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What is a minor-attracted adult's duty to God?
Posted at the Christian Boylove Forum by Paul on Wednesday,
May 9, at 6:01 PM
In reply to Boylove in the Bible posted by Brick
Brick, you wrote:
> Being both a boylover and a woman-lover, I have a number of girl-lover friends, so I'd ask that you stop implying that child-love is identical with homosexuality.
I apologize for giving the impression that I believe that. Of course I know that most same-gender-attracted people are not minor-attracted and that many opposite-gender-attracted people are minor-attracted. All I meant to suggest was that for certain people, such as my friend, the same-gender attraction and the attraction to minors are intertwined. For example, I am both a lover of the Bible and a lover of religious art. I know that for some people, these impulses appear separately, but in my life they are intertwined.
> I do not attend church, but I consider myself a follower of Jesus
It was quite hard for me to find an accepting faith community, and I'm sure the same must be true for many people here as well.
> and I have made a study of this. The first thing you must understand is that context is all-important. One mustn't adopt a Fundamentalist literal reading that deadens Scripture.
I'm glad to see that we agree about this. In fact, my objection to the pro-boylove readings of the Bible I have seen on this board is that I believe they do not take proper account of the ancient Jewish context but instead project modern concepts of love and sexuality back onto people who thought very differently about such matters.
> There are a number of age-differentiated couples in the Bible, such as Jonathan and David ("Thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women"), Naomi and Ruth ("Wither thou goest, I will go"), Jesus and John ("that disciple whom Jesus loved"), and the young man in the loin cloth who is mentioned in the Gospel of Mark and is said in an alternative version of this gospel (recorded by St. Clement of Alexandria) to have spent the night with Jesus.
As for the last reference, I think the noncanonical Gospels are cryptic and often heretical, and I believe that the Church was guided by the Holy Spirit when it rejected them in favor of the canonical Gospels.
Your first three references seem to me to be references to philia or agapé rather than eros. This is where the historical context is important. In our culture, eros is considered the supreme love, so phrases such as "Thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women" and "Wither thou goest, I will go" and "that disciple whom Jesus loved" all suggest to us that erotic desire is present.
But matters were different in ancient times. Leaving aside the pederasts – who seem to have been an aristocratic minority in the ancient world – references to supreme love in ancient times nearly always referred to philia. A man who told his friend, "You are more important to me than any women," was not suggesting to his friend that they should go to bed together. Rather, he was expressing the depth of importance that friendship love played in his culture.
You can see this quite clearly in John 21, in which Jesus keeps asking Peter, "Do you love [agapé] me?" and Peter keeps thinking that Jesus is asking, "Do you love [philia] me?" Peter assumes this because philia is the supreme love in his society. If a man in our society asked another man, "Do you love me?" everyone observing the scene would naturally assume that eros was being talked about.
Whether in ancient times or now, Jesus must have a very hard time impressing upon his followers that the supreme love is not philia or eros, but rather agapé.
Incidentally, this strong admiration of philia lasted until Victorian times. In the nineteenth century, it was not uncommon for two unmarried men (or two unmarried women) to set up household together for life, in a domestic companionship that was as strong as marriage. Pro-gay historians tend to interpret this as a "domestic partnership" in the modern sense, but while there's no doubt that some of these arrangements were masks for erotic entanglements, I think it's an exaggeration to suggest that all of them were. In those days, there was nothing strange about wanting a lifelong partnership based on philia, and some of these men may even have aimed for agapé.
> Some people, of course, have theorized that Paul condemned pederasty in I Corinthians 6:9 and I Timothy 1:10, but I don't think this reading stands up to the test.
I agree with you. I believe that Paul's terms arsenokoitai and malakoi are not references to pederasts and boys (what would be the point of condemning the boys?) but instead are intended as general references to homosexuality.
> The most important reference to boylove in the Bible is one that you probably don't know about. Some years ago, a scholar (see the bibliographical reference below) proved that the word translated into English as "servant" in the Matthew version of the tale of the centurion and his ailing servant was in fact mistranslated. I gather that you know Greek, so you'll be aware that the English root ped-/paed- is derived from the Greek word pais/paidos. "Servant" is a possible translation for this word, but its primary meaning is "boy." The scholar, gathering together the various uses of pais in ancient literature, showed that a first-century readership, exposed as it was to Roman pederasty, would naturally assume that a reference to a Roman and his entimos pais meant that the centurion was engaged in a pederastic relationship with his "beloved boy." It is significant that Jesus nowhere condemns this relationship.
