(Skip to the story.) This site is intended for people who are permitted to read fiction in the adult section of their public library. A site content label is available for parents, guardians, and visitors who limit their own reading matter in some fashion.

Twenty Thousand Gold Stars

A Novel About an Internet Community

By Dusk Peterson

Author's Note

The events and characters in the novel are fictional. However, the events are representative of the sorts of activities that have taken place in the community, while the tremendous variety of viewpoints expressed by the characters are drawn from reality.

One difficulty in writing a novel about a large and varied group of people is that the novelist generally only has the opportunity to show one or two examples of each "type." Because of this, it is important for me to stress that none of my depictions of the characters who represent particular groups are intended to suggest that all members of the group share the views expressed by my characters. In some cases, other members of the group may be strongly opposed to the views expressed.

Although it should not be necessary to preface a work of fiction by saying this, I would like to emphasize that the opinions expressed by the characters are their own and are not necessarily shared by me.

The novel's scattered legal references do not correspond to the laws in any particular jurisdiction but are intended to give a general sense of the current legal situation in many parts of the United States.

Careful readers will observe that this story is set in the time period immediately before the present wave of communication devices – such as cell phones and PDAs – became widespread. Likewise, the community's customs are drawn from that era.

Twenty Thousand Gold Stars is the result of three years of research and over three thousand hours' worth of conversations at these boards. During the time I studied this community as a journalist, I asked a number of hard, soul-searching questions; I also asked a number of ignorant questions. My questions were almost invariably responded to with patience and courtesy. I would like to thank the many people – members of the community, sympathetic visitors, and visitors who oppose the community – who have shared their stories with me over the years; at times this sharing was a painful experience for them. I am very much in their debt.
 

Epigraph

Ged stood still a while, like one who has received great news, and must enlarge his spirit to receive it. It was a great gift that Vetch had given him, the knowledge of his true name.

No one knows a man's true name but himself and his namer. He may choose at length to tell it to his brother, or his wife, or his friend, yet even those few will never use it where any third person may hear it. In front of other people they will, like other people, call him by his use-name, his nickname – such a name as Sparrowhawk, and Vetch, and Ogion which means "fir-cone". If plain men hide their true name from all but a few they love and trust utterly, so much more must wizardly men, being more dangerous, and more endangered.

—Ursula K. Le Guin: A Wizard of Earthsea

Chapter One

Home Page

The color shining upon his face at that moment was green: he was bent over the laptop, looking at a Website with a pasture-green background. At the top of the site was a logo showing a signpost with markers pointing in two different directions. Beside the logo was a single word: "Crossroads."

He glanced down at the subject headings of each message on the message board. Ignoring the subject heading that read, "DEATH IS TOO GOOD FOR YOU," he instead stared at the message just above this, entitled, "You are sick! You need help!" It had been posted by someone named Concerned & Angry.

He moved his computer mouse with his hand until the screen's arrow lay over the subject heading that linked to the message; then he used the mouse to click on the link. The opening words of the post flashed onto his screen.

* * *

You are sick! You need help!
Posted at Crossroads by Concerned & Angry on Wednesday, February 28, at 8:36 PM

I mean it. All of you people are really, really sick, and you need professional help. Please get it before you hurt any more—

* * *

At that moment, like a path suddenly diverging, he caught a flicker of movement beyond the computer screen. He leaned forward to see better.

The movement came from outside. Through the window, he could see the bright neon light of the Art Deco marquee, and below it, two figures hurrying along, their coats swishing under the force of the wind. They were both carrying plastic bags, and as he watched, the wind blew one of the bags against a drainpipe that was sticking out from the streetside wall of the movie theater. The plastic tore, and the groceries tumbled.

He moved with an instinct he did not even fully know he possessed, like a fireman who has trained himself so well to respond to an alarm that he is out of bed from his sleep before his mind fully grasps that the alarm has rung. Pausing only to grab an empty plastic bag sitting on the kitchen counter near the door, he rushed out of the apartment, ran down the flight of stairs, and crashed open the door to the street.

The figures were on their knees now, trying to collect the scattered groceries. A magazine lifted itself out of the grasp of one of the figures and blew away into the dark. The taller figure, pausing to put his books down on the sidewalk, said something to the smaller figure, who gave an exclamation of frustration as she attempted to fit cereal boxes into the remaining bags.

So absorbed were they in their task that they did not notice him until he was at their side. Leaning toward the smaller figure, who was dusting off a can of frozen orange juice, he asked, "Will this help?"

He held out the plastic bag he had brought. As he did so, the smaller figure gave a screech that she truncated as she looked up and saw who was standing over her. Placing her hand against her heart, she said breathlessly, "Good lord, John, you frightened me! I'd just been reading an article about the FBI's hunt for sexual predators, and for a moment I thought you were a rapist."

"Sorry." He knew that his smile was overly rigid, but he couldn't seem to relax. "I shouldn't have crept up on you like that when it was so late." As he spoke, he dropped onto his knees and began placing a can of cocoa in the bag.

From this vantage point, he could see better the middle-aged woman kneeling on the sidewalk, her coat fluttering open in the wind. Used as he was to seeing Sandra in business suits, it was startling to view her in a lycra blouse that outlined her full breasts and her narrow waist. Without looking down further to see whether her bottom was just as shapely, he said, "You're out late."

"Yes, it's so frustrating. I told Kim that if he wanted to drive Milano and me home from the school play, he'd need to be there at eight p.m. sharp, because I had a bunch of groceries I needed to get home. It's not as though I was forcing him to drive us; he volunteered for the task. And then, of course, he didn't turn up."

Sandra flashed him a smile. She was wearing lipstick the color of ripe grapes, and her eyelashes were delicately darkened to emphasize her olive eyelids and bark-brown eyes. He tried to ignore the growing stirring within him, instead saying, "Do you have far to walk? I'm afraid I don't have a car, but I'd be glad to help you carry the groceries back."

"Gosh, that's sweet of you, John, but we don't have far to go at all. We're just headed for the subway stop at the end of the block, and our house is right around the corner from the stop at the other end of the line. There's really no need for you to trouble yourself."

As she rose, though, she made no move to take the bag from his hand. He said, "It's no trouble at all; I'll be glad to walk to the subway with you. Here, let me take that bag." He reached over and took the paper bag from the taller figure, who was struggling to balance it on top of his pile of books.

"Why, thank you, John. If you don't mind . . ." She handed one of the bags to the taller figure, reserving the bigger of the plastic bags for herself. "To be honest, I'm a bit nervous about us walking alone at this time of night. I know that the subway here is safe, but you never can tell what might be lurking on dark streets like this."

"It's a dangerous world," he agreed. They were walking side by side down the street now, passing late-night couples holding hands. Groping for conversation, he stared down into the bag and said, "Safety locks. Outlet covers. Anti-scalding devices. You seem to take child safety seriously."

"I do my best," she said brightly. "Of course, it's hard taking care of three of them, with no one to help. I can't tell you what I went through tonight to find a babysitter."

"Oh, yes?" It was an opening, but he decided to let it pass. His gaze was on her left hand, with its bright red fingernails and its ringless fourth finger. "You don't get much help from Kim, then?"

She snorted. "You saw how much help he was tonight. He lives in the suburbs, but I swear, he might as well live on the West Coast for all the help he gives. Not that I expect any help for me, but they are his children. He didn't divorce them when he divorced me."

"Perhaps," he suggested tentatively, "you can find someone else to help you."

He was a bit nervous that he'd been too bold, but she accepted the suggestion immediately, saying, "Yes, I often feel there ought to be another male figure in our lives – for the children's sake, you understand. Milano is especially in need of a male figure."

He decided that it was time he directed his attention toward the tall figure trailing behind him. He turned his head for the first time to look, and as he did so, a jolt went through him.

It took him a moment to realize that he had stopped dead on the sidewalk. By that time, Sandra was at his elbow, saying, "You haven't met Milano before, have you, John? Honey, this is Mr. Steadman, who works in the department next to me. —Oh, lord, is that a taxi? Hold on here, guys, I'll go check." She left them standing together, buffeted by the hard wind.

Johnnie felt a wild impulse to whirl and grab hold of Sandra, which he carefully curbed. Instead he remained stiffly where he was, hoping that the hair being blown over his eyes from the wind hid some of his expression. There was an awkward moment of silence.

"I'm glad to meet you, Mr. Steadman." The words, spoken in the tone of a youth whose voice is starting to crack, were flat. The boy's expression was stoic. After a moment more, he realized why and cursed himself inwardly.

It was too late now to pretend that he hadn't been staring. Resisting the impulse to look back at Sandra, who was carrying out an excited conversation with a cabdriver in an unlit taxi, he put forward his hand and said, "Call me Johnnie."

Milano took his hand and shook it in a perfunctory manner before dropping it. He looked as though he was having to make a strenuous effort to keep from ducking his head. As it was, the light from the approaching subway stop fell full upon his face, emphasizing the bulge in the left cheek, the involuntary twist of the mouth next to that bulge, and the blue-black mark that darkened most of the left half of the face.

Realizing that he was staring again, Johnnie looked hastily down at the books. "Are those your scripts for the school play? Your father's an actor, isn't he?"

"I wasn't in the school play." Again the voice emerged flat. Then something closer to an emotion came to the surface as the boy added, "They didn't accept my audition."

For a minute, Johnnie was at a loss for what to say. He moved aside to make way for a giggling teenage couple that was walking by, hand in hand. As he did so, Sandra came into view again. Her hands were tracing patterns in the air while she excitedly told the taxi driver what she thought of him. As Johnnie watched, she flung her head back, so that her long dark hair streamed back like a banner.

"That happened to me too," said Johnnie finally. "I had my heart set on playing Romeo and climbing up the balcony to hold secret conversations with Juliet, but the school director didn't think I was convincing enough in the scene where I described how I was going to defy my family. I suppose I was a bit too conventional as a teenager. I was miserable until I found other school projects to occupy me. Are those textbooks, then?" He nearly stepped forward to look closer at the titles, which would have brought him out of view of Sandra, but he stopped himself in time.

"Yeah," said the boy, in a voice closer to normal. "Geometry."

Sandra, whose presence he had never ceased to be aware of, suddenly spun away from the taxi, shouted back at the driver a round of invectives, and stomped over to where Johnnie and her son stood. "Filthy bastard," she announced, glaring at Johnnie. Then, seeing his look of alarm, she added, "I mean the taxi driver. I offered him twenty bucks extra to drive us home, but no, he'd rather see us struggle with our groceries. Good Samaritans are hard to find these days." She rewarded him with another of her bright smiles. "What are you guys talking about?"

"The horrors of math homework," Johnnie replied.

"Oh, lord, Milano, I hope you weren't talking about how much you hate math," she said. "Mr. Steadman is an accountant, you know. He majored in math in college."

Johnnie was momentarily startled until he remembered that, as an executive assistant, Sandra had access to his company records. Then he felt uneasy, as though his records could have told more about him than he wanted anyone to know. To distract himself from this thought, he said to Milano, "School math can be really boring. It all depends on how it's taught."

"I suppose so," said Milano cautiously. "My seventh-grade teacher was better at explaining things than the one I've got this year."

"I know some books you could read on your own that would help in learning geometry." He was acutely conscious of the woman standing next to him; he could smell her perfume.

"Maybe you could bring them over to our place and show him them," suggested Sandra. "You deserve a home-cooked dinner for rescuing us tonight."

"Mama makes a terrific lasagna," agreed Milano. He was looking now from Johnnie to Sandra, as though weaving a connection in his mind.

"Well," said Johnnie, feeling his heart pound, "perhaps we can set something up some time. I'd better be getting back to my apartment, though. I was busy with some work."

"Thanks for your help, Mr. Steadman," said Milano as he took the bags from Johnnie. He was only two inches shorter than Johnnie, having reached one of those spurts of early adolescence.

"Yes, thank you, John," said Sandra, smiling at him as she took from her son the plastic bag Johnnie had brought. "I'll see you at work tomorrow?"

"Of course," replied Johnnie. He hoped his voice sounded normal. His heart was pounding so hard now that it was difficult to tell.

