On the nature of the soul..., let me speak briefly, and in a figure. And let the figure be composite -- a pair of winged horses and a charioteer. Now the winged horses and the charioteers of the gods are all of them noble and of noble descent, but those of other races are mixed; the human charioteer drives his in a pair; and one of them is noble and of noble breed, and the other is ignoble and of ignoble breed; and the driving of them of necessity gives a great deal of trouble to him.

+++++

...he whose initiation is recent, and who has been the spectator of many glories in the other world, is amazed when he sees any one having a godlike face or form, which is the expression of divine beauty; and at first a shudder runs through him, and again the old awe steals over him; then looking upon the face of his beloved as of a god he reverences him, and if he were not afraid of being thought a downright madman, he would sacrifice to his beloved as to the image of a god; then, while he gazes on him, there is a sort of reaction, and the shudder passes into an unusual heat and perspiration; for, as he receives the effluence of beauty through the eyes, the wing moistens and he warms. And as he warms, the parts out of which the wing grew, and which had been hitherto closed and rigid, and had prevented the wing from shooting forth, are melted, and as nourishment streams upon him, the lower end of the wing begins to swell and grow from the root upwards; and the growth extends under the whole soul -- for once the whole was winged.

+++++

Socrates (or Plato): selections from Phadrus

 

I was invited by a friend to a minor league baseball game. I have never followed any sport, but was intrigued by her description of the pomp, shenanigans, and good-natured foolishness, so I agreed to go. When the time came to begin, all the members of the home team trotted onto the field one at a time while they were introduced with a certain flourish over the loud speaker. But what was curious is that each of them was accompanied by a younger boy, who trotted proudly at his side. The younger boys, who must have been in the nine to twelve year age range, were fulled uniformed. I suppose they were members either of a school or little league team. It was touching. There, I thought, is the essence of man/boy Eros. Each boy was basking in the reflected glory of an older role-model -- somebody very much like the man he hoped one day to become. There was surely not a boy among that group who had not gone to sleep at some time or another fantasizing about hitting the winning home-run in the bottom of the ninth, or, with unbelievable prowess, making the winning catch in the most important game in the series. Their mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers and maybe even a girlfriend in the bleachers would rise to their feet in a standing ovation. In the meantime they would enjoy the victories and suffer from the failures and defeats of the adult baseball player whom they admired and with whom they identified.

 

Men and boys are strongly attracted to each other. They need each other. A boy with no man to love him is likely to have difficulty growing up. It's as though he suffers from a peculiar kind of deficiency in his diet -- a male deficiency -- like a missing enzyme or vitamin that is necessary for the proper metabolism of life. Until very recently this has been generally recognized. It was tacitly understood in the creation of such organizations as Big Brothers, Boy Scouts, and male-led sports teams. In psychology the boy's need for a strong attachment to a man is termed his need for a "positive identification figure." Most of us have known at least one troubled boy whose life was turned around because of his reciprocated love of a man.

 

We know that men and boys need each other, but we are embarrassed by this fact. It wasn’t always this way, but since the 80s it is. We now see it as suspicious. Male bonding, especially intergenerational male bonding, is too much like love, and love partakes too deeply of something like sex -- something that can in fact become sex if it is not monitored closely. And men and boys should not have sexual feelings for each other and certainly should not touch each other in a sexual manner. So for a while after the Satanic panic changed the landscape of men-boy relations, we still encouraged men and boys to be together, but we anxiously monitored their behaviors and attitudes, diligently watching for any hand that slipped carelessly onto a not-all right place, or any expression of affection that might be a little too tender, or perhaps just excessive. And we lie about what is taking place.

 

One way we lie is in the manner in which we label our experience. This is a good man, a pillar of society. This is a bad man, a pedophile. The good man feels only affection. The bad man has sexual feelings. The good man has only agape in his heart, a high sentiment that is devoid of Eros and certainly of sex. The bad man is driven by Eros. The good man finds the child cute. To the bad man he is attractive. The good man loves the child. The bad man loves the child. Ah, there's that slippery word that gives us so much trouble. But to love the child and to love the child are very different things. It's all a matter of how you pronounce it, with a smile, or a sneer. It’s a matter of mushrooms and toadstools. The one nourishes; the other poisons.

 

We create with our use of language a world that is unrealistically bifurcated. Surely there are men who sexually exploit children, just as there are men who sexually exploit women. In this sense there may be toadstools and mushrooms. If we were to be non-sexist about it, perhaps we would just have to acknowledge that there are people who exploit people. We've been at it for centuries. It is probably true that in the sexual sphere men exploit more than women. Even when we make allowances for reporting problems (such as a fourteen year old boy’s reluctance to report being "sexually abused" by a woman), and for different interpretations of the same acts preformed by men and by women, men are probably more likely to abuse. Testosterone undoubtedly takes its toll. However, I believe that the lover of boys who is driven only by altruism and agape is a fiction. With regard to the energy that sensitizes both good and bad alike to the charms of boys, it's all mushrooms. Or is it toadstools?

 

However a man labels his experiences, when he delights in the presence of a boy of whom he is deeply fond, there is Eros. Eros is the delight. When a man enjoys the sight of an eleven-year-old boy running down a beach, and when he takes pleasure in watching an attractive woman stretch out in the sun, there is a similarity in the feelings. When he appreciates the delicacy of a boys mouth on the one hand and the sensuality of a woman eyes on the other, there is a kinship between the experiences. The experience associated with the boy and with the woman are not identical, but they draw on some common source of love energy. I think, in their being, men know this. I call that common source of love energy “Eros.”

 

Perhaps we need a brief digression to look a little more carefully at this “Eros” that I keep mentioning. We know it is a form of love named after a Greek God by that name. It is not a love that is devoid of sex. But neither is it sex, pure and simple. It seems to me that Eros has three elements. First there is the love energy – which is a form of desire – a desire for life itself. Perhaps the most accurate way of defining this desire is to say that it is a desire for life giving relationships. At that dramatic point when the child is first born it seeks reunion with the mother through its mouth and her breast. That is Eros. Here the focus of the activity seems to be on getting food. But not only food. There seems to be a sexual component to this love as well. And certainly it is a desire for the relationship itself. In fact we could define Eros as the desire for union with the beloved, life giving and enhancing object.