This is a fascinating theory, and I'm very glad that you told me of it. If true (I shall have to hunt up the article you mention), it seems to me to fit well with other stories of Jesus' encounters with sinners, such as the adulterous woman, the Samaritan woman at the well, the "sinner" who washes his feet (possibly a prostitute), and Matthew Levi the tax collector. In every case, Jesus delivered no lectures to the person on their sinful ways; at most, he told the adulterous woman to sin no more. Instead, he seems to have depended on the force of his own character and manifest godly love to impress upon the person how wonderful their life could be if they turned back to God's ways. This tactic seems to have disconcerted his enemies quite a lot, and we witness them grumbling, "Why does he dine with sinners?" Obviously they'd be far more comfortable if Jesus delivered a haranguing lecture in the manner that John the Baptist did.
I, alas, am all too prone to lecture, as you may have noticed. Even so, a gay friend of mine who is Christian asked me a couple of years ago why I'd never given him a stern lecture on the sinfulness of sodomy. I told him, "If the life that I and other ex-gays lead doesn't convince you that we've chosen the higher path, then nothing I say will convince you."
That's why I won't go on in this post about why I believe that, even if it should become legally possible, it would be wrong for you to have sex with a boy. Instead, I'll say, "Look at the life and character of At Peace or any other boylover who is celibate for moral reasons. Then look at the life and character of any boylover whom you have good reason to believe is sexually active. The comparison speaks for itself."
> Nowhere does Jesus say, "It is sinful to be a boylover."
We're in agreement, of course, that it is not sinful in itself to have sexual feelings toward children – though no doubt in a world unaffected by the Fall, such feelings would not arise. Of course there is Jesus' injunction that "whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart," but I use the King James translation because you have rightly pointed out that the key word here (which appears in the Greek) is "to," It is sinful to look at someone you cannot marry in order to lust after them. I trust that neither you nor I sin when we find ourselves having involuntary feelings of attraction toward boys or men.
But while involuntary feelings are not sinful, it seems to me that feelings which are voluntarily encouraged are a form of action that is subject to moral scrutiny. When some boylovers here say, "It's wrong for me to have sex with a boy, but it's all right for me to fantasize about having sex with him," this seems to me to ignore Jesus' very clear warning that true sinfulness lies in the heart. If your heart and mind are directed toward God, then impulses that your body feels are not sinful, provided that you do not act on them. But if you never sin with your body but you sin with your heart, it is sin just the same.
So this complicates the question of whether it is sinful to be a boylover. It all depends on what you mean by being a boylover. Do you mean that you have feelings of eros toward boys and that you are attempting to sublimate those feelings into agapé? If so, then (in my view) nothing could be more praiseworthy. But I gather that some of you mean more than that: you mean that you should cultivate the eros, if not in deed, then in thought. And this seems to me to be perilously close to committing adultery in your hearts.
But of course Dante fell in love with a married woman and wrote love poems to her and ended up in Paradise, so this is certainly a difficult issue. I'd love to hear whether you have more thoughts on this.
Paul (the sinner, not the saint)
Divine discipline
Posted at the Christian Boylove Forum by At Peace on Wednesday,
May 9, at 9:12 PM
In reply to What limits should I create? posted by White
Rose
I'm not sure I can suggest any simple rules on this matter; I think that everyone has different limits. For example, I made a decision early on that I would not look after any boys if it meant being left alone in a house with them. My reasoning was that, if I were a heterosexual non-pedophile, I wouldn't spend the night alone in a house with my girlfriend. But I know boylovers who feel they have the self-control to do this sort of child care, just as I know men who can stay overnight in their girlfriends' guest rooms without anything untoward occurring.
On the other hand, I have no qualms about babysitting my brother's five-year-old daughter, since I'm not attracted to girls. If I were a girl-lover, my position would be different.
What I think is most important is not determining rules but rather finding a way to measure, at each moment, whether you are remaining within the discipline you have set for yourself. Paradoxically, coming up with a list of rules defeats this effort, because it gives you a false sense of security. You think, "Oh, this doesn't break any rules, so it must be okay."
What I've found most useful is to ask myself, whenever I have any doubts, "What would Jesus think if he saw me doing this?" This has never failed to help me. Since you're not Christian, maybe you could pick the person you most respect – your mother, for example, or your boss – and imagine that person looking over your shoulder as you spend time with your young friend. In that way, your invisible guardian will provide a more objective judgment of your actions than your own impulses.
Does this help? If you can think of any other ideas, I hope you'll share them with us so that we can benefit by what you've learned.
In Christ's Name,
At Peace with the Lord
Webmaster of CBF
Raising boys properly
Posted at the Christian Boylove Forum by Brick on Thursday,
May 10, at 4:30 PM
In response to The Church's view on sexuality posted by Paul
Don't we need to go back a step further? I think that we should consider, not only what the denominations are saying about sex, but whether what they are saying is right.
