Date: Tue, 06 Jul 1999 18:53:09 BST
From: Chris Kent
Subject: MAGIC COMFORT

MAGIC COMFORT

How Boys Help Other Boys
Discover And Develop Their Sexuality

A Meditation by Chris Kent

"When did I have my best sex? When my cousin came over to spend the night
and we went up to my bedroom and locked the door. He started talking about
sex with boys and what to do, how to do it. I was only thirteen and he was
seventeen. We were on the bed and he took out his cock, it was huge, it was
about three inches longer than mine. He started masturbating, his dick was
really hard, and all of a sudden this white stuff came out.
	
"We decided to go to bed, he told me to put my cock into his asshole, so I
put it in, it felt so good. He took it out and he said roll over on your
stomach and then he slid it in and he went up and down and he came and it
felt good."

This case history is cited by Shere Hite in 'The Hite Report On the Family'
in which she reaches the unsurprising conclusion that boys have sex
together.

What is startling is the increase in the number of boys who, as teenagers
and older children, are having sexual experiences with other boys. Equally
intriguing is the kind of sex boys are now having together. In the 1970's,
the contact was mostly mutual masturbation, often without touching each
other. Now, it seems much more common for boys to touch each other,
masturbate the other boy, while 36 per cent of boys also perform fellatio
together. Around 20 per cent have experienced anal penetration.

Extracts from these case histories are typical of the range of experiences
the boys describe:

"If I can recall my first experience, it was when I was twelve years old. I
was camping with a friend and we started by you show me yours and I'll show
you mine, and you suck mine, I'll suck yours."

"I was sexually active with my cousin throughout my childhood until last
year when he moved. I was always aroused when I was close to
him. Supposedly, I was the more feminine and he was the more masculine. He
and I were very good at oral sex (I should say I am.) Caressing and
fellatio was what we liked best. I even French kissed him. I asked him many
times to penetrate me anally, but he said it was too soon. I very much
wanted his penis to enter my rectum, that is, to see how it would feel, and
if it was pleasurable."

"I have had sexual relationships with boys for about nine years. Shane has
been my lasting sex partner for about six years. When we have sex it
usually happens like this: we watch television upstairs in my
bedroom. Every now and then I glance at his crotch and imagine his
cock. Then I start rubbing and caressing him there until he starts to
respond. When it is time to go to bed we both get undressed and climb into
bed. We then lie on top of each other and I start to caress his ass. He
starts kissing me, a French kiss, and we do this for a few minutes. Then he
moves down and starts sucking my nipples. Then he'll start licking my
chest, neck and around my cock. Finally he takes my cock into his mouth and
suck on it until I come. He will then suck my balls and lick between my
legs. Then he will lie on his back and let me go down on him. I start off
by kissing him, then sucking his tits, his small but tasty cock, swallow
what little preseminal fluid he has, suck his balls, lick in between his
legs, and lick his asshole.... I definitely would love to be penetrated
rectally by a dick. Shane already penetrates me with his finger and it
feels very good, him moving his finger back and forth inside my asshole."

"Sex with males starts with kissing and touching. Maybe some games like
strip poker or just, let's get these clothes off and down to
business. There is kissing and fondling of breasts. Kissing and sucking the
nipples and breasts, the navel, the penis, the balls, the ass. The 69
position is good, also lying on top of one another, kissing and thrusting
our penises together. Having oral and anal sex. Nothing very far out or
kinky."

As Hite reports, the mention of sexual activity can be remarkably
nonchalant. One boy remarked: "I like it up the ass, but it's not safe
anymore. A rubber should always be used and nobody's fluids should be
exchanged."  Like Hite, one is struck to hear how easily and naturally many
boys share sexual activities; most boys seem to be remarkably free of guilt
and conflict. Most boys do not agonise whether they are 'gay' or
'straight'; they don't seem to worry much about anything; they simply enjoy
the pleasure and camaraderie.

Those who think sexual activity amongst boys is a peculiarly American
phenomenon should read Alisdare Hickson's 'The Poisoned Bowl' in which he
explores the history, traditions and practice of sex in British public
schools.

Dr Hickson writes: "Unaware that they were playing on the edge of a
supposed psychoanalytic abyss, boarding school boys looked on homosexuality
as a form of release, like drinking, fighting or smoking, which was in no
way incompatible with boyish machismo or having interests in girls. Boys
rarely had a word for 'homosexual' and they had no fear of being labelled
or stigmatised for expressing a sexual or romantic interest in other
pupils. Consequently pupil discourse was often blatantly and unashamedly
homoerotic."

Of the many contributors who offer testimony in the book, perhaps John
Lehmann comes closes to capturing the rapturous adoration that some boys
inspired:

"Sometimes, at a school like Eton, a boy appears of such exceptional beauty
and sexual fascination that he becomes a legend. It happened while I was
there. The boy's name in this was case Sandy R.....  Everyone was talking
about him, and most were lusting after him. Besides his unearthly beauty,
he also had a great gift as a footballer, and when he was on the field with
his house eleven, older boys from other houses would often gather round
just to watch his exquisite flying figure, groaning with longing as he
tossed the tarnished gold of his hair back from his forehead, or charged
into the scrum with arms flying. He appeared to have the unconscious power
to uncover a hidden vein of pederasty in the breasts of the most normal
seeming male."

One is reminded of the most exquisite romance between school boys, that of
Georges de Sarre and his young friend Alexander Moitier, which forms the
heart of Roger Peyrefitte in 'Special Friendships'.

"One of the choir-boys was the cynosure of all eyes. He was carrying in his
arms, like an offering, the new-born lamb to be consecrated in the name of
all the boys which, it was said, the masters ate on the following day. This
was a boy of remarkable beauty, about thirteen years of age. The regular
features of his face were crowned by a head of fair, wild curls, and lit by
a brilliant smile. His bare knees appeared beneath the hem of his short red
crown. Georges asked Lucien who the boy was, for he did not even know his
name: he was, it seemed, the brother of their friend Maurice Motier, and
was in the fifth form."

Can such a romantic friendship remain pure in the hothouse of a boys'
boarding school? Only perhaps if the boys will it so:

"For a brief while both boys remain silent and thoughtful. The evening was
dark one. Alexander, almost invisible on the higher staging, said,
'Georges, do you know the things we are not supposed to know?'

"'Yes, I know them.'

"'Do they interest you?'

"This Alexander had said in a very grave manner. Was this gravity a sign of
acceptance, as the gravity of his look had been on the day he visited the
senior school playground? What was this twelve-year-old afraid of - or
desirous of? Was the irrevocable destined to happen? Georges remembered his
resolutions, and his feelings of disgust. In the same grave tone as
Alexander's he said, 'No, those things don't interest me.'

"Alexander came lightly down the tier of staging. His face seemed to glow
with a kind of light as he came near to Georges. He said, 'How glad I am!
You have reassured me. For all I was fond of you I couldn't help wondering
what you wanted of me. I was afraid it might be something bad.'"

In time, the romance between the boys reaches the moment after which
everything must have a dying fall since a love of this intensity,
star-crossed as it must be in literature, can end only in tragedy:

"Crossing the meadow, among the willows, Alexander was drawing near,
wearing a blue-bathing slip. He had picked a red gladiolus and was amusing
himself, as he walked, by trying to balance it upright on the palm of his
hand. The thin gold chain danced about his neck. He was borne up by the
sun's rays, for the grass-blades barely bent beneath his feet. Georges had
never dreamed of a more exquisite vision, and he whispered to himself, 'All
my life I shall remember that I have seen this, that this happened.

"Alexander stepped forward into the river, his hand raised to shield his
eyes against the sun. Then, at last, Georges called to him, 'Ohe Ohe!'
Alexander turned his head and blushed violently. And, like an arrow, dived
into the river as if to put an end to and punish the indiscreet admiration
of which he had been the object. Where he had stood, only the gladiolus
floated on the water; in the days of such miracles it would have been taken
for his metamorphosis. Laughing, streaming with water, he appeared again, a
drop of water hanging like a pearl to the lobe of each ear. He snatched up
and threw the flower to his friend. And with that the most exquisite of
their meetings was over."

Other contributors to 'The Poisoned Bowl' are considerably more earthy. The
selection here omits the names of the schools and the contributors, but
they are listed in the book, signifying that, with the wisdom of the years,
comes the understanding that such relationships between boys are part and
parcel of the experience of growing up.

"The first incident as such occurred when I was about eleven. The other
person was a big boy about two years older than me. He had gorgeous dark
hair, not just on his head, and I still occasionally steal a glance at our
school photo and remember his alluring anatomy with an intense nostalgia. I
can remember every detail of the incident as though it happened
yesterday. Neither of us really knew what to do, but after some fumbling I
lay down on the floor and he rubbed himself along my back. I wasn't
surprised when he ejaculated as I'd seen other older boys do it, but not of
course in the same intimate circumstances."

"There was one older boy, I'll call him Stanley (a false name), who I
fancied madly from day one. Much to my delight he seduced me one evening
after supper in the shoe corridor. He was chasing me with the shoe brush
and I ran for the small toilet at the end of the corridor, hoping to lock
myself out of danger. However, Stanley caught up with me just as I thought
I had reached a safe refuge, and, either by accident or design, fell on top
of me, forgetting altogether to deliver the painful blow I had
expected. Instead his hands found a more pleasing object and as his willing
victim I enjoyed the first of many humping sessions which either good luck
or reputation brought my way....  All the boys regarded fucking and mutual
masturbation as quite natural. It was only sucking, or 'gamming' as we
called it, that we thought of as being in any way dirty. Anyway, there was
no problem finding a willing partner for the first two methods and at the
agreed time, which was almost always during the evening, we would saunter
up to the corps hut, open up one of the cubicles, lay out field overcoats
on the floor and have rampant sex. It was absolutely wonderful."

"I remember I was particularly attracted by a tall, dark-haired boy in my
dormitory. He was only thirteen years old but very well endowed. One day I
managed to lure him to a dark airing cupboard next to the school changing
rooms. I then persuaded him to get his penis out and started to wank him. A
few seconds later he came in bucketfuls. It was the first time he had ever
ejaculated... Sometimes I did feel guilty. I remember once standing in the
school toilets and trying to stop myself masturbating by imagining what my
parents would say if they could see me. Fortunately common sense eventually
prevailed."

"Obviously you have never attended a single-sex boarding school... Everyone
knows that these schools, such as ... which I attended, are rife with
homosexual activity, which has not precluded the vast majority of people,
on leaving these schools, from having heterosexual affairs, and even
marrying eventually."