 

This “object” has two aspects: The image of the beloved object, and the material/psycho/social object itself. Eros is a form of love that draws us out of the images in our heads and into the world in search of consummation with the beloved other. It is not just the desire for physical gratification. It seeks the physical realization of a highly charged mental representation.

 

Because of society's inability to be honest in its use of language, men are trapped in a double bind. They are to become more nurturing, have more capacity for intimacy, and increase their ability to bond with boys, whether their sons, or neighbors, or boys with special needs. And surely this would be desirable. But also they are to feel nothing murky, nothing too powerful, or tender, or sensual. And certainly they are to feel nothing sexual. But this is not possible. Testosterone will not permit it. Eros will not permit it. It is possible for men and boys to love each other and for the relationship to never become explicitly sexual. It is also possible to ask a man not to act out his love in an explicitly sexual manner without putting him in a double bind. But it is not possible for a man to love without drawing on the powers of Eros.

 

This is a subject that we are unable to honestly discuss in our society. Any professional man who suggests that the power of Eros, and specifically, that sexual feelings, may be an aspect of all bonded relationships between men and boys is suspect. Any one who admits to such feelings in himself risks public censure and the loss of livelihood. Anyone who suggests that under some circumstances a sexual manifestation of the love between a man and a boy -- even a fully consenting teen-age boy -- may not be all that harmful, may find his name included on a list of those who must be persecuted to the point of imprisonment, castration or death.

 

When Simon in The Lord Of the Flies returns to tell his compatriots that the thing on the mountain is not as they think, he is killed for his pains. People do not want their understanding of reality challenged. Yet we must somehow break the "conspiracy of silence" (Vanggaard pg. 50) that prevents more open discussion of this topic.

 

I will preface my thoughts with five caveats:

 

One: I do not think that people fall into neat sexual categories, such as homosexual, bisexual, pedophile, or heterosexual. Each person has his own pattern of desire, which may include various degrees of attraction to adults or children of the same or the opposite sex. Also I believe that these patterns change through time.

 

Two: While I have been very careful to be factually accurate in my descriptions of what actually transpires between men and boys, this paper is admittedly rather speculative in the theoretical framework that I superimpose over the facts. Because of the repression and hysteria that surrounds the topic it is difficult to conduct intelligent discussions, about it, and the obstacles to meaningful research are immense. Therefore it is difficult to test hypotheses that would, at least in principle, but subject to empirical research. Furthermore, I must confess a predilection for some hypotheses of a spiritual nature that may not be, even in principle, subject to empirical research.

 

Three: While my speculations in this article focus on relationships in which the male partner is a man who is strongly attracted to adult women as well as to boys, this is not meant to disparage the value of relationships between men who are predominantly homosexual and boys, or between boys who are maturing into an orientation that will be predominantly homosexual, and men. It is the degree of such factors as gentleness, reciprocity, con-sensuality, attachment and mutual care that determines the value of the relationship for both people, regardless of their sexual orientation, or, as I would prefer to say, their patterns of desire. It seems to me that a relationship between a boy with a strong or almost exclusive homosexual orientation, and a positive male mentor with a strong homosexual orientation may often be the salvation of the boy.

 

Four: Again, while this paper is about Eros in relationships between men and boys, this focus is not meant to minimize the importance of the relationship between woman and boys, or between women and girls. I think, in fact, that something quite similar to what I am describing takes place in relationships between girls and the woman mentors with whom they fall in love. Undoubtedly there are both similarities and differences in the dynamics and the developmental significance of different kinds of relationships. I focus on one specific type of relationship in order to give a sharper focus to this issue.

 

Five: This article is about Eros. In some cases Eros will manifest itself in explicit sexual feelings and activities, and in other cases it will not. Under what circumstances it is helpful or harmful for a man\boy relationship to find explicit sexual expression is a very difficult question that will be touched upon. But the concept of Eros, which is the central concern of this paper, is a broader one than sex. It is manifest in a feeling of in-loveness that pervades the entire being.

 

Archetypes

Archetypes are primal images that guide motivational schemes and give form to relationships. They are invested with an intense degree of psychic energy -- with Eros if you will, and they appear universally in dreams, stories, works of art and religious symbolism. Carl Jung observed that such images seemed to emerge spontaneously in diverse cultures that had no known or probable historical connection with one another. To him this was evidence that such mental forms are innate, and not simply cultural artifacts that are transmitted by the spoken and written word. Strictly speaking the specific images that emerge (say Zeus or Merlin or Eros himself) are not themselves archetypes. An "archetype" is a "tendency to form " representations with a general recognizable pattern or motif -- representations that make visible deep instinctual urges and wishes that are the universal evolutionary inheritance of humanity.” Jung designated the place where these archetypes reside the "collective unconscious." (See, for example, Jung, 67ff.)

 

Whatever may be the truth regarding the source and transmission of archetypes, it would seem that human relationships do organize themselves around recurring, highly charged images. Perhaps seven could be identified as being indicative of the typical kinds of love relationships that occur between men and boys: 1. father/son, 2. role model/admirer, 3. teacher/student (or mentor/disciple) 4. healer/patient, and 5. friend/friend 6. lover/beloved and, 7. leader/member of same-sex group.

 

Father/son

Archetypes clustering around images of father and mother are probably the most powerful of all. Religions often have either a mother or a father image as the center around which all else orbits. Often both maternal and paternal images play a prominent role. The father-son archetype is the central image of the New Testament.

 

In therapy I frequently encounter the theme of the search for the lost father or mother. As an example I share part of a progress note on a therapy session with a seven-year-old who, for a variety of reasons, had difficulty establishing a firm and secure bond with his father.