It seems to me that what the denominations need to recognize is that our society has gotten a muddled idea of what it means to introduce a person to sex, and that this is damaging, not only children, but also adults. Let me give you an analogy: Here in North America, children are forbidden from drinking alcohol. As a result, their first introduction to drinking comes when they enter university. The result? At my university, binge drinking, drunk driving, and other forms of alcohol abuse were rampant. Because these men and women entered into drinking with no prior preparation, at a time when they had no supervision or guidance from their elders, they naturally made many horrible mistakes.
Now contrast this with the attitude that some European countries take toward drinking. Children are introduced to alcohol at a very young age. The wine is well-watered, of course; children aren't expected to drink in the same manner as adults. Gradually, under the supervision of adults, they are trained to become accustomed to the properties of alcohol and to learn how to use wine without abusing it. Because of this, an eighteen-year-old Frenchman is much less likely to abuse alcohol than an eighteen-year-old American.
My contention is that the situation is the same with sex. At the moment, we plunge adults into sex with no prior training, much less supervision by their elders. No wonder the divorce rate is so high! What the denominations ought to be encouraging is a gradual introduction to sex during childhood, under the guidance of those who are old enough to have made mistakes and learned from them. Of course, each stage would have to be age-appropriate: a very young child would only be ready for kisses and a little light stroking of the skin, while a young person near adulthood would be ready to learn about intercourse (vaginal, anal, or intercrural). And of course one would have to take into account the individual's readiness. And here is where real advances could be made.
One of the worst aspects of the age-of-consent laws is that they assume that everyone develops at the same rate. Some twelve-year-old boys are ready for oral sex, and some thirty-year-old men are not. By getting rid of the age-of-consent laws and judging each person on a case-by-case basis, we could say, "No, even if most twenty-five-year-olds are ready for sex, this particular person is not." Or, "Yes, those of us who have been supervising this particular person's development believe that he is ready to go on to oral sex." That's how we handle matters in all other walks of life. It's a shame that the denominations ever got the idea that sexuality is different from other aspects of a person's life.
Brick
Webmaster and All-Round Dogsbody
BoyChat
Love-life versus love for life
Posted at the Christian Boylove Forum by Paul on Thursday,
May 10, at 7:09 PM
In response to Raising boys properly posted by Brick
Brick, I hope that you do not consider me evasive if I don't address directly the argument you have in your post. The reason I'm unwilling to do so is that it rests upon assumptions that are not Christian. It's as though I were trying to discuss non-Euclidean geometry with you, and you kept referring to an axiom that is only found in Euclidean geometry.
It is an axiom of the pagan and secular worlds that sex outside of lifelong union is acceptable. No Christian can concur with this assumption (in my humble opinion). I agree when you say that we do not have any conveniently direct command from Jesus on many matters related to sexuality. We don't have any Gospel passages where he says, "Thou shalt not have gay sex," or, "Thou shalt not have sex with a child." But if one thing is clear, Jesus did say (in Matthew 5 and 19, Mark 10, and Luke 16), "Thou shalt not divorce."
So central is this directive in Jesus' teachings that I would argue that the most serious sexual sin occurring within the churches today is not homosexuality but divorce. Even liberal Christians recognize the importance of lifelong unions in the Church's life; other than a few radical Christians, they all base their arguments upon this. Pro-gay Christians argue that homosexuals are just as capable of entering into lifelong unions as heterosexuals are. Proponents of premarital sex argue that couples shouldn't have to wait for the formality of a wedding before they begin their lifelong union together. Africans who believe that polygamists should be allowed to keep all their wives when they become Christians argue that having two wives is a lesser evil than divorcing one of them.
In fact, the only group of reasonable Christians I've ever met who argue in favor of temporary sexual unions are some of the participants at this board. This "training" you speak of is, when you strip away the veneer of your words, simply a sexual union that will end in divorce. If you "married" a boy rather than a woman, you could not stay married to him beyond his reaching adulthood.
I know that some of you folks will argue that a few boylovers and loved boys have stayed together for life. But as At Peace and some others here have argued previously, can a twelve-year-old boy really make such a momentous decision as to enter into a lifelong union? Child marriages were one of the scourges of the ancient and medieval Church, and I don't think it's a custom for which we should be encouraging a revival.
Brick, I'm sure it's no accident that Jesus requires us to engage in eros for life or not at all. It's all of a piece to what he is showing us about love in general. If I get married and then abandon my wife because I've lost interest in her, then the chances are I'll do the same with God. By practicing eros and philia for life, we learn to practice agapé for life. That is the sort of love that God wants us to practice: the sort of love he holds for us.
