This is my first of what I hope will be many articles on Paiderastia.
First, I want to do something that many people out there reading this will not think of as a big thing, but being a boylover I can say it is huge “considering”, considering every day for a boylover is a struggle for survival in a culture that is hostilely apposed to him, or her. I wish to acknowledge that, simply, I am honored to be writing in this space, Paiderastia. That is a statement you might hear from a new journalist at the New York Times or a new scholar at a think-tank or institution, but coming from a boylover it means infinitely more than a job or a title—it means that the movement of civil rights for those sexually and/or emotionally attracted to boys is indeed a legitimate factor in our society. I am an American, and for Americans this means that we boylovers are taking full advantage of our human and Constitutional rights to freedom of speech and free association.
It is the power of voice, the power of communication that will set us free.
Recently we in America celebrated MLK day, and no matter the age of a citizen, ten or fifty, we all remember a few words of the great leader of equality, “I have dream” and that the “content of character” is the benchmark on which each person should be judged. If only we could remember that when we are called to judge others, or when others come to judge us.
There are perhaps a handful of people in the world who have confronted absolute injustice and not wavered from fear or shame, twin brothers in the forces of oppression. I think of Buddha, Jesus, Gandhi, and Dr. King when I ponder the question of what it means to love justice and freedom—and I think it’s safe to say that these types of people are the ones who set the measure to which we should strive. Forgive me if I wax philosophical, but aren’t we talking about love when we speak of the one, Golden Rule of justice, “Love thy neighbor as thyself”? And wasn’t it one of the four singing Beatles who reminded us in that Liverpool accent, “All ya need is love.”
Don’t get me wrong. I get angry; I get damn angry when I hear some vigilante is threatening the life of another boylover, or that some guy is making phone calls to the house of a fourteen-year-old boy telling his parents that their son is a pervert and ought to kill himself. I would like to think I’m a pacifist, but in reality I’m not that good of
a person; still, I’ve been around the block a time or two, I’ve read a few things, talked to a few people, and if I’ve learned one lesson it is that it’s important to have perspective. In the landscape of history boylove has been the ideal of the civilized world. Yet time passes, countries rise and fall, and humanity shows us that it is capable of the ultimate evil as well as the ultimate good.
And here we are: 2006.
Not much has changed since Plato, the greatest philosopher to ever live, wrote of the ultimate love between a man and a boy in the “Phaedrus”. Back then it was Socrates who was forced to drink poison for the crime of corrupting the youth of the state. Not much has changed since Shakespeare wrote a poem to a boy asking, “Shall I compare thee to a
summer’s day? / Thou art more lovely…” Boylove has existed forever. And wherever there is man and boy, the two will fall in love. I like to think of it as constant as the sun rising in the east. It’s a fact, a beautiful fact.
Still, today we are suffering and I have compassion for that. Our culture has constructed a narrative of fear regarding the boylover. Why? I’m not exactly sure; though I’m sure I will ponder it on this blog in the months to come. The way of the world is mysterious, but not above our understanding. The boylover’s lament is a cry for understanding, for
love, for touch, for sexuality; we want to dream that dream that everyone is talking about. The Russian author Dostoevsky, when posed with the question of why there is suffering in the world, said that we suffer so the poets have something to write about. Well, here’s a poem about man and boy, and it’s full of suffering. I recall again Shakespeare’s great character Shylock the Jew, suffused with hate for his Christian tormentors cried, “hath not a Jew eyes? / …if you prick us, do we not bleed?” This is perhaps the great call for common compassion, in just a few words a thousand years of religious animosity was called into question.
We boylovers are Shylock. Have we not eyes? Do we not bleed?
Normally I’m not so universal in my essays, but now and then I need some sort of perspective. Today is 2006; there are millennia of history containing both good and evil behind us. We have this magical thing called the Internet brining a diverse group of thinkers together under the auspice of one thing, our sexual orientation. It is both interesting and wonderful how something so carnal drives us all to search for that chimera called Justice.
America and much of the Western world is a dangerous place for BLs these days. Society is not always a progression towards absolute justice; sometimes it takes a turn down a dark alley. Here we are. In the days of Plato we’d openly love our young protégés. In the days of NAMBLA we’d have riotous meetings about what was appearing to be a sub-category of the gay movement. In 2006 we are all mostly anonymous, scared, under-funded, and passionate about the desire to have freedom. We argue more about definitions of words and titles than we do about which boy is prettier. But never before have we been more on the same page. The revolution for us will be digital, opening many more windows than doors; maybe not conducive to movement, but windows have always been easier to see through.
We blog. We podcast. We chat. We are connected. We are a movement.