 

In play he enacted the following scenario. He had me pretend I am fighting some bad guys. Its like a war. One of them (enacted by him) makes "food bombs." What this means is that when there is food around -- say a hamburger or a green pepper -- one never knows whether it is really food or a bomb. I manage to injure one of the bad guys very seriously. It looks as though he will die. I take him to the hospital and fix up his wounds and he is healed. When he is healed he becomes a good guy. It turns out that we are really brothers. He is looking for his father. The evil soldiers hold him captive. He tells me that I think my father is dead, so I enact that role. He tells me he's not really dead, but has been captured by the bad guys. Our job is to free him.

 

We spend a lot of time going through tunnels, secret path-ways, etc. We have to break down doors and overcome guards along the way. At one point we stop and are both making things out of clay. I make a snake. He also makes a snake, but did not know that I was making one too. This is evidence of a deep telepathic connection between us. We are brothers.

 

While we worked with the clay we talked. He said "it is because my dad is held in the castle that I am mad and wild and I kick ass."

 

Eventually we break through the last barriers and save our Dad from the enemy.

 

I confess to being a bit speculative with regard to the food bombs, but would see them as expressing his conviction that to accept nurturing is dangerous. I think he overcomes this fear as he first allows himself to let me be his healer, and then aligns himself with me very closely, almost symbiotically (the telepathic brothers) as we join in the common therapeutic quest, which is to save his father from the bad people who hold him captive. Again, I allow that it is speculative, but I would note that a part of his father's unavailability to this client stems from the psychological injury his father sustained as he participated in the Vietnam War. Hence his need to be rescued from warriors. What comes through loud and clear is that for this child, as for many I have worked with, the whole therapeutic process centers around the quest to become re-connected to the maternal or paternal nurturing figure.

 

Hopefully at some point we become able to move on to other types of relationships outside the family and our actions become activated by archetypes that do not have being nurtured by a parental figure as their driving force. But every man\boy love relationship is informed to one degree or another by the father\son archetype. Often the central meaning of the relationship is to provide the boy a corrective experience to an earlier relationship that was either problematic or simply not available.

 

Role Model/Admirer:

The ideal self is a major factor in the process of identity development. The ideal self is first encountered as an figure who is external to the self, typically an older person of the same sex who is admired and loved. An image of this other person is internalized where it serves as a template for the development of one's own identity. The external ideal may be a person who is actually known, or simply a person who is known about through stories, books or TV. In the absence of an intense emotional attachment the ideal encountered as a person external to the self will lack the force to influence development in any significant way.

In view of the fact that sports have only been of peripheral interest to me as an adult it is surprising how many examples of powerful identification figures that pop into my mind as I work on this essay involve sports figures. When I was perhaps eight or nine years old I used to listen to college basketball games on the radio. The memory is quite vivid down to the hot-chocolate with a marshmallow in it that I would prepare for myself before the game began. I followed with intense interest and excitement the successes and failures of the local team. Of special interest to me was a player on this team who was unusually short to be a successful basketball star. It happens that as I grew I was unusually short -- most often the shortest boy in my classroom. My hero, who was nick-named "Squeeky," was my sun and my inspiration. He was the only sports figure in my life who held that kind of attraction for me. He meant to me that I, although small, could compete, succeed, and be respected. I could be a formidable opponent. (Given my stature, my choice of football as my favorite sport was perhaps unfortunate, and I never became as formidable as I might have wished.) I remember the intense jolt I received when the news came out that key members of the basketball team had taken bribes to throw a game. I looked at the person who told me about this and said "but not Squeeky!" But as it turned out, Squeeky was among the guilty. It was right there in the newspaper. I was devastated.

It is generally impossible to say for sure what effects any specific event has on the future development of a person. Certainly I cannot blame Squeeky for my poor hook shot, or for any of my current flaws. But I do know that, although I had never met him, and did not even know what he looked like, there was nobody I had deeper or more intense feelings about at that point in my life.

 

Teacher/Student or Mentor/Disciple

The Karate Kid is not necessarily my idea of a great movie. The plot was similar to that old Charles Atlas ad: bully kicks sand in the face of the skinny weakling in front of his girl friend; weakling takes Charles Atlas course; weakling returns; finds bully with his own girl friend; weakling beats up bully. (Pow! Bif! Oof!); Girl goes off with former weakling.

 

Somehow when I was a teenager I never paused to wonder about the character of this girl. I mean suppose somebody else came along who had taken two Charles Atlas courses. But in the Karate Kid, it is not a Charles Atlas course. The boy meets his teacher, an unassuming old man who turns out to be a Karate master. Mixed in with the corn, the improbable events, the platitudes and the totally predictable plot, there were a few funny lines and some nice thoughts. I noticed when I went to the video store to get a copy of it to refresh my mind for writing this section of the paper there was Karate Kid II, and Karate Kid III as well. The movie did not owe this immense popularity with kids to a few funny lines and nice thoughts. The Karate Kid touched a cord deep in the heart of all boys. The drive to best the stronger male, of course, may be just something we inherited from the baboons. But the central focus of the movie was on the relationship between the boy and his master. The boy had to submit to the authority of the master -- had to discipline himself to suffer, take risks, and make great efforts. By doing so he was able to take into himself power, maleness, and skill. The boy was the son the master lacked, and the master was the father the boy lacked. Along with the manly skills of fighting, the boy also took into himself a philosophy and a code of honor from his teacher. He was socialized. He was taught to channel his aggressiveness in ways that would serve only for self-defense, and never just for hurting or humiliating others. The movie was popular because it exemplified one of the most powerful archetypes in the human soul -- the archetype of the mentor and the disciple.

 

 

Healer/Patient:

In my play-room I always have a doctor’s kit as one of a large number of items that children can choose from. Probably a majority at some point or another present themselves to me in play as in need of healing, most frequently as the result of some injury they have sustained at the hands of an evil person. Most often this is more or less clearly a metaphor of the relationship we have. I am the healer, the doctor. Being somewhat antithetic to the medical model in psychotherapy, I would not wish this metaphor to be understood too literally. But, as suggested above, the boy often seeks in the man a corrective experience for developmental deficiencies he has experienced. I am sure this perception of the adult friend as a healer is not limited to the formal psychotheraputic role structure, but is frequently an aspect of the intergenerational bond.