Or to put it in the language of Euclidean geometry: if you're not faithful for life to the person you love, then you won't be faithful for life to the cause you believe in.
Paul (the sinner, not the saint)
* * *
"Slash childabuse – that's one word," said Johnnie. "Slash tips dot HTML."
He paused to let Milano type the words of the Web address. The boy hit the return key with a flourish and waited for the page to load, observing, "You had the URL all memorized."
"I give it out a lot," said Johnnie, watching as the words "Kids' Tips for Staying Safe in Cyberspace" appeared on the Macintosh screen. "I post at a message board that has the word 'boy' in its title. Every now and then, a boy will wander onto the board who clearly thinks that this is a forum set up for kids to chat in. The Webmaster and some of the regular participants will explain to him right away that he's mistaken and give him advice on where he can go to find forums for children and youth, but what concerns me the most is that many of these boys don't seem to know anything about Internet safety. They'll post their full names and addresses, and the Webmaster will have to go in and edit this information out of the post. So I usually give out this link to the boys before they leave." He looked down at Milano who was perched on the edge of his seat, staring intently at the screen. "Didn't they show you a list like this at school?"
"I suppose," said Milano. "I didn't pay attention."
His eyes were wide as he stared at the list. His left hand, which he usually cupped over his cheek when he sat down, had slipped, revealing the dark mark. Watching him, Johnnie said, "Try to blink every now and then. You don't want your eyes to dry out."
"Oh, right." Milano obediently fluttered his lashes several times. He had his father's straight eyelids and his mother's long, dark lashes, curling upward like a bird in flight. Johnnie took a step backwards so that he could only see the back of Milano's head and said briskly, "The rules are pretty simple. They basically boil down to three: you shouldn't give out real-life information about yourself, you should never agree to meet someone in real life unless you have your parents' permission, and you should keep in mind that people aren't always what they appear to be on the Internet. Sometimes people who appear quite nice outwardly are in fact very dangerous inwardly."
Milano turned in his seat, letting his arm drape over the back of his chair as he looked up at Johnnie. "I suppose," he said hesitantly, "that the same is true the other way round. I suppose some people who appear quite awful from the outside are actually nice inside."
Johnnie was captured for a moment by a vision of an FBI agent reading BoyChat, then bringing out a list labelled "Dangerous Online Predators" and adding the name "White Rose" to the record. Then he saw that the boy was still watching him intently, and he realized why Milano had asked this.
Milano appeared to decide in that moment that he would not receive an answer, or at least that the man in front of him was too polite to give an honest one, for he turned his gaze swiftly away, pulling a book off the computer desk and flipping through the pages listlessly. Johnnie took a step forward and caught a page that was turning. Several figures were depicted on it: a square within a circle, a circle within a triangle, and a triangle within a triangle. Johnnie asked, "Where is the circle?"
Milano raised his head; he was squinting with puzzlement. He pointed to the circle on the page.
Johnnie shook his head. "That's not a circle. That's a picture of a circle. I want a real circle."
Milano looked around the room for a moment before pointing to a scuffed soccer ball that lay next to his bed. Johnnie shook his head again. "That's not a circle. That's only something that has the shape of a circle."
"Where's the circle, then?" asked Milano, cocking his head to the side.
Johnnie pointed to Milano's brow, where the dark hair fell over equally dark eyebrows. "Here. The only real circle is in your mind. That's the only circle that's perfect; everything that we see in the world is just an imperfect attempt to imitate the perfection that is within."
A smile slowly rose onto Milano's face, lifting the skin and changing the shape of the mark on his cheek. "Oh," was all he said.
Suddenly aware of the muted scuffle of Milano's younger sisters in the next room, Johnnie took an automatic step backwards and said, "There are links at the bottom of the safety page that lead to more safety tips. You might want to read them when you get the time."
Milano turned back to the computer eagerly and scrolled down until the links to the additional pages appeared. Johnnie, placing his hand on Milano's shoulder and leaning forward, pointed at the screen, saying, "You needn't read this now, but this is a page I refer a lot of kids to; it's about not taking rides from strangers. And this one tells what to do if someone grabs you while you're walking down the street. Oh, and this one has some good hints too."
Milano leaned forward to see better and read aloud, "'What to Do if Someone Touches You in a Way You Don't Like.'"
"What's going on here?"
Johnnie, who had been on the point of removing his hand from Milano's shoulder, snatched it back as though he had been touching a hot oven. He whirled around to look at the woman standing in the doorway, her hands and apron covered with flour and tomato sauce.
"Mama!" cried Milano indignantly. "You're supposed to knock before you come in."
"And you, young man, are supposed to ask permission before you go on the Internet. But I suppose you're not to blame this time." She flashed a smile at Johnnie as she walked forward.