He watched them until they had disappeared down the escalator into the subway; then he turned. A man was walking down the opposite side of the street, in the shadow of the buildings. His gaze had been upon the woman and boy, but it flicked over to Johnnie for a brief moment before the man turned to walk into an alley next to the building at the corner. Johnnie felt his breath tighten as he wondered how much the man had seen. He wondered too how much the man had guessed.

He often wondered that.

He felt something brush against his leg. Looking down, he saw a bedraggled magazine travelling down the street from the direction of the movie theater. He scooped up the magazine, saw that it was the one that had belonged to Sandra, and was trying to decide whether to toss it into the garbage can nearby when his eyes caught sight of the headline. "Sexual Predators," the cover said. "How Can We Protect Ourselves From Them?"

He felt a chill go through him then, removing all the warmth that he had begun to feel while talking with Sandra. For a moment more, he stared down at the cover. Then, remembering the curious man, he carefully rolled up the magazine so that its cover was hidden, stuffed it into his left pocket, and made his way back down the wind-tempestuous street.

* * *

His apartment was black but for the glow from the marquee. Johnnie paused to turn on lights at the kitchen end of his efficiency, then walked over to the darker end of the room, where the computer waited, outlined against the theater lights. Tossing the magazine onto the desk, he sat down and moved the mouse. Concerned & Angry's post returned to the screen.

* * *

You are sick! You need help!
Posted at Crossroads by Concerned & Angry on Wednesday, February 28, at 8:36 PM

I mean it. All of you people are really, really sick, and you need professional help. Please get it before you hurt any more children.

I am one of those "evil" CAs (child advocates) that you men complain about all the time. I help heal children from the wounds inflicted on them by predators, I fight to give children the right to live a life free from violence and abuse, and yes, I track down you sexual predators – oh, excuse me, you "boylovers." I mustn't be politically incorrect.

Let me tell you what "boylove" is like from the perspective of the boy. When my son was nine, he was befriended by one of you "boylovers." During that time, my husband and I were separated; you predators always target kids from broken homes. When a family friend offered to serve as a male figure in my son's life, I was naive enough to think he was doing it out of the goodness of his heart, rather than for his own selfish lusts. I entrusted my son to him, and I've never ceased to regret what I did or to warn other parents against the dangers of "boylovers."

My son loved one of you with all his heart, and you rewarded that by taking advantage of his innocence and scarring him over and over, as though you were beating him bloody. He's twenty-six now, and he still can't talk fully about what happened; it hurts him too much. But I remember the first time he came and told me. I remember how he cried and said, "Why is he doing this to me, Mommy? I thought he loved me!"

So that's what "boylove" really is – molesting and discarding and abandoning boys – and that's why I fight against "boylove" organizations such as NAMBLA and Free Spirits and Crossroads. I want a world where no more boys and girls will endure what my son endured.

I read below the post by Lynch Em, suggesting that non-pedophiles should murder all pedophiles. I can't agree with that sort of sentiment at all; I think that only continues the cycle of violence that you pedophiles began. I've met recovering offenders, and I know that some of you can be helped. You just need to get yourself off of these "boylove" boards and go into therapy! Once you do, you'll be able to keep yourself from hurting any more children.

I'd urge you to call your local police and turn yourselves in, or, if you haven't committed a rape yet, to call your local child abuse center and ask for information on sex addiction groups. That's the only way a "boylover" can ever truly love a boy.

CA stands for Concerned & Angry

* * *

Johnnie reread the message twice, feeling the tension grow in his body each time he did. After a moment, he pushed his chair away and walked over to the refrigerator.

He returned several minutes later, holding a glass of apple juice and a dinner-for-one carton of microwaved lasagna. He sat down at the desk and ate half the tasteless noodles before moving the mouse again.

The "back" button took him to the main index of Crossroads. The page automatically reloaded itself, showing him that two messages had been posted in reply to Concerned & Angry's message, one of them since the first time that he had looked at the index. He clicked the mouse on the link to the earliest reply, his left hand reaching automatically for the apple juice.

* * *

Take your blinders off, ma'am
Posted at Crossroads by Conscientious Objector on Wednesday, February 28, at 9:17 PM
In reply to You are sick! You need help! posted by Concerned & Angry

So your son didn't like making love to a man. Big deal. I'm sorry for your son, CA, just as I'm sorry for friends of mine who get divorced, but just because half of American marriages end in divorce doesn't mean we should outlaw the institution of marriage. (At least, not for that reason alone. More on this in later posts.)

If you're as educated about boylove as you pretend to be, then you should know that the best meta-study done of this subject – a study that collated the findings of 59 other studies, most of them done by scientists who oppose man-boy sex – showed that, on average, one-third of boys react negatively to man-boy sex. That's one-third in a world so hostile to the concept of boylove that your child advocacy sites talk about boylovers like Plato and Michelangelo as "sexual predators."

Your son may have been (I say "may" because I'll believe it when I hear it from his own lips) one of the boys who didn't enjoy making love to a man. Well, it happens; I don't enjoy making love to women myself. (By the way, you haven't explained why your son didn't simply tell the boylover, "No, thank you." Any true boylover will take no for an answer.) So your son and some boys like him would rather not have sex with a man. But what about the perspective of other boys?

Let me match your son's story with my own. When I was twelve years old, I became lovers with a man in my neighborhood. It was my idea that we engage in bed-play, and it took me two years to convince the man to see things my way. (Yes, that means I fell for the man when I was a prepubescent. It happens.) We were lovers for five years, and no, we didn't tell my parents, any more than I tell my parents now about the men I go to bed with. They're Oral Roberts Moral Majority; they wouldn't understand.

So we were lovers for five years, and then he "discarded" me. Yeah, right. I told him that my sexual interests had turned elsewhere (namely, to the younger boys in the neighborhood). He was disappointed, but of course he let me go.

So then he "abandoned" me. This "abandonment" consisted of him and me exchanging phone calls nearly every night for thirty-five years. My lover is now seventy-one years old, and I have a standing invitation to join him and his family – especially his gorgeous grandkids :) – for Thanksgiving, New Year's, and Fourth of July. We love each other as much as we did when I was a child, even though we don't have sex with each other any more.

Lest you think that I'm not an objective observer as to the effects of boylove on a boy, let me tell you about a remark made by my sister, who is (to my great regret) a pro-life Republican Christian who has "family values" written all over her. Last year she asked my lover to be mentor to her youngest (very cute) boy. My lover warned her that he was attracted to the boy and that, if the boy requested to enter into an affair with my lover, my lover wouldn't object.

My sister's response? "If that happens and my son ends up as fine a man as [insert my real name here], I'll be very pleased indeed."

Now, I know the standard response you "child advocates" make to stories like this. I was "brainwashed" as a child; I was really abused but just don't know it. With the help of the therapists that you inflict on loved boys, you can aid the boys to see how much they suffered at the hands of "sexual predators" like my lover.

People like you can twist the evidence to say anything you want. We're not the sick ones, ma'am. You are.

Conscientious Objector, because I won't be party to injustice against boys who are deprived of the right to choose whom they want to love

* * *

Johnnie spilled the apple juice as he set down the glass. Hastily he moved the mouse away from the spill and mopped the liquid up with a paper tissue. Then he carried the glass, fork, and empty carton over to the counter before opening the refrigerator again.

He returned to the desk bearing a piece of the apple cake baked for him by his mother in honor of his thirty-fourth birthday. Absentmindedly spreading the whipped cream with his fork, he read the second reply to Concerned & Angry's post.

* * *

Welcome to Crossroads!
Posted at Crossroads by Pedo-Hag on Wednesday, February 28, at 9:23 PM
In reply to You are sick! You need help! posted by Concerned & Angry

Welcome to your new home. :) (The symbol at the end of the sentence is a smiley face, in case you're not familiar with Internet jargon.)

I'm Pedo-Hag, Co-Webmaster of Crossroads. I'm a single female, twenty-two years of age, and I've never been attracted to children. In addition to my duties here, I also run a forum for survivors of incest abuse. I was molested by my father when I was a teenager.

Sometimes reading the posts here sickens me, especially when they're about incest. I remember that, after a long thread one day in which some of the participants here calmly discussed whether parent-child sex is beneficial to the child, I had to go offline and cry for an hour. But then I came back. As calmly as I could, I posted a message recounting (for the benefit of those who hadn't already heard it) the tale of what happened between me and my father. Afterwards several of the boylovers here said that I had changed their views on parent-child sex.

That's why I spend so much time helping at this board – because I know that stories like yours and mine can change the views of boylovers and help them to act more responsibly.

When I first arrived at the boylove boards, I was just as angry as you are. I yelled at the people here, asking them how they could hurt children. Gradually I realized that some of the people here have never abused a child, some have abused a child but regretted it afterwards, and some are abusing children now but don't realize this. I've never met a man here (we've had only one female boylover here during my time) who deliberately hurt a child. If you explain to them why adult-child sex hurts children, and they're able to take to heart what you say, then they're eager to help stop the abuse.

That's why I hope you'll keep posting here, so that we can learn from your story, just as I've learned from the stories of the boylovers I've met here.

Oh, by the way, another child advocate nicknamed me Pedo-Hag because I spend so much time with boylovers. It's a label I wear with pride.

Pedo-Hag
Co-Webmaster
Crossroads

* * *

Johnnie was beginning to grow cold. He stood up, turned on the apartment heat and then stared awhile at the lamplit street below. The street was empty; the evening show for the theater was not yet near its end, and no line had started for the late show. He returned to his computer and pulled up his Web browser's bookmarks page.

Crossroads was the third bookmark on the list. He clicked on the second bookmark. A sun-yellow page appeared; a logo with a blue triangle behind a cross shone out from the screen.

He scrolled down the page and saw that there had only been one new post there since the previous night. Seeing the subject heading, he hesitated, then clicked open the message, clicking his way down the replies in the thread of messages.

* * *

Are you Christians? Or are you boylovers?
Posted at the Christian Boylove Forum by A Visitor on Wednesday, February 28, at 11:30 AM

I hope you won't mind if I ask this question. If this forum is closed to outsiders, just let me know and I'll leave. I don't want to break any rules here, but I'm genuinely puzzled as to how you can call yourselves Christian boylovers. If you're Christian, you must know that the Bible forbids us to enter into sexual relationships outside the bonds of marriage, and even if you're pro-gay, you must know that Jesus condemned the abuse of children. So either you're Christian or you're boylovers. I don't see how you can be both.

Please understand that I realize you can struggle with the temptation to abuse children. Many of us struggle with sexual temptations; Jesus himself was tempted by Satan. Temptation itself is not a sin, but I don't see how you can allow yourselves to act on your temptations and then go up to the communion rail on Sundays as though nothing has happened.

Again, if I'm out of place in asking this, please do let me know. I'll be praying for you in any case.

Of course you can post here!
Posted at the Christian Boylove Forum by At Peace on Wednesday, February 28, at 7:48 PM
In reply to Are you Christians? Or are you boylovers? posted by A Visitor

First of all, let me welcome you here, brother. "Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them," promised Jesus, and I see that there are at least two of us here tonight :)

Yes, of course you can post here. This forum is open to everyone, no matter what their orientation or creed. You don't say whether or not you're attracted to children yourself, but we've had pedophiles in the sexual recovery community participate here, as well as a number of non-pedophiles. Non-Christians have also posted here on occasion. One of them, White Rose, is a regular participant at the moment.

As for myself, I belong to an evangelical church and have lived for all of my forty-plus years in a Christian community: a small Midwestern town full of fellowship and communion.

Brother, you have no idea how much it warmed me to read your words and to know that you understand our struggles. We're not as far apart from each other as you may have thought. Like you, I believe that God wants us to reserve sexual activity for the holy bonds of marriage. Like you, I believe that homosexual and pedophilic behavior are sinful (though by no means the worst sins; hardening one's heart against the Holy Spirit is far more sinful).

That is why I and many other here post at this forum: because we are struggling to abide by God's laws, and because we need each other's help to battle against sexual temptation and to find ways in which we can put our orientation to a godly use. I do not believe, as some others here do, that God made me a boylover. I believe that my sexual desire for young boys is a result of the Fall, in which all of nature became captive to the evil that came into our world when the first man and woman sinned. But neither do I believe – and it is clear to me from your words that you share my views on this – that I am an enemy of God because I find myself to be attracted to boys. I was blessed by God with free will, and I have used my free will (with the help of God's grace) to prevent myself from abusing any children. I am a sinner, of course, as all humans are, but I have not committed that particular sin.

