sexual matters and implications
at an age well beyond that of my peers in the 1950s. It is clear
to me now, although it was not at the time I engaged in these
incidents, that the behavior described was improper and probably
illegal. However it never occurred to me at the time that these
incidents were more than interacting together with friends with
behavior that would have been more thant embarrassing if it had
become known. I conclude that I must have been very naive and
immature not to have realized the implications of my sexual
experiences. Except possibly with respect to the boy named "Jimmy"
below none of the incidents involved any pressure or coercion or
could have been considered "unwanted sexual advances" as that term
is understood today.

I was never molested while growing up, even though I was around
many adults who could have been molesters -- teachers, coaches,
scout leaders, church leaders, camp counselors. I never heard
about anyone who was molested. In a way that is surprising,
because I was the kind of kid who today would most probably been
the subject of sexual advances -- naive, lonely, small for my age,
and cute -- and without strong parental relationships.

The earliest "sexual" incident that I can recall involved my
brother and me and a little girl. I was probably in 2nd or 3rd
grade and the girl was about the same age. I remember that the
three of us were outside playing on a sidewalk and I talked the
girl into each of us showing the other our private parts -- "I'll
show you mine if you'll show me yours" was the general drift of our
dare. She pulled down her panties and there was nothing there to
see. I was very disappointed. I don't know if I reciprocated.
However when we got home my brother told mother, who told my
stepfather. My stepfather told me that what I had done was
disgusting and evil. In addition to whatever physical punishment I
had to endure I remember that he scared me by telling me that I
could go to hell for such behavior, or to reform school [a juvenile
prison, which seemed worse than hell] and that the police were
likely to come by and get me and take me away. I was very
frightened. I expected the police to come for me at any moment.

We lived in the same one-bedroom apartment in the outskirts of a
major East Coast city for most of the time I was in elementary
school, through junior high school and up through the first year of
high school. The apartment complex consisted of a series of
adjoining buildings containing four to six apartments each,
physically connected together into a long city block. Underneath
the apartment complex was a maze of interconnected basement rooms
used as storerooms containing individual lockers for residents, and
other rooms with coin-operated washing machines and lines for
hanging laundry. The laundry hanging rooms were probably about
20 feet by 25 feet, with rope clotheslines strung the long way of
the room. Some of the larger rooms had internal columns,
apparently to support the structure above. Because these rooms
were interconnected we could play in them riding on our bicycles,
wending our way from room to room. My brother and I and our
friends frequently played in these interconnected series of rooms
and halls, sometimes riding our bikes or scooters, at other times
playing war games or cowboys and Indians.

When I was in elementary school, probably about 6th grade, we had a
playmate that I will call Jimmy who was about two or three years
younger than me, about my brother's age or younger. He lived with
his mother in an apartment in the adjoining building. His father
was a sailor, but was around frequently and was probably assigned
to a nearby Naval Air Station. We played with Jimmy regularly,
both outdoors in our "forts" in the woods and in the basement
corridors, typically some form of battle game, using cap
pistols--cowboys and Indians, cops and robbers, GIs and Germans,
etc.

I recall on one occasion "capturing" Jimmy so that he was my
prisoner and tying him to one of the cement block columns with the
clothesline rope that hung from the walls. I remember pulling down
his shorts and underpants, ostensibly so he could not escape, but
actually because I wanted to see him naked. I remember touching
him. He did not protest. I do not remember whether this happened
on more than one occasion. Sometimes neighbors came into the
basement to do their laundry or retrieve their clothes from the
clothesline, but we were careful that any activities of this sort
took place farther back into the maze of basement rooms so we had
time to recover from whatever we were doing when we heard someone
coming.

At about the time I was in the 6th grade I had a friend whose name
was Tommy. He lived with his mother in a first floor apartment in
an apartment building diagonally across the intersection from where
my family's apartment was located. Tommy and I had played strip
poker with my brother and other boys on several occasions. The
object of the game was not so much to play poker, but to have an
excuse to get other boys naked while remaining mostly dressed
ourselves. Those who lost a round would remove one item of clothes
only when necessary, one sock or shoe at a time, keeping our pants
until last -- and when one of us ended up nude or close to it, we
would sit cross-legged, trying to conceal our genitals as we
continued the game while we hoped to win a round and redeem an
article of clothing as the others laughed at our embarrassment.