 

Often the simple fact of contact and attention seems to be by itself healing. I recall one of my first cases. I was at that time more purely non-directive in my technique than I later became. We will call the boy, Michael. He was about nine, and had been referred for being unmanageable in school and at home. He chose to play "football," in the play room. This consisted of first him and then me getting the football and trying to get past the other without getting tackled. During the first several sessions we did little else. I did not probe into his problems, interpret his behaviors, suggest new ways of managing his anger, take a social history, or teach interpersonal skills. I allowed him to use the sessions and me as he chose.

 

After our third session I received the message that both his mother and the school were marveling at my skill. What was I doing? He was a different boy. He was happy and generally compliant. Seldom did his behavior escalate to unmanageable proportions. It was with both gratification and guilt that I received these praises. But surely I was an impostor. It was just snake oil. I was doing nothing. But he was undeniably better. Were the changes permanent? I don't know. Nor am I suggesting that therapy should not include interpretation, learning new skills, and all the rest. But I think a case can be made for the idea that simple contact and attention can be healing for boys who have been injured by the lack of nurturing by positive male figures in their lives.

 

Friend/Friend:

In the most general sense, a friendship is simply a relationship characterized by trust and positive regard. But in common usage "friendship" implies equality. At times, for example we will hear a parents say that when their children reached adulthood, they were able to became friends with them. Similarly as a student matures and comes into his or her own, the mentor might come to describe the student as now being a friend. This would seem to be at some variance with the hierarchical structure of the archetypes we have considered up to now. Father, ego ideal, and healer, all imply a degree of dependency and perhaps even submission on the part of the boy. Although probably every relationship between a boy and a man retains an element of the hierarchical structure, often this is in tension with a more egalitarian aspect of the relationship that could be called "friendship." A boy lover who was interviewed as part of a research project describes the egalitarian (friendship) aspect of the relationship in this way. See (Li, 1993, 293)

 

The boy lover tries to describe the friendship aspect of his relationship to boys.

 

Very, very few boys can relate to their father. There are very few boys that have a good honest relationship with their father. They haven't got the relationship with their father to tell him anything and everything. But they would come to a stranger, or a friend, and this is where I come in. I can talk, and I never talk down to a boy. I always talk to a boy on his own level, as far as it's humanly possible. And gradually, those boys would come to trust me, and they do realize that if I say, or promise a thing, or promise not to do a thing, then they know they can trust me -- the building up of that trust is very, very important.

Clearly this person sees himself as offering boys an alternative to the unsatisfying relationships they have with their fathers, and it appears that for him the traditional elements of guide, teacher and protector would still retain their importance. Nevertheless he also emphasizes the need to be a friend of the boy which means never "talking down" to him, and relating to him "on his own level."

 

Lover/Beloved:

The beneficial effects of men who act in the role of father-figure, role-model, mentor, and friend to boys has been noticed by just about everyone. However, if so much as a hint of sexual motivation or feeling becomes evident in the relationship then the here-to-for benign and admirable guide becomes suddenly a devil. There is no gray here, only the good and the bad. Men and boys are not to become lovers. Yet the fact is that they do. And they have always done so, in virtually every society and every age.

 

Before looking at some of the more positive meanings ascribed to man/boy liaisons by different cultures, it should be noted that a certain amount of intergenerational sexual activity is economically driven. People in extreme poverty will frequently resort to child prostitution rather than starve. This does suggest something about the commonness of intergenerational attraction. In the absence of such attraction the child's body could not become a commodity. For human beings to relate in this manner must be regarded as profoundly degrading and de-humanizing. The root cause or "sin" responsible for such a lamentable state of affairs however, is not primarily sexual license. The cause is economic. It is the result of war, natural disaster, exploitation, imperialism, the breakdown of indigenous cultures, and other factors that precipitate economic collapse.

 

Quite separate from the issue of economic compulsion, a whole different set of meanings is often ascribed to erotically charged activities between men and boys. These meanings cluster around the idea that a love relationship between a boy and a man serves a specific developmental purpose. It initiates the boy into manhood. Typically there are two aspects to this. First, the child who has up to this time lived in the world of women, and perhaps was even perceived as a kind of androgynous figure or even a girl, enters the world of men. In some cultures a change of residence dramatizes this move. Second, by contact with men the child becomes a man. The ethnosociologist Gisela Bleibteu-Ehrenberg points out the two motives behind the institutionalized pederasty among the groups in the area of Papua New Guinea and Melenesia.

The first reason, or complex of concepts, is that boys would "always be small" if they didn't go through pederasitc rites. Put the other way around, small boys are made into big strong men through pederasty...

 

The second motive for pederastic practices during initiation is the nearly universal belief in these regions that boys before their initiation belong exclusively to their mother. They are thus regarded as part of the female population.

Bleibteu-Ehrenberg notes that culturally analogous practices occurred in feudal Japan. Here the relationship between a Samurai warrior and his page was imbued with a similar meaning. And, of course, a very similar thing is easily discernible in the classical Greek culture of which Socrates was a member. The idea of the man-boy love relationship serving to initiate a boy into proper manhood works its way out in very different ways in different cultures. But the same theme, though in muted and almost hidden form, can be seen in the institutions for socializing boys even in modern western culture today.

 

When cultural and historical evidence is supplemented by sociological and psychoanalytic studies of more recent practices, it would seem to support the view of Thorkil Vangaard that "a homosexual radical is present in all men today, just as it was in the time of the Greeks." (Vanggaard 1972, 51) He is referring here to the tendency of men and pubescent boys to be attracted to each other. As Vanggaard goes on to say, "the adjective 'unnatural' applied to homosexual phenomena is devoid of meaning. Homosexuality may be called 'uncultural' when it manifests itself against the rules of a culture, as for instance the Christian and Jewish ones."

 

It is difficult for us to accept the idea that many boys find love relationships with men to be pleasant, desirable, and beneficial. In fact they often seek out such relationships. Perhaps on this point it is best to let the boys speak for themselves. The following examples are from the booklet Boys Speak Out On Man/Boy Love, published by Nambla.

