Welcome to Our Premier Issue

What Is Boylove?

Shame, Fear, Love, and the Gospel
"It is wrong for me to exist."

When Two Worlds Collide
"The two worlds had never before met.  What would happen?  Would both come crashing down?"

Growing Together
"I have seen him grow from a shy, reclusive pre-adolecent, probably still full of pain, into a young man of great respect..."

We Need Each Other
"...it has quite a confusing and frustrating impact on us as Christians."

Burning Coals
"There are two great dangers in being persecuted."

On-line resources

As boylovers, we often have two lives, compartmentalized.  The first is the life we live in our local community:  friends who have known us for years, co-workers, perhaps family, none of whom, usually, have the slightest idea of the nature and object of our love.  The second is the life we live as boylovers:  on the internet, the telephone, and sometimes physically among others of our kind, to whom we can tell all the truths.

These two lives almost never intersect.  To allow them to is to take a great risk.  I remember the first time I introduced a boylover friend to my family.  Though they did not know he was a BL (neither did they know I was, then), it was still very frightening.  The two worlds had never before met.  What would happen?  Would both come crashing down?

From my own background in psychology, I know that people are happiest when the different aspects of their lives are fully integrated with one another.  To have a life in two halves is to have less than a whole one.  Too much time, energy, and emotion must be spent to keep the two separate.  An inability to share the truth of one's sexuality with others leads to feelings of shame, invalidity, and helplessness.  One wonders (or at least, I wondered) if it is even possible to lead a moral life when so much hiding--even deception--was involved.

There are many things God made me.  But for the purposes of this forum as well as my life, two are most important:  The first is that I am honest.  The second is that I am a boylover.  So I have sought--by telling the truth--to integrate these two lives.  Not that I have always told the truth in the past, or always tell it now.  But I've tried.  Whether out of bravery or foolhardiness (or some combination), I have taken enormous risks.

Two years ago, I fell in love with a boy.  He was nine years old.  With the possible exception of once when I was a boy myself, this had never happened to me before.  I didn't expect it, and had no idea what to do.  How does one plan falling in love, anyway?

The three of us became very close--the boy, his mom, and myself.  She became a close friend in her own right, telling me things she had not told anyone.  I wanted so much to tell her the truth.  I thought by keeping it from her I was causing unhealthiness for all of us.  It wasn't just that I was deceiving her, though that is itself unethical.  It was also my sense that, in the dark, bad things could happen; things that would not happen if the light of day were let in.

So I prayed about what to do.  Oh how I prayed.  I talked about it with other boylovers.  I thought about who I was, and what it meant to lead a moral life.  And so I told her the truth of my love.

I was born again.  But not in the evangelistic or fundamentalist sense.  I mean, in a way I died; but somehow, came back, better.  For weeks and weeks I waited, wondering if I would ever see the boy again.

But that wasn't all.  In the process of coming out to his mom, I came out to my own family as well.  It's been two years now, but seems longer.  I remember driving my car, wondering if I would ever again see any of the people I love.  Such was the chance I had taken.  For so long, I had done everything I could to hide my love for boys from myself and the world. What happened after that isn't particularly important.  For a few months I was losing my mind; I almost lost my life.  But praise God, I was surrounded by enough people that loved me.  Though startled and confused at first, my family did stand by me.

And so did some surprising others.  I think especially of Lorraine, a fellow traveler for my fortnight in the cuckoo's nest.  Though being honest was what landed me there, I was compulsive; I had to tell the truth again.  She was honest too.  The age of the boy did, she admit, surprise her at first; but she understood, quickly.  I will never forget her telling me about her grandson, and how much I would like him.  Bless you, sweet Lorraine.

I hadn't expected it, but some three years ago now, when I finally started to accept myself, I found that Jesus' presence was more meaningful and tangible to me than it had ever been before.  One Sunday in particular, I remember, actually feeling the physical presence of Jesus to the left of me in the pew.  From then on I knew he walked with me, whatever the world might do.

Pedro Morales is currently a primary school teacher in the United States.  He will be returning to graduate school in the fall to pursue a doctorate in psychology.