Some relationships did have lasting significance in some of the boys' lives
as this account sadly, perhaps tragically, reveals:

"I was house captain and keeping a certain David (name changed), a gorgeous
junior, under my wing. Apparently he had been in some sort of trouble at
his previous school so my form master had asked me to keep an eye on him
and I'm afraid my interest went somewhat further than intended when I
seduced him one afternoon in the school's infamous hollow tree. It was the
somewhat indelicate debut to what was to become the first and most intense
love affair of my life... It was a long time (after leaving school and
parting from David) before I was able to rediscover any great joy in life
and not until I was almost forty did I tell anyone about my schoolday
passions. For years I hated the happy memories, the frustrating contrast of
past and present. One day I could take it no more and I burnt my diaries,
meticulous records of every day of school life. In retrospect I regret that
but at least I still have David's football sweater which he used to wear in
goal."

The final testimony from 'The Poisoned Bowl' is worth considering at length
since it raises crucial issues that have to be faced in any study of the
ways in which boys discover and express their sexuality.

"Supper eaten, we (juniors) were told to prepare for bed and lights
out. This if I recall correctly was at 9.30pm although we had to be in bed
by 9.00pm. As soon as the lights were out the boy that Martin (a senior/the
dormitory prefect) had designated was called to his room and the door was
closed. During the night at different times I remember hearing the sounds
of the boy crying coming from the room but as some of the other lads in the
dormitory were also crying I thought that perhaps it was because, like us,
he was feeling homesick.

"This went on each night, Martin taking a different boy to his room and we
soon saw that he was taking us in turn, always a different boy. Eventually
it had to be my turn and by now we all knew what was taking place.

"When it was my turn I went to Martin's room as I had been told to. Martin
was there, dressed in his swimming trunks and nothing else, waiting for
me. He told me to take my night clothes off and lay down on the bed. At
first I thought of refusing and then decided that this would be a waste of
time since none of the previous boys had ever came out of the room before
morning. Lying naked on the bed Martin started to stroke my body all over,
making remarks all the time about how lovely it was to see a naked body and
saying what he was going to do with it. I noticed that he was paying
attention to my penis, which to my fascination was growing larger under his
hands. Taking one of my hands he forced it down the front of his trunks and
I could feel his erection, which to me at my age felt enormous. He
encouraged me to play with it and eventually pulled his trunks off and lay
down beside me on the bed. Then he started to caress me and tried to kiss
me. I tried hard not to give in to his demands as I had never had sex
before and never thought that two boys would try to kiss each other, yet at
the same time I found that it was giving me pleasures that I had never had
before and that I was getting really hard now. This foreplay went on for
some time and I thought that if this was all that I had to do there was
nothing to feel concerned about and in fact I was rather enjoying the
experience, since the closest thing to sex that I had ever had was playing
with myself in bed at night when my younger brother was asleep, which in
the end never resulted in anything anyway.

"Eventually I drifted off to sleep in Martin's arms for a while. Then I
recall being awakened by Martin turning me over on my stomach. He was
gently stroking my buttocks and probing with a finger, which didn't feel
very comfortable. Then I felt him rubbing something around my anus and he
put his finger in, slowly at first and then quicker. I tried to stop him
but he still carried on and gradually I became used to the sensation. Then
he told me to lay on my back and raise my legs onto his shoulders as he
leant forward, pinning my shoulders to the bed. I felt him thrust something
into me and I shouted out with the pain. He covered my mouth with one of
his hands and told me to be quiet or he would cover my face with the pillow
and then I would be in trouble. Eventually when it was all over he said
that I was the best he had ever had and that this was going to become a
regular thing. I was still uncertain as to whether I should complain to the
housemaster and yet I had to admit that I had enjoyed being what I now know
to be raped.

"After the first month I think every boy in the dormitory was sleeping with
a different boy each night..."

Modern writers of quality fiction are, of course, permitted an explicitness
that serves to bring home the realism of the relationships between boys who
learn the 'facts of life from each other. Here's Francis King in 'The One
And Only', published in 1995:

Bob and Mervyn are public school boys cycling home after a day out.

"For a while we bicycled in silence. Then, after we had left the village
behind us, be began to curse quietly to himself: 'Oh, fuck! Oh, bugger! Oh,
shit, shit, shit!'

"'What's the matter?'

"'I've got to do something about this cockstand. She's given me this
hellish cock-stand and I can't get rid of it.'

"Soon after that, he slowed down, dismounted and wheeled his bicycle into a
copse beside the road. Reluctantly I followed him.

"'Look at it! Just look!' He had unbuttoned his fly. Now with a grimace, he
held his swollen cock out in his hand for my inspection. I was amazed both
by the livid purple colour of its circumcised head and by its size. so
incommensurate with his puny stature.

"He laughed. 'Don't gape like that! You've seen lots of these before in the
showers.' He was right. But since he usually avoided taking the compulsory
cold shower every morning, I had never seen his.

"'Go on! Give it a tug!' Now he was half leaning against, and half lying
on, a grassy bank behind him.

"'Certainly not!'

"'Then I'll have to do it myself.'

"Fascinated, I watched him, while pretending to be totally
uninterested. His eyes were screwed up, his mouth parted, with a thread of
saliva glistening in the late summer sunlight between the upper teeth and
the lower ones. His breath came in gasps from the effort. All at once I
felt my own cock harden.

"'Oh, oh, oh!' The semen shot out, some landing on my shoe. He began to
roar with laughter. 'That was terrific! Te-bloody-rrific!' He rolled the
r's of the penultimate syllable in triumph.

"'Look what you've done to my shoe!' I reached for a handful of grass, tore
it from its roots and then bent over to wipe away what looked like a gob of
phlegm.

"Again I heard him roar with laughter. 'There's nothing like a really good
wank,' he said. 'But it would have been even better if you'd done it for
me.'"

"Although then almost sixteen years old, I had never masturbated before in
my life. But that night, lying in a state of extreme awareness which I
found impossible to explain and which kept me awake while all the other
boys in the dormitory were sleeping around me, I suddenly found that,
unbidden, there came into my mind that image of Bob, half lying on, and
half leaning against, the grassy bank behind him, his hand clutching his
swollen cock. Perhaps I should try it? Clearly he had derived an intense,
if brief, pleasure from the exercise. ...

"But distressingly my cock refused to stiffen, as it so often stiffened,
without my volition, on other occasions. Then, unbidden, an image asserted
itself , obliterating all the others. It was of a purple, circumcised cock,
grasped in a hand on which the finger-nails were savagely gnawed to the
quick; of shut eyes in a screwed up face which seemed to express agony
rather than an extreme of pleasure; of a thread of saliva between upper lip
and lower. My cock all at once began to simmer and rise. There was no
problem after that."

Later,

"'Anyway...' He closed his eyes. 'This sort of sultry weather makes me feel
incredibly sexy. No wonder in Africa they do nothing but fuck.' He clasped
my ankle in a hand. squeezed it and then began gently to stroke it with the
ball of his thumb. I pulled my leg away.

"'What's the matter? Don't you like me to do that?'

"'No.' I could feel my heart stumbling in my chest.

"'How about this?' He raised himself and leaned over to put a hand on my
thigh. Once more he first squeezed, then stroked.

"Horrified, I realised that I was getting an erection. 'Stop it!'

"Suddenly he was on top of me. I tried to push him off but could not do
so. His mouth descended on mine and, before I had clenched my teeth, for a
moment I felt his tongue. His hand went down to my cock.

"Then, like a candle in a gale, all my resistance was extinguished."

Although one can only surmise the extent to which a writer has made use of
his personal experiences, there is a description by Iain Banks in his novel
'Complicity' which has the ring of authenticity.

"Andy was fourteen, I'd just turned thirteen and was proud of my new status
as a teenager (and, as usual, of the fact that for the next couple of
months I was only a year younger than Andy). We lay in the grass looking up
at the sky and the fluttering leaves on the silver birch trees, sucking on
our reed stalks and talking about girls.

"We were at different schools; Andy was a boarder at an all-boys school in
Edinburgh and came back only at weekends. I was at the local high school.

"I sucked on my hollow reed for a while, staring up at the sky.

"'Have you got hairs on yours, then?' I said.

"'Yeah.'

"'You haven't!'

"'Want to see?'

"'Eh?'

"'I'll show you. It's pretty big too because we've been talking about
women. That's what's supposed to happen.

"'Oh, yeah; look at your trousers! I can see it. What a bulge!'

"'Look...'

"'Ah! Ugh! Wow!'

"'That's called an Erection.'

"'Wow! God, mine never gets that big.'

"'Well, it's not supposed to. You're still young.'

"'Charming! I'm a teenager, do you mind?'

"I watched Andy's cock, huge and golden and purple and sticking out of his
fly like a gently curved plant, some sweet exotic fruit growing into the
sunlight. I looked around, hoping there wasn't anybody nearby, watching. We
were only visible from the top of the hill where the railway tunnel was,
and usually nobody went there.

"'You can touch it if you like.'

"'I don't know...'

"'Some of the guys in the school touch each other's. It's not the same as
being with a girl, of course, but people do it. Better than nothing.'

"Andy licked his fingers and started to stoke them up and down over the
purple bulge of his cock. 'This feels good. Do you do this yet?'

"I shook my head, watching the saliva on that full, taut hood glisten in
the sunlight. There was a thickness in my throat and a tight feeling in my
stomach; I could feel my own cock throbbing.

"'Come on; don't just lie there,' Andy said matter-of-factly, leaving his
cock alone and lying back on the grass, putting his arm behind his head and
staring up at the sky. 'Do something.'

"'Oh, God, all right,' I said, tutting and sighing, but really my hand was
shaking. I pulled up and down on his cock.

"'Gently!'

"'All right!'

"'Use some spit.'

"'Good grief, I don't know...' I spat into my fingers and used them, then
found his foreskin was loose enough to be rolled back and forth over the
head, and did that for a while. Andy breathed hard and his free hand went
to my head, stroking my hair.

"'You could use your mouth,' he said, voice shaky. 'I mean, if you want.'

"'Hmm. Well, I don't know. What's wrong with - ah!'

"'Oh, oh, oh...'

"'Yuk. What a mess.

"Andy took a deep breath and patted my head, chuckling. 'Not bad,' he told
me. 'For a beginner.'"


Writing in his preface to a new edition (1955) of his 'The Loom of Youth',
first published in July 1919, Alec Waugh writes "...no book before 'The
Loom of Youth' had accepted as part of the fabric of School life the
inevitable emotional consequences of a monastic herding together for eight
months of the year of thirteen year old children and eight year old
adolescents. On that issue such a complete conspiracy of silence had been
maintained that when fathers were asked by their wives, and schoolmasters
by parents, who had not themselves been at school whether 'such things
really could take place,' the only defence was a grudging admission
'Perhaps in a bad house, in a bad school, in a bad time."