I wanted to play strip poker with just Tommy alone, and sometimes I
managed to do just that. We could play at his house because his
mother was not home most afternoons after school, and I suppose she
worked. His apartment, like mine, was small and there was only one
bedroom. There was not much furniture in the living room, and that
was where we played, sitting on the hardwood floor. I remember on
one occasion when he and I had both lost and had removed our
underpants so that we were both totally nude, we lay on the floor
on our backs, beside each other, and I remember putting my hand on
his erect penis and playing with it, and I assume he did the same
with me but I cannot recall. I did not know about masturbation,
and I do not think I was old enough to ejaculate anyway. I
remember that I was a bit afraid that someone might walk in on us
and so I got up and locked the door. [My brother remembered that
Tommy's mother did walk in on us one time and almost catch us.]

Every Saturday night my parents went out for the evening and did
not return until very late, usually in the early morning hours on
Sunday. My brother and I had a regular Saturday routine, a trip to
the movie theater that we always hoped was a double feature,
followed by baths and an early supper. By 6 or 7 p.m., my mother
and stepfather left my brother and me home alone, confined to the
bedroom we shared, a string tied to the exterior door knob of the
bedroom and the other end of the string tied to the doorknob of the
bathroom, which was directly across the hall. We slept on double
bunks. We had some very casual sex play when I was in 9th grade
and my brother was in the 7th grade. We would talk for quite a
while but rarely got out of bed. I recall reaching down from my
top bunk on occasion to touch Joe's penis as he arched his back to
push his genital area as high as he could so I could reach his
erect penis. Joe had a few black pubic hairs at the base of his
penis. We discussed boys we knew and whether we had seen them
naked, and whether they had any "hair" yet around their penis. We
never did more than that, although I am surprised that we never did
more, since I discovered many years later that my brother is gay
and lives with a long term companion.

This was a very transient period. The Second World War had
recently ended and society was very mobile as servicemen returned
home and government activities in Washington began to scale down.
Many families were connected with local military bases and dozens
of smaller posts scattered throughout the city. Families came and
went -- so most of our playmates came and went and none was around
very long.

I recall going with groups, sometimes boy scouts, sometimes church
youth groups, to the YMCA swimming pool, to a Boys Club swimming
pool or to the swimming pool at the local naval air station. These
were all heated indoor pools. Only boys went on these swimming
trips. The Boys Clubs [and I think the YMCA also] during this
period of time had a philosophy that swim suits were not permitted
and only nude swimming was allowed. I think the rationale was that
bathing suits were germ collectors and were unhealthy. I did not
like swimming nude and eventually stopped going on these swimming
trips. The navy pool did not have a nude swimming rule, and I
preferred to swim there.

I had some "girl friends" during this period. There were the
twins, when I was in the 5th grade, with blond pigtails and long
thin legs and always happy smiles, who were older, who seemed so
much older, but who were probably in the 7th grade, that I followed
around and talked with when I dared, and made myself a pest at
other times, but as so often happens, one day I did not see them
any more and assumed that they had moved away.

In the 6th grade there was Betty. I chased her during recess and
she ran and giggled, and she was usually with her friends who ran
and giggled too and sometimes told me that she liked me. I wrote
notes to her and sat beside her when I could and hoped I was on her
team when we chose up for sport activities such as "dodge ball" or
that I could dance with her in gym class where we did square
dances. I looked forward to sending her a special valentine on Feb
14. There were other girls I was interested in, too, whose names
I cannot recall.

7th grade presented a new difficulty, physical education. In
elementary school we played games during recess but there was no
formal class. But in junior high school we had physical education
class. We had "uniforms" -- blue shorts with numbers on them and
white T-shirts with our name on them. We did calisthenics and
played sports and afterwards we took showers. I did not like
physical education partly because I was not good at sports and I
felt incompetent and embarrassed, and I think mostly because we
took group showers and I was embarassed by my scant hardly visible
pubic hair when I could see that some of my friends were growing
hair around their penis. I was small in stature with a smaller
penis than some of my classmates, and because I was uncircumcised
my penis seemed small and shriveled by comparison to my classmates.
It seems strange to me now that it should matter so much, but
young boys desperately want to fit in and being different is not
rewarded in the child's world.