But just a failure to act – refraining from having sex with a boy – is not enough for me. I believe deeply that Satan can only bring about evil by twisting that which is essentially good, and I have faith that God can help me to recover the good that Satan has tried to twist. Behind my sinful desire to have sex with boys is a true love for boys that I believe I can use to bring good into the lives of the boys around me. Of course I have to show caution, just as a man who is attracted to a married woman must be cautious about permitting himself to enter into situations where he might commit adultery. But with the support of the other participants here, I have been able to help many of the boys in my community in nonsexual ways that allow me to share with them the love of God. So what might have been a tragedy for me has instead become a blessing from God. Christ has allowed me to suffer and be tempted as he once was, and has also given me the strength I need to help build his Kingdom upon earth.

Please do write more and tell us about your own sexual struggles. I'm sure that everyone here would benefit from your story.

In Christ's Name,
At Peace with the Lord
Webmaster of CBF

I'm glad to be here
Posted at the Christian Boylove Forum by Paul on Wednesday, February 28, at 8:46 PM
In reply to Of course you can post here! posted by At Peace

I'd like to apologize for my earlier post. Obviously I should have read the messages on this board before posting. I had only heard the word "boylove" in connection with NAMBLA, and I hadn't realized that you were using the word "boylove" in a different sense. Of course if the type of love you are trying to exercise is agapé, then you truly are boy-lovers. I'd just caution you that the word could be easily misunderstood, since in our society "lover" usually has an erotic meaning.

Thank you for inviting me to take part here; I would indeed like to do so now that I understand your purpose. I'm sure that you can be of as much help to me as I hope I can be to others here.

> You don't say whether or not you're attracted to children yourself

I'm sorry; I ought to have introduced myself. My name is Paul, I'm 46, and I've been attracted to other males since my late teens. I belong to an ex-gay ministry, and though I have not yet experienced the shift in feelings that some of the other members have, I am dating a woman from my church, and we remain hopeful that matters will change as I grow closer to the Lord.

In my adulthood, nearly all of my same-gender attractions have been to men my own age, but when I was a twenty-one-year-old senior in college, I was attracted to a seventeen-year-old freshman, so I suppose that you could call me an honorary ex-boylover (using the word "boylover" in the NAMBLA sense).

So you see, I'm the last person who would want to judge a fellow Christian who is trying to withstand sexual temptation. A number of my ex-gay friends are minor-attracted, and in fact I stumbled across this forum while looking for support groups for an out-of-state friend of mine (minor-attracted but not ex-gay) who is searching for a support and accountability group to help him in his journey. If anyone knows of real-life groups of this sort in the Chicago area, please let me know. I've posted my e-mail address above.

I will be praying for all of the participants at this forum, and I hope that you will pray for me as we share together our struggles.

Paul (the sinner, not the saint)

Sexual change and the Lord's purpose
Posted at the Christian Boylove Forum by At Peace on Wednesday, February 28, at 9:42 PM
In reply to I'm glad to be here posted by Paul

"And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. And he said unto me, 'My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness.' Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me." (II Corinthians 12:7-10)

Don't feel obliged to respond to my post tonight – I know that many of the participants at this board prefer to post in a more leisurely manner than at other boards – but I just wanted to express to you a concern of mine, not about your participation here, but about what you mean when you say that you are "ex-gay."

I should explain that, before I found the Christian Boylove Forum, I had spent nearly twenty years trying to rid myself of my attraction to boys by various means, including, at one point, participation in an ex-gay ministry. The effort very nearly destroyed me. Like Paul, I discovered that the Lord wanted me to continue with this "thorn" and that efforts on my part to change my sexual orientation were doomed to failure. Now, you say that you've been homosexual for over twenty years and you haven't yet changed your feelings, yet you're continuing to try to. Are you sure that this is a wise course for you to take? I don't want you to end up like I did, broken-hearted because I thought I could not serve God unless I changed my feelings.

I hope you're not offended by this post.

In Christ's Name,
At Peace with the Lord
Webmaster of CBF

I'm not offended in the least
Posted at the Christian Boylove Forum by Paul on Wednesday, February 28, at 9:51 PM
In reply to Sexual change and the Lord's purpose posted by At Peace

I'm often asked this question, naturally, and the only reply I can give is that this seems the best course for me. I know of other ex-gays whose feelings have not changed; we call ourselves "ex-gay" simply because we do not take part in the gay community. If you would prefer to call me a celibate homosexual, I don't mind at all. I'm not stuck on labels. But I do know many ex-gays whose feelings have changed, and I hope that mine will some day. Celibacy (as you yourself know) is a hard road to travel. I would like to be married.

If we're taking up too much space on this board, please feel free to e-mail me. I've linked my e-mail address again at the beginning of this post.

Paul (the sinner, not the saint)

Thank you!
Posted at the Christian Boylove Forum by At Peace on Wednesday, February 28, at 9:59 PM
In reply to I'm not offended in the least posted by Paul

Thank you for your kind explanation, Paul. I agree that all things are possible with the Lord, and I'm glad to hear that you understand that life as a celibate homosexual or a celibate boylover can be a calling from God, even if it is (and God help me, it is) hard at times.

Just a minor security matter before I let you go for the night. I notice that you've been linking to an e-mail address that reveals private information about you. For this reason I've deleted the e-mail links you've left. I urge you to get an anonymous e-mail address (I've posted a link to a page describing how you can do this), because even non-pedophiles here may be harassed by people who are not in sympathy with what the Christian Boylove Forum is doing.

Until next time—

In Christ's Name,
At Peace with the Lord
Webmaster of CBF

* * *

Johnnie drummed his fingers on the mouse for a moment, then hit the "Back" button. He ran his arrow over Paul's linked name. Sure enough, the memory cache of his browser had preserved the unedited version of Paul's post, and the e-mail address was still there: paul@chaplaincy.oldcityuniv.edu.

He hesitated a moment more, staring at the address, and then transferred the address onto an e-mail form. For a moment more, he looked at the e-mail form. Then he set it aside and returned to his bookmarks page.

The first of the bookmarked sites arrived rapidly: it had a sky-blue background, and the blue triangle logo here had no cross. The logo was not of a single blue triangle, but of a small blue triangle nestled within a large blue triangle.

Johnnie scanned rapidly through the subject headings on the message board: "I'm in love!" "Does anyone know the age of consent in New Zealand?" "News: Policeman confesses he murdered pedophile; jury acquits him." "My young friend and I go to the circus." "NAMBLA Website has posted revised U.K. child abuse law." "Survey: Is it okay to have anal sex with a boy?" "Boy in my town murdered – very sad!" "Saw a cute 5-year-old today." "I'm collecting gay youth site links." "Survey: Should we ally ourselves with girl-lovers?" "Suicide prevention resource site for boylovers seeks volunteers." "I'm new here and I need help!"

The last message already had twenty messages posted in reply. Johnnie clicked on the link.

* * *

I'm new here and I need help!
Posted at BoyChat by True Boylover on Wednesday, February 28, at 3:13 PM

Gosh, guys, I can't tell you what it means to me to find this site. I located this board while visiting a picture site, but this means FAR more to me than any pictures.

Let me introduce myself. My name is [deleted by moderator], I live in [deleted by moderator], and I graduated from high school last year. I've been attracted to boys since elementary school, but as I grow older, the boys I'm attracted to stay at elementary school age, and I guess that means I'm a boylover.

I've read some of the posts here, and I think that my story is different from that of most of the people here, which makes me scared to tell you, because I'm afraid you'll send me away. I know everyone here loves boys and doesn't want to hurt them. Well, I feel the same, but sometimes I get fantasies about raping and murdering boys. It really scares me. These fantasies started back when I was little myself, when I was going to a boarding school where I was beaten by other kids. I've been in therapy since I was ten, but I've never told my therapists about my fantasies, because I'm afraid that, under the mandatory reporting laws, they'll have to report me to the police, and I'll be locked up. The school I went to as a kid had bars in its windows, and ever since then my greatest fear has been of being locked up in a place with bars.

Right now, I'm unemployed and living away from home (it's a long story, but basically my parents found some pictures I'd been collecting of boys), so I can't afford to see a therapist. I'd really like to talk with someone about my fantasies and what I can do to stop myself from acting on them, which is why I'm so glad to have found you guys. I'm picking as my nickname "True Boylover" because that is what I'd like to be. I don't want to hurt any kids.

Is it all right for me to post here? I know that the rest of you don't want to rape kids. (I mean have forced sex with them. I guess some of you think it's okay to have sex with the boy if he wants it, but that's not what I want.) If you think I'm disgusting and a monster, all I can say is that I agree with you, and I'll go away right now if you say so.

[Name deleted by moderator], trying to be a TRUE Boylover

Welcome to BoyChat
Posted at BoyChat by Brick on Wednesday, February 28, at 3:22 PM
In reply to I'm new here and I need help! posted by True Boylover

You'll get lots of replies to your post, but I just wanted to give you official reassurance that you're more than welcome here. Anyone can post at this board, provided that they follow the BoyChat rules, which I've linked to below. Please do note what Rule #6 says about not posting anything that would imply you're engaged in illegal activity. I hope that you'll show appropriate caution in future posts.

In another matter of security, I've deleted the information in your post that tells your real name and address. Please don't post this again. Very few of us here have outed ourselves, and even those of us who have done so generally use nicknames when posting. It's just not safe to tell people that you're a boylover in this world. Anyone could read these boards and track you down to your home.

Now, a little about myself. My nickname is Brick because I sometimes feel like another brick in the wall, though BoyChat is helping me to overcome that feeling. Like most of our participants, I live in North America. I'm in my twenties, and I've been posting at BoyChat for the past three years. I'm presently Webmaster of BoyChat and head of the Free Spirits Committee, which runs BoyChat and several other boylove boards (but doesn't run independent boards such as Crossroads and the Christian Boylove Forum). Free Spirits also sponsors a Web directory of boylove-related links – but check our rules before submitting links. All sites must have legal content.

Like you, I thought of myself as a monster when I first came here. Now I don't feel at all guilty about my love of boys. Like you, I've decided to remain celibate, because I believe it's wrong to break laws even when they're unjust. I would rather put my efforts into gradually changing the world's views on boylove, in particular by serving as a model citizen myself, so that anyone who meets me and learns I'm a boylover will know that we're not monsters.

I'm sorry to hear about your fantasies of hurting kids. I've never dealt with such a problem myself, nor has anyone else I know on this board, but perhaps someone can offer you suggestions on how you can stop having these fantasies. I'm a little hesitant to recommend therapy, because a therapist I went to years ago made me hate myself so much for being a boylover that I nearly threw myself onto some railroad tracks near my house. But perhaps someone here knows of a therapist who is boylove-friendly and won't try to change your love of boys (as opposed to your desire to rape them).

Brick
Webmaster and All-Round Dogsbody
BoyChat

* * *

Other messages were posted in reply. "You are sick! You need help!" posted by Concerned & Angry. "Don't be ashamed of loving boys," by Conscientious Objector. "We're here for you, TB; talk to us," by Pedo-Hag.

When Johnnie refreshed the index of BoyChat a few minutes later, a new message had appeared.

* * *

Have you tried online sexual recovery groups?
Posted at BoyChat by White Rose on Wednesday, February 28, at 10:29 PM
In reply to I'm new here and I need help! posted by True Boylover

I know that others here will warn you about the dangers of these groups, and certainly I wouldn't recommend them for the average boylover, but it sounds to me as though you're dealing with some serious problems and could benefit from talking with people who are in recovery from having abused children. But please don't stop talking to us. We'll give you any help we can.

My name is White Rose. I'm male and am attracted to boys from ages twelve to sixteen. My AOA (age of attraction) can go a little above that and a little below, but anyone who's prepubescent or adult just doesn't attract me.

I've been a boylover since my early teens, though I didn't realize what I was until college, and I didn't know what to call myself until two months ago, when I discovered the boylove boards. (I arrived here on the solstice. Coincidentally, that's a big holiday here.)