Alisdare Hickson's research makes is abundantly clear that sexual
relationships between boys have in good houses, in good school, in the best
of times since public schools were erected. Until the nature of boys itself
changes such relationships will go on; and, perhaps, the best policy for
authority to take is that of wise ignorance.

We must not lose sight of the humour involved in so many of boy-on-boy
encounters. Though sex is important in the relationship, sex rarely, if
ever, occurs when two boys do not actually like each other. Stephen Fry
brings home the tremulous hilarity of schoolboy seduction in his novel 'The
Liar'.

In this scene, our anti-hero, Adrian Healey, has finally got the
opportunity to share a room with his beloved Hugo Alexander Timothy
Cartwright with whom he had "fallen in love the moment he laid eyes on
him."

"Cartwright of the sapphire eyes and golden hair, Cartwright of the Limbs
and Lips... Cartwright was Garbo's salary, the National Gallery, he was
cellophane: he was the tender trap, the blank unholy surprise of it all and
the bright golden haze on the meadow: he was honey-honey, sugar-sugar,
chirpy chirpy cheep-cheep and his baby love: the voice of the turtle could
be heard in the land, there were angels dining at the Ritz and a
nightingale sang in Berkeley Square."

Now the two fifteen-year-olds were settling down for the night. For Adrian
it was now or never!

"He switched out the light above his bed just as Cartwright came out,
magnificently clad in sky-blue pyjamas or brushed cotton, swinging a sponge
bag from his wrist.

"'Night then, Cartwright.'

"'Night.'

"Adrian closed his eyes. He heard Cartwright shuffle off his slippers and
get into bed.

"Don't let him turn his light off. Make him pick up a book. Please, God,
please.

"He strained his ears and caught the sound of a page turning.

"Than you, God. You're a treasure.

"During the next five minutes Adrian allowed his breathing naturally to
deepen into a slow rhythm until any observer would swear that he was fast
asleep.

"He then began to give the impression of a more troubled rest. He turned
and gave a small moan. The eiderdown fell to the floor. He rolled over far
to one side, causing the top sheet to come away. A minute later he turned
the other way violently, kicking with his foot so that the sheet joined the
eiderdown.

"He was now naked on the bed, breathing heavily and writhing. Cartwright's
light was still on but the pages had stopped turning.

"'Adrian?'

"It had been a light whisper, but Cartwright had definitely spoken.

"'Adrian...' Adrian mumbled in return, half snoring the word as he turned
to face Cartwright, mouth open, eyes closed.

"'Adrian, are you all right?'

"'No one left in the valley,' said Adrian, flinging out a hand.

"He heard Cartwright's bed creak.

"Here we go, he thought to himself, here we bloody well go!

"Cartwright's feet padded across the room.

"He's next to me, I can sense it!

"'I'll eat them... later,' he moaned.

"He heard the rustle of a sheet and felt the eiderdown being pulled on top
of him.

"He can't just be going to tuck me up! He can't be. I've got a stiffy like
a milk-bottle. Is he flesh and blood or what? Oh well, here goes. Nothing
ventured, nothing gained.

"He arched his body and thrashed his legs up and down.

"'Lucy?' he called, quite loudly this time.

"Where he got the name Lucy from, he had no idea.

"'Lucy?'

"He swept out an arm and found Cartwright's shoulder.

"'Lucy, is that you?'

"The eiderdown was slowly pulled away from him again. Suddenly he felt a
warm hand between his thighs.

"'Yes,' he said, 'yes.'

"Then soft hair brushing against his chest and a tongue licking his
stomach.

"Hugo, he sighed to himself. Hugo! and out loud, 'Oh Lucy - Lucy!'"


Alec Waugh touches on a reality that is discussed at some length by Shere
Hite in her report: that older boys do exploit younger boys to satisfy
their sexual needs. While this can be accepted as almost inevitable, given
the overall relationship between younger and older males, coercion in any
form can never be accepted. Where no coercion is involved, younger boys are
almost being mentored by their elders as these witnesses suggest:

"When I was seven, this fourteen-year-old boy next door gave me a dollar to
masturbate him to orgasm. I had my first dry orgasm soon after. I learnt
from the older boy. I had my first orgasm when I ejaculated at about
eleven. Now I masturbate once a day, sometimes in privacy, sometimes with a
friend. I love to masturbate with my friends. I hold my hand tight around
my penis and move it up and down till I come. I like the way my genitals
look, but I liked them better when I didn't have any pubic hairs around my
balls. I liked them better when they were smooth. I am not circumsized."

"I saw my first porno magazine when I was ten at an older friend's house;
he was thirteen and a half and had some magazines on young boys. Kid
porno. My parents think pornography is a sin. I like the magazines on boys
my age and older."

"My older friend (who first did it to me when I was twelve) still does it
to me even today. He likes to do it to me and have me masturbate myself at
the same time so we can orgasm together. At times he will masturbate me
while he has intercourse with me. I enjoy having anal intercourse with a
younger friend, with me doing it to him."

Sexual contact is a rite of passage, and it is rarely as unambivalent,
committed and enthusiastic as some of the contributors to the Hite report
suggest. This passage, from Cal Clothier's 'Hornbill', catches the thrill
and terror when a boy is being treated for the first time as an object of
sexual desire. Garry and the slightly older Robert are camping.

"Before he knew what happened, Robert was half out of his sleeping-bag and
pinning him down with the top of his own bag across his neck.

"'You gonna give us a demo, then, Gaz?' he laughed. 'Eh? Just a quick
demonstration, eh? Sexy mouth!'

"Garry struggled but Robert had got him trapped and he couldn't get his
arms free. 'Gerroff us!' he hissed, angry and laughing at the same
time. 'Gerroff us, Robert!'

"Robert stared down into his face, the green eyes looking him all over. 'In
an minute,' he said, 'When you've given me something.'

"What? Given you what?'

"Robert lowered his face to within a few inches of Garry's. When he spoke
his lips seemed about to touch Garry's nose. 'Well?' His eyes were laughing
and mocking. 'Are we friends or aren't we, Gaz?'

"As he felt Robert's breath on his cheek and realised he was serious, Garry
was scared. he jerked his face away from Robert's mouth and struggled to
get his arms free.

"He could feel Robert's breath against his ear as he whispered, 'Why won't
you, Gaz? You know you want to, really.' ... Robert's lips moved across his
ear, his neck, his cheek, not actually touching him but breathing on him as
he whispered. 'It's quite normal for adolescent lads to engage in a bit of
sexual play, you know, Gaz.'

"'Gerroff us, Robert. Please.'

"'Well?' Robert whispered. 'It feels the same as if one of us is a girl,
Gaz. If you close your eyes you can't tell the difference. Turn this way
and close your eyes. See if you can tell the difference. I bet you can't
because lips are unisex.'

"Garry closed his eyes and waited.

"That's what scares you, isn't it?'

"Garry kept his hands over his horn (erection) just in case Robert tried
anything else on. 'Scared you'll enjoy it, aren't you?' Robert
mocked. 'Scared you won't be able to tell the difference.'

"'I can tell the difference,' Garry mumbled.

"'You mean you've already kissed a guy?'

"'No! I aren't a fuckin'...'

"'Fuckin' what? Queer? That what you think I am. Gaz?'

"By now Garry was more scared that Robert would beat him up than kiss
him. 'I never said owt,' he muttered. ...

"Robert slightly relaxed his hold. 'I'll let you go as soon as you let me,'
he whispered. 'Go on. Just a quick one. I like you, Gaz. I don't want to
hurt you. What are you so scared of? It won't turn you gay just playing
about with a mate. I've told you, it's perfectly normal. Everyone knows
lads our age indulge in sexual experiments. So go on, Gaz? Please?'" ...

"Robert's mouth was touching Garry's ear. He seemed to be waiting for
something, trying to decide what to do next, perhaps. Garry froze and held
his breath.

"'Virgin,' Robert whispered. 'Know your trouble, Gaz? You're a
virgin. You're scared of your own feelings.'

"Garry lay as still as he could. He felt near to tears he was so
angry. ... As Robert suddenly released him, he hissed something Garry
didn't quite catch. Was it 'Ah'll 'ave yer' or 'Ah luv yer'?

"Garry was frantic to escape but the bag was too narrow to pull his jeans
into it and his underpants were round his knees. He couldn't get out
without Robert seeing the state he was in. So he rolled away, over and over
on the dry leaves, until he was well clear. Then he looked back to see what
Robert was doing.

"Robert was already up. Standing with his back to Garry, stark naked and
hands on his hips, he was pissing straight up the trunk of a tree."


Nancy Friday's 'Men In Love' is a valuable source in studying how boys
develop their sexual identities; and they fun they have in discovering the
joys of sex.

Jock: "I am a boy of thirteen and have enjoyed sex with myself from about
the age of nine or ten. One of my fantasies takes place when I insert
tampons in my anus, while I masturbate. I imagine one of my friends really
giving it to me good up the ass. I'm not a homosexual, but I would love to
really make it in every way possible with a couple of my friends.

"In fact, a friend slept over one night and asked me if I still jerked off
(we jerked off together on another occasion), and I told him yes. We agreed
we'd do it at his house that night. Well, I was all hot the whole day and
in the back of my mind, I had the fantasy of us jerking each other off,
then leading into blowing each other.

"When the time came, he was reluctant to jerk off (I was using suntan oil -
the best). Well, let me tell you, that night my dick must have been a foot
long, and I said to hell with him, I'm jerking off!

"Well, he watched as I slowly hand fucked myself and shot my come at least
five feet in the air. Then he started to masturbate. His dick was so tiny -
about 3 inches - he could handle it with one hand - even two fingers - when
I had my hands full! He marvelled at my whopper and asked what I did to get
it so big. 'Just practice,' I told him. I really got hot watching him
jerking off that little practically hairless three-inch jobber, and finally
he came. He was inexperienced and asked if that was it. I told him I'd show
him how to jerk off professionally in the morning, but we never got round
to it.

"Next time we meet up, I'll be more daring and offer to masturbate him."

Wade: "My first awareness of sexual impulses came when I was about nine. I
would get a sexual feeling of excitement whenever I changed in to my
bathing suit at the beach-change houses. The feeling of the sand on my feet
made me feel hot and I would also fantasize about urinating with my
swimsuit on and feeling the hot, yellow liquid run down my legs. I also
thought about this while on a teeter-totter (seesaw) in the summer. Usually
it was with this one boy in the neighbourhood on whom I developed a
crush. We would be wearing our swimming trunks and I could feel the hot,
wooden board of the teeter-totter under me, and I would wish he would let
go and pee when I was in the high position. I weighed more than him, and so
I could hold him up there and the warm stream would then run down and over
my extended legs. This same boy was also the subject of some unconscious
sexual feelings which were altogether too vague and wonderful."