I had heard the term "circumcision" occasionally and asked my
mother what it meant. She was embarassed by the question and in
her typical fashion answered awkwardly and vaguely, but on being
pressed said that it was an operation done to your private parts
where some skin was removed by doctors when you were born. I asked
why, and she said it was primarily for health and cleanliness
reasons. I asked whether I was circumcised and she told me that I
was; that she had both my brother and I circumcised while we were
in the hospital after being born. I was quite puzzled, because to
me it appeared that I looked like those who I had assumed were not
circumcised; occasionally I had seen boys who seemed to me to be
uncircumcized, and they looked like me, and when I protested to her
that it did not appear to me that I was circumcized she continued
to insist that it had been done and that as I got older and bigger
it would be more apparent to me.

Eventually the truth dawned on me that despite what my mother told
me I had not been circumcized. I was puzzled that she did not seem
to know, but on the other hand there were other times she told me
untruths about sexual matters that she had to know were untrue or
inaccurate, or at best unhelpful. Her lack of accuracy and candor
caused me great pain and confusion during those awkward years of
growing into manhood.

Sexual curiosity was a fact of life for me in my early adolescence,
but it was a curiosity that I did not know how to satisfy and I had
no idea what I did not know.

Our society presumes that sex information is commonly available to
children, who are presumed to acquire much of their sexual
knowledge early and from their peers, and while that form of
education apparently went on while I was growing up, it seemed to
allude me. I was too much of a loner, too timid and shy, too
frightened of being humiliated or being made fun of if I let my
friends know that I did not know what they were talking about. By
comparison to other boys in that time I was incredibly naive and
uninformed. Unfortunately I was only vaguely aware that I was
missing an essential part of my education.

Some years later, having heard words and expressions that those
around me assumed I knew but having no idea what they meant except
that they were undesireable and bad, to be laughed at and joked
about, I asked my mother what "queer" and "fairy" meant and all she
would tell me was that queers and fairies were men who did things
with men that men were supposed to do with women; since that didn't
really answer the question, I pursued the issue by daring to ask
"what sort of things" and learned that it involved things that men
and women did after they got married. The conversation was making
her uncomfortable, but she thought she had answered my question
sufficiently, and although I did not really know much more than
when I started, I was now unccomfortable with her discomfort and
obvious embarrassment and decided to settle for that answer rather
than pursue the question to comprehension.

My stepfather was aloof, a traveling salesman of sort who was gone
for weeks at a time. He was 15 years older than my mother, very
stiff and formal, who never (so far as I can recall) ever had a
conversation with me that was not a scolding or lecture over my
apparently very many failings, or a command or instruction for
chores I had to do. I could not imagine interrupting him while he
was reading the paper or writing at his desk to talk to him or to
ask him anything. The feelings I had when around him were largely
fear. He was not physically brutal or mean, but he was cruel with
his comments, and his constant belittling and berating undermined
any confidence I might have had. A typical comment was that I
looked and walked like my father but my father would be ashamed of
me for my behavior and attitude. I don't think I ever heard a word
of praise from him, not even when my school grades went from
merely satisfactory to outstanding and when teachers praised my
academic achievement and my behavior; in anger I asked him why he
constantly criticized me and never had anything good to say, and
his astounding answer was that since I had fooled my teachers and
minister and people outside the home into thinking I was worthy of
praise that it was his job to cut me down to size.

During my early years, sometime around sixth or seventh grade, I
had what I later learned were "wet dreams" -- incomprehensible
experiences that left me with panic, guilt and fear. I felt like I
was wetting the bed and would wake up in a panic to find wetness in
my pajamas. I feared that I must be doing something to myself in
my sleep that I should not be doing. I had been told that touching
myself was evil and this taboo was reinforced by my fundamentalist
religion with a fear of hell and damnation. I remember my mother
saying that I should not play with myself, terrible things would
happen to me.