This place has transformed my life. I no longer believe, as I once did from reading news stories, that I'm doomed to molest a child. I still haven't made up my mind on the sex issue. Some of the boylovers here think that having sex with a willing boy abuses him, some don't. But one thing I do know – and I needed to be told this – is that I'll never force a boy to have sex against his will.

It's still scary to write all of the above. I'm really a newbie like yourself, and part of me keeps screaming, "You're attracted to boys! You should be taken out and shot!" If it weren't for BoyChat, I don't know what I would have ended up doing. Probably raped and killed a child, like society expects me to. (No, I don't think I'd actually have done that, but I know some people here who were on the point of doing that and were saved by discovering BoyChat.)

I'd also like to echo what Brick said about protecting your privacy. When I first posted that I was a boylover (it was at another board, Crossroads), I mentioned which city I lived in and told what the view was outside my window. Fortunately, one of the moderators of the board edited my post to remove this information, and he even sent me an e-mail explaining that, if anyone had been reading my post who lived in my city, he might have been able to guess where I lived from what I wrote.

It's a shame that most of us can't talk with people in real life about what we are. Sometimes I'd really like to get a non-pedophile's perspective on my decisions. But I suppose I'm lucky that we have non-boylovers like Pedo-Hag who are willing to come here and talk with us.

Still, it would be nice to talk with someone in real life.

White Rose

* * *

Johnnie, suddenly restless, shut off his modem connection to the Internet before walking over to the refrigerator again. This time he took out milk and poured it into a saucepan. Placing the pan atop the stove, he turned on the gas flame and returned to the desk, where he saw at the bottom of the computer screen the icon for the unfinished letter to Paul. He clicked on the icon and looked at the e-mail form. After a moment's consideration he began to type. "My first e-mail to you," he wrote in the subject heading. Then: "Dear—"

The phone rang.

He jumped as though a bullet had entered his body. Then he reached over and picked up the receiver. "White Rose here," he said automatically.

"Johnnie?" said the voice of an older woman. "Is that you?"

"Oh, gods," Johnnie said under his breath. Then, fearing his caller had heard, he added rapidly, "Yes, it's me, Mom. Sorry about that. I was so caught up with an e-book I was reading that I guess I began to identify with one of the characters."

"White Rose, eh?" It was his father's voice, coming from the second family phone; he sounded amused. "That sounds like a spy novel. Is White Rose the secret agent?"

"Sort of," said Johnnie, twirling the phone cord around one of his fingers. "He leads a double life. He seems like an ordinary man by day, but his friends and family members don't know about the secret life he lives during the evenings."

"Ordinary office worker by day, but at night he becomes Superman." His father chuckled. "It's wonderful how those old plots stay around."

"This one's sort of updated," said Johnnie. "One of the secrets about White Rose is that he posts on the Internet, so thousands of people around the world read his posts every day, but no one in real life knows that he's White Rose."

"And does his family ever find out who he is?" This was his mother, trying, as always, to see the parents' perspective on the matter.

Johnnie was silent a moment before he said, "I'm not sure. I haven't finished the story."

"You'll have to show it to us when you come to visit next," said his father. "It sounds as though it's a rip-roaring good story, like the type of adventure stories you used to write when you were in middle school."

"I remember you telling me that it's more exciting to write about dangerous lives than to live dangerous lives," said Johnnie, abandoning the phone cord and beginning to play with the mouse. His computer screen, which had turned black when he abandoned it, leapt open again to show White Rose's post.

"That's what we're calling about, Johnnie," said his mother. "There was an article in one of the newsmagazines this week – which one was it, Tom?"

"It had a picture on its cover of a pedophile grabbing a child," his father offered.

"Yes, I'm sure you can find it at the supermarket," his mother said. "It had tips on how to keep yourself safe from crime. You know, Johnnie, we've always worried about you moving into the city among all those violent people."

"There are crimes in small towns too, Mom," said Johnnie, turning his gaze away from the post to the marquee light outside. "Last year, just a block from our house, a man was beaten up because someone thought his face matched the one on a 'Wanted' poster in the post office."

"Your mom's right, though," contributed his father. "There are special dangers in the city that we don't get as much out in the country: stalkers, predators, that sort of thing. Why it's been eight years since anyone in this town has been raped."

Johnnie suddenly felt tired. "Mom, Dad, I'd love to talk longer, but I have something on the stove that's boiling over. Could I call you in the morning?"

"Of course, Johnnie." His father's voice was understanding. "We probably shouldn't have called you this late, after you've been working all day."

"You get some rest," his mother advised. "And don't feel you have to call us in the morning. Just fit us in whenever you have the time."

"I'll phone you before work tomorrow," he assured her. "Thanks for calling."

The milk was scalded by the time he reached it; he put the pan aside to cool, then returned to the computer. The e-mail was awaiting him. He drummed his fingers, then reconnected the modem and returned to the green board.

A new reply had been posted to Concerned & Angry.

* * *

The purpose of Crossroads
Posted at Crossroads by Gold Star on Wednesday, February 28, at 10:16 PM
In reply to You are sick! You need help! posted by Concerned & Angry

Like Pedo-Hag, I'd like to welcome you to Crossroads. We don't have as many non-ped participants as we'd like, so I was glad to see your post.

I'd just like to clarify to you what the purpose of Crossroads is. You talk about NAMBLA and Free Spirits and Crossroads all in one breath, as though they were the same thing, but as I've belonged to all three organizations, I can assure you that these three groups are very different.

The North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA), to which I belonged for a couple of years, is an advocacy organization. Its purpose is to press for changes in society and in the law to allow underaged boys various freedoms, including the freedom to choose their own sexual partners. NAMBLA does a bit of support activity, but that's not central to its mission in the way that advocacy is.

By contrast, Free Spirits is a support organization. It aims to support all boylovers, whether or not the boylover in question believes that boys should be able to have sex with men. For example, when I was a member of the Free Spirits Committee, if a boylover had come to me and said, "I want to start a message board for boylovers who believe that it is morally wrong to have sex with boys," my reaction would have been, "Great! How can I help?" I wouldn't have said this because I believe that having sex with boys is inherently wrong (though it can be wrong under particular circumstances, such as when it is illegal). I would have said this because the Free Spirits Committee wants to help all boylovers, regardless of their ideology.

Now, Crossroads is something entirely different from NAMBLA and Free Spirits. You refer to Crossroads as a boylove organization, but in fact it is a BL/non-BL board, jointly run by boylovers and non-boylovers for the benefit of both groups. Our mission is to provide a neutral space where boylovers and non-boylovers (including non-peds) can discuss their differences and their common beliefs.

Unlike Pedo-Hag, I'm not here to change anyone's views on the sex issue. I don't think it's likely I'll change Pedo-Hag's beliefs about this any more than I think it's likely that she'll change mine. The reason I'm willing to work with her is that I believe that, despite all our differences, we both care about children and we both want a world where children will be less likely to be hurt. I'd like to work with non-peds to help create such a world, and I hope that you'll join us here at Crossroads to make your own contribution.

Maybe I can even convince you to work to prevent violence against boylovers. Okay, so I'm a dreamer. :)

Gold Star
Webmaster
Crossroads

* * *

Johnnie stared at the post for several minutes, his finger stroking the mouse indecisively. The only sound in the room was the howl of the wind against the window. Then he moved quickly, copying, pasting, and deleting until he had the e-mail in the manner that he wanted.

* * *

To: goldstar@freespirits.org
From: whiterose@anonymail.com
Date: February 28, 22:49 EST
Subject: My first e-mail to you

Dear Gold Star,

I hope you don't mind my writing you out of the blue like this. I expect that you remember my nick, since I post at Crossroads fairly often, and you and I have exchanged posts.

There's a new boylover at BoyChat who's feeling pretty scared about the fact that he's attracted to boys. As I was reading his post, I was remembering the story you linked to at Crossroads last month, about a man and a fourteen-year-old boy who fell in love with each other. I didn't read the whole story, so I can't recall the plot, but I was wondering whether you remembered the link so that I could post it to the new boylover. I remember that the story was quite old, and I thought I could point him to it to show him that boylovers have been around for a long time, so he wouldn't be frightened of what he is.

I hope all is well for you and whatever young friends you have in your life right now.

Johnnie (White Rose)

* * *

The reply arrived almost immediately.

* * *

To: whiterose@anonymail.com
From: goldstar@freespirits.org
Date: February 28, 19:59 PST
Subject: The link you wanted

Dear Johnnie,

(Thanks for honoring me with your name, by the way.) The story you're thinking of is "The Priest and the Acolyte," which was written in 1894 by John Francis Bloxam. I'm not sure whether it's the best story for the purpose you mention, but feel free to give the new boylover the link. (I've pasted the link below.) It's certainly an interesting story from a historical point of view. It was written by one of the authors of the English "Uranian" movement, a loose association of authors and artists who celebrated their love of boys.

> I hope you don't mind my writing you out of the blue like this.

Jesus, no need to apologize; I was planning to write to you myself. I've really been liking your posts at Crossroads, especially the one you wrote about how boylovers and anti-BL people have more in common than they often think.

The other members of the Crossroads Committee have liked your posts too, and we were wondering whether you had the time and inclination to join our committee and become a moderator of Crossroads.

We lost a lot of moderators last year, partly as a result of too many flame wars and partly as a result of fights over whether the committee was too unbalanced. We always have a harder time getting non-peds to join us than we do getting boylovers and girl-lovers to join us. (We haven't had any peds from the sexual recovery community join us yet; we hope that will happen one of these days.)

At the moment, three of us are moderating Crossroads, and we have to struggle to keep the board monitored at all times. All of us try to help out on the weekends, but the weekday moderating is a "shift" affair. Conscientious Objector (who lives in Europe) covers the board from three a.m. to noon EST, while Pedo-Hag covers the afternoon hours. I'm online from six p.m. to eleven p.m. Pacific Time (that's ten p.m. to three a.m. for you East Coasters). Unfortunately, I can't cover the earlier evening hours because I have a class Mondays through Thursdays at that time.

I've noticed that you tend to be online in the early evening, till around the time that I show up. Would you like to join us? All that the job requires is the skin of an elephant to withstand all the cries of outrage when you edit or delete a post. Fortunately, our rules are quite simple and confined to security matters (such as not letting participants out each other).

I suppose I ought to add that you'll be expected to keep private whatever confidential information you run across as a moderator. I'm the only one on the committee who has access to IP addresses, the code that gives the approximate location of the poster's computer. (I only need to look up this information if big security problems arise.) But you'll be able to see other delicate information, such as previous versions of edited and deleted posts, so we'll have to ask you to remain quiet about what you see. If this is a condition you couldn't live with, just let us know.

I hope you'll join us. It's not just because of our overwork that we're asking you to join us, you know, but because of your effort to understand other points of view and to learn from them, which is the sort of spirit we're trying to foster at our board. We don't want non-stop flame wars.

Yours,
Gold Star

To: goldstar@freespirits.org
From: whiterose@anonymail.com
Date: February 28, 23:10 EST
Subject: Gods, yes!

Dear Gold Star,

Gods, I'm flattered. I mean, I've only been posting at the boylove boards for two months. Are you sure you haven't mistaken me for someone who is actually experienced at this sort of thing?

It's past my bedtime, so I'll write more in the morning. Let me just say that of course I understand your security concerns and will keep private anything I see as a committee member. I don't see that it would be an ethical problem, any more than you would have an ethical problem keeping my first name private.

It's awfully nice to hear from you tonight. I've been feeling lonely—

* * *

He stopped, backspaced, and tried again.

* * *

I've been feeling the need to talk to someone, because I had something nice happen to me tonight: I was able to help out a co-worker who was in distress, and I was also able to chat a bit with her son. It's really such a small incident that it doesn't seem as though it's worth posting about it at BoyChat, but maybe you don't mind my mentioning it here. Also, being able to help my co-worker meant as much to me as talking to the boy, and I don't think that's something everyone at BoyChat would understand, but I think you would. At least, I sense that from your posts.

I'll talk to you tomorrow (cyberspacedly speaking).

Yours truly,
Johnnie

* * *

The milk had cooled far too much by the time he poured it into a cup, but he added the cocoa anyway, sipping on the drink as he walked over to the window. The late evening crowd had begun to gather. Since it was a weeknight, the queue was confined mainly to older men and women, some of them looking as though they were long-married couples. Johnnie watched one couple – a grey-haired man and woman – buy tickets and disappear into the theater. Then he swallowed the remainder of the cocoa and returned to the kitchen table.