 

Like most poor-income families from the Philadelphia area, I stated to hustle for spending money when I was 12 years old. Most of the kids were doing it, and they could make and easy $20 or $30 during the weekend.

 

Most of the time I would just hang around the big Art Museum until I noticed a guy looking at me. Most of the men who picked me up just wanted to have oral sex with me, or maybe have me lay on top of them. As soon as they were finished, they couldn't wait to ditch me. It was so damn cold and impersonal. My home life was terrible, as my stepmother didn't really care if I came home or not. One night I went with this guy who raped me pretty bad. He put his penis inside my rectum and made me bleed something awful. He refused to give me a dime, and said he had taught me a lesson.

 

I was sitting outside the Franklin Institute that night, still bleeding and scared to death, when the an about 30 years old came up to me and asked if anything was wrong. I just started to cry, and couldn't stop. He was talking very gentle to me, and he asked me right out if some crazy person tried to hurt me. Well, I guess I needed a friend because I told him everything. He drove me to his beautiful house in New Jersey, and he gave me a bath and put something inside me to stop the bleeding. At first I thought he was giving me a bath so he could have sex with me, but he never tried once to grab me or anything like that. I finally asked him if he liked to have sex with boys, and he smiled and said, "Yes, but we won't talk about that now."

 

A week later I was back at his house watching television and playing darts down in his cellar. That night I stayed all night with him, and I felt so secure to have his arms around me. Yes we had sex together, and it was beautiful. Here I am, two years later, with much better outlook on life, back in school, a part time job, and someone who loves me deeply.

 

Victor from Philadelphia

Nambla, pg 45

 

 

+++++

Well, I met this guy who is 36 years old while playing Little League baseball last summer, when I was 12 years old. I don't know how to say this, but it was me who wanted to have sex with him first, and now we do it every weekend and it's fantastic. I know it goes beyond sex because I love him like a father, and all I know is that sex doesn't have to be dirty or wrong. It's really beautiful with my friend.

Dennis from New Jersey

Nambla, pg 20

 

Leader/Member of all male group:

Many groups of boys are led by a person who is invested with the power of the father archetype. In literature and movies we see such groups portrayed fairly often. An excellent example would be Alosha and the boys in The Brothers Karamazov. In Fabian and his group of young thieves in Oliver Twist we see another such group with a more sinister aspect portrayed Oliver Twist. Another excellent portrayal of such a group can be found in the Salinger’s Laughing Man One of the most delightful groups with this structure is portrayed by Salinger in The Laughing Man.

 

In the movie Hoosiers many of the themes we have been discussing are clearly present, but shifted to a group perspective. In this movie an aggressive and determined coach takes charge of a lackadaisical basketball team in a small Indiana town, and leads them to winning the state championship. He demonstrates the ability to win the love of the boys on the team and to motivate them to make almost super-human efforts. The need for the boys to accept his dominance, and his leadership, and to work hard to achieve his high expectations are important themes. In the process the boys are socialized. They learn to contain and direct their aggression in ways that are not anti-social. They learn that success comes through hard work, discipline, and team-work. They learn the value of having a good opinion of themselves as individuals and the joy of making a common effort with others.

 

In categorizing relationships between men and boys, it is by no means my intention to suggest that any specific relationship must be patterned exclusively on one archetype. In fact a blending or merging of the archetypes is most likely the rule. For example, a beloved leader of a group of boys is probably seen by the boys as a teacher, a friend, and perhaps as something of a role model as well.

 

Why Are Boys Attracted?

Most intimate relationships between men and boys are not imposed upon the boys against their will. Parker Rossman in Sexual Experience Between Men and Boys explores some of the reasons why boys might be attracted to men. He is speaking of boys who become sexually involved with men, but I believe the same motivations also underlie attractions that do not culminate in a sexual relationship. He lists money, affection, and adventure.

 

In some cases, especially where there is financial hardship, getting money from a man is certainly a consideration. In this case we have prostitution or "hustling." Even in the case of a boy who is hustling, however, there are frequently other motivations as well, motivations that he frequently would be more reluctant to talk about. To confess that one enjoys the affection or the sex is to expose oneself to being labeled a homosexual. Perhaps even worse, it is to expose oneself as a vulnerable needy child.

 

The first example Rossman provides of boys seeking affection and friendship is instructive.

 

My father was the type who believed boys should never be hugged or kissed, and I used to feel sad and jealous when I saw other fathers wrestling with their sons. In fact, it aroused me sexually and I decided this was why Dad would never touch me. That was taboo, but I allowed myself fantasies, such as being kidnapped by a man who would make me do things I really wanted to do.

What is looked for so often is specifically a paternal affection that includes all the things a child typically wants in such a relationship, including protection, nurturing, narcissistic gratification, a role model, etc. Another example is provided by the researcher D.J. West. He is interviewing a man who is recalling a time he when, as a boy, he became sexually involved with a man even though he found it frightening.

 

I can only relate it to my own experience. I think it can be quite frightening for a boy.

Do you think it was frightening because you were sexually naive?

I think so, yes...

But you got involved -- Why?

I don't know. I think for me it was a bit of an identification thing with these men who would take a lot of interest in me, you know, sort of like the father who I perceived did not have much interest in me. (West pg 82)

 

 The third factor cited by Rossman, adventure, involves several different things. The boy's relationship with the adult may entail opportunities to go new places and do new things. It seems to me that the great adventure for the boy centers on being admitted to the world of adults -- of men. This comes through in another example.

When I first met Joe, even though I was thirteen and he was twenty six, he treated me like an equal, like an adult. I thought to myself, I'd do anything to have a friend like that. Then another kid warned me that Joe was the sort of fag who would try to get me to bed. By then I had decided that I liked and trusted Joe enough that I didn't care.(Rossman, 148)

Although the specifically sexual motivation may have varying degrees of importance to different boys, the adventure of learning about sex, and experiencing sexual pleasure, is certainly a factor for some. This example is from the researcher Theo Sandfort. (Sandfort 1993, 51). It describes a boys experience with a strange man.