"I'm sorry," said Johnnie weakly. "We were looking at a math history site his teacher recommended, and then we got to talking about the school rules for Internet use."
"Is that the math site?" asked Sandra, looking over her son's shoulder. "Oh, good! I'm glad you're showing Milano that. I get scared every time he goes on the Internet. You hear so many stories about pedos grooming and luring kids."
"What's a pedo?" asked Milano, who was carefully bookmarking the page.
Sandra lifted her eyebrows and looked at Johnnie. "Perhaps you'd better explain. You're better qualified."
Johnnie had a sudden collapsing sensation as though he were falling into a dark pit. Sandra laughed and said, "Whoops! I worded that badly, didn't I? I only meant that you're a man and therefore better qualified to discuss the birds and bees thing with a boy than I am."
Johnnie looked over at Milano, who was backing up the screen to the math history site and appeared to be taking no notice of the conversation. He had a brief vision of sitting down with Milano and saying, "Now, let me explain about pedophiles. You see, some men fall in love with women, and some men fall in love with other men, and some men fall in love with boys . . ."
"Wouldn't it be better to have his father discuss such matters with him?" he asked.
"That'll be the day," Sandra said tartly. "But I'm sorry, John; I didn't mean to burden you with parental duties. I already feel guilty about how you spend so much time helping Milano with his math homework."
"I look forward to it," said Johnnie, enjoying one of those brief moments when he could be entirely honest. "The numbers I deal with at work are incredibly dull. It's a relief to go back to the mathematics I loved as a youngster. And of course it's a joy to work with an eager pupil like Milano." He hoped his remark sounded sufficiently polite and formal.
"Well, even if I can't pay you, I can at least give you a decent dinner," said Sandra, wiping her hands clean on her apron. "I came to tell you that the food will be ready in fifteen minutes. Milano, non importunare il Signor Steadman."
"Mama!" cried Milano in anguish, turning in his seat.
Sandra dimpled as she looked back at Johnnie. "If he is a pest, don't hesitate to tell me. If he had his way, I bet he'd have you playing computer games with him half the night, when all you want is to get home and go to bed." She gestured toward Milano's bed.
"Not at all," said Johnnie faintly.
"Mr. Steadman!" said Milano, tugging at his sleeve. "Look here! The math history site has a page on a guy named Plato, and he said the same thing you did about circles. And they have links to his complete writings." He clicked the mouse and started reading, "The Meno and the Republic and the Symposium . . ."
"Oh, gods," said Johnnie, yet more faintly. Sandra had gone. He said in his best Stern Tutor voice, "Let's get back to business. There's a page on the math history site about Euclid; he's closer to what we're looking for . . ."
He leaned over to the mouse and clicked on the back button firmly, his mind once more absorbed in thoughts of the ideal and the imperfect.
* * *
Delius, leaning back against the cushions of Johnnie's day bed, scrutinized the photograph for a moment before saying, "The beloved."
"What?" asked Johnnie, pausing as he leaned forward to pour more cocoa into Delius's cup.
"That's what Milano means – didn't you know? Conscientious Objector ran a survey at BoyChat last year: 'Best Names for a Loved Boy.' Milano was one of the names mentioned. He's Italian?"
"Half Italian; his father's Asian-American. He visits his father on the weekends."
Delius looked up then. "He regards you as a father figure?"
"I think so. At least, I think he believes I'm interested in his mother. I've tried to put across to him that I'm not interested in her in a romantic way, but I'm not sure how successful I've been."
Delius looked back down at the picture. "You took this?"
Johnnie shook his head. "His mother did. He gave it to me right under her nose; she didn't seem to mind."
Delius chuckled softly as he accepted the mug from Johnnie's hand. "Imagine if she knew."
"She asked me today to tell Milano about pedophiles."
"Jesus!" Delius threw back his head and gave a hoot of laughter. Cocoa spilled into his lap, narrowly missing the photograph. "I trust that she didn't ask you to give a dramatic presentation."
He accepted a paper napkin from Johnnie and dabbed at his jeans, while Johnnie rescued the picture. "Most of the time I don't even think about it," Johnnie said. "He and I are so absorbed in lessons. But every now and then . . . He smiled at me for the first time today. My heart just about stopped."
"Hmm." Laying aside the mug and napkin, Delius picked up the photograph again. After a moment, in which Johnnie carefully watched his expression for clues, Delius said, "His face is unique."
"That's exactly what I think!" Johnnie exclaimed, his voice rising from pleasure. "The first time I saw him, all I could think was, 'Gods, he's gorgeous!' I suppose some people would consider that mark a birth defect, but I hope he never gets plastic surgery. He looks so different from the other boys – it's wonderful."