There was obviously no one I could talk to about this. It was my
problem and I would have to deal with it alone. I prayed that I
would stop doing this evil thing, but it went on for months. I do
not know how old I was when this was going on or how long it lasted
but it created fear and panic. I started wearing socks on my hands
when I went to bed, hoping that I would be unable to play with
myself in my sleep. I thought of tying my hands to the bed.
Whatever I was doing in my sleep was something forbidden -- but
there was also something pleasurable about it that could not
overcome the fear and guilt of what I must be doing to myself in my
sleep.

I was very much afraid of playing with myself. I remember the
first time I ejaculated consciously. I was 15. And still quite
naive. I was in the bathtub and I suddenly got an erection. I
played with my penis and it felt good, so I masturbated to
ejaculation and the glob of sticky cum floated on the water and I
had to swish it around to get rid of it. I figured this was what
kids meant when they talked about "jerking off" and while I still
felt guilty about it, I did not feel so guilty that I had any
desire to stop doing it. After this I went into the closet my
brother and I shared to masturbate guiltily and secretly. This was
now my occasional secret pleasure.

In 7th grade I became infatuated with one of my classmates. I
wanted to be with him all the time. We were best friends
throughout junior high school, which in DC meant 7th through 9th
grade. Don was popular both with girls and boys, more so than I
was, although he was not the most popular boy in my 7th grade
class. He had curly dark brown hair and freckles and would be
considered "cute." We did not have a telephone in our apartment,
but very often I would be sent to the store on Sunday afternoon to
get milk or ice cream, and if I had a dime in my pocket or could
sneak a dime out of the change from the trip to the store, I would
call Don and talk for a while, sometimes a short call, sometimes
longer, and it made me feel better that I had talked to him.

I would think about him when I was not with him and I could be
jealous and hurt when he did things with other friends, although I
tried not to show it. The relationship, at least from my
perspective, was an intimate friendship. It felt different than
any relationship I had up to that time and it felt emotionally
uplifting and simultaneously draining in a way that I have rarely
felt since then. I went with him and his family on many weekends
to their cottage at the beach, sometimes for the day, sometimes
overnight and I would share his room. It felt good.

After junior high school we drifted apart, I suspect mostly he
drifted away from me. But in looking back on those days, given my
day dreams of other boys, and my sense that I was in love with him
although I never would have admitted it in that quite direct way, I
am puzzled that I never had any experience with him in reality or
in fantasy, that would be considered in any sense sexual. I did
not imagine him naked and only saw him naked a few times in gym,
and when I did "dream" of him it was in his underwear, which for
some reason seemed to signify the sort of intimate relationship
that I imagined with him, that we would be close to each other.

I may have feared to let my feelings surface or to act more on
those feelings, or even to dream in a way that could be perceived
to be sexual because I was at least partially aware that these
feelings were not normal or were at least different than those of
other boys in my class. While I had no consciousness awareness of
the probable true nature of my feelings, and I certainly had no
concept of being gay or thinking anything sexual, I suspect that I
was afraid of what I did not understand, and in my usual way, kept
myself under control.

I became a Boy Scout when I was 12 years old. I liked to camp. I
liked the uniform. I had bought the necessary backpack, pup tent
and a sleeping bag, all government surplus and available from
"surplus stores" or "army and navy stores" that were common in the
post-World War 2 era. I subscribed to outdoor life and camping and
fishing magazines. I camped in the field behind my apartment, with
whoever of my friends would camp with me. I went on camping trips
with the Boy Scouts in state parks or other wooded areas on weekend
camping trips. Nothing sexual ever occurred with any scouting
activities in which I engaged. However some of my camping was by
myself or with another friend, and usually involved quite a long
hike from my apartment out of town and then along the highway
leading to a state park that was formerly a Civil War fortress,
located on the banks of a river.