David: "Mike and I were neighbors. He was slightly younger than I (I was
around twelve). I recall going over to his house frequently when we could
be alone there. First we'd strip naked and masturbate together. We'd suck
each other off or play with each other and I'd usually mount his ass (but
not penetrate it). We would rub genitals and this would get me very
hot. We'd think about fucking some girl in the neighborhood and soon I'd be
shooting sperm all over him (he couldn't ejaculate yet). I'm sure he
climaxed anyway because this is something boys do from a very young age, or
at least I did (six years old?)"

Clark: "I am a fourteen-year-old boy, about five-eight. My first sexual
experience was with a boy somewhat younger than I. We had been actively
discussing sex since I started helping him on his paper route. Between us,
our comments were usually heterosexual. Seeing as neither I nor he had any
female outlets, we began to 'play' in a shed in the back of our house. We
had several mattresses, under which one of us would get, and the other
would jump from a low shelf and pretend to hump the other. Finally, he
asked if I wanted to really fuck him, and without waiting for an answer,
took his pants down. I was pretty large for him, he wasn't even into
puberty, and was quite short. I was exhausted when we finished."

Herb: "In the first grade I met a kid who introduced me to the old 'Let's
Play Doctor' game. I was all for it, and we spent many a happy hour
examining ourselves and 'curing' our 'sore' little peters with hot
saliva. As a matter of fact, we stayed close friends right on through
school, and were frequent overnight visitors at each other's homes. As we
grew older, the addition of a climax and ejaculation only added to the fun.

"The smell of his smegma (he called it cheese) was so sexy to me, I could
hardly wait to get to the part where I 'cured' him by sucking on his peter.

"In our teens, I couldn't bring myself to swallow his come, but now in my
fantasy (and probably in reality too, if given the chance) I swallow
gallons of it as it squirts it my mouth.)

As might be expected, Nancy Friday includes a number of accounts where
younger boys are introduced into sexual activities by older boys. The
following case is typical.

Nick: "My breakthrough came when I was about thirteen or fourteen. There
was this older boy in my neighbourhood. I'd had this adolescent, homosexual
adoration of him. He was tall and athletic, blond, and his family had a
little money. I think there is a period of time when all boys worship other
males, athletes, Greek gods. Remember the move 'If', when the young boy
watches the older boy gymnast and worships him? I think all boys go through
that; and it is why even grown, straight men still love to watch male
athletes.

"So one night this older boy was walking me home from baseball; and I'll
never forget, he asked me if I'd ever ejaculated. I didn't know what the
word meant. He explained what it meant; and the next night, we jerked off
together; and we kept that up for two years. We touched each other. We got
dependent on the relationship. There was love and sex mixed together; it
was my first real homosexual relationship."

Of course, younger boys get fixations on older boys, and here the approach
is more tremulous, fraught with danger, since the older boy carries the
power of greater maturity, both sexually and physically.

In Lawrence Sanders' 'The Case of Lucy Bending', the writer describes how
twelve-year-old Wayne Bending finally, under the influence of pot and
vodka, comes on to the older, better looking, popular Eddie Holloway, as
the lie on a blanket under the stars:

"This time Wayne was convinced the pot was getting to him. No finkery
now. He lost track of time. The world softened, hard edges blurring. The
night seemed blander, almost fluffy, and there was a hum in the air. He
reached across Eddie for the jar of vodka and took a swallow. This time he
didn't cough.

"He leaned across Eddie again and pressed the jar back into the sand so it
wouldn't tip. He was stretched across Eddie looking down at him.

"Eddie had his eyes closed. His hand was up in the air, holding the
joint. Eddie was a really sharp-looking stud with his long, sun-bleached
blond hair, his movie star face. And the gleaming skin a coppery tan.

"Wayne put a palm lightly on Eddie's bar midriff, covering flat stomach,
perfectly round belly button.

"'Hey, man,' said Eddie sleepily. 'This is a new kick - right?

"Wayne set his own cigarette carefully aside, poking the wire down into the
sand. He turned back to Eddie. He bent over him, pressed his lips to the
skin of ribs and stomach. Warm satin. Soft. Sun-scented.

"'Oh yeah,' Eddie breathed. 'Don't stop now.'

"Thoughts thundering, desire inchoate, Wayne fumbled at Eddie's belt and
fly with frantic fingers. What... What...

"'Ohh,' Eddie murmured. 'Oh yeah. Yeah.'

"Wayne knew what to do. He knew exactly what to do. Without training or
experience. And that thought would puzzle him for the rest of his life.

"It was sweet, so sweet. It was comfort, relief of his anguish, balm for
his hurts. He nuzzled, panting, Eddie saying, 'Yeah, yeah,' with his pelvis
beginning to move just as Wayne felt his own gush of tears and something
else.

"And when it was over, he was certain Eddie would kick him away, beat him
to pulp. 'You filthy fag!' But Eddie lay relaxed, slowly puffing his
toke. And with one hand he stroked Wayne's hair, and he said throatily,
'Nice. Nice. The greatest.'

"Then they kissed. They kissed! Wayne was so thankful, so grateful. It
wasn't the end. He laughed aloud with happiness.

"'You nut!' Eddie said affectionately, and put a hand on Wayne's balls,
squeezing gently. 'You're really a dumbo - you know that?'

"Wayne nodded, giggling. He relighted his roach, and they shared it because
Eddie had finished his. Then they sipped what was left of the vodka,
handing the jar back and forth.

"Once Eddie took a sip of warm vodka, then pressed his lips to Wayne's and
spit the warm stuff into the other boy's mouth. Wayne thought that was the
most important thing that had ever happened to him. It was a pledge, the
sealing of a compact. ...

"Eddie bent over him, stroked his cheek tenderly.

"'You know, dumbo,' he said, 'you're not so dumb.'"


Nancy Friday's book deals mainly in fantasies, but perhaps boys' fantasies
provide insights into their secret selves that mere fact never can:

"I am only sixteen and very horny. I really couldn't care less who I get it
on with. But I prefer well-hung men. My fantasy starts when I am walking
home from baby-sitting. Some guy comes along and grabs me, takes me to his
place. Then he strips me and kisses me all over my body, while he does
it. He then lays me down on the bed and sucks my cock till it gets real
hard. Then he gets some friends (three) and they tie me down and take turns
with my body. One would blow me to make sure I stay hard, then leave, then
another would feel me up and kiss me French style, while I go into fits of
ecstasy. Then he would go after the first guy and the other two would kneel
over me. One with my head between his legs, so I could suck him off, and
the other would shove my hard cock up his ass and go up and down. They
would kiss each other until the guy I was sucking was ready to come. The
guy sitting on my cock would take it out of my mouth and start sucking it
and spitting it all over me. I hope you will publish or print this, so
people will know sixteen-year-olds also have secret gardens and forbidden
flowers."

"I'm fifteen, in the middle of my adolescence, and gay. I masturbate once,
twice, or sometimes three or four times a day, and I love it. My fantasy is
about a guy I've never met, but just put together in my mind. It starts out
with me going to some club (I don't belong to one) where there's a bunch of
athletic shit going on and I'm going to go for a swim. I got to the locker
room and just one guy is there. He's around thirty. He's a hunk, he has a
beautiful build, he's got a great tan, and we both begin to take our
clothes off. I soon find out his tan is everywhere, which begins to drive
me wild. He's wearing tight white low-rise briefs, God he fills them! He
begins to notice me, especially because my underpants are sticking out. He
gives me a little smile, but not enough to go for. I see his briefs getting
a little larger than before. Suddenly he turns around, just before he takes
his last stitch off, as if to tease me. The moment I've been waiting for is
stopped short! But to make up for some of that he starts to take his
underpants off with his nice round ass toward me. Slowly he takes it off,
God what a nice ass! It's so perfect and smooth. His ass is just as tan as
the rest of him. My dick is as stiff and large as it can get.

"He goes to the showers, I follow. His cock slowly gets harder and bigger,
I just can't stand it! He starts to wash himself (I'd gladly help him if
he'd just ask) with a bar of soap. As he washes his cock it gets even
bigger and harder! Until it's as big and hard as it'll ever get. I follow
him out to the pool. We're both nude. He dives gracefully into the
pool. Nobody else is in sight. We start swimming around, he makes long
graceful strokes. He begins to follow me. I 'casually' slow down until he
is finally swimming along beside me. I can see his gorgeous cock is still
erect. We start swimming towards the shallow end until we're in about five
feet of water. We both stop swimming and stand up. He moves towards me,
grabs and embraces me! We start necking, I pretend to fight it a little and
then surrender. I can feel his huge warm prick against mine. We move
towards the edge of the pool, still embracing, and get out. We rinse off a
little in the showers, then go toward the locker. I start to fondle his
cock, teasing it, rubbing it, licking it and sucking it. he loves it. Then
he fondles me for a long time. He drives me wild, licking it all over. Then
he starts to suck it. He goes up and down on me, flicking his tongue around
the tip of my prick. Then I let go and come more than I ever have before.

"I just lie there for a few minutes, then I see he's horny as all hell,
too. Then he takes me back to the shower and soaps down on me and himself,
fondling my cock again. Then he shoves his cock up my ass and goes in and
out a bit. It feels great. Then he pulls it out and lets me do the same to
him. I love it! I pull out and start to suck him off until he comes and
comes and comes in my mouth. He puts some more soap on his prick and then
walks out of the shower. He lies on his towel face down! I butt-fuck him
until I come, wow! Then he lays me face up and gets on top of me, puts his
enormous soapy cock just below my balls in between my legs and tells me to
squeeze my legs together. We start necking. He begins to move his hips up
and down, rubbing my balls as he does this, then he starts pressing harder
and going faster, driving me wild. I can't hold on, I say I'm going to let
go, he goes faster and harder! Then together we have one hell of an orgasm!
We just lie there, frenching for a few minutes, then stand up and start to
dress. He gives me his address, says I was great, and leaves.

"If I could ever meet a man like him, anywhere, I'd love to fulfil that
fantasy. I'm sure there's lots of people like me who would love to read
this, if only I could meet them."

As Nancy Friday says, life is all about choices; and for boys it's all
about having fun.

But we've a problem here. Joe, whose fantasy you've just read, is only
fifteen. And he wants sex with a man. Did Joe have these fantasies when he
was fourteen, thirteen, twelve? And since they are not legitimate fantasies
for a man, are they legitimate for a boy? We are ready to condemn a man who
pursues boys; are we equally ready to condemn boys who pursue men?

