I read about aggression, for one thing, because of children being the victim of violence, esp. boys, who are somehow expected to just “take it.”
This is probably the dorkiest and most laughable discussion of a forbidden sex subject that you’ll ever encounter. But members of NA tribes know that the most emotional and dangerous internal subjects they have are often best understood by outsiders, so I hope that’s true for the “Nambla” controversy, which can be framed as abuse. At least I couldn’t be more “outside” since I’m an old celibate woman who has far too much curiosity. I can barely imagine a sex-inclusive relationship between a grown man and a boy. Maybe when I read fiction, like “The Persian Boy.” Safely historicized. But this isn't just about Nambla.
Partly I keep thinking about it because as a woman of 21, I made a decision (conscious) to join a man of 47. I was the "boy." It lasted ten years, through a legal marriage/divorce and his exploding success as a sculptor, a sort of celebrity pattern. (Lolita is not much of a shock these days.) When I get to analyzing what happened, part of it is that my father had a concussion when I was about nine that subtly warped him. He seemed normal but was always absent, often physically because he was a traveling man for work. I’m saying I had “daddy hunger” and it makes me blush to type that.
In a world where fathers are absent, dead, incarcerated, unknown, hooked, cruel, there must be a whole lot of sons out there with daddy hunger. Maybe not biological but a deep longing for male attention and explanation of a crazy world. Maybe a need for protection, an intercessor.
More formally, when I read the accounts of men who have sex with boys, the adult men often have an “enlightenment” rational approach to the situation: “Why not? It’s just something you do.” The emotional aspect is denied. Even fathers might say, “Who better to initiate my son into the wonders of sex?” (Of course, mothers sometimes take that attitude as well. Remember “Souffle du Coeur”, the French film?)
But on the boy side, the understanding is going to be unintellectual, a physical response pulling sub-rational “felt concepts” into an identity that most likely is not ready to handle them, so likely overwhelmed, even traumatized, esp if the sex is mixed with violence or the more intense forms of love. Developmental steps can be skipped with crippling effects. A “rational” approach is likely not taking this into account, but neither is a purely emotional approach.
As I read and queried old friends and watched vids and thought about gay sex, the one subject that was radioactive, a third rail, was this idea of sex between an older man and a boy-man. Partly they were reacting to the subject itself and partly they seemed to be reacting to the absolute judgment of our culture that this was nothing less than pedophilia, which has become the most villainous possible offence.
So where is the pushback, the safeguards, the depiction of the healthy way to go — even if it means blocking all asymmetrical relationships? What happened to the innocence of Batman and Robin or Red Ryder and Little Beaver.
Two countervailing forces may oppose the conviction of scandal that lately clings to male-to-male relationships of unequal ages, particularly those of adult to adolescents old enough to be sexual and feel they know what they are entitled to do.
Two things might get people’s heads over to a different context.
Two things might get people’s heads over to a different context.
1. The pair really knowing each other as human beings, not just social silhouettes.
2. A “holding community” that embraces and protects both but esp the younger.
These are the same conditions that protect females. They are the conditions of family, the definition of family, regardless of age, gender, biological origin, or whatever. Not just biological family, which can be lethal.
They are also very idealistic conditions and not easy to live out in a society where everything is framed in terms of sex — not just mutual sex but aggressive penetrative dominating sex as glamorized evil that is asserted to be the very definition of maleness, as if copulation were all that life was about, an insectoid point of view.
We have many good examples in literature and life, for instance brothers, partners in hunting or war. Closely cooperating pairs of men are thought to be one of the advances of evolution that allowed relationships beyond the “pack,” doubling what can be done or thought of.
I have no quarrel with homosexuality. I’m only Xian culturally and even then, I see that original culture as radically inclusive in the New Testament.. For those who think homosexuality is labeled “bad” in the Bible, I recommend these Bible verses about "the disciple whom Jesus loved" in the book of John (John 13:23, John 19:26, John 20:2 and John 21:7, John 21:20).
The worry in asymmetrical intimate relationships is that one partner may be exploiting the other, usually the older man taking advantage of the boy — but it depends on the boy. Some are quite capable of using a grown man for their own ends, like food, shelter, and education. Let alone raw survival.
When violence comes into the picture, understanding moves to outrage. I’m told that some men will pay boy sex-workers to let them beat up the boy. Pain might be mixed with sex or maybe not— maybe it’s just the straight infliction of pain that’s the kink. My head won’t let that in. How desperate for money must a boy be to allow himself to be beaten, knowing he will be laid up for days — maybe killed? But then, how many men PAY? If it’s a pleasure, some men must be imposing it for free, a form of rape. Some men like beating up women and do it for free. Some cultures will reframe it from perversion to “discipline.”
I’m researching “domestication” which is how some people like their sex: domestic, tame, peaceful and safe. In-house, all in the family. Some researchers talk about “aggression” — violence — in terms of “hot” and “cold”. They say that some people blow up, go ballistic, strike out in an emotional situation. That’s “hot,” not in the sexual sense. It’s what my father did when he lost his temper -- not beatings but spanking any child within reach.
The other kind, the “cold” kind is someone who plots, who plans, and — maybe — pays for the pleasure. A psychopath, a sociopath. Like the Great Falls cannibal of boys, David Bar Jonah. The research paper pointed out that there are medicines that can calm a “hot” aggressor, because it is often a serotonin problem, but there is nothing that will control a “cold” aggressor.
The trouble is that aggressors are often attracted to jobs like law enforcement or jailer, where the person suffering violence is either trapped or overmatched. The Pondera County sheriff is being recalled (link under photo), but not for violence though he admits he kicked his son while the boy was curled on the floor. The recall is for incompetence. An insecure authority figure is often driven to be the Dominator, the Big Grabber, and to act it out on the vulnerable.
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