One of my classmates in junior high school went with me on one of
these overnight camping trips to the fort in the spring of my 8th
grade year. He was in my class but he seemed a bit younger than
me. It got cold that night, and we had a good campfire before we
went to bed each in our sleeping bag in my pup tent. During the
night it snowed. Both of us were awake. We decided to sleep in my
sleeping bag and use his bag as an extra cover, in order to keep
warm. Philip wanted to sleep in his clothes, but I had talked him
into sleeping in our underwear so that our clothes would not be
damp from body heat and perspiration in the morning, something I
had learned in scouting. But I had an ultimate motive, in that I
wanted to see him in his underwear. We had an electric lantern,
which I had hung from one of the interior tent posts. We snuggled
together to keep warm, and that was very pleasant. I went farther,
beginning with tickling him, then eventually tickling him in the
genital area, then actually getting him to let me slide his
underpants down, and tickle and play with his penis. He had some
dark pubic hair just beginning to come in, and he had a small but
erect circumcised penis. He was uncomfortable with my touch I
think, but he did not object and he did not touch me. Eventually
we went to sleep, with my arm around him. We were not best
friends, but we occasionally did things together but there were no
other sexual experiences.

My mother took my brother and me to New England one summer by train
when I was about 14 years old, to visit her relatives. A friend of
my cousins about my age was playing with us, and we were playing
hide and seek in the field behind my cousin's house. It was summer
and we were wearing shorts. The boy (whose name I cannot recall)
and I were hiding together, crouching down in some scraggly bushes
in a depression in the ground. I found myself lying partially over
him, my arm across his back. We were not yet found, and the one
looking for us had moved away from where we were hiding, toward the
house.

I had moved my hand across his back, down across the back of his
thighs, then on the inside of his thighs, moving my hand slowly
beneath the lower edge of his shorts on the inside of his thighs up
to where my hand encountered his underpants. He did not protest or
seem to notice. I had moved my hand very slowly so that it would
appear quite casual and accidental, and so I could play the
accidental touch. He was relaxed and silent and seemed to enjoy
it. My face was flushed, my heart was beating fast enough so that
I could hear it pounding in my chest, and I was surprised at the
audacity of what I was doing. "Turn over," I half-suggested,
half-commanded, and he did so. I kept my hand on his inner thigh
and slowly moved it up to his crotch and to the warm bulge that was
apparent and slowly growing with a partial erection. He said
nothing, but he was still relaxed and not protesting.

OK, I thought, I wonder how far I can go. I had never seen this
boy before this afternoon but he was clean cut, nice looking,
probably a bit big for his age. He was not wearing a belt, and his
shorts had a rubberized waistband, so I moved my hand up to his
stomach under his t-shirt and slipped it slowly down beneath his
shorts about three inches below his waist, my hand resting across
his abdomen. He tensed slightly but his face showed no other
expression. He did not look at me. He still did not resist. I
could see that my brother, who was "it" had just about given up,
having found some of those he was seeking, but my cousin Joan was
quite a distance away, she was hiding behind a bush to the side of
her house, and my brother was about 150 feet away and moving away
from us.

We talked quietly, about what I do not recall, still huddled down
in the shallow hollow of the ground. I had a good view of what was
around us, and there was no one near; the others were giving up and
heading toward the front of the house.

As we were talking I slowly slipped my hand beneath his underwear
and I could feel some pubic hair and his modest erection. The
intimacy felt good. I was excited, and I had an erection. My hand
wandered around, mostly feeling the shaft of the penis. Then I
slipped his shorts and his underpants down partly down to his upper
thighs. He had some pubic hair and a very neat penis. I touched
him so more. I could feel some wetness in my briefs and found it
annoying and potentially embarassing. I did nothing else to him.
I do not think at this time that I was aware of masturbation. In
any event, he was obviously becoming uncomfortable and suggested
that we go in the house, so I let go of him, he pulled up his
pants, and we went in where we played a game of cards with the
cousins. I don't remember his name, and I never saw him again
after that day.

In the spring of 1949 or 1950 just before school got out my
stepfather announced that my mother needed a break from me--and
from my brother Joe--and so we would be sent off to camp for the
first time. I was terrified, I had never been away from home
overnight before except for the times when we visited my aunts in
Connecticut in Norwich and New London. We drove to the Camp, which
was located on a river quite near the Chesapeake Bay. It was a
Bible camp, run by religious fundamentalists, but because it was a
church camp it was less expensive and cost was probably the reason
it was chosen.

I was in a cabin with 7 other boys and a counselor, probably about
18-20 years old, a college student. I was 13 or 14 years old.
After lunch the camp had a mandatory "rest period" and we were
required to lie in our bunks, resting, writing letters home or
reading. Reading was mostly comic books. I was in a lower bunk.
The boy in the bunk above me was an immigrant from Lithuania who
had arrived in the U.S. with other displaced persons after the war,
and he was cute and friendly. I had never heard of Lithuania, and
only knew that it was far away. And he had comic books. I did not
have any, as I recall.