It took only a few minutes for him to wash his dishes and place them on the drying rack. The cardboard carton went into the trash, and he wiped the counter clean with a sponge. He checked that his briefcase was ready for the next day, and then he disappeared into the bathroom.

He emerged wearing pajamas striped like a blue candy cane. He was about to shut off the lights when he remembered the laptop. He walked over and switched it off. His eye, idly straying, caught sight of the magazine, which had fallen on the floor. He stooped to pick it up, and as he did so, his gaze ran mechanically over one of the paragraphs before him.

"Most pedophiles lead quite ordinary lives," says FBI agent Darren Franklin, who hunts down online predators who visit forums designed for conversation about molesting children. "If you met them, you'd be surprised by how normal they seem. Only when you've seen what they do to kids do you realize how dangerous these people are."

* * *

Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Posted at BoyChat by True Boylover on Thursday, March 1, at 8:42 AM

I can't thank you guys enough for all of the responses I received. Thanks to you I now know what I only suspected before, which is that I can keep myself from hurting any of the kids in my town. (By the way, Brick, I'll try to remember the security tips you e-mailed me. It's just hard to remember them when I'm posting, because I'm so excited to be here.)

I've never met such a wonderful group of people in my life. Thanks to you I'll always be a

True Boylover

Chapter Two

Firewall

A few diary entries
Posted at Crossroads by Conscientious Objector on Thursday, March 15, at 6:32 AM

August 9: Bill and I walked on the beach again today, hand in hand. It's the first time he's let me hold his hand since that day when we first met. Ever since then, whenever I've tried to hold his hand, he has jerked away and joked about me being too old for that sort of thing. When he finally let me touch him, I felt as though an electric spark went through me.

We stopped to sit on that rock in the cove, and I put my hand on his thigh, but before I could move it higher up, he got up and said that we had better head back. I must find a way to make him understand.

September 12: A big scene today: Mom decided to flip my mattress, and she found the magazine that Ricky had lent me, the one he found lying outside that bar where only men go. Everything after that was awful, with Mom crying and Dad shouting and nosey parker Janet popping into the room every few minutes and asking what I'd done wrong.

When Dad stopped shouting and started talking quietly, things got even worse: he was talking about how homosexuals can always be cured and how shock therapy techniques have improved, and I finally bolted from the house. I went to a pay phone and called Bill. Fortunately, he was home from work.

I ended up crying over the phone like a little kid; luckily, Bill didn't mind. He told me lots of funny stories about the fights he used to have with his parents, and I felt better afterwards. I realized that this is just how some parents are, and you have to put up with it. I know now, though, that I'll never be able to tell my parents about Bill. They just wouldn't understand.

September 15: Ricky told me today that he heard from one of the ninth-graders that, if you stand in the alleyway behind that bar, sometimes men will come out and talk with you, and sometimes they'll let you have sex with them. Sometimes they'll even give you money afterwards. Ricky says he hasn't tried it yet because he's afraid to go there alone.

I wanted to rush up to the alley right away, but then it occurred to me that if Bill heard about me doing that, he might misunderstand and think that I didn't love him any more. I want him to know that he's the most important one, so I think I'll wait a bit with the alley thing.

September 20: My parents went out all of this afternoon, so Ricky and I were finally able to do it. Ricky was very excited afterwards and said that the first time is always the best, but I felt kind of let down. Even though we used the pictures from the magazine as a guide (I sneaked the magazine out of Mom's dresser), it still didn't feel okay – I kept getting the feeling that we weren't doing it right. I wish that Bill had been there instead.

September 29: Last week Mom and Dad came home all happy from their day out, and today I found out why. Starting tomorrow, I'm going to have to go to a stinking therapist who will "cure" me.

I went out and phoned Bill, using this as an excuse to ask him to meet me at the beach cove. (The weather has turned cold, so I knew that no one else would be there.) He came right away, but when I showed him the magazine for queers and tried to hold him, he got up and walked away without even saying goodbye. I cried for three hours.

I'm going to try writing him a letter.

October 3: Yes! He said yes! Joy, joy, joy!

