Admirable
Submitted by David on August 20 2000 02:36:33
In reply to why I told my pastor I'm a boylover submitted by ken on August 19 2000 02:20:20
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Jules: I printed out your post and put it into that elusive secret black binder of mine called "Secret Mark" where I keep all by boy related writings. I found your idea about openess very encouraging and I too have considered comming out to someone. I have come out to two friends and they have been most understanding, although they are gay and can sympathize with "sexual differences" I have yet to get the courage to tell any straight friends or female friends. It is a slow process that takes much consideration. I was apalled, in the good sense, at how caring and understanding your parents are. You must have some taste as to what unconditional love is like in the spiritual-humanistic sense. About your idea of comming out I think about it often. I sometimes think that my family has some idea of my attraction seeing as I offer an enourmous amount of attention to the local neighborhood boys, and my young relatives. Although no relationships are sexual in nature, I do feel that I share a love with a number of them. When I first realized my attraction I went to see a friend of mine who is a psychotherapist and he said "for the most part you are trying to love that little boy inside of you who never was loved as a boy, and you personify him in other boys." I found the new age psychological idea of "inner child" very unnerving but the more study and understanding I gave to it the more real it became. I realized that what boys were giving me in friendship I was mythologizing them into having all sorts of meanings in which were really just the boys natural state of being. This began my confrontation that maybe I was not attrackted to boys in any sense, much less pyscho-emotional. It was then that I said "thank God you didn't come out because you would have regretted it." I took a long deep look within myself and went on a retreat to a monastery and asked my self "David do you like boys, of the Other, or boys of the Self?" I came back with mixed emotions. I realize that the boy that I am trying to love in myself will never be loved no matter how many times I hug a neighborhood boy, or comfort a cousin when he is hurting. These are wonderful enternals that bring me closer to the inner-boy, but they are not the inner-boy and so I can't lie to them by treating them as something which they are not. They exist independently of me, and I of them, but they give something to me that no one else has given me, at least momentarily, inner peace. When I am with a boy it is as if the world could end and I would die with a very large grin on my face saying "Thank You Jesus." I am not some sterotyped "no father gay guy," for I do have a father but in my boyhood there was something lacking between us, that is love. Let me end this autobiographical answer by adherring to your idea of comming out. Comming out as a boylover is a step that can never be retraced. Once it is said, no matter what happens, you will always be a boylover in the mind of others. When you are around their sons, or nephews, or students there will be this small thought racing in the back of their mind "he is a pedophile, watch my boy," and so comming out as a boylover is something that takes much prayer, and study, and meditation. I have often, like you, been tempted in argument to shout out 'I like boys,' but what would that accomplish? I pose the question to myself "is comming out as a boylover an extension of your authentic self or a matter of attempting to identfy yourself with a loosely organized group called the pedophile?" What will my saying to the world "I am a boylover" accomplish? I hate to bring Jesus into this but I will, along with Socrates, Bromethius, martyrs, etcetra, as all people who died for something they belived extended beyond societal norms. Thus the question comes to me "David, are you ready to die for boylove?" Because when one emerges themselves as a boylover they become the boylover. Just as Jesus showed himself to have subjective disagreements with the pharisees he too suffered and died when he acted upon that which he internally knew to be true. I have always found it odd that our entire Bible is based on opposition to religious norms. The Old Testament in large part is a traditionalist backlash to "buffet Judaism" of the BC era, and then Jesus is a liberal leader of open interpratation and subjective reality. I, as a Roman Catholic (not a priest, they don't need to be creditied with another boylover) how do I relate this with what Jesus is? I can only say that Roman Catholicism is something with a traditonalist central government, but the vast majority understand that the Church is a base to which to begin ones search for God, and will always be there for you. In whatever way or religioous creed God reaches you try to understand it, because within the burecratic infrastructure of any organized religous organization there is some amount of wisdom. Enough for now, all I can say is that I grealty respect you because, as a young person, I do not know how strong boylove is in my life to tell the world "My affective nature leads toward the prepubscent boy and I believe God has inspired it." That will take much thinking, and much more courage. Like a pious bishop once said to me "It is very easy to talk about the gospel, but it is a different thing to live it." God Speed David |
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