Here's John, a 35-year-old lawyer, married for 15 years, writing in 'Men In
Love':

"I still remember many sexual incidents that occurred in my youth. One, in
particular, has played an important role in shaping my fantasies. It
happened when I was about eleven. I went swimming one day at the municipal
pool. The pool contained a locker room for changing, and there were small
enclosed rooms available for an additional fee which afforded privacy. In
the locker room, a man about thirty years old struck up a conversation with
me and offered me the use of his locker room. When I went in, he followed
me, closing and locking the door behind us. I was a little alarmed by this
but I went ahead and undressed in his presence. As soon as I was naked, he
began to fondle my cock and balls. I was frightened and submitted without
protest. Then he had me lie down on a small bench while he sucked me to an
immature climax. When he was finished, he removed his swimming suit and
stood in front of me, legs slightly apart (I was now sitting on the
bench). Taking hold of my hand, he directed it to his cock and had me
'feel' him until he became stiff. Then he made me suck him until he shot
his load into my mouth. When he came, he held my head to prevent my pulling
away, and I was forced to swallow most of his cum. I kept this incident to
myself, but took it in stride. In fact, over the years I have fantasized
about it while masturbating, and have enjoyed it in retrospect."

We can condemn John's assailant unreservedly. Not only because what he did
is illegal but because it is morally repugnant. Coercion, both implicit and
explicit, was used; John's right to choose was ignored, obliterated,
treated with contempt. John's assailant deserves similar contempt. In this
incident, we do not have to distinguish between pederasty and paedophilia,
though it stinks of the latter. Pederasty is defined as homosexual
relations between men and boys; paedophilia is the pathological condition
of being sexually attracted to children. The Ancient Greeks have been
categorised as pederasts; they have not been condemned as paedophiles.

However, what are we to make of this account from the Hite Report?

"It was this summer that I fell so in love. It was at a concert in
London. I saw this man and was instantly attracted. He had drop-down-dead
good looks. He saw me staring and walked over. As he made his way towards
me I prayed, 'Please, please, let me like him, let him have nice teeth, a
great personality, be kind, a sense of humour.' He spoke and I passed out
(very nearly)! I felt sick. I could hardly talk. He spoke to me softly and
said, 'So, you like Madonna?' and that was it. Two hours of marvellous
Madonna and then eight hours of talking, stroking, kissing,
hugging. Fantastic."

Of course the man should have known better. He should have scowled at the
boy's gaze. Stormed past him, muttering: dirty little faggot. He certainly
should not have flashed his nice teeth and great personality at the
boy. And to sit through two hours of Madonna, pretending that he liked it -
hypocrite! And where did all this hugging, kissing and stroking take place?
Couldn't he have just talked to the boy for eight hours? Eight hours!
Probably no man had ever given the boy eight hours of his time in his
entire life!

So when did it become criminal to express affection? How criminal is the
following: "The boy came to me in an agony of repentance, confessed his
sins and implored forgiveness. After holding out for some time, I took him
to my arms, where he kissed me all over, crying most bitterly; and I need
not say that I kissed him as tenderly."

Guilty! Hang the bastard!

But hold on, the 'pervert' in question is the headmaster of a great English
public school; and he is writing to the boy's father about the lad's crisis
of faith. Ooops! Yes, well, he should hear the boy out, shake his hand
cordially, and show him the door.

Of course, it is not as simple as that; life never is. But there are boys
who love boys. Most of them grow up and love women. Some of them grow up
and love men. Some of them grow up and still love boys. But they are stuck
with the knowledge that there are some boys who love men. This is no
abrogation of responsibility, but confirmation of it. The responsibility
lies with the man; it is the man who has to find an appropriate way to
express his affection for the boy; lust will not do, because lust never
lasts. And the man who is addicted to lust is bound forever to loneliness.

But this essay is not about men, it is about boys. Let us turn for a moment
to fiction, though the fiction we choose smells redolently of
autobiographical truth.

It is the winter of 1944 in occupied Holland. Eleven-year-old Jeroen is
evacuated to a small fishing community on the desolate coast of Friesland,
where he meets Walt, a young Canadian soldier with the liberating
forces. They find each other, and Jeroen is suddenly immersed in the
frightening, mystifying, thrilling world of emotional and sexual
experience.

But sex has already slid into Jeroen's soul in the person of his friend,
rude, crude, good-looking, physically more mature, confident, slightly
older, slap-stick Jan. Arms wrapped round each other, they roll to the
bottom of a grassy hill where Jan, astride Jeroen, in the time-revered
tradition demands that Jeroen beg for mercy, submit, surrender.

"With a lightning-like movement I try to wriggle out from under him, but
Jan jerks my legs apart with his knees and starts to rub his body against
mine. His smile has disappeared and he now has a look of deep concentration
as he makes impatient, insistent moves with his hips. He is frightening
me. 'Hey, Jan, Listen...' He isn't listening to me. I can see his face
above mine, his teeth clenched firmly together and his eyes shut. He has
clamped his fingers around my wrists as if he wants to force my hands
off. Suddenly he rolls over and kneels next to me. He pulls his trousers
down and a stiff little shape swishes up with a slap against his belly.

"The two of us stare into silence at the pale thing, raised like a warning
finger. I can see the white belly between Jan's dropped trousers and his
pulled-up vest, a white, vulnerable belly. Jan's prick looks strange, hard
and straight with a shiny red rim on top. I wonder if it hurts and give a
loud, convulsive swallow.

"'They say you've got to push and pull.' Jan has suddenly become
communicative. 'It works if you do that.' He begins to tug violently at the
swollen thing. I have the feeling that I have ceased to exist, and turn
away. What is he doing, what is the matter with him? I feel sorry for
him. ... What exactly was he trying to do? 'It works if you push and pull,'
the words shoot through my head. What works? He has a secret he won't tell
me because he thinks I am too childish, because I piss in my bed. When I
turn back to him, Jan is standing up, tucking his shirt into his
trousers. he holds a hand out to me and pulls me to my feet. 'Let's go.'

"But all I can think of is the mysterious event that has just taken
place. I am dying to know more, to ask questions. But Jan has suddenly
turned tired and surly, he seems to have forgotten the whole thing."

Some days later:

"Three days ago it happened to me for the first time. In bed at night, the
only place and moment in the day when I can think about home, quietly and
undisturbed. I turn to the wall and draw lines from me to Amsterdam,
channels of communication between them and me. But the last few nights I
have been thinking of Jan all the time. I try to push him away, but he
stubbornly forces himself upon me, manipulating my thoughts like a tyrant,
whether I want it or not. What bothers me most is that I do want it, that I
am happy to give in to my fantasies. I touch my body, with shame and
caution, as if someone were watching me."

The Canadians arrive. Walt befriends the lonely Jeroen. They are constant
companions. They have fun together. Out of the blue, Walt seizes Jeroen,
kisses him, pushes his fingers up the boy's trousers leg, forces his tongue
into the boy's mouth until "we melt and fuse together, he turns liquid and
streams into me. It happens all over again, the mouth, the hands, his taste
which penetrates me, which I can't shake off, and the rough lunges that
turn suddenly gentle. I am afraid that if he lets go of me I shall fall
down and will never be able to get up again, that I shall die here in the
mud and rain, forgotten behind an old barn."

Later, that night, back among the strangers who shelter him, Jeroen
realises: "When I swallow I can taste the soldier, strong and sickly. I
must eat something, I think, then it will go away, then I'll be rid of
it. But suddenly, inexorably, I know that I don't want it to go."

The spiritual relationship between man and boy deepens as the sexual
relationship escalates, Jeroen always passive, unable to understand what it
is he is meant to give. At their penultimate meeting, in the house where
the Canadian soldiers are billeted, Walt takes shower, then:

"He rinses himself clean with quick handfuls of water, then he takes of my
clothes without saying a word and hangs them on the door-knob. I catch my
breath as he runs a cold, soapy hand over my shoulder-blades and ribs. His
knowing fingers handle my terrified sex, then slide across my belly and my
buttocks... He sits down on a chair and dries himself with his shirt. It
looks strange, a naked man sitting on a chair... 'Come here.' He wipes the
shirt along my back, gripping me tightly between his legs so that I can
feel his little wet hairs tickling my belly. 'I love you.' ... Thin and
miserable I continue to stand between his rock-like limbs until he pulls my
head backwards and forces me to look up at him... 'No problem,' he says,
'no problem.'

"He has stood up and is holding that soft thing from which I have
scrupulously averted my gaze, right in front of my face. I feel him push it
carefully against my tightly compressed lips and turn my head away. When I
start to make for the door, he grabs hold of me and pulls me back. 'Is
okay, Jerome. Okay.'

But it is not okay. Walt pulls the boy onto a mattress and tries to bugger
him. "We are having a gigantic wrestling match, a painful performance
accompanied with jerkings, twitchings and torrents of low, panted
whispers... I arch my back and tense my legs, his thing prodding my body,
insistently, an unimaginably coarse and blunt instrument trying to make an
opening into my body...  As soon as the pressure of his body lessens a
little, I wrench myself frantically from under him and crawl to the
furthest corner... 'Sorry, baby,' he says and gives me a lop-sided smile. A
flaming sensation is shooting spasmodically through me, paralysing me. Walt
moves up close and runs his finger over the spot where he hurt me... I hold
my hands to my face, ashamed. The pain is like a knife slicing me in two."

It is not over.

"He draws thoughtfully on his cigarette and blows smoke into my face. Then
he stubs the cigarette out on the floor, calmly and decisively. He takes
hold of my chin like a dentist and presses on my jaws, puts the hard thing
between my lips and pushes it in firmly.

"'Kiss me.'

"It sounds loud and flat in the empty room. I clasp his legs tightly to
withstand the lazy movement in and out. Then I resist no more. He has me
under his control as he bends thrusting over me, while I perish in the
spurting waves that cut off my breath and beat against my throat and the
roof of my mouth. An opposing wave is rising in my stomach, a surf that
breaks upwards at a furious speed, and it is all I can do to force it back
down.

"The muscles of my throat contract, I gag and struggle for air. He pulls
his body away and the thing slips out, suddenly slack and harmless. A
sickly sweet taste seems to be sticking to my gullet with rubbery
tentacles. I feel clammy and cold and shiver so violently that my whole
body shakes.

"Walt stretches out beside me and puts his arms and legs around me: a smell
of iron, of warmth and sleep. I hear his soothing voice in my ear and with
every breath his belly presses against mine. He is suddenly gentle again. I
feel him putting his arms around my neck. Slowly, following his breathing,
I calm down. Without being asked, I press my mouth to his neck... I can't
go back home: if somebody has undressed you and done things with you, then
you belong to him, that's how it is with grown-ups; you've been singled
out, it means he wants you."