October 4: It was so wonderful. God, God, God. It was everything I dreamed it would be.

~~~

The above passages (with my atrocious spelling and punctuation cleaned up) are actual entries from the diary I kept when I was twelve. Now tell me again, dear CA, how I was "groomed" in order to be "molested."

I know which of us was the seducer, and it wasn't my lover.

Conscientious Objector, hoping to open your mind a crack

Translating your post
Posted at Crossroads by Concerned & Angry on Thursday, March 15, at 4:45 PM
In reply to A few diary entries posted by Conscientious Objector

First of all, I have no proof that any of this actually happened. It looks like exactly the sort of story that an offender like you would make up in order to justify his abuse.

But even if it were true, all that it proves is that the worst aspect of pedophilia is that the abuser manages to convince his victim that it was "his" idea and causes the victim to bond with the abuser. This is a well-documented phenomenon called the Stockholm Syndrome; you can find information about it in books on hostages and on prisoners of war.

Here's what actually happened to you, though your abuser didn't allow you to recognize this.

# # #

August 9: One of the first things that an abuser will do is introduce certain ideas about sexual activity into the mind of the child, but do it so subtly that the child will not realize that he never thought of doing these activities until the abuser suggested it to him. Thus, for example, you had the idea that holding hands was something that you wanted to do, not something that your abuser wanted you to do. But here in this entry you slip, and you admit that he first held hands with you, which of course planted the idea in your mind right away that you would please him if you held hands with him further. (Incidentally, in reference to your earlier post, a grooming time of eighteen months is not at all unusual. Pedophiles like to convince themselves that they "love" the children they abuse, so they come up with all sorts of activities of mock love before they take the child to bed.)

September 12: This entry is a classic. The easiest way for a pedophile to win a child's love is to separate him from his parents' love. In most cases, this is done in a very subtle fashion; the pedophile will begin by saying, "Your parents don't understand you," and only later will he say, "I'm the only one who understands you." This entry reveals that your abuser had begun his final stages of grooming you.

September 15: Oh, God, what can I say about this entry? That the children of your town were prostituting themselves, and that the men in your town were taking advantage of such innocence . . . It's just too awful to contemplate.

September 20: HOMOSEXUALITY IS NOT THE SAME THING AS PEDOPHILIA! PEER SEX PLAY IS NOT THE SAME THING AS CHILD ABUSE! You keep mixing them up in these entries – that's understandable since you were a child, but you should know better now.

Homosexuality is not a mental illness; pedophilia is. Here is the definition of pedophilia, as it appears in the fourth edition (text revision) of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Health Disorders, published by the American Psychiatric Association:

Over a period of at least six months, recurrent, intense sexually arousing fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviors involving sexual activity with a prepubescent child or children (generally age 13 years or younger). The person has acted on these sexual urges, or the sexual urges or fantasies caused marked distress or interpersonal difficulty. The person is at least age 16 years and at least 5 years older than the child or children in Criterion A. Note: Do not include an individual in late adolescence involved in an ongoing sexual relationship with a 12- or 13-year-old.

The American Psychiatric Association goes on to describe the nature of pedophiles:

[Pedophiles'] activities are commonly explained with excuses or rationalizations that they have "educational value" for the child, that the child derives "sexual pleasure" from them, or that the child was "sexually provocative" – themes that are also common in pedophilic pornography. . . .

Individuals may limit their activities to their own children, stepchildren, or relatives or may victimize children from outside their families. Some individuals with Pedophilia threaten the child to prevent disclosure. Others, particularly those who frequently victimize children, develop complicated techniques for obtaining access to children, which may include winning the trust of a child's mother, marrying a woman with an attractive child, trading children with other individuals with Pedophilia, or, in rare instances, taking in foster children from nonindustrialized countries or abducting children from strangers.

Except in cases in which the disorder is associated with Sexual Sadism, the person may be attentive to the child's needs in order to gain the child's affection, interest and loyalty and to prevent the child from reporting the sexual activity.

So, you see, the desire to have sex with a child is linked with a desire to manipulate and rape. That's why all of you here need to get psychiatric help now!

Children having sex with children their own age is entirely different from an adult taking advantage of a child. I'm not surprised that you didn't recognize this at the time; abuse victims often don't. Women who are sexually exploited by therapists or clergy often believe at the time that they are just as free to say no as their exploiter is. Only afterwards do they realize the extent of the power difference between themselves and the person who exploited them.

You were a child; you did not truly have the ability to say no to your abuser, even if you thought that you did. Children are biologically made to try to please adults – that's part of being a child. Your abuser took advantage of this to make you want to please him, even to the extent of convincing you that you were doing the seducing.

September 29: Here is the type of case that turns up so often in child abuse literature, of a child changing his memories of what happened as a way to deny the full extent of his abuse. You say that you showed your abuser a "queer magazine." Actually, what must have happened is that he showed you a magazine, most likely one that was filled with child pornography that would give you a good idea of what sort of acts he wanted you to perform. In this way, he not only exploited you, but he exploited all the victims in the pictures he showed you (in the same way that a man who willingly accepts stolen goods is as much a thief as the man who steals the goods). Naturally, by the end of this session, he had thoroughly convinced you that the rape of children was love.

I'm not sure how to interpret the end of this entry. Perhaps your abuser was having brief feelings of guilt, as offenders sometimes do in the moments before they offend. Or perhaps he just didn't like the idea of having anal sex with you on a windy beach.

October 3-4: Tragedy, tragedy, tragedy.

# # #

If these diaries entries are real, then I feel truly sorry for you, because you not only were abused but are now continuing this terrible chain by abusing other boys. I would encourage you to seek out a good therapist, and perhaps look into whether you should try to recover your memories of the missing events at the time of your abuse. You can find the help you need by looking up "child abuse" in the yellow pages, or your church may be able to refer you to an appropriate bureau.

CA stands for Concerned & Angry

Conscientious Objector and Concerned & Angry: Final Warning
Posted at Crossroads by Gold Star on Thursday, March 15, at 10:45 PM
In reply to Translating your post posted by Concerned & Angry

I must remind both of you once more of Crossroads' security policy against the discussion of illegal activity that has not been dealt with judicially; this includes both activity by oneself and activity by others. This is not the proper place to make a confession or accusation of illegal activity. If you feel a compulsion to do so, please consult a priest or a policeman, as the case may warrant.

Conscientious Objector: I'm permitting your post to stand because it describes events from forty years ago. Too many of your recent posts, though, have skated near the edge. You're a moderator, C.O.; you should know better.

Concerned & Angry: Please try to remember that we don't permit participants to accuse other participants of illegal activity. I'm sure that you wouldn't like it if another participant here accused you, without judicial proof of your guilt, of engaging in illegal activity in order to locate boylovers. If your remarks to Conscientious Objector, White Rose, and others here about them abusing boys are meant to be a statement that you believe they have engaged in abusive behavior by having legal sex with minors who are above the age of consent, then please make this clear in your posts.

Both of you: Pedo-Hag, White Rose, and I are getting tired of having to continually edit and delete your posts, as well as having to post first warnings to you every few days. The next time that one of you breaks a security rule, the offending party will receive a ban from Crossroads, temporarily or permanently, as the case may warrant. The Crossroads Committee is too overburdened with work to have time to deal with irreformable repeat offenders.

Gold Star
Webmaster
Crossroads

My apologies
Posted at Crossroads by Conscientious Objector on Friday, March 16, at 3:12 AM
In reply to Conscientious Objector and Concerned & Angry: Final Warning posted by Gold Star

My posts about sex with boys are purely hypothetical. I love to love boys hypothetically. As an example of the reformed behavior that I penitently intend to engage in from this point forward, please follow the link below to my post at BoyChat describing, in a hypothetical fashion, what it is like to share a shower with an eleven-year-old.

Conscientious Objector, turning over a new leaf

Link: Why anal is better than oral

To: whiterose@anonymail.com
From: paul@chaplaincy.oldcityuniv.edu
Date: March 16, 18:13 EST
Subject: Re: Re: This is Paul from CBF, introducing myself

Dear White Rose,

On March 15, you wrote:

> About a support group for your friend: I'm afraid I only know of one publicly advertised support group for boylovers that meets in real life, and it's not close to where your minor-attracted friend lives. I know that some boylovers who live in metropolitan areas meet informally with each other, but of course those meetings aren't advertised. Why don't you suggest to your friend that he visit CBF?

Jevon's college monitors its students' Internet use, so that's not possible, but thanks for the suggestion. It's proving much harder than I'd expected to find a support group for a non-offending minor-attracted adult. Jevon didn't care for the ex-gay meeting I took him to – his family is only nominally Christian – and the sex addiction group he has been attending this spring really isn't proving to be of much help to him. When I met him last year, he already had much better control over his sexual impulses than most non-pedophiles I know.

> If he has told his parents, as you say, then perhaps he could consider starting a "support circle," as a number of CBF participants have done. The idea is that you tell everyone close to you in real life who you believe you can trust with the secret: parents, brothers and sisters, friends, pastors, etc. That way, when you need guidance in your life, you have the same sort of network of real-life assistance that most non-boylovers do. The people who know you in real life may be able to figure out things that your online friends can't, since your online friends can't judge the situation close up.

That's a terrific suggestion, and I'll be sure to pass it on to Jevon.

> No, I'm not Neo-Pagan or Hindu. I started saying "Oh, gods" in high school because my parents didn't like me taking the Lord's name in vain. Apparently, it's all right to take the name of other people's gods in vain. :)

I met a Neo-Pagan boylover at CBF the other day who was seriously offended because I don't light candles to honor Zeus and his loved boy Ganymede. He asked me sternly whether I was opposed to interfaith tolerance.

> I haven't really found a label for what I believe. I guess you could say that I believe in Something that provides guidance to us and whose commands we should obey, but I think that everyone finds a different name for this Something. An atheist boylover I know (Gold Star) says that he follows the dictates of Conscience (he doesn't capitalize it, but he talks about it as though it were capitalized).

I hope, then, that his conscience is well-informed. An ill-informed conscience is a menace.

> As for myself, Socrates worshipped the god Love, and Jesus told his followers to worship the God who is Love, so I guess I've always envisioned the Something that is guiding me as Love – true love, naturally, not the selfish kind.

Ah, but which true love? English is a deficient language in that respect. If we had been writing in Greek, you'd have known that the Love Socrates worshipped was Eros, while the Love that Jesus enjoined us to worship is Agape (three syllables; I can't add accent marks to e-mail).

In Greek there are three main words for love; interestingly, two of them are used to describe ancient forms of boylove. (Thank you, by the way, for explaining how boylove is the English translation of pedophilia and pederasty. Despite my Greek classes in college, I never would have made that connection if you hadn't explained it.)

Eros is sexual love, as in paiderastia/pederasty, the sexual love of boys. Philia is friendship love, as in paidophilia/pedophilia, the affectionate love of boys (obviously the word got extended beyond its original nonsexual meaning). And agape is disinterested love. It the sort of love that God has for us and that we are supposed to have for everyone else, including our enemies – the sort of love that gives without demanding any reward for the giving. There's no such word in Greek as paidagape, but I gather that some of the CBF participants such as yourself are trying to achieve that sort of disinterested love toward boys.

Eros and philia play their proper role in life – certainly a friendship between a man and a boy is nothing to be sneered at – but the highest form of love, I believe, is agape, because it gives without asking any return: it is purely selfless. The best description of it that I know of is in Paul's first letter to the Corinthians (who were an early congregation that apparently needed some lecturing on this topic):

"Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends . . ."

> I'll ask At Peace to send you a document CBF produced several years ago on how boylovers can start real-life peer support groups and support circles.

Speaking of which, below you'll find my work address and my cell phone number. As you can see, I work for a city university; I'm an administrative assistant to the chaplain here. If things ever get stressful for you and you need someone to talk with in real life, I hope you'll consider giving me a call. (That is, if you live in the U.S. or Canada. I know that an overseas call might be prohibitive.) Think of me as an extension of the support circle that I trust you already have to help you in real life.

Sincerely,
Paul Kovar

* * *

Johnnie paused at the entrance to the campus café. Most of the students apparently considered Saturday morning a time for recovering from the after-effects of Friday-night parties, for the large room was bare except for several servers behind the cafeteria-style counter, a couple of earnest-looking young men arguing over a model of a dodecahedron, a gaggle of giggling young women, and, sitting at the next table and apparently oblivious to the beauty nearby, a neatly dressed man idly fingering a coffee cup as he perused a folded newspaper.

The man was balding, with the sort of round spectacles one would expect to see worn by Bob Cratchit or some other overworked scribe from Victorian times. He was wearing a white shirt and a black jacket and a red bow tie. Something about that tie suddenly gave Johnnie an image of a much younger man, sporting a pink shirt and a lavender jacket, and moving his body with a swish. Then the man before him turned the paper with a gesture of stiff formality, and the illusion was shattered. All that sat at the table was an ordinary man in his forties, taking a leisurely morning break.

Feeling the same sort of churning in his stomach that a soldier might feel before a battle in which casualties were expected to be high, Johnnie walked over to the table. For a moment, the man remained absorbed in his paper; then he lifted his eyes and smiled. "White Rose?" he said.

Johnnie nodded, swallowing. "You can call me Johnnie."

"I'm glad to meet you finally," said Paul and reached out his hand. He had a firm handshake, with no indecision behind it.

"May I get you some coffee? Tea?" asked Paul, gesturing toward his cup.

Johnnie shook his head. His gaze was drifting over to the next table, where, if he read the whispers right, the girls were speculating – with interest and hope – whether he was a new faculty member. One girl gave him an unabashedly assessing look under her carefully darkened lashes.

Paul, following his gaze, said, "Would you like to walk over to my office? It's more private there."

Johnnie quelled a momentary vision of walking into a room where a gathering of police awaited him. "Sure. Whatever you'd like."

Paul gathered up his newspaper, smiled at the giggling girls, and took his cup over to the dishes rack before ushering Johnnie out into the March sunlight. The campus – dating from a time before the city had crept around the university like ivy – was wide and green, with colonial-style brick buildings and well-manicured lawns. Paul, watching a group of students who were using a book as a Frisbee, shook his head and said affectionately, "Students! Sometimes I wonder whether they do any studying at all. Not that the university goes to any great efforts to encourage the academic life. The university admissions pamphlet is almost entirely concerned with the virtues of our social programs."

Johnnie thought of the young men arguing over the dodecahedron. "The math department is good."

"Oh?" replied Paul, peering with intent curiosity over his wire-rimmed glasses.