He thought it would be nice to have sex with me. I myself decided how far we were going to go, and when I'd go home. It was terrific. I found it so pleasurable I thought I'd like to do that again. And when I went to visit him at home, his friend opened the door and told me he didn't care what his friend did cruising, but that didn't mean I could just drop in that way.

 

 Developmental Meanings

Eros is a force that draws us toward wholeness, toward that which will make us complete. This is the basic Socratic vision. I feel the relationship aspect of the process of growth should be emphasized. Eros is the desire that draws us toward relationships that are needed to sustain and complete the self. This suggests that Eros has a kind of intelligence. It knows what is developmentally needed. Therefore Eros that draws the boy toward the man who will provide experiences that facilitate development. I believe that in general, man/boy love serves four developmental purposes; it facilitates separation/individuation; it helps boys channel aggression; it facilitates identity formation; and it provides the opportunity for learning new skills.

 

One of the profound polarities around which life organizes itself is the polarity of bonding and individuation. Bonding always entails becoming one with the other. Separation re-affirms the boundaries, the difference. If all were bonding and merging we would all be a big undiferentiated bowl of tapioca. If all were separation we would be profoundly lonely little monads. It is precisely in the balance, the creative dialectic, between these two poles, in which the fullness of life is found. Femaleness tends to emphasize the bonding and maleness the separation. Perhaps it is not necessary to re-affirm here the truth that either men or women may, to one degree or another, embody either principle in different situations.The first great act of individuation is becoming a zygote. The zygote is neither like the sperm nor like the egg, but is an utterly new creation. As if startled by its boldness it rushes to the lining of the mother's uterus, attaches itself, and clings there, literally for dear life. It almost seems to merge again (could we say “remerge”) with the mother. As it grows into a fetus we may suppose, insofar as it is capable of experience, it probably lives in relative bliss. The mother is not an other at this point, but an environment hardly distinguishable from the self.

 

But no sooner has the baby reached a certain level of maturity than it is faced with birth. Birth probably is a bit of a trauma at best, though no doubt rough handling makes it worse. Again, after this second great moment of individuation the infant again scurries back to “remerge” with the mother. The breast is the child's introduction to the second womb for the development of the child: the family. Within the developmental space of childhood the dialectic of separation and individual spins itself out in myriad ways. The father has a special significance. It is, I believe, in relationship to the father that most children begin to individuate from the mother. With the boy child this has the added significance of developing an identity separate from the mother -- the identity of being a male.

 

Again the child achieves a certain degree of maturity -- almost becomes comfortable with itself, when it is faced with the third great individuation. This is the birth out of the family into the larger world that takes place during adolescence. Interestingly it is around this period of time -- when the boy is between the ages of about 9 and 15 -- that a particularly strong form of bonding is likely to occur between men and boys. This concerns the need to leave the world of women and of childhood and to enter the male world as a man among men.

 

There is, I fancy, a fourth great moment of individuation. We call it death. As we see this event only from the inside of the “womb,” we know very little about it. When we individuated out of nothing, there was a uterus to cling to. When we individuated out of the womb, there was a breast and a family. When we individuated out of the family, there was, perhaps a spouse, or a lover of some sort. So perhaps there is reason to be hopeful. But I am digressing...

 

Testosterone does make a difference. I suspect it preordains men neither to superiority nor to bestiality. But it probably does preordain men and women to some measure of differentness. The most easily observed difference would seem to be aggressiveness. If one looks at prison statistics one has to conclude either that society damages men much worse than it damages women, or that men and women simply start from different places. I suspect it may be a bit of both.

 

Aggression need not express itself in behaviors that lead to prison. Even in the absence of mastodons to fight, there are positive, socially constructive ways of channeling aggression. Through fear of punishment boys may learn to be afraid of behaving in antisocial ways. Through moral instruction they may learn to feel a little guilty for antisocial behavior. But only through a bonded relationship with a man will a boy internalize a code of honor that will cause him to be passionately and willingly committed to a pro-social manner of being in the world. In large part it is the absence of caring and involved men in the lives of boys that is filling the prisons.

Adolescence is, according to Eric Erikson, a time when the issue of identity becomes the concern around which all other issues revolve. Thokil Vangaard speaks of the "powerful tendency of the normal boy to select models to admire and imitate from among older boys and grown men. "

This tendency is an indispensable fact in the development of boys and aids them in their endeavor to acquire the desirable qualities of their elders through identifying with them. Strong feelings of attachment and love form part of these relationships and further the development of the boys. The prototype is the boy's relationship with his father. As Fenichel puts it, "Every boy loves his father as a model whom he would like to resemble; he feels himself the "pupil" who, by temporary passivity, can achieve the ability to be active later on. This type of love could be called the apprentice love."

(Vanguard 1972, 53, 54)

In a relationship to an older man a boy often has the opportunity to learn new skills and knowledge that are needed for life. Sometimes these may be specific skills such as playing basketball, or a particular academic or vocational skill. But in the context of learning the specific skill, more generic skills, needed by all members of society, are learned. Among these more generic skills we could mention discipline, fair play, loyalty, care, respect for the rules, self-knowledge, altruism, kindness and spiritual aspirations.

 

 

A Legal Perspective

Debates regarding what society should legislate in relation to children's sexuality center around the issues of consent and harm. If an activity involves neither coercion nor harm then it is difficult to see an adequate rationale for legislative intervention.

 

It is often argued that the very notion of a child's "consent" is meaningless. Although children are treated daily by the authorities in their lives as if their consent to anything was a non-reality, children themselves seldom have any great problem knowing when they are truly consenting and when they are not. They know whether they are eating their vegetables because they like the, or because they can’t have any desert until they do. Common sense tells us the children can concent.

 

There are three arguments against this common sense interpretation of things. First it can be argued that consent with an adult is meaningless because the more sophisticated and powerful adult may use subtle forms of coercion so that even though the child "consents" there is not a full willingness. There is some danger of this, but in that case we in fact have a form of coercion, not true consent. I think there would be general agreement that subtle as well as overt coercion should be proscribed.