Few passages in literature describe the horror of an assault, emotional,
spiritual and sexual on an adolescent boy as well as Rudi van Dantzig does
in 'For A Lost Soldier'. But his intention is not to shock; the novel is
far too tender if that were its primary purpose.  What van Dantzig wants to
do is understand the nature of his loss; for, in spite of everything and
because of everything that happened to the boy Jeroen, he is the man that
he is, artistic director of the Dutch National Ballet, leading
international choreographer and winner of the Geertgan Lubberhuizen prize
for the best literary debut. Walt has left on the body of Jeroen a scar
that warms as well as burns; for the man came when the boy needed him
most. This is not to forgive Walt; forgiveness is not within our remit; but
it is to understand Walt, who, sometime, somewhere in his childhood, must
have been as hurt as the boy. Jeroen survived; we do not know if Walt did,
for dead men carry on living all over the world.

Perhaps I am being unfair on Walt in suggesting that some trauma in his
childhood led to his love for Jeroen. As Boy George says, "There's this
illusion that homosexuals have sex and heterosexuals fall in love. That's
completely untrue. Everybody wants to be loved." And Christopher Isherwood
wrote, "It seems to me that the real clue in your sex-orientation lies in
your romantic feelings rather than your sexual feelings. If you are really
gay, you are able to fall in love with a man, not just enjoy having sex
with him." Jeroen does not enjoy having sex with Walt (he is simply too
young)but it is hard to deny the love he feels for him. As for Walt, we may
wish to agree with Solon - "Boys in the flower of their youth are loved;
the smoothness of their thighs and soft lips is adored." - and with Goethe:
"The love of boys is as old as humanity."

The tragic consequences of addiction, emotional and sexual, are superbly
described in Scott Campbell's 'Touched'. Jerry Houseman is a married man, a
devoted father, a postman in a small American town. He lives a decent
ordinary life, inviting little attention. Except Jerry has a thing about
boys: "There's something about a boy, some boys, when they reach the edge
of puberty ... that touches me in some way, some really deep-seated way. I
don't understand it. I've never understood it. But it fills me with
desire..."

"The brook was where it got started. The physical stuff, I mean. He'd been
showing me some new tricks he'd learned and I'd been watching, encouraging
him. And it was like he was in slow motion that day. When he leapt in the
air on his bike, he seemed to float free of gravity. Like he was lighter
than the air itself. He was so beautiful in the light. His straight blond
hair flying up and falling over one eye. His sun-brown back gleaming with
sweat. The silver-bright smile he flashed me. He was happiness, pure
happiness. He was like this perfect Sunday morning - a clear blue sky, a
bright hot sun. Nature at its most perfect He was. ...

"He sat on a rock in the water, then leaned back and let the water rush
over him. And it was like he was part of the stream, like the stream was
actually rushing through him. I sat on the rock right next to him and
dangled my feet in the water and watched him. We talked, but less and
less. More and more there were just the birds, and the sound of the breeze
in the trees, and the brook, bubbling, gurgling, urging me on. I just sat
there and stared at him. And I loved him so much at that moment. I ached
for him at that moment. I was trembling over what that meant. But there he
was, perfection, right there. I could reach out and touch it. I could reach
out and be part of it. ...

"I stood in the water and lifted him up so he was standing in front of
me. Then I knelt in front of him. 'Robbie,' I told him, 'I love you.' ...

"I bent my face to his and kissed him on the lips. It was just the
tenderest touch, the sweetest taste. He didn't kiss me back. Then I kissed
his cheek and hugged him again. 'I love you,' I told him again. And the
words didn't scare me so much that time, they sounded better that time."

Robbie was eleven years old.

A year later the boy takes up the story in court:

Robbie shifted in his chair, cleared his throat. "I went over to
Mr. Houseman's after I got home from school. We were building a model
airplane together in his dining room."

"What time of day was that?"

"Three-thirty?"

"And he was home alone?"

"He got out of work at about the same time I got out of
school. Mrs. Houseman was still at work. His kids never got home till
dinner."

"And what happened?"

"I was working on the model, gluing the body together, and he was leaning
over me, reaching round to hold something..."

"Good. Go on."

"Then he wrapped his arms around me and hugged me. Then he turned me round
and kissed me."

"On the lips."

"Yes."

"And then?"

"Then he put his hand on me."

"Where did he put his hand?"

"On my genitals."

"And what happened then?"

"He out my hand on him."

"Where on him?"

"On his genitals."

"And what happened next?" said the lawyer.

"He told me to take it out."

"To take it out of his pants."

"Yes."

"And did you?"

"Yes."

"And how did you feel?"

"I felt...I was scared."

"You were scared."

"Yes."

"And then?"

"Then he told me to rub it. Up and down."

"And did you?"

"Yes."

"And what happened next?" said the lawyer.

"We went into the living room and he sat down on the couch. Then he made me
sit on his lap."

"His penis was still out of his pants?"

"Yes."

"And then?"

"He masturbated."

"But you were sitting in his lap."

"I was sort of sitting on his stomach."

"So he was masturbating...behind you?"

"Yes."

"Did you even know what masturbation was at that time?"

"No. I just felt his arm going up and down real fast and he was starting to
breathe harder."

"What did you think was going on?"

"I didn't know. I thought he was having a heart attack or something"

"You thought he was having a heart attack."

"Yes." ...

"Was that the only time Mr. Houseman touched you?"

Robbie shook his head. "No."

"Did these encounters continue after that?"

"Yes."

The lawyer hiked his pants.  "How often?"

"Once or twice a week."

"For how long?"

"For about a year."

"Did you try to stop it?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"I was scared. I was cared he'd hurt me."

"You were scared he'd hurt you?"

"Yes."  ...

"Now, Robbie," the lawyer continued. "During that year that Mr. Houseman
was engaging you in sexual acts: Was masturbation the extent of it?"

"No."

"There was more? He did other things?"

"Yes."

The lawyer stood in the middle of the courtroom and lowered his voice to a
whisper. "Can you tell us?"

Robbie faltered. he looked at the judge, at his parents. He looked
everywhere but at Jerry.

"Just take your time," said the lawyer.

Robbie started to cry. ...

"I know this is difficult," said the lawyer. "But it won't take much
longer. Did Mr. Houseman ever touch you in any other way?"

Robbie nodded. "Yes."

"How?"

"He put his penis in my mouth."

"He put his penis in your mouth."

"Yes. And made me suck on it."

"He made you suck on it."

"Yes."

"Robbie," said the lawyer softly. "Is that everything?"

Robbie looked at his parents again, then back at the lawyer. Then he broke
into sobs. It was a horrifying moment. He seemed so young, and all at once
so vulnerable. ...

Then the lawyer looked at Robbie. "There was more?" he said gently.

Robbie took a deep breath and straightened up. He lifted his chin and
composed himself and nodded quickly, crisply.

"Robbie," said the lawyer. "We need you to answer, for the record."

"Yes," he said, robotic. "Mr. Houseman buggered me."

The lawyer heaved a sigh. "And what do you mean by that, exactly?"

"He put his penis up my butt."

"He put his penis in your anus?"

"Yes."

"And how many times did he do that?"

"About a dozen times."

"About a dozen times."

"Yes."

Even when the world is falling around him, Jerry Houseman cannot let go:

"I imagined Robbie aching to see me too. I imagined him being kept
prisoner. I imagined myself sneaking into his room at night and freeing
him, imagined taking off on the highway with all the windows open, the wind
blowing wild through his hair and mine, both of us free, laughing,
laughing, zooming down the highway into the future. I imagined the radio
playing loud, and the lights glowing green on the dash and remembered the
glow of those lights when I was a boy coming home from a trip with my
parents, my head in my mother's lap, her stroking my hair in a steady
rhythm. I imagined stroking Robbie's hair, going over and over his cowlick,
trying to smooth it down, imagined it popping up again and again as it
always did, as buoyant as his smile, as his spirit. I imagined his head in
my lap, looking up at me, smiling. I imagined him rising up to meet me, to
kiss me, to wrap himself in my arms. I imagined him straddling my lap as we
zoomed down the highway, free, imagined him riding my cock up and down,
imagined my nose against his neck, breathing in his sweet smell, imagined
his whimpering, his shuddering, imagined my own explosion in him, imagined
us rocketing into the sky, still joined, two lovers among the
stars. Suspended there for all time, for all the world to witness, and
honor. Our love, flaming bright in the sky. I imagined it, and imagined
it. And came to crying, my hand full of cum, covered with my own juices."

Fifteen years later Robbie returns to the 'scene of the crime' and
encounters the ghosts that have hung around him since his time with Jerry
Houseman:

"After a while I got used to being caressed, and even kissed. I didn't like
the kissing so much, his face was so scratchy, his mouth was so big. But I
didn't mind the caressing, the caressing felt kind of good, exciting. I
knew this was something secret, something no one should know we were
doing. He was very explicit about it, although he didn't have to be, I
knew. Maybe that was part of the excitement. But I'd never felt my body
come alive like that.

"Then he took it further, had me touch him. I remembered the first time,
how disgusting it was. His loose-fitting skin, the hair everywhere, the
worminess of it. The smell of his crotch was like peanut butter. But then,
thinking about it later, I was fascinated by it and the nest time we were
alone I touched him through his pants, unasked. I wanted to know more about
it. What was that thing? What would it do? Would my thing do that too? I
was scared at every step of the way, but Jerry led me through it, always
urging me on a little but never pushing too hard. He never made me do
anything I didn't agree to do.

"Shit. I couldn't believe I was sitting there thinking those stupid
thoughts. I was just a little kid, I didn't have the power to agree or
disagree. I couldn't believe it. I was sitting there actually thinking that
what Jerry Houseman did to me was not so bad. It was so bad. It was
disgusting. I was disgusted with it myself, at that time. One day I came
home after being with him and drank a glass of water - to purify myself, I
thought - then broke the glass in the sink on purpose as part of the ritual
because I was so ashamed.

"But then a few days later I went back to him, went over to his house and
crawled into bed with him, naked. I remembered I looked forward to it. I
thought about it all afternoon. It felt like exploring a cave, some
underground cavern. It was dark and scary and full of echoes, but it was
intriguing, exciting. And I was very curious.

"Was that the secret I'd folded away and put in a trunk fifteen years ago?
No one would let me say that I had enjoyed my time with Jerry Houseman. Not
that it was the greatest thing that ever happened to me. Ultimately it was
probably the worst, with all the stuff that came after. But it was part of
my experience. It was part of my history. And it wasn't just something that
happened to me, the way everybody said. Nobody wanted to hear that, and I
sure didn't want to say it. In the middle of all that outrage, I wasn't
going to stand up and say I was as bad as Jerry Houseman, even though I
felt it."