"Unique in his beauty." Delius raised his gaze from the picture and smiled.
"Yes." Feeling warmed, Johnnie leaned forward and tossed the soaked napkin into the wastebasket nearby. Absentmindedly, he ordered the cocoa pitcher and mugs so that they were in line with Delius's laptop, sitting open to the Crossroads index page. Next to him, Delius said, "You're so wonderfully organized. Could I borrow a few of your neatness genes? I'd be glad to give you a few of my messiness genes in exchange. . . . You know, I could turn this into a wallpaper for your computer, if you like."
Startled out of his thoughts, Johnnie jerked round to look at Delius. The latter raised his eyebrows and said, "You needn't look so shocked. It's no worse than keeping a picture of your girlfriend on your desk."
"I suppose so," replied Johnnie uneasily. "It's just . . . I love how Milano looks, but that's not the most important thing between us."
"Mm, yes." Delius put the picture down by his side and reached for the mug. "Well, I can see why you're always busy in the early evenings. Now I know who's the rival." He flashed a smile at Johnnie as he leaned back.
Johnnie said uneasily, "I'm sorry. I know I haven't been doing much moderating during the weekdays. I'd be willing to quit the committee . . ."
"Don't be silly. Everyone on the committee gets pulled away by real-life duties now and then. No, it's just the usual problem – we need more moderators." His gaze drifted back to the picture, his cocoa forgotten. "He's how old? Fourteen?"
"Thirteen. He's bright for his age."
"Definitely adolescent, though, and therefore above my AOA. I don't suppose you have any pictures of him when he was younger?"
Johnnie shook his head and stared down at the woolen coverlet he threw over the day bed during the daytime. Through the open window, he could hear the chatter of voices as people lined up for the late evening show. He said in a low voice, "I feel guilty about that sometimes: the fact that I won't be attracted to him in a few years. I feel like it's a betrayal – proof that I don't really love him."
"Concerned & Angry tried that argument on Conscientious Objector last week." Delius put the cocoa down again, untouched. "C.O. didn't even bother to remind her that he's attracted to men as well. Instead he asked her, with sweet innocence, whether, if she awoke one morning and discovered that her husband had returned to the age of seven, she would still be attracted to him. She fell right into the trap, saying indignantly, 'Of course not!' Whereupon C.O. cried with mock horror, 'What? Your love for your husband is age-dependent? Why, if the feelings you hold toward him are dependent upon the age he is, then you can't truly love him at all—' And so on and so forth, parroting back all the words she'd spoken." Delius placed the picture in Johnnie's hands and rose, saying, "Love is more than sex, White Rose. If it weren't, you'd have had that boy's clothes off weeks ago."
Picking up the cocoa and cups, Johnnie carried them over to the sink. "But sometimes I wish . . ."
"Wish what?" Delius's voice was sharp.
"Oh, I don't know. It's just that he means so much to me, and right now I think he likes me a lot, but in a few years he'll have forgotten all about me. And I think about Conscientious Objector and his friendship with his old lover, and I wish it could be like that between Milano and me."
"Teachers can sometimes inspire lifelong love in their pupils. I wouldn't aim for anything more if I were you."
Johnnie, reaching toward the tap with rag in hand, looked back at Delius. Gold Star was still standing next to the coffee table; he had the photograph in his hand again and was looking down at it. Then, as though in deliberate decision, he placed the picture on the coffee table and turned it face down.
"You know what I mean," said Johnnie. "It's even worse for you. Unless the laws change, you'll never have a friendship with a boy, whether sexual or nonsexual. How do you keep from exploding?"
Delius gave him a smile with an edge of mockery. "Cold showers are underrated."
"It's not that. You just said it yourself. Sex isn't what we want the most."
Delius continued to look down at the photograph, even though he could no longer see its face. He had a bandage over his scarred hand, a legacy of the weekend he and Johnnie had spent cleaning up his alley. "I suppose every boylover finds his own solution. Brick doesn't even think that there is any problem; he says that it's a mistake to pattern boylove relationships after marriages. He believes that there are biological reasons related to female sexuality why sexual unions between men and women should be permanent and monogamous, as he plans for his own marriage to be. But he says that it would be as silly for him to enter into a lifelong union with one boy as it would be for a teacher to spend all of his life with one pupil. He says that he derives satisfaction from teaching one pupil as much as he can, and then going on to the next child who needs him. He believes boylove is like that."
"But that option isn't available to you," said Johnnie. "And even if it were . . . You implied in one of your letters that you were looking for more."