He and I became friends. During rest period I joined him on the
upper bunk, lying side by side with him, our heads at opposite ends
of the bed. He lay against the wall, I was outside him. We were
quiet and did not talk, but we shared his pile of comic books. At
summer camp we wore short pants. One afternoon I found myself
holding the comic book with my right hand, and my left hand lay
alongside his thigh. I brushed my hand slowly against his thigh,
and he did not object. He put his hand down and it rested inside
my thigh and he just let it lay there. He was barely touching my
thigh. Eventually I slid my hand up under his shorts to the edge
of his underpants, and over what seemed a very long time I took a
bit of a risk and touched his scrotum and penis through his
underpants. He slid his hand up to my underpants, following my
lead. I watched from the corner of my eye to see whether or not
the counselor looked up in our direction, and when he looked around
I froze in position, staring intently at the comic book.
Apparently the counselor did not notice anything, and from where he
was seated at his desk, he could not see what we were doing on the
upper bunk anyway. The other boy and I never said anything to each
other about our activities, but it continued all week, and it was
something that I looked forward to each day.


I had two situations in which a sexual encounter lasted over an
extended period of time. The first occasion occurred after my
family had broken up suddenly toward the end of my junior year in
high school, in late spring. I had moved into the home of my best
friend at the time. He had a very small single room off the
kitchen of his family's small house, a room barely big enough for a
bed and his tall dresser. I was sleeping in the room of his
younger brother Ken, who was in the 8th grade.

During the following summer, which arrived quickly after I had
moved in with Ken, I obtained a summer job as a camp counselor at a
camp on Cape Cod. I was away for the summer working as a counselor
to a group of 10 year olds, living in a platform tent that held
five or six boys. [The tents were large military style tents,
built on wooden platforms.] These boys were my responsibility
from the time they got up in the morning, went to breakfast,
cleaned their cabin and until they headed off to activities, then
during rest period after lunch, during dinner and until they went
to bed in the evening. During the morning and afternoon activity
periods I was canoeing instructor. I had no sexual experiences at
this camp, and I don't think I had any sexual thoughts, except
occasionally when I envied my brother for living with 15-year old
senior campers. Perhaps it was the responsibility for the campers,
but it was also that 10 year olds did not interest me. I had to
inspect them every day for "tick inspection" during which they had
to stand in front of me nude, front and back, while I checked to
make sure that they had no ticks. Their nudity raised no sexual
interest in me at all.

I went to camp many other summers in one role or another, but I
never had any experience at a summer camp that involved sexual
activity until many years later when I was a college student. I
was on the staff of another camp in a midwestern state as director
of the rifle range. Boys in one tent had heard that I told ghost
stories sometimes at night around a campfire and they had asked me
to tell a story that night and I agreed to do so at "lights out"
since there was to be a large campfire earlier for evening
activity.

I arrived at the campsite just after dark, and about 6-8 boys were
in bed in their large tent with a wooden platform floor. The
counselor left about the time I arrived. One boy that I had seen
earlier on the range, but whom I did not know, asked me "Hey, sit
over here..." So I sat on his bed while I told story. He was about
15 years old, probably big for his age, a boy I would not have
been attracted to except for his invitation. It was dark as pitch
in the tent. I made them put out their flashlights for good effect
for telling scary stories. After I sat down and had started the
story the boy slid over close to me. I was seated on the edge of
the bed, with my hands resting on the mattress on each side of me.
After a while he casually put his hand on mine, probably innocently
I thought, but then a few minutes later very casually I moved my
hand onto his stomach. I let it rest there, unsure whether he had
moved my hand deliberately and unsure of his intention. As the
story continued I moved my hand across his stomach and noticed that
he was not wearing pajama tops. My hand was directly on his skin,
which was warm and smooth. I continued telling the story, but I
was becoming a bit uneasy, unsure whether his hand movement was
just an accidental move on his part or whether it signaled
something more. I rested my hand on his chest for awhile, then I
casually shifted my sitting position and moved my hand down to his
upper thigh, casually as if it was an accidental move, waiting to
see if he moved or shifted his position. He didn't. I moved my
hand just a bit higher up his thigh.