 

The second argument is that the simple fact of a power difference between the child and the adult means the child is categorically incapable of consent in the relationship. But if this were the case then logically we would have to say that the child can't consent to anything with an adult, even something so innocuous as going to see a movie together. This is absurd. Obviously some things may be imposed upon a child without his or her consent, but the child generally knows whether he is doing something willingly or under duress.

 

The third argument is that the child's consent is meaningless because he or she does not know the full implications of what he is consenting to. Of course nobody, of whatever age, has a full understanding of all the ramifications of any act. Still this third argument has some validity if we limit it to the legal notion of "informed consent." In principle we have to agree that children should not be permitted to swim in deep and dangerous water even if they believe it is okay. And there are situations in which, given their immature judgment and lack of life experience, they may not be able to act with informed consent. But even here it is the issue of the potential dangerousness of the activity that is at issue. If the child is consenting in the ordinary sense of the term, that is if he is willing, then there seems little justification for the legal prohibition of harmless activities.

 

So everything hinges on the issue of whether certain forms of sexual behavior (or perhaps sexual behavior in general) is dangerous to the child. What do we know about this? One very competent investigator, D.J. West had this to say on the subject, way back in 1967, and it is as true now as it was then.

“Sexual fondling of children is not in itself harmful. In some primitive communities adults do this as easily as we might stroke the child’s hair, and in some places parents masturbate their children to pacify them.” J.D. West Pg. 115

 

(His statement about parents in some places masturbating their children is from Davenport, 1965)

We know that any form of coercive sexual activity between adults and children (or between people of any age for that matter) is harmful, and is a violation of the integrity of the person. On the other hand, we know that the harsh, hysterical and punitive manner in which societal authorities often treat sexual activities that may truly be consensual is also harmful to all concerned, including the "victim." We also know that some acts, such as anal or vaginal intercourse with prepubescent children is physically, and probably psychologically harmful. Finally the research suggests that consensual and physically benign childhood sexual behavior, whatever the age differential of the participants, virtually never leads to discernible negative consequences. Generally speaking, in those cases where negative consequences are found, either there was coercion, or the damage was caused by societal over-reaction.

 

Theo Sanfort, who has probably taken more pains than any other researcher to actually listen to children regarding their experience of sexual contact with adults, comes to the following conclusion:

 

The moral conviction that a sexual contact between an adult and a child is by definition child abuse is not supported by our research. To the contrary, our research indicates that there are young people who at an early age had non-abusive and positive consensual sexual contacts with adults. Differences in power due to differences in age or experience do not necessarily lead to contacts which are non-consensual. Consensual sexual contacts with adults do not correlate with problems in sexual functioning in later life, and in fact the effects appear to be the same as for consensual sexual experiences with age-mates.

Paidika 3,2 pg.74

Researcher C.K. Li makes some suggestions about guiding principles for legislative reform that seem balanced and well-considered:

First of all, any legislation relating to sex between adults and children should differentiate between coercive contact and consensual activities.

Secondly, any age of consent stipulation should take into consideration the variation in sexual maturity in children and teenagers, the question of their sexual rights, and the need for equal treatment of heterosexual and homosexual activities.

Finally, it is my view that state intervention into families and the private life of individual citizens, particularly through the criminal justice system, should be kept to a minimum. (Li 1990, 315)

 

A Moral/Spiritual Perspective

In attempting to develop an adequate understanding of what moral and spiritual principles should guide relationships between men and boys it is necessary to go beyond the principles to which a legal system in a pluralistic society must limit itself: rights, consensus, and harm. A legal system can provide sanctions against one person doing clear and unequivocal harm to another, but it cannot mandate that people do things that are beneficial to each other. It can guarantee that people who are meaningfully able to give consent be allowed to engage in whatever they mutually consent to, but it cannot insure that the consensual activities that people choose are wise.

 

It is worthwhile and important for citizens in a free and pluralistic society to ask and debate the ultimate moral and spiritual questions. With regard to the issue of love between men and boys the key question is, "what practices and norms are most conducive to the total well-being and spiritual evolution of both men and boys?" Well considered conclusions, if, indeed any can be established, should be incorporated into the lives of all people of good will. But for the most part they should not be codified into law.

 

Socrates was the beginning of my serious thinking on this topic which is why he was placed at the head of this article. So I will return to him to see what useful insights might be gleaned from his thought, and what might have to be discarded.

 

Socrates presents us with the image of a charioteer struggling with two horses -- one which would draw him upward and one downward. Certainly I feel a struggle of this kind taking place in my soul a good deal of the time, and assume that many others have this experience. His image is to this extent, apt. He also suggests that there is an up and a down to life, and consequently a spiritual direction. Some things lead to a higher realization of the true values of life and some lead to a diminishing of those values. He equates the fuller realization of true values with a deeper and truer vision of Being itself, and with an increase of being in the beholder. None of this, so far as I know, can be proven. I accept the notion that there is an up and a down, and a place to which to grow, partly on faith, and partly on experience. But ultimately I accept it because it seems to me to be the only worthwhile hypothesis worth exploring. If there is neither up nor down, and neither forward nor backward, nor deeper nor less deep, then where is there to go?

 

Next Socrates suggests to us that our relationships with each other, or at least some of them, may be a part of the road toward that which is higher. Many years later Martin Buber said something similar. "Creation is not a hurdle on the road to God, it is the road itself. We are created with one another and directed to a life with one another. Creatures are placed in my way so that I, their fellow-creature, by means of them and with them may find the way to God." (Quoted in the Catholic Worker.) This is where it becomes exciting. Salvation is not a matter of withdrawing from the world, but a matter of arriving at a different way of being in the world, principally, a different way of being with others.

 

But then I think Socrates took a wrong turn. It comes into sharpest focus in his attitude toward the body. He views the spirit as "imprisoned in the body," and likens it to "an oyster in his shell." The body is "the living tomb which we carry about." This view of the world as a battleground between matter and the spirit has a long and woeful tradition for which I am sure, we can only partly blame Socrates. It showed up again in the early church in the gnostic tradition, and even later was encountered in the form of Manichaeism. Today we see this attitude deeply entrenched in all popular manifestations of religion.