"I don't know that my thoughts on this were fully formed when I knew Teddy," said Delius. "But now . . ." Delius gave one of his small, one-shouldered shrugs and came over to take the cleaned mugs from Johnnie's hand. "I thought rooming with someone might help. But even before Brick backed out, I'd already decided that wouldn't resolve matters. Brick's heart and mind are mainly focussed on his fiancée; if I'd roomed with another boylover, he'd mainly be thinking about boys. Heaven knows that boys are important to me as well, even now, but it would be frustrating living with someone who was always absorbed in his girlfriend or his young friends or whatever. It would be like we were trains crossing in two different directions."
"But there must be some sort of solution," said Johnnie as Delius finished drying the mugs and placed them in the cupboard. "For the gods' sake, there are millions of boylovers born every year. Over all these centuries, some of them must have found a way to keep from feeling utterly lonely."
"Well," said Delius, taking the final mug from him, "I thought last year of asking Pedo-Hag to marry me."
Johnnie dropped the pitcher in the sink. For a moment his ears rang from the crash, but the thick glass held firm. Johnnie scooped the pitcher up, saying weakly, "You wanted to marry her?"
The corner of Delius's mouth was twitching, but all he said was, "I thought it might work. She and I both like each other a lot, and she makes half-serious jokes now and then about marrying a boylover. I think she feels it's her duty to marry a bisexual boylover who would have a hard time finding a wife who understood him. She's comfortable around celibate boylovers; she wouldn't go into hysterics if I turned my head to look at a boy I was walking past. And I'd get the companionship I crave."
"But if you married her," Johnnie said hesitantly, "wouldn't you have to . . . ? I mean, could you . . . ?"
Delius gave a one-shouldered shrug. "I figured I could probably handle the bedroom bit, in a minimal fashion. I mean, you hear about gay men who somehow manage to have sex with their wives."
"But you didn't ask her?"
Delius shook his head as he reached up to place the pitcher on the highest shelf. "The more I thought about it, the more it seemed to me like an unfair exchange. I mean, if she was attracted to me, it would be difficult, because I couldn't be attracted to her, even under the best of circumstances. Maybe I'd be able to give her a little pleasure, but I wouldn't be able to respond in the way that she was responding to me, and I know that would make a difference to someone like Pedo-Hag. So I'd end up doing all the taking and none of the giving."
"Does that matter to you?" Johnnie knew the answer, but he felt the need to keep the conversation going. He could hear the voices continuing in the street, and he knew that if Delius went home now, he would end up standing beside the window, looking down at the theater queue.
Delius shrugged again. "I'm a boylover, Johnnie. I've spent the past fifteen years training myself to put the other person's needs before my own. I can't break that training just because the person is an adult rather than a child."
"So what is the solution?" Johnnie asked as Delius sat down again on the day bed. "Maybe we should post this question at BoyChat. Other boylovers must have gone through this, and maybe they've found an answer."
Delius settled back against the cushions. "I've heard Conscientious Objector's solution to the problem. C.O. doesn't spend nearly as much time in bed with boys as he likes to imply on Crossroads. He told me once that if he weren't able to make love to men, he'd have gone insane long ago." Delius leaned forward, pulling the laptop toward him. "He's been urging the same solution on me. He says that if I'm going to be so Puritan as to refuse boys, at least I shouldn't be a complete fool and give up on men as well."
There was a long pause. Delius, frowning at whatever he saw on the screen, scooted forward and turned the laptop so that he could see better. Johnnie could only see one quarter of his face now.
"But," Johnnie said, "I thought—"
"Thought what?" Delius did not pause as he typed a message.
"I thought you were like me, only attracted to boys. If you're attracted to men as well, then I— Well, it would be okay—"
"What would be okay?" Delius, absorbed in his message, seemed irritated by the interruption.
"I just mean that— Well, if you wanted to— That is, it's the sort of thing one would do for a friend—"
He knew that he was fumbling badly. He was not surprised when Delius, finally turning away from the computer, gave him a mocking smile. "Johnnie," he said, "you're a treasure, really you are. But you're more than twenty years over my AOA."
Johnnie, his hand on the sink enamel that was warm under the May heat, felt his face turn hot. His expression must have matched his fiery cheeks, for Delius's smile disappeared and he said quietly, "No, truly, Johnnie, I'm greatly honored that you'd make such an offer to me, but even if it had been possible, I wouldn't have asked that sort of sacrifice from you."
"It wouldn't exactly have been a sacrifice," Johnnie said, a small wave of relief now following his embarrassment. "I mean, it wouldn't have disgusted me or anything. It's just that it wouldn't have meant much to me."