Johnnie felt a vision descend upon him of Paul poring through the university records for a man named John, who appeared to be in his thirties, and who had once majored in math. Would the university have kept his identification photo? Resisting an impulse to flee screaming, Johnnie added hastily, "That's what a guy at work said who attended here. The weather has turned nice, hasn't it?"

"Yes, spring has arrived early," said Paul, apparently not averse to turning the conversation, and they strolled along the treeless campus, discussing the best time of the year to trim forsythia.

They were headed, Johnnie realized eventually, toward a building built in the style of New England churches, with a shining white steeple and double doors opened wide to admit visitors. It looked formidably conventional. Much to Johnnie's relief, Paul steered him over to a side door which, when opened, revealed nothing more burdensome than a hallway. As the door swung shut behind them, Paul said, "By the way, I can't remember whether you ever mentioned anything on this topic at CBF – are you by any chance attracted to adult males?"

Johnnie found himself looking automatically around the hallway, but nothing appeared to be stirring in this part of the building. "No, not at all," he replied.

"Forgive me for being so nosy, but I placed a discipline upon myself a number of years ago not to visit unchaperoned with men who might be attracted to me. Here we are." He pointed to a doorway.

Looking over at him, Johnnie thought of the giggling girls and their assessing looks, and he wondered suddenly what Paul's feelings had been when he saw Johnnie's appearance for the first time. He had no further opportunity to think about this, though, for Paul was leading him into an office not unlike the one where Johnnie worked. Gesturing Johnnie into a chair, Paul took the seat behind the desk, upon which was laid the ordinary implements of office life: a writing pad, a computer keyboard and monitor, a jar holding several pens – all blue or black, Johnnie noticed – a paper tray, and a ruler. There was nothing here to suggest that Paul was in any way out of the ordinary; again, it looked very much like Johnnie's own work desk.

Johnnie sank down into the seat offered, opened his briefcase, and withdrew some of the papers within. He placed them on Paul's desk, saying, "I printed out this message I posted at BoyChat; I wasn't sure whether you'd seen it. It says a little more about how I came to post at the BL boards."

Paul obediently pulled the papers forward, fished inside his jacket for a second pair of glasses, put them on, and read slowly through the post as Johnnie looked further around the room. There were no windows in the room; instead, the walls had been festooned with framed posters of Christian art, mainly Madonnas weeping over dead Christs. On top of a file cabinet nearby stood two framed pictures. One showed a large, smiling family, in which the only teenager not smiling was clearly Paul. The other picture showed a grown-up Paul beaming as he curled his arm around a woman his own age, who was wearing a necklace holding a cross.

Paul removed his reading glasses and returned them to his jacket pocket, saying, "This story that you link to at the end of the post, 'The Priest and the Acolyte' – do you have a copy of it?"

"Not on me," said Johnnie. "I could e-mail you the link."

"I'd appreciate that," said Paul, leaning back in his chair as he adjusted his regular glasses on his nose. "Can you tell me what it's about?"

"I haven't read it all the way through," said Johnnie. "The part I read seemed very romantic, if a little sentimental. It's about this man who falls in love with a—"

He stopped, alerted not only by the footstep in the hallway, but by the change in Paul's expression. Paul's eyes flicked over to the doorway behind Johnnie, and he said, "Hello, Matt. I didn't expect to see you here today. Don't you have that talk at the Muslim Student Council this morning?"

Johnnie looked over his shoulder and saw a man with a clerical collar standing at the doorway. The minister looked with curiosity at Johnnie, but he said only, "I'm supposed to be there right now. I only stopped by to pick up that interfaith document on conflict resolution and restorative justice."

Paul dug through the pile of papers in his paper tray and emerged with a series of limp fax sheets paper-clipped together. "Here you are," he said, standing up to hand the papers to the minister.

The minister checked the top page of the document, glanced with curiosity at Johnnie again, and said, "Thanks, that helps. I'll see you on Monday."

"Good luck with the talk," said Paul and escorted the minister courteously to the door. Once the clergyman was gone, he shut the door.

Johnnie waited until he could no longer hear the receding footsteps in the hallway before he said, "Do they know here that you're gay?" He caught the flicker in Paul's expression and said hastily, "Sorry, I meant ex-gay."

Paul paused next to a knee-high refrigerator and leaned over to open it. "If I were gay, my life would be a lot easier. This university has a diversity-and-tolerance policy; one of the biggest departments in the administration is its Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Affairs Office. When I mentioned in my interview that I had done record-keeping for an ex-gay ministry, you'd have thought from the expressions of my interviewers that I'd just admitted to being a minion of Lucifer, come to drag the students into hell. Lemonade?"

Johnnie accepted the glass bottle from his hand as Paul reseated himself, saying, "They wanted me to promise that I would never talk about ex-gay matters to the students. All I could promise was that, if any student asked me for information on local Christian ministries dealing with same-gender attraction, I would provide them with brochures from both the ex-gay ministries and the pro-gay ministries, leaving the student to decide which path was best for him. My interviewers weren't happy about that, but fortunately Matt is very much concerned with dialogue between conflicting parties, and I was able to make him see that the university wouldn't be showing much commitment to diversity and tolerance if it refused to hire me solely because I'm opposed to homosexual behavior." He opened his own bottle of pink lemonade and sipped at it with clear pleasure, like a boy on a hot summer's day.

"I guess it's especially hard being both conservative and attracted to males," said Johnnie. "At Peace said once that his life would be much easier if he were in favor of BL sex, because as it is, he's attacked on both sides: by many of the BLs, because he's morally opposed to BL sex, and by the conservative non-pedophiles who come onto CBF, because he has the bad taste not to share their sexual feelings."

"Yes, those of you BLs who have committed yourself to lifelong celibacy have a hard road to travel. I can say that from experience."

Part of Johnnie noted with appreciation that Paul had followed his lead in adopting the abbreviation BL – less likely to be understood by outsiders if overheard – but the other part of him was occupied with noting the sudden increase in his heartbeat. After a moment, he placed his lemonade on the desk and said, "I'm not sure . . . That is, I don't know whether I've made such a commitment yet."

This was it, said Johnnie to himself as he looked at Paul's unrevealing face. This was the moment when a button was pushed or a finger was lifted, and policemen burst through the doors. He felt sweat forming on his palms, and he tried to rub them dry unobtrusively on the leather of his briefcase.

But all that Paul did was lean forward and say, "Can you tell me why?"

Johnnie licked his lips, then fished into the briefcase again. He handed the papers to Paul silently.

Paul took a mercilessly long time reading through Conscientious Objector's recent posts to Concerned & Angry. When he was finally finished, he stared into space for several moments before removing his reading glasses and saying, "I have a friend who eats every night at restaurants that serve junk food. I've invited him several times to join me at a better-class steak house that serves hamburgers and the like, but he always says, 'Why should I eat elsewhere? The food here is great.'"

After a moment, Johnnie said, "Maybe it's a matter of taste. My mom loves Hershey's chocolates, so one time I bought her Godiva chocolates for her birthday, but she didn't like them. I heard her tell my dad that they tasted too rich."

"Yes, but was she deprived of the opportunity to eat Godiva chocolates in the years when her tastes were forming?" Paul let Conscientious Objector's posts fall onto the table and leaned forward. "This gentleman worships at the altar of Eros – that's transparent in every line he writes. It's clear that he cannot conceive of a lifelong friendship that is based on anything other than an exchange of sexual pleasure. He may practice agapé unknowing, but I doubt that he understands what it is or makes any attempt to pursue disinterested love when given the choice between that and eros. This is hardly surprising; eros is the love he was given when he was young, at an age when our views are formed on what is most praiseworthy in life. But do you think that if his friend had had the strength and the courage to keep saying no to his sexual demands, and was able to find a way to show him higher forms of love, that Conscientious Objector would now be flitting from bed to bed as his posts imply?"

"You can't be sure that's the reason," Johnnie said, fingering the empty lemonade bottle before him.

"No, I can't be absolutely sure. That's the problem with BL sex; it's like Russian roulette. You never know how matters will turn out." He drummed his fingers on the table a moment before saying, "I'm still in the learning stages at CBF, Johnnie, but I was under the impression that the reason you folks call yourselves boylovers is because you love boys. Do you really want to risk fixating a boy on eros for life? Are you sure that you want to risk ruining his life in that way?"

For a minute, Johnnie stared at the corrugated glass and the small amount of pink liquid at the bottom of the bottle. Then he raised his eyes and said levelly, "Are you sure that you want to marry your girlfriend and risk ruining her life? How can you be sure that having sex with her won't cause her to fixate on eros?"

To his surprise, Paul laughed. "Touché," said the older man. "I can see why you spend so much time in debates at Crossroads. There's a difference between your situation and mine, but I trust that you'll come to see that over time. Would you like a tour of the chapel? Matt thankfully cleared out all the horrible 'improvements' of the seventies when he took over here – abstract paintings, posters of Snoopy saying 'Happiness is a Loved Child,' pictures of Jesus dressed as a Vietnam war protestor, etc."

Johnnie, who remembered quite well the bad art from the baccalaureate ceremony he had attended for his parents' sake, rose from his seat and followed Paul toward the door, then looked back at the desk. His post and Conscientious Objector's posts were still sitting there in plain sight. "Aren't you going to put those away?" Johnnie asked.

"The posts? Yes, I suppose I should." Paul went back to his desk, tossed the posts negligently onto the top of the paper tray, and then walked over to the doorway where Johnnie still stood. Johnnie was left with an uneasy feeling as he followed Paul, who was now speaking of the benefits of stark simplicity in religious architecture.

* * *

"I think it depends on the boylover," said Johnnie. "What your AOA is – your age of attraction – makes a big difference too. Gold Star, the Webmaster of Crossroads, posted once that he figured out when he was nine, because he fell in love that year with a first-grader. He didn't have the word to describe what he was, but he knew that he was different from the other boys."

Paul was leaning forward over the desk, his elbows on the writing pad and his chin resting upon his hands. He nodded. Johnnie had lost track of how long they had been talking; the lights in the windowless room gave the place an air of perpetual day, as though its inhabitants could speak for centuries without pausing.

"I can't claim to have been that precocious," said Paul. "I began to guess about myself when I was in senior high – and highly terrifying it was too. It took me quite a number of years to nerve myself up to the point of telling my family and the other members of my church. I received one measure of God's mercy: I knew from the start that I should never act on my feelings. The Bible, church tradition, reason – everything combined to tell me this. My big mistake came in thinking that the proper place for me was within the gay community. I didn't know of any other support network, and I desperately needed to be with others like myself."

He settled back in his chair, a shadow passing across his expression. "Those were terrible years for me; it's only been in the last few years that I've been able to bear being around gay people again. For a long time, the wounds were too deep. Daily temptations to sin, and each time people would be standing at my elbow saying, 'What's wrong? You love him, don't you? Why not show him your love?' I used to come home from gay gatherings and be sick in the bathroom, because I was so conflicted between what I believed was right and what others around me believed I should believe was right. Yet I couldn't stand to cut myself off from the fellowship of other same-gender-attracted people."

"How did you leave the gay community?" Johnnie asked. He was leaning back in his chair now, restful, with the briefcase put aside and his hearing no longer alert for policemen's footsteps in the hallway.

"God sent me a messenger: an ex-ex-gay. She was a lesbian who had had a very bad experience in the ex-gay ministries and therefore was bitterly opposed to them; she told me about them in order to warn me against them. I could have kissed her feet in gratitude. It was harder than I had thought it would be to break myself off from the social network of the gay world, but from the moment I learned about the ex-gay ministries, I thought, 'Thank God! After all these wasted years, I'm finally coming home.'"

Above the low hum of the building's air circulation, Johnnie said, "I guess in a way I envy you. I didn't know any other boylovers until three months ago, and it took me longer than you to figure out what I was. When I was in middle school, I first realized that I was attracted to boys, and that in itself was hard enough – coming to terms with the idea of being gay. Then, just when I was starting to get a handle on that, I moved up to high school, and I began to feel that something else was wrong. I mean, juniors in high school usually aren't attracted to twelve-year-olds. But I was attracted to enough of the boys in my high school that I could still convince myself that I was a normal gay."

He could feel his body growing more tense, and he willed himself to relax, focussing his thoughts on Paul's studious eyes. "I took a year off after high school in order to earn money for college, and when I finally started my freshman year, my world just exploded. Some of the guys who had been a year below me in high school were in my freshman class – guys I had been attracted to one year before. Only I wasn't attracted to them any more; I wasn't attracted to any of my college classmates. But if I passed a twelve-year-old on the street, my heart would pound. That's when I figured out that I wasn't attracted to adults. I was only attracted to boys in middle school and high school."

Johnnie shook his head as he tilted his chair back. "I'd told my classmates when I arrived at college that I was gay; this was supposed to be my big coming out. Now I didn't know what to do. I didn't dare tell anyone the truth – I was certain that I'd be kicked out of college if I did so. I had one very long night at the beginning of my senior year when I simply lay in bed sobbing, from bedtime until close to dawn. I couldn't figure out whether I should turn myself in to the police or slit my wrists or go out and rape a child. I thought those were my only options. I was just getting up the courage to search the dorm bathroom for razor blades when I heard Something inside me say, 'No, you don't want to do any of those things. You want to help boys.'

"What I heard made no sense, and I guess that's why I believed it. It wasn't a thought that would have ever occurred to me; it went against everything I knew about pedophiles. So the next day I signed up for the college's volunteer tutoring program to high school students, and from that point on, my path has been clear. Until this year, I was still half convinced that I would lose control and molest a boy, but at least I knew from senior year onwards that raping boys wasn't what I wanted."

He looked over at Paul, who was sitting with his hands folded, in a straight-postured pose. There was something comforting about this room, with its neat appearance and its signs of conventionality. Johnnie felt as though he were a juvenile delinquent who had spent several years in the detention room and was now, unexpectedly, being invited into the principal's office for a friendly chat.

He added, "I guess what's kept me from going crazy all these years is that Something, which told me what the rest of the world wouldn't tell me. In the back of my mind, I've always had the feeling that, if I ever faced a crisis again, the Something would come and tell me what to do. Fortunately, I haven't had that crisis yet."

Paul moved finally, reaching forward to unscrew a fountain pen, inspect its contents, and then screw the cap back on and place it in the pen holder. He said, "I am ashamed."

"Ashamed?" Startled, Johnnie returned the front legs of his chair to the floor.

Paul shook his head. "There is one problem you encounter over and over and over when you're same-gender-attracted; it has always mystified me. I could never understand how so many good Christians could fall into Pharisaism. Now I know."

He raised his eyes to look at Johnnie, saying quietly, "I've been like the Pharisee in the temple, saying, 'God, I thank thee that I am not like these sinners.' I wrote at CBF that I was a sinner and that I wanted you people to pray for me and that I hoped to learn from you – but those were just empty words. My mind told me that all of us are fellow sinners, but my heart had me convinced that I was better than the rest of you. I came to CBF as a missionary, to explain to you poor, deluded, misguided pedophiles what path you should take in life. I, your moral superior, was there to guide you, since obviously I knew more than you did. And here I find myself cast down to the bottom of the table, while you move to the front of the table and instruct me on where I have gone wrong."