I was telling a story and trying to focus on two things at once.
Casually I moved my hand up his thigh over his pajama legs until I
felt his slightly erect penis. My hand froze for a moment, waiting
for a reaction, ready to pretend my hand was inadvertently resting
on his thigh, but he did not move so then I relaxed. The crotch to
his pajamas was open, and I could slip my hand in and I rested it
on his engorged groin. Still he did not move, but I could feel his
pulse increase. I continued the story. I kept my hand in place.
When the story was over he grabbed my arm and asked me to stay. I
did not dare. He saw me the next day at the rifle range and asked
me if I would come by that evening and tell another story. I
agreed. Reluctantly. My mind told me that another visit was not a
good idea, it was too risky, but my desire led me to say yes. And
I sat on his bed again. Again it was dark. We both had
expectations.

This time he took my hand and placed it on his abdomen. I let it
rest there. His pajama bopttoms were loosened at the waist and
opened. Again I gradually moved my hand slowly down his abdomen
until I felt his pubic hair and his penis, which this time was
fully erect. I touched him gently for awhile, and I could feel him
relax. I could feel his warmth and the beat of his pulse through
his penis. Then I began very slowly to move my hand up and down on
the shaft of his penis. Very quickly, much quicker than I
expected, I felt a contraction and a warm fluid flowed down over
my hand. He had ejaculated, not in a sudden spurt but in a warm
flow. I held my hand very still, my hand clasped around his penis,
and he lay very quiet but I could feel the beat of his heart, his
slightly heavy breathing and the rapidity of his pulse. Very slowly
his erection softened. I removed my hand and let it rest again on
his abdomen. He took my hand in his and just held it. It was a
very different experience, the only time that I can recall that I
had an actual invitation from a young male. I saw him at the
rifle range the next day. He said hello, but he did not ask me to
come again, and I would not even if he had asked. The experience
of the previous night had troubled and frightened me.

In mid-August when camp was over I returned to my friend's home. I
was staying in his brother's room. The younger brother was now in
the 9th grade, I think. I was attracted to him. Our sexual
activity started in my car. I let him steer the car as he sat
close beside me. I would put my hand on his thigh, sometimes I put
my hand beneath his shorts, eventually I fondled him. At night our
sexual activities began with tickling and back rubs. Later he
would sit on the side of my bed, and I would fondle him. Sometimes
I would sit on the edge of his bed and fondle him while he lay on
his back. Eventually I masturbated him.

After I had masturbated him to ejaculation the first time the guilt
and anxiety overwhelmed me. The next day I went to him and asked
him not to let me do that with him again. We prayed about it
together. However within a few days we resumed our sexual
activities. He would generally lie there quietly, his arms on his
pillow or behind his head, while I fondled and masturbated him. I
would then have him come over to my bed and sit on the edge and
masturbate me. I knew it was "wrong" although I was not sure why,
but I was pretty sure we should not be doing this. However our
mutual masturbation activities continued for several years until
one day when he was about 17 years old he told me that he didn't
want to do it anymore. It would not have occurred to me to try to
make him engage in something that he did not want to do, although I
remember pleading with him for one more time, and I remember that
he just lay back on his bed, put his hands behind his neck, and let
me jerk him off. Our activities ended after that and we never
discussed it again or engaged in any other sexual behavior.

Several years passed during which I have no memory of any sexual
experiences. Why I do not know. Maybe it was because all of my
sexual experiences up to this time had been "opportunistic," that
is, they seem to have occurred because a situation in which I found
myself, or which had been thrust on me, presented an opportunity
for sexual exploration or adventure to which I responded. In any
event, some years passed before another occasion for sexual
experience presented itself.

Following graduation from college I entered graduate school in
another city. I became a volunteer in a program that provided
assistance to rural churches. I was assigned to a rural parish
about 35 miles from the city and drove out to the parish each
weekend. The arrangement with the parish was that I would be
housed in one of the homes of parishioners and since I was involved
with the youth program, several parents of kids in the youth
program invited me to their homes.