"Well, then." Delius dismissed the matter with a wave of the hand and turned back to the screen. "We've got another poster making death threats; I think it's Lynch Em, though I can't prove it. I've banned the IP address he's using today, but he has posted under thirty different nicks so far, with just as many IP addresses. We may need to make posting 'password only' again, though I don't know how we're going to convince Concerned & Angry to submit a password of her choosing to us. She still thinks we're a boylove board, and soldiers in the battle against child abuse don't cooperate with the enemy."
Johnnie felt uneasy, as though an important online thread had been unexpectedly snapped by a software glitch. But all that he said was, "Maybe you can get Pedo-Hag to talk to her. After all, she's a survivor—"
A clanging bell went off, so loud that Johnnie jumped in his place. Delius, glancing over his shoulder as he reached for the mouse, said, "Just my computer. Sorry."
"E-mail?" Johnnie guessed as he watched Delius click on an icon.
"Urgent e-mail. I put in software to alert me when— Oh, hell." Delius read for a moment, his eyes moving rapidly, then leapt up, saying, "May I use your phone?"
"Of course," said Johnnie. "What's happened?"
"Brick took to dinner a new participant at BoyChat who was supposedly a boylover, only he turned out to be a TV reporter." There was a pause as Delius punched into the phone his calling card number; then he added, "The guy secretly filmed Brick talking about Free Spirits, then broadcast the results on the six o'clock news. . . . Hi, Brick; it's Gold Star. Look, if it was only the local news, it's not a total disaster. The program will only have been shown in your local region, and ninety percent of the people who saw it wouldn't recognize you again if you knocked on their doors. If you're feeling nervous and are willing to brave customs again, you can drive down here. I think I know a boylover who could put you up." He glanced at Johnnie for confirmation, but even as Johnnie nodded, Delius's face changed. After a minute, he said, "Jesus, yes, you can't abandon the boy before his big recital. Do his parents know about the broadcast? . . . Well, listen, let me e-mail the folks at the real-life support group in . . ."
Johnnie's attention drifted away. On the counter next to him was a cookbook, open to the recipe he had prepared for himself and Delius that night. He remembered his mother teaching him how to cook when he was in high school – "so that your wife can have the night off now and then," his mother had said.
He closed the book and went over to Delius's backpack, which had been dumped on the floor upon Delius's arrival. As Johnnie scooped up the bag to place it on the kitchen table, something little slipped out of the exterior pocket of the bag and fell with a soft thump to the floor. Johnnie bent to pick it up.
It was a square, flat, cardboard box, small enough to fit into Johnnie's hand, with a clear cover. In the light from the theater marquee, Johnnie could see the glitter of the contents. "Twenty thousand gold stars," he murmured to himself.
"What did you say?" asked Delius, putting down the phone.
"Nothing," said Johnnie, slipping the package back into the bag. "I think I answered my own question; I just don't like the answer. Is Brick coming here?"
"No, I think the people in the support group will be able to take care of him. They have lots of experience in this sort of thing; boylovers in crisis are always contacting them for help. There was talk last year of starting a real-life support group in southern California, but what with the latest court decisions there . . ."
Outside, the last of the conversations died down. Johnnie went over to the window and glanced out. As Delius talked on, he caught a glimpse of the grey-haired couple walking through the doors, followed by a single old man with his hands thrust deep in his pockets, his head low, and his back bowed.
* * *
Wow, now I have a therapist!
Posted at BoyChat by True Boylover on Thursday, May 10, at
9:40 PM
Gosh, I don't know how I survived before I met you guys. Not only have you given me the courage to acquire a young friend, but now you've helped me find a therapist!
One of the boylovers here (he asked me not to mention to you his nick) used to live in the city near me, and he told me the name of the therapist he saw there. The therapist doesn't charge much and is really nice. He knows all about BoyChat, and though he warned me about the limitations of online support, he says that I could use all the support I can get right now. He says that my problems are so serious that he thinks I should attend meetings for sex offenders. Of course I'm glad to do anything he tells me. In the meantime, he has put me back on some sedatives my last therapist had prescribed for me.
I was a bit worried about whether he would tell the police about me, and he did explain that he is bound by the laws here in [deleted by moderator] on mandatory reporting of child abuse, but since I haven't abused any children, that's okay. He made me promise that I would always be honest with him, even if it means telling him if I abuse a child, but I told him I'm trying to be a true boylover, and true boylovers don't hurt kids!
I told him a bit about B. He thinks it's okay for me to keep seeing B, since all of our conversations take place on the front lawn of B's home. Actually, I can only mow the lawn so many times a month, so I've volunteered to help clean the backyard, but it's not much different from talking with B out front.
Got to go now; I have to wake up early for my job. It's a bit discouraging there, because the guys at work talk all the time about their girlfriends, and I have nothing to contribute, but I just think about B and think about how the other guys don't know what they're missing!
Love,
TB
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