Johnnie felt acutely uncomfortable. For the first time in several hours, he picked up his briefcase and fingered it. "I said something that was helpful to you?"

Paul nodded. "You revealed to me that we draw nearer to God, not in the times when we are free of temptation, but in the moments when we are filled with temptation and manage to resist it. I had known that with my mind, but it took your words to show my heart that this was true. All those years when I was under daily temptation, those 'wasted' years that I thought would have been better spent in the ex-gay ministries . . . Now I see that those were years when I was drawing closer to the Lord."

Paul smiled, his hand reaching up unconsciously to adjust his red bow tie. "White Rose, I think you have just healed the last of my wounds from those years. Thank you."

Johnnie couldn't think of what to say. The administrative wing of the chapel was very quiet, too far from the outside to have any sound but for the ticking of the clock on the wall. Paul glanced at the clock and said, "It's getting late. I'd invite you home for dinner, but I'm afraid that I have a date this evening. May I give you a ride back to your place?"

There was a pause of three heartbeats, and then Johnnie – responding more to long self-training than to reasoned decision – said, "No, I wouldn't want to put you out of your way. Thanks for the offer, though."

Paul nodded, apparently undisturbed by this rebuff. He stood up and began to escort Johnnie out of the room and into the dark hallway beyond, lit only by exit signs.

"I can't promise never to lecture you again on how to live your life," Paul said as they reached the outer door. "I'm afraid that's a habit I haven't been able to break myself of. But if you should notice me going astray on my own path, would you be kind enough to give me a nudge in the right direction? We poor, deluded, misguided 'normal people' need help from others."

Johnnie laughed then, and he was still laughing when the door closed behind him, and he found himself standing in the cool dark of the evening.

* * *

You guys are the greatest!
Posted at BoyChat by True Boylover on Saturday, March 17, at 9:05 PM

All the posts and e-mails you guys have been sending me have really helped! My life is so much better than it was a month ago.

White Rose, thanks for pointing out to me At Peace's post at the Christian Boylove Forum about warning signs of sex addiction. I went through the checklist, and I can see I'm going to have to start cleaning up my life. (I won't say how here, because it might break the rules.)

Conscientious Objector, your advice about daily meditation is GREAT. My apartment building is a bit too noisy for that sort of thing, but I've found a cabin in the woods nearby that no one seems to use, and it's the perfect spot for clearing my mind in the way you suggested.

I like what you said about the Hindus using sacred sexuality as a way to reach the Inner Self, but I'm having problems, because every time I try to focus on the image you suggested – a man and a boy kissing each other – I end up having one of my rape fantasies again. I don't think it's supposed to work that way, so maybe you could tell me what I'm doing wrong.

My life used to be really dull, with me spending endless evenings looking at stuff I shouldn't look at, but now I spend my evenings reading posts at BoyChat, and every day I feel a lot better. So thanks again!

Love,
True Boylover

Chapter Three

Log In

A little history lesson for the ignorant
Posted at Crossroads by Conscientious Objector on Friday, April 6, at 11:44 AM
In reply to Child abuse has occurred throughout history! posted by Concerned & Angry

"I don't know much about history"

That, ma'am, is all too obvious. You should avoid bragging about your shortcomings.

"but I do know that children have been abused in every age and culture, starting with the Greeks. Usually the abusers write tales very much like the ones that appear on the boylove boards, describing their 'love' in candy-sweet terms that fool the unwary. And tragically, whenever this happens, the boys and girls and women who are abused"

Ma'am, I wish I could get it through your head that I'm a BOYlover, not a girl-lover. The last time I showed any interest in a female's anatomy was when Cousin Bessie and I played Nurse and Doctor when we were both six, and even then the interest was purely intellectual.

I hate to shock you, but I'm opposed to sex between men and girls. I think that the scientific studies show fairly conclusively that girls react much more negatively to early sexual experiences than boys do (though even in that case there are exceptions). And of course young girls' bodies aren't designed for pregnancy. Sex in such cases is much more likely to result in trauma.

And that, without doubt, is why you CAs like to conflate the figures for man-girl sex and man-boy sex – because the unpleasant truth you're trying to avoid is that boys are psychologically and physiologically designed to enjoy sex earlier than girls are. That's why you and Pedo-Hag just can't understand boylove. Your sexuality is different from a male's.

"the boys and girls and women who are abused are never heard; they are the silent voices throughout history. We only hear the abusers' side of the story."

*Long sigh.* Look, ma'am, I'm a little rushed for time (as I have a very cute nine-year-old waiting for me to give him a bath), but I'll try to explain the history of boylove to you in the sort of one-syllable words that you can understand.

Here's how it worked in Greek times— No, wait; I can anticipate your cry of anguish at this point. "Greeks!" you say. "Weren't they pagans? Didn't we Christians show that the pagans were devil-worshippers who were stumbling in darkness?" So let me just point out first that boylove, in its various manifestations, was practiced by indigenous religions throughout the world, by the Buddhist samurai and the monks of Japan, by other Buddhists and Confucianists and Taoists throughout Eastern Asia, by the Jews of medieval Spain, and, until the Arab world was infected by Christian value systems, by the Muslims of every century. (I refer you here to the excellent essay on the history of pederasty by Sir Richard Burton at the end of his translation of the Arabian Nights, which I know you won't read, because it conflicts with your preconceptions.) It's the Christians who are blind, ma'am, not the pagans.

Back to the Greeks: At a certain age, boys were considered ready to be trained in the mysteries of love. The literary sources say that this was at age twelve; the art sources suggest that prepubescent boys were also involved. Never mind, the principle is the same: the adult decides that the boy is ready to learn about sex, just as today a father decides that his son is ready to learn about baseball or a mother decides that her daughter is ready to go to ballet school. (By the way, I take it from your remarks about "children not being ready to take on adult responsibilities" that you've never been granted the privilege of attending a ballet school or drama school or performing arts school, where kids are trained to participate in professional performances. Boot camps are easy by comparison; the kids thrive on the experience.)

The boy, of course, gets the choice of choosing his sexual partner. Here in our so-called enlightened Christian society, the only choice he would receive would be a girl his own age. Now tell me, ma'am, when your son wanted to learn baseball, did you send him off to learn it from a bunch of kids who knew no more than he did about the game? Or did you hire an adult coach who was practiced in the game?

I can say from personal experience that you need someone more practiced than yourself to learn lovemaking. Otherwise, you make the most godawful mistakes. I know a guy who foolishly followed his church's rule that he not have sex with anyone until he was married. Naturally, he made a mess of it on his honeymoon night, tearing his virgin bride's hymen all asunder and not giving her the type of extended foreplay that women enjoy.

The Greeks were wiser. For several years, the boy would be mentored by a man, not only in love but also in other important skills in life. This would last until the boy became a man himself; then he would take a loved boy into training and teach him all he knew. And only then, after the man had had fifteen or twenty years' worth of experience in lovemaking, would he take his bride to bed. Just think how much you would have enjoyed your honeymoon night, ma'am, if your husband had spent fifteen years being trained by his lover and training other boys in turn.

Now, the important point about this – it should not have escaped your reasoning powers, but I'm sure it has – is that every Greek boylover who wrote about how much pleasure a loved boy receives from having sex with a man had made love to men when he was a boy. There's the testimony you were looking for from your "child abuse victims."

By the way, ma'am, part of the deal in Greek times was that a boy could say no to a suitor. You still haven't explained why your husband didn't do so.

Conscientious Objector, because he won't break a boy's heart by saying no

You pedophiles make me want to scream!
Posted at Crossroads by Concerned & Angry on Friday, April 6, at 4:32 PM
In reply to A little history lesson for the ignorant posted by Conscientious Objector

WHY DIDN'T HE SAY NO? BECAUSE HE WAS NINE YEARS OLD!

Honestly, you people are so dense sometimes that I want to shake you till you come to your senses. If you tell a nine-year-old, "I'd like to do something with you that will make you very happy and that you'll enjoy tremendously," he doesn't say, "Hmm. Give me the details, and I'll decide whether I should go through with it." He trusts you, because you're an adult and he's a child. (Plus he's probably afraid you'll punish him if he says no, but I know that's something you'd prefer to forget.) So he lets you molest him, and when it's through he goes off and is sick, but does he tell you? OF COURSE NOT. You told him that sex would make him happy, so if it hasn't made him happy, then there must be something wrong with HIM, and he doesn't want you to know that he's weird. Besides, he can see that it makes YOU happy, and because you love him (or he THINKS you do), he wants more than anything to please you. So he's sick and he's sick and he's sick, till he's ready to kill himself rather than admit to you that he's miserable.

As for your tale about the abused becoming abusers in Greek society, that's called the generational cycle of abuse. You can read about it in any standard textbook on child abuse.

CA stands for Concerned & Angry

I agree
Posted at Crossroads by Pedo-Hag on Friday, April 6, at 4:48 PM
In reply to You pedophiles make me want to scream! posted by Concerned & Angry

I have to echo what Concerned & Angry says. Conscientious Objector, I know that you don't like me using girls as examples, but I think my own experience could have happened to any boy, and I can tell you that it just didn't occur to me that I could say no to my father. He was the adult, everything in my life depended on him, so of course I said yes. And even when I heard a lecture on child abuse in school and knew that I should report him, it was still a wrenching decision. Can you imagine what it's like being a child who knows that she has a choice between suffering in silence or watching her father be sent to prison?

I believe that all of us here tend to project our own life experiences onto others. You've pointed out many times that abuse survivors project their own experiences onto your life, assuming that certain harm that occurred to them also occurred to you. What I think you haven't acknowledged is that this type of projection works both ways. Because you would have found it easy to say no to your older friend, you have been underestimating how difficult most children would find it to say no to an adult they admired.

I'm not saying that you've been intentionally distorting the experiences of abuse survivors. I just think it's human to believe that what other people have experienced is the same as what we have experienced.

Pedo-Hag
Co-Webmaster
Crossroads

You live in 21st-century America
Posted at Crossroads by Conscientious Objector on Saturday, April 7, at 5:05 AM
In reply to I agree posted by Pedo-Hag

Ma'am and ma'am, you both seem to have forgotten a simple fact: You do not live in Ancient Greece. If you had, you would have been freer to say no.

(I'm going to have to pretend for the purposes of this post that you're a boy, Pedo-Hag. It's a bit of a struggle, I'll admit.)

Suppose that you're a boy living in Ancient Greece, and a man says that he wants to have sex with you. You know that you have the right to say no. The reason you didn't know this in 21st-century America is that you were brought up in a society that refuses to acknowledge that some boys and men like to have sex with each other. If you'd lived in a society where this was all out in the open, other people would have been watching, and any suitors who harassed you would have had to explain their behavior to other adults, just as a man who sexually harasses a woman is forced to explain himself to other people in our society.

Abuse is less likely to occur in a society where true love is openly permitted. Once you understand that, you'll see why a society that allows boylove is less likely to be burdened with real child abuse.

By the way, Concerned & Angry, I'm genuinely interested in how far you go with this anti-boylove stuff of yours. Would I make your body shake with indignation if I sent a Valentine to the boy who stayed with me last night? (He was a legal sixteen-year-old, Pedo-Hag, so take your finger off that delete key.) Is it the love you object to, or just the sex? If it's the latter, I know a Puritan when I smell her.

Conscientious Objector, who thankfully lives these days in a country that is less infected with Puritanism

P.S. Oh, and when your son gets married because you've brainwashed him into thinking that is his only sexual option, I assume that you'll be adding yourself to the next edition of your child abuse textbook as an example of a perpetrator of the "generational cycle of abuse."

WHAT?!!!
Posted at Crossroads by Concerned & Angry on Saturday, April 7, at 9:42 AM
In reply to You live in 21st-century America posted by Conscientious Objector

OF COURSE I DON'T WANT YOU TO SEND A LOVE POEM TO A BOY! ARE YOU CRAZY?

Adding my two cents
Posted at Crossroads by Pedo-Hag on Saturday, April 7, at 9:46 AM
In reply to WHAT?!!! posted by Concerned & Angry

Actually, Conscientious Objector, I find it kind of flattering to be thought of as a boy around here. Though you aren't exactly my ideal for a mentor, I can think of lots of boylovers here who I would have been glad to have as nonsexual mentors when I was young.

I'm afraid that once again my experience leads me to disagree with you, because my father started courting me (from his perspective) when I was thirteen, and he didn't have sex with me till I was fifteen. In many ways, those first two years were the worst. I knew something was wrong – I knew that grown men don't usually take thirteen-year-olds out dancing – but I couldn't figure out what was wrong, so I didn't know how to stop it. How could I say, "No, please, Daddy, take back that mink coat because it makes me feel sick"? It was almost a relief when he took me to bed finally and I figured out what this was all about.

What I have a hard time putting across to you (because your experience was so different) is that much of my pain did not come from the sex at all. It came from the idea of being forced to enter into a romantic relationship with an adult. I sought parental love from my father; instead, he gave me romantic Valentines. So many children are desperately looking to adults to be nothing more than parents, teachers, and yes, mentors. Is it fair to take this away from them for the sake of the few boys, like yourself, who have wanted sex?

I wouldn't bother to ask such a question if I wasn't convinced that you, like everyone else here, genuinely cares about boys' welfare. That's the common ground I hope we can build upon during these discussions.

Pedo-Hag
Co-Webmaster
Crossroads

From: goldstar@freespirits.org
To: whiterose@anonymail.com
Date: April 7, 11:05 PDT
Subject: Re: My love life

On April 7, at 13:30 EDT, whiterose@anonymail.com wrote:

<<No loved boys – I've never had a sexual relationship with a boy.>>

Well, that's a relief. You've saved me having to give you my lecture on the benefits of waiting until the laws are changed. :)

Seriously, if you ever consider having sex with a boy, I hope you'll discuss the matter with me. I've had too many friends get the idea into their heads that a sexual relationship with a boy now would be like it was in the good ol' days of Greece. They've found out too late the effects on the boy of having an illegal relationship.

<<I've had four young friends, though.>>

Ah, so you're polypais, many-boyed. (Honestly, it's a legit word. I found it in the Liddell-Scott Greek dictionary.) I'm the monogamous type myself, though my first relationship ended in divorce. (So to speak; at any rate, I haven't seen the boy for fifteen years.)

<<My first relationship was in many ways the nicest. He was a boy I tutored in math through a mentorship program in college, and I wasn't at all attracted to him, so I knew from the start that my love of boys wasn't selfish. I wasn't just spending time with boys for my own pleasure.>>

Brick belongs to a mentoring program, and he says that he makes a point of searching out the ugliest boys he can find, because he knows that they're the ones least likely to be picked by other mentors (even non-ped mentors).

<<My second and third loves were a pair of twins; they were sons of one of my father's business partners. I started by babysitting them when they were ten, and I remained a sort of uncle figure to them until they went off to college.>>

There's a debate going on at BoyChat at the moment over whether boylovers should view themselves as mentors or as romantic partners. Personally, I think that boylovers who argue that their young friends are their equals in a