However the sleeping arrangements at some of the homes in which I
stayed would be considered today quite unusual and naive. For
instance, Ron was the eldest of four children, two girls and two
boys. Ron and his brother each had a double bed in a large attic
room. When I stayed at their house I shared a bed with Ron, age
15. He was playful and when I got to know him we fooled around a
lot and wrestled and tickled each other. Before long, the fooling
around became sexual. I am not exactly sure how it happened, but
he slept in his underwear, and when we fooled around in bed I would
get him to relax and lie still and I would run my hand across his
stomach or abdomen, or along his thighs, and it was obviously
pleasurable, and I would rub his back, and he would rub mine.

One day our activities became more overtly sexual. I continued
running my hand across his abdomen and over his underwear to his
genitals and then down his thighs. He did not object and he
clearly had a partial erection. I continued in a very casual way
to run my hand over his chest and abdomen and then down to his
thighs, occasionally running my hand over his underpants and its
bulge. Then I gently moved my hand back and forth over his
underpants. The edges of his underpants were loose and stretched,
leaving a gap, and when I ran my hand over his groin area I could
slide my hands up his thigh a bit and under the edge of the
underpants. He remained relaxed, enjoying it. Eventually I
slipped my hand under the elastic waistband of his underpants, to
his penis and played with it softly. He was relaxed and
comfortable.. Then I slid his underpants down to expose his erect
penis. I brushed my hands very gently over his penis and scrotum.
I didn't go any farther than that, but I just said, `your turn',
and I lay on my back and he reciprocated by running his hand over
my thighs and abdomen, and across my underpants, and then he
started to slip his hand under my underpants, and I helped him
slide them down. We were lying beside each other. I played with
him awhile, then masturbated him, and when I was through he
reciprocated by masturbating me to ejaculation. We didn't say much
but we obviously enjoyed it. We continued this regularly for
several years.

While I sometimes stayed at other homes, I liked staying at his
house for the obvious reasons, and we became close friends and
constant companions. Whenever I stayed at his house we slept
together, and our sexual experience continued with simultaneous
masturbation, trying to time it for simultaneous release, and we
became quite expert at it. As I could feel his tenseness and his
breathing begain to increase its rate, I would increase the speed
of masturbation. As I increased my speed, so did Ron. It was a
very pleasurable sexual experience.

I liked the community and obtained a social services job locally
while completing my graduate degree. I rented an apartment in
town. Ron was now a senior. Virtually every Friday night Ron came
over to my "house" where I had a small guest room with a single
bed, but at bed time we shared my double bed and regularly engaged
in mutually satisfying masturbation, after which he would go to the
guest room for the rest of the night. I never had any interest in
anything beyond that. We never had oral sex. We did not consider
ourselves "gay." We just enjoyed mutually satisfying sex. Ron
graduated from high school. I had been dating a young lady in the
community and she and I become engaged and we married the following
June. By this time Ron had gone his own way, trying a year at
college and then dropping out and joining the army. My wife and I
moved away so that I could take another job in another state.

That relationship ended my sexual encounters with young males. I
never had any other sexual experiences with a male. I have never
had sex with an adult male unless Ron counts because he was 18
years old when we ceased our relationship, and I've never had
sexual relationship with another male since I became aware that it
was considered homosexual behavior or after my marriage. Perhaps
this is denial of the obvious, and I think that even now that in
the right circumstances I could again desire the experience that
was so pleasurable so long ago.

I read an interesting essay a few days ago that asserted as its
thesis that all of us human beings are somewhere on a continuum
between homesexual and heterosexual, that where on this continuum
we fall depends on lots of factors that we may not be aware of, and
that at different times in our lives we may be at different places
on that continuum. If his thesis is valid, that may explain my
confusion about having some desires from time to time that fall
toward the gay end of that continuum, but I have had a satisfying
40-year marriage to the same woman, and I think I would describe
that relationship not so much as lovers as friends and companions.
I do not know if I am gay, or even bi. In those long ago days
when I had sexual relationships with young male friends, I never
considered myself gay, yet today I cannot escape the feeling that I
may have been kidding myself then, and that even today at least to
some degree my confusion over my sexual identity continues to haunt
me.