This essayist unequivocally condemns paedophilia; and nowhere in literature
is there a more disturbing portrayal of paedophilic seduction and the scars
it inevitably leaves on the psyche than in Peter Straub's short story 'The
Juniper Tree'.

The narrator is a forty-three-year old writer who remembers his seduction
as a seven-year-old boy in the downtown movie house, the Orpheum-Oriental,
where he sits alone enthralled by "Alan Ladd and Richard Widmark and Glenn
Ford and Dane Clark. 'Chicago Deadline'. Martin and Lewis tangled up in the
same parachute in 'At War with the Army'. William Boyd and Roy
Rogers. Open-mouthed, I drank down movies about spies and criminals,
wanting the passionate and shadowy ones to fulfil themselves, to gorge
themselves on what they needed."

The nameless boy, for he could be any seven-year-old, is 'befriended' by
Frank who later reveals himself as Stan who then reveals his name to be
Jimmy: "Let's go in - I'll sit with you. Everybody needs company, and I
like you. You look like a good kid."

Stan's open, warm, welcoming friendliness is contrasted with the cold
harshness of the boy's father. "When I was seven, my father walked into the
bathroom and saw me looking at my face in the mirror. He slapped me, not
with his whole strength, but hard, raging instantly. 'What do you think
you're looking at?' His hand was cocked and ready. 'What do you think you
see?' 'Nothing,' I said. 'Nothing is right.'

Stan's seduction of the boy is efficiently relentless:

"'You coming back here tomorrow? If I get here, I'll check around for you.'

"'Hey. Trust me. I know who you are.'

"'You know that little thing you pee with?' Leaning sideways he whispered
into my ear. 'That's the best thing a man's got. Trust me.' ...

"'Do you remember what I was telling you about?'

"And I knew: it was true. He had said those things, and he would repeat
them like a fairy tale, and the world was going to change because it would
be seen through changed eyes. I felt sick - trapped in the theatre as if in
a cage.

"'You think about what I told you?'

"'Sure,' I said.

"'That's good. Hey, you know what? I feel like changing seats. You want to
change seats too?'

"'Where to?'

"He tilted his head back, and I knew he wanted to move to the last
row. 'Come on. I want to show you something.'

"We changed seats. ...

"He placed his hand on my thigh and squeezed. 'I'm giving you a head start,
you know. Just because I liked you the first time I saw you.' He leaned
over and stared at me. 'You believe me? You believe the things I tell you?'

"I said I guessed so.

"'I got proof. I'll show you it's true. Want to see my proof?'

"When I said nothing, 'Stan' leaned closer to me, inundating me with the
stench of Thunderbird. 'You know that little thing you pee with? Remember
how I told you it gets really big when you're about thirteen? Remember I
told you how incredible that feels? well, you have to trust Stan now,
because Stan's going to trust you.' He put his face right beside my
ear. 'Then I'll tell you another secret.'

"He lifted his hand from my thigh and closed it round mine and pulled my
hand down onto his crotch. 'Feel anything?'

"I nodded, but I could not have described what I felt any more than the
blind men could describe the elephant.

"'Stan' smiled tightly and tugged at his zip in a way even I could tell was
nervous. He reached inside his pants, fumbled, and pulled out a thick, pale
club that looked like nothing human. I was so frightened I thought I would
throw up, and I looked back up at the screen. Invisible chains held me to
my seat. ...

Terror would not let me speak. My brains had turned to powder.

"'I know what - let's call him Jimmy. We'll say his name is Jimmy. Now that
you've been introduced, say hi to Jimmy.'

"'Hi, Jimmy,' I said, and, despite my terror, could not keep myself from
giggling.

"'Now go on, touch him.'

"I slowly extended my hand and put the tips of my fingers on 'Jimmy'.

"'Pet him. Jimmy wants you to pet him.'

"I tapped my fingertips against 'Jimmy' two or three times, and twitched up
another few degrees, as rigid as a surfboard.

"'Slide your fingers up and down on him.'

"If I run, I thought, he'll catch me and kill me. If I don't do what he
says, he'll kill me.

"I rubbed my fingertips back and forth, moving the thin skin over the
veins.

"'Can't you imagine Jimmy going in a woman? Now you can see what you'll be
like when you're a man. Keep on, but hold him with your whole hand. And
give me what I asked you for.'

"I immediately took my hand from 'Jimmy' and pulled my father's clean white
handkerchief from my back pocket.

"He took the handkerchief with his left hand and with his right guided mine
back to 'Jimmy'. 'You're doing really great,' he whispered.

"In my hand 'Jimmy' felt warm and slightly gummy. I could not join my
fingers around its width. My head was buzzing. 'Is Jimmy your secret?' I
was able to say.

"'My secret comes later.'

"'Can I stop now?'

 "'I'll cut you into little pieces if you do,' he said, and when I froze he
stroked my hair and whispered, 'Hey, can't you see when a guy's kidding
around? I'm really happy with your right now. You're the best kid in the
world. You'd want this, too, if you knew how good it felt.'

"After what seemed an endless time, while Alan Ladd was climbing out of a
taxicab, 'Stan' abruptly arched his back, grimaced and whispered, 'Look!'
His entire body jerked and, too startled to let go, I held 'Jimmy' and
watched thick, ivory-coloured milk spurt and drool almost unendingly onto
the handkerchief. An odour utterly foreign but as familiar as the toilet or
the lakeshore rose from the thick milk. 'Stan' sighed, folded the
handkerchief, and pushed the softening 'Jimmy' back into his trousers. He
leaned over and kissed the top of my head. I think I nearly fainted. I felt
lightly, pointlessly dead. I could still feel him pulsing in my palm and
fingers." ...

"Now we're a secret, he said, folding the handkerchief into quarters and
putting it back in my pocket. A lot of love had to be a secret. Especially
when a boy and a man are getting to know each other and learning how to
make each other happy and be good, loving friends - not many people can
understand that, so the friendship has to be protected. When you walk out
of here, he said, you have to forget that this happened. Otherwise people
will try to hurt us both."

A predictable pattern develops as 'Stan' and the boy meet in the cinema
several more times during that week. The message is always the same:

"'Trust me,' he said, investing 'Jimmy' with an identity more concentrated,
more focused, than his own. 'Jimmy' wanted 'to talk', 'to speak his piece',
'was hungry', 'was dying for a kiss'. All these words meant the same
thing. 'Trust me: I trust you, so you must trust me. Have I ever hurt you?

"No.

"Didn't I give you a sandwich?

"Yes.

"Don't I love you? You know I won't tell your parents what you do - as long
as you keep coming here, I won't tell you parents anything because I won't
have to, see? And you love me, too, don't you? There. You see how much I
love you?" ...

"He stares at me as I stare at the movie. He could see me, the way I could
see him, with his eyes closed. He has me memorized. He has stroked my hair,
my face, my body into his memory, stroke after stroke, stealing me from
myself. Eventually he took me into his mouth and his mouth memorized me
too, and I knew he wanted me to place my hands on that dirty-blond head
resting so hugely in my lap, but I could not touch his head.

I thought: I have already forgotten this. I want to die. I am dead
already. Only death can make this not have happened."

The boy falls ill. 'Stan' disappears. "He would be afraid that I had told
my parents and the police about him. I knew that I had killed him by
forgetting him, and then I forgot him again."

It would be unforgivable to give away the conclusion of 'The Juniper Tree',
except, perhaps, to echo the narrator's conclusion: "What I am, what I do,
why I do it. I am simultaneously a man in his early forties, that
treacherous time, and a boy of seven before whose bravery I shall forever
fall short."

That is the voice of the narrator. Perhaps what follows is the authentic
voice of 'Stan': "I look for the kid who looks vulnerable - you know - the
one who doesn't have much confidence, who's probably been taught to obey
adults no matter what. And I really know that I have it made if no one's
explained anything about sex to the kid. Then I can tell him or her
anything I want and he or she will believe me. When parents don't talk to
kids about sex or abuse and when the kid knows he or she can't ask
questions, that's when I have no trouble getting a kid to go along with
me. Maybe parents should know that. If they want to protect their kids
against someone like me, they should talk to them - tell them honestly what
could happen." Convicted child abuser, quoted by Cynthia Crosson Tower in
'Understanding Child Abuse and Neglect' (1989)


Nor does the essayist advocate pederasty; the essayist wishes to be
descriptive, not prescriptive, for it is only by understanding the range
and variety of human nature and its needs that we ourselves can become
fully human.

In 'Sex and Sexuality', Alan Isaacs compiles and comments on a
comprehensive study of what writers, thinkers, moralists, and people in
public life have said at one time or another on some aspect of love and
sex.

"Although pederasty was not thought of as child abuse in ancient Greece -
indeed the boy was often materially and socially rewarded for his
cooperation by the older man - the boy was not expected to enjoy sodomy:

'The Athenian vases clearly show that only the adults were considered to
derive satisfaction from pederastic intercourse; the boy usually looks as
if he is solving some academic problem.' Professor Jan Bremmer

"The difference in social status between freeborn boys and slaves affected
what the ancient Greeks adjudged to be abuse:

'Freeborn boys wore a gold ball around their neck when very young, so that
men could tell which boys it was not proper to use sexually, when they
found a group in the nude.' Plutarch

"There were also certain rules concerning the running of a school or
gymnasium:

'Consider the case of teachers - it is plain that the lawgiver distrusts
them. He forbids the teacher to open the school room, or the gymnastics
trainer the wrestling school, before sunrise, and he commands them to close
the doors before sunset; for he is exceeding suspicious of their being
alone with a boy, or in the dark with him. Aeschines (4th century BC)

However, "in ancient Greece the assault of a child was illegal:

'The Law of Outrage stipulates that the assailant of a child, whether the
victim be free or slave, shall be charged and the due penalty applied or
else he shall pay a fine determined by the court. Aeschines

which sits oddly with the fact that "it was not considered an abuse for men
to have intercourse with prepubescent boys; prepubescence ended when the
boys began to grow beards - after which they were no longer regarded as
desirable:

'Plato declares that men who have proven their worth should be permitted to
caress any fair lad they please. Lovers who lust only for physical beauty,
then, it is right to drive away; but free access should be granted to
lovers of the soul.'  Plutarch (1st century AD)"

Apart from the classical world, pederasty as been accepted, if not as
common place, in many other cultures. Let us complete this section with an
anonymous 9th century Arabic poem from the school of Ibn al-Mu'taz, which
suggests a more humorous, and perhaps healthier, attitude to the reality
that some men will always love some boys:

Surprise, Surprise

Nizam the pederast, whose delight in boys Was known throughout Bagdad, one
afternoon In a secluded place saw in a clearing The flash of limbs behind a
nearby bush, And looking closer came upon a youth Who seemed more lovely
than his dreams had promised, Lying asleep in the shade, his head pressed
deep Into crosses arms, his long slim body Quite naked, the firm buttocks
firmly offered.  Quick as a jackal pouncing, Nizam jumped Upon the lad, his
robe about his waist, The startled boy pierced by his lust cock Before you
could say knife.  Not until later, When the boy lay panting on the
flattened grass, Did Nizam, pausing to embrace his love, Discover him a
her, surprised but pleased At being given such pleasure at a source No
previous lover seemed to know about.