 

I always found Socrates's disinclination to spend much time outside the city puzzling, and his remark to his young friend that he had little to learn from trees, disconcerting. I think these seemingly minor points suggest a deeper problem. When we understand our spiritual path to be a matter of extricating ourselves from our bodies, from nature, from our interpersonal attachments, and from the realm of duality, the consequences are damaging:

 

Encapsulated

Against the earth

We congregate,

Like cut flowers

Who have not yet noticed their death.

 

Happily Socrates is not fully consistent. He understands dialogue with intelligent people, and the chaste love of beautiful youths as being aspects of the path, and to this extent he would encourage a passionate involvement with the realm of duality. Nevertheless there is a strong bias against the material world and this leads to his interpretation of the two horses of the charioteer. The one is equated with spirit and the other with matter. In Socrates's mind the key to whether the love between a man and a boy is a mushroom or a toadstool rests largely on the degree to which the expression of this love is allowed to become explicitly sexual.

 

Can we offer another interpretation of the two horses, one that does not contain within itself the life threatening implications of the Manichean understanding of life? Suppose the factor that made the difference was the ability of the lover to allow his action to be guided by a genuine effort to understand the needs of the beloved. Here, in effect, we have a definition of agape. But this agape need not detach itself from the realm of duality. Rather it delights in it's enmeshment with the things of this world. It does not overcome Eros, but informs it, and thereby leads to a heightening, a purification, and an intensification of love. This is the horse that leads to the higher. The unruly horse that must be overcome is the lover's inclination to give first consideration to his own desires and needs. In it's lowest expression this would mean simply exploiting the boy for one's own pleasure or gain without any regard for the consequences to the boy.

 

What would my re-interpretation of Socrates horses have to say about the acceptability of explicit sexual activity in a relationship between a man and a boy? Nothing very specific or definitive, I'm afraid. It leads to a kind of moral reasoning with a lot of sentences containing such phrases such as "it depends, and "in general." It's exactly the sort of thing that frustrates those who want a cook-book and receipt type approach to ethics. But it does provide us with a general principle. The lover is to do that which is helpful to the boy’s development, and to refrain from doing anything that is physically, socially, or spiritually harmful. Perhaps with careful research, thought and dialogue, some general guidelines could be developed regarding what most often does seem helpful or harmful. That would be useful. But for the moment let me ask you to be content with an example of what moral reasoning might look like in this domain. The writer of the letter in which these words appear is T.H. White, author of The Once and Future King.

"...I have fallen in love with Zed. On Braye Beach with Killie I waved and waved to the aircraft till it was out of sight -- my wild geese all gone and me a lonely old Charlie on the sands who had waddled down to the water's edge but couldn't fly. It would be unthinkable to make Zed unhappy with the weight of this impractical, unsuitable love. It would be against his human dignity. Besides, I love him for being happy and innocent, so it would be destroying what I loved. He could not stand the weight of the world against such feelings -- not that they are bad in themselves. It is the public opinion which makes them so. In any case, on every score of his happiness, not my safety, the whole situation is an impossible one. All I can do is behave like a gentleman. It has been my hideous fate to be born with an infinite capacity for love and joy with no hope of using them.

 

I do not believe that some sort of sexual relations with Zed would do him harm -- he would probably think and call them t'rific. I do not believe I could hurt him spiritually or mentally. I do not believe that perverts are made so by seduction. I do not think that sex is evil, except when it is cruel or degrading, as in rape, sodomy etc., or that I am evil or that he could be. But the practical facts of life are an impenetrable barrier -- the laws of God, the laws of Man. His age, his parents, his self esteem, his self-reliance, the process of his development in a social system hostile to the heart, the brightness of his being which has made this what a home should be for three whole weeks of utter holiday, the fact that the old exist for the benefit of the young, not vice versa, the factual impossibilities set up by law and custom, the unthinkableness of turning him into a lonely or sad or eclipsed or furtive person -- every possible detail of what is expedient, not what is moral, offers the fox to my bosom, and I must let it gnaw. (Warner 1968, 277-82)

 

In another situation there might have been a different conclusion, but the central focus of his deliberations would have been the same – it would still have been the well-being of the child.

 

 

References

Davenport, W. (1965). “Sexual pattern in a Southwest Pacific Society.” In  Beach, F. A, Sexual Behavior. New York: Wiley.

 

Erikson, Erik (1968). Identity Youth and Crisis. New York: W. W. Norton & Company

 

Jung, Carl (1964). Man and His Symbols. London: Aldous Books Limited.

 

Hoosiers. (1986) A movie by Director, David Anspaugh and writer Angelo Pizzo.

 

Li, Chin-Keung (1993). “Some Case Studies on Adult Sexual Experiences with Children,” Journal of Homosexuality 20-1/2.

 

 

Li, C.K, West, D.J and Woodhouse, T.P. 1990. Children’s Sexual Encounters  with Adults. Buffalo, New York:    Prometheus Books.

 

Nambla. Boys Speak Out On Man/Boy Love.

 

Plato, Phadrus.

 

Rossman, Parker (1976). Sexual Experience Between Men and Boys: Exploring  the pederast underground.   University of Michigan: Association Press.

 

Salinger, J.D. (1991). The Laughing Man. A short story in his Nine Stories. ‎Available as a Mass Market paperback by Little, Brown and Company.

 

 

Sandfort, Theo (1993). The Sexual Experiences of Children in Paidika 3,1,  pg. 51)

 

Vanggaard, Thorkill (1972). Phallos: A Symbol and its History in the Male World. New York. International Universities Press, Inc.

 

Van Naerssen, Alex and Sandfor, Theo. (1991).Male Interntergenerational Intimacy:Historical, Socio-Psychological, and Legal Perspectives. New York : Harrington Park Press).

 

 

(Warner, Sylvia Townsend (1968). T.H. White, A Biography.

 

West, J.D. (1967). Homosexuality. London: Gerald Duckworth and Co.