Taken from the collection Positive Memories, compiled by T. Rivas.
Source: A letter to NAMBLA (North American Man/Boy Love Association), from the NAMBLA Bulletin, Vol. 13, No. 8, Pgs. 6 - 7, Oct 1992.
Dear Friends,
I’m not a boy-lover, but a 30-year-old gay man. I had a wonderful affair with a 27-year-old man when I was only twelve years old. It was the most pure, clean, and honest relationship I’ve ever had in my life. I knew of my attraction for men when I was eight years old.
At the age of twelve, a very good looking 27-year-old man, a friend of my family who I very much looked up to, made his approach on me. I guess I had a lot to do with it because I wanted it. We had a very wonderful affair, but it only lasted eight months. I fell deeply in love with this man, and through my love for him, I matured a lot spiritually as well as sexually.
Unfortunately this man who I loved so much had to walk away from my life because my parents found out about our close relationship through another friend of mine (a peer) to whom I had entrusted my secret. My man friend was scared and decided to move to another state. No charges were ever pressed against him because I never admitted having sex with him.
It’s hard to believe that this society, with its deep research on modern psychology and space age technology, has not grown out of this sexual taboo. They probably don’t want to face the real true facts of intergenerational relationships and how harmless they really are.
Society seems concerned about controlling and monitoring everything a minor does. It is inconceivable that such relationships are punished with such long jail sentences. People commit murder and their jail terms are less.
I could have had a much healthier and lasting relationship when I was a boy if it wasn’t because of the way society is. They fucked up the nice relationship I was having, and that’s no good! Even though I was, like they say now, “molested at twelve”, I did not grow up to be a child molester! That’s bullshit!
I’m sorry if I seem enraged about this issue, but I still hold so much frustration inside because I was never given a chance to be who I wanted to be when I was twelve years old. I was told it was wrong to love a man, that I was too young, and that this man was evil.
Of course, I never thought of him as an evil person. I thought he was great! I knew what I wanted, but my parents told me I was just a child and I shouldn’t be thinking about sex.
You see, my adult gay life has been tough. It’s mostly sexual, and everything floats around ‘looks’ and ‘sex’, but if I look back to that first relationship, I found support, caring, spirituality, and commitment, as well as intensity and purity. All of that is very difficult to achieve these days; the adult gay scene seems to revolve around lust and sex.
- How can gay people attack, judge, and condemn boy-lovers if we were once under the same oppression as they are today?
- Do we really want to become as closed-minded as those who refuse to let us gay people share a space in society?
- Have any of us taken the time to examine closely what man/boy love is all about?
- How can we then become part of the narrow-minded team that we once fought, and still fight, against?
- How could we ever win the battle of gay rights if we are shooting with the same weapons that were (and are) used against us?
We have forgotten that sex is a vehicle of communication through which there can be the maximum expression of love.
Sincerely yours,
R.C., Los Angeles