Nizam converted? Never. But the girl Now gives her lovers strange
instruction.



Before we rush in too easily to 'spot the pervert', let us consider this
case from Nancy Friday's 'Men In Love':

"When I was about eleven, I sucked my father's penis. He was a good man,
but drank heavily. Many times when he was sleeping heavily, after much
drinking, I saw his stiff brown prick. Dad had the biggest pair of balls I
have ever seen. A few times I would stand by his bed and pull the covers
down so I could gaze at his beautiful organ. I would masturbate right
there.

"The summers in New York were very hot. He would sleep on the couch in the
front room, and I, because of the shattering heat, curled up on the floor
on a blanket near the couch.

"On one very hot night, he was asleep on the couch after drinking. I woke
up and saw the sheet he was covered with standing up like a tent around his
stiff organ. I crept closer and pulled the sheet down and looked closer at
his wonderful prick. I lightly took his balls out of his shorts and stroked
them. A few times I had seen my mother suck his organ, and I thought it
would be wonderful to try the same. Now I was on my knees on the floor, my
head resting on his thigh. Getting up the nerve, I held his thick penis and
kissed the crown. My mouth sucked half of his cock into it. He moaned, but
continued to snore. His penis was now almost all in my hot young mouth, and
I sucked hard, and moved my head up and down slowly. It was heaven. Many
minutes passed and I continued to suck my Dad's cock. He moved a little and
moaned again.

"I felt he was near his climax and sucked harder, and moved my head up and
down faster. Then his cock began to pulsate and he started to spurt his
semen into my mouth. I sucked on and on, taking all of his juice into my
mouth and swallowing. Father came and came, and I held his organ in my
mouth until no more semen came. I covered him again and jerked off into my
undershirt.

"Next day, Dad gave me no sign that he knew what had happened. Some nights
later, I did the same. He woke up as he was about to shoot, and held my
head tight as he flooded my throat. He called me 'cocksucker' as he
finished in my mouth. Father then pulled me on the couch, and sucked my
mouth taking some of his own semen in his mouth. He took my hand and put it
on his prick. Making me get on my knees, he sucked my anus, it was
wonderful. His penis was stiff again, and he made me get in the
'sixty-nine' position and he sucked my penis into his mouth and his prick
sank into my throat. We came together strongly."

Jefferson, who recounts this incident in his boyhood, describes himself as
fifty years old, with two children, and adds: "My wife and I talk about
these past events. In fantasy we think: my father on his back, his cock
deep in my wife's vagina. She is pumping hungrily on it, I am sucking and
licking her asshole, and his balls. Or: My wife sucking Dad's penis and he
sucking her cunt while I am fucking my wife in her asshole. (She loves this
fantasy and goes wild.)"

Nancy Friday feels "some comment is necessary on Jefferson's communication,
which seems rooted in real experience he had as a child with his
father. Since it is the only such expression I received, I showed it to
several therapists for comment. The three I happened to interview said that
in their clinical practice, it was new to them too."

One wonders what kind of responses Shere Hite would have received if she
had included an appropriate question on father/son relationships in her
survey. Sexual relationships between fathers and sons may be rare, but they
do occur, which is not the significance of this extract. Its significance
lies in the overwhelming nature of the sexual imperative as experienced by
adolescent boys. Most social settings encourage relationships between boys
and girls, which will prove effective unless the boy or girl is already
lesbian or gay, in which case the gay boy or lesbian girl will find,
struggle to find, or suppress outlets for their authentic emotions, needs
and impulses. However, adolescent boys are often driven to exploit a
remarkable variety of outlets, which, is made crystal clear in the stories
told by the boys who become the 'Men In Love'.

Who amongst us is hard-hearted enough to condemn Ludwig who discovers that
a dog can indeed be a boy's best friend?

"I was a boy of about eleven of twelve, living on a big farm, and as boys
do at that restless age, I roamed the fields and the woods far and wide. On
a very hot summer day, my faithful companion, a big male collie dog, and I
came to a deep pool in a creek that flowed through the valley. We were hot
and tired and it was far from other people and farm houses, so I didn't
hesitate to strip to the buff and jump in, with the dog joyously joining
me. The running water was so cold that I soon became chilled and crawled
out on a grassy bank with my dog, Ted, right behind me. I came up on the
bank on my hands and knees and before I could even dry myself on my shirt
(or in the sun), Ted mounted me like I was a female. I tried to move out
from under him but he weighed almost as much as I and was now covering my
whole back and gripping me with his forepaws - meanwhile pumping his
stiffening weapon closer and closer. Suddenly after several jabs that made
me yelp, he found my rectum with his juicy prick and rammed it in full
length. It hurt fiercely - yet it felt good! Suddenly he gripped my sides
so hard with his forepaws, he drew blood and started spurting into my
virgin passage. It was like an electric shock and triggered a new and
unfamiliar reaction in me. My boyish penis suddenly began to swell like
Ted's, which was still in me, and I too had an 'electric shock' in my own
weapon. I began to spurt like a pulsating lawn sprinkler for the first time
ever, and must have shot semen at least three feet from me for what seemed
like two or three of the most glorious moments of my life to date. It was
like the Fourth of July. Finally, after several minutes in which I began to
wonder if he would ever be able to get his gigantic, swollen prick out of
me (and I didn't much care at that moment, we collapsed together on the
grassy bank, and actually dozed off a while before another swim and the
long walk home."

Way to go, Ludwig!

Let us remind ourselves of the thrust of this essay: boys just wanna have
fun! and despite our best or worst intentions, there's no way we're going
to stop them having it!

"Oral sex? It's lovely. I like the taste, the juices. I like it stuck on my
face. Seeing my partner aroused arouses me."

"All through junior high and high school I was frightened. I was not aware
of anyone else who was gay. I saw my sexual feelings as a barrier between
me and everyone else, and felt completely alone with these feelings. I
would hear the ordinary ugly innuendoes or jokes that every kid hears about
gays. This deepened my isolation: I was frightened of having any of that
scorn and hatred directed at me.

"I masturbate perhaps three or four times a week. I like it, you can enjoy
your fantasies. I like the wetness. I like seeing it. It amazes me that
babies come from something so small and strange."

"I have bought several homosexual books and have thoroughly enjoyed them."

"I cried a lot when I was thirteen, because I decided I was homosexual. I
thought of killing myself rather than admitting to it. I didn't know where
to find anyone to talk to.

"Sharing a bedroom with my two brothers, I took part in sex play with them
from an early age. I was ten when I first experienced full intercourse with
my eldest brother (then 13), and I subsequently became very active with my
brothers and their friends, usually in group situations."

"I love anal intercourse. To feel it slide in and out is the best feeling
you could ever get! I orgasm two or three times at least. I also enjoy
fellatio very much. I swallow the seminal fluid - I love it!"

"Even at five or six, I knew that men were fascinating to me - and that if
I could survive my growing up I could find a more acceptable world for
myself elsewhere. I kept my sexual feelings private and I waited."

"I always dream and fantasize about other boys. I also enjoy masturbating
and playing with myself like putting Vaseline in my asshole and putting
things in my ass. It feels good. I would love to have anal sex with a
man. Orgasm is wonderful. Nothing comes before the joys of orgasm."

Here, Harry Daley, the son of a Lowestoft fisherman, in 'The Small Cloud
(1986), recalls his boyhood before World War I:

"Another boy took out his large cock, the first I'd seen with hair around
it, spat in his hand, and started to masturbate in the proper manner. After
a minute or two he said he was tired and asked me to do it for him, which I
did with pleasure. Thus began one of the happiest periods of my life; the
real beginning of my happy life; the first awakening to the knowledge of
the pleasure and warmth in other people's bodies and affection; the
realization that physical contact consolidates and increases the pleasure
and happiness to be got from mutual affection. It was all open and
uncomplicated. Whenever in our wanderings we came to a secret place, a
wood, a shed or a deserted building, we would merrily wank away. Nowadays,
for some reason or other, this traditional experience is thought to be
undesirable. We continued happily and unworried for a long time, until the
sort of people one finds in the fringes of church life, noticing the dark
rings under our eyes, warned us that boys who played with themselves went
mad and had to be locked away. This was a typical, mean, dirty-minded
trick, for they had been boys themselves and knew it was not
true. Henceforth we wanked and worried, whereas formerly we had experienced
nothing but satisfaction and contentment."

Euripides wrote: O what magic comfort are boys to men!

Properly he should have written: O what magic comfort are boys to boys!


Chris Kent Summer 1998


Select Bibliography

The Hite Report On the Family Shere Hite Bloomsbury Publishing Ltd. 1994

The Poisoned Bowl Alisdare Hickson Gerald Duckworth & Co. Ltd. 1996

Men In Love Nancy Friday Hutchinson 1980 BCA 1993

For A Lost Soldier Rudi van Dantzig The Gay Men's Press, London 1996

For A Lost Soldier (Video) Dangerous To Know VFB 07704

Touched Scott Campbell Allison & Busby Ltd 1998

Special Friendships Roger Peyrefitte Secker & Warburg Ltd. 1958

The Loom of Youth Alec Waugh The Richards Press, Ltd. 1955

Houses Without Doors (The Juniper Tree) Peter Straub Grafton Books 1990

The One And Only Francis King Allison & Busby 1995

Complicity Iain Banks Little, Brown Publishers 1993


Hornbill Cal Clothier Penguin Books 1992

Selected Writings Volume One: Sex Edward Carpenter Gay Men's Press, London
1984

Sex and Sexuality Alan Isaacs Market House Books Ltd. 1993


Acknowledgements

My thanks to the authors whose writings I have quoted in this essay.  I
hope that those who have enjoyed my little meditation beg, borrow, or buy
some of their books and read what they have to say in full.  They say it so
much better than I can.

Anyone interested in my own writing might like to check out:
http://www.glbpubs.com

Chris Kent