| July
1999
What shall we do with boys?
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A friend of mine came across someone on the internet who made it clear that he
was only interested in 14-year-old boys. Piqued as to what such a person might
be like, my friend arranged to meet up with him. When the guy showed up, what a
surprise! He
turned out to be a gay 14-year-old himself! "It was a
very strange meeting," my friend told me. "We had almost nothing in common, and I felt really awkward
to be sitting there with this kid less than half my age."
A few months earlier, a Yawning Bread reader (he used to live in Singapore in the mid-1990s) told me of this experience:
The common factor between these two stories is the way in which the gay adults were taken aback by very forward 14- and 15-year-olds. The two cases differ, however, in that one raises the issue of sex among boys while the other raises the problem of sex between men and boys. They need to be discussed separately.
Singapore society absorbs a lot from the West, and the days when sex was not an option for closely chaperoned teenagers, are long gone. This is not quite a surprise to most of us when we think in terms of boy-girl relationships in secondary schools, a few of which end up in physical sex. However, at least to heterosexual adults, it is still a shock to think that boy-boy and girl-girl sex is happening alongside. But why shouldn't it happen alongside? It's very telling when someone is worldly about heterosex among teenagers, but still shocked at homosex among them. It suggests an implicit misbelief that homosexuality is an add-on option or choice, on top of the "normal" or "basic" sexuality that is cast in heterosexual terms. In this formulation, it is "natural" for teenagers to be dating opposite sex, even petting and sometimes more, but it is still shocking to contemplate that some among them are engaging in homosex. Furthermore, it is seen as something less than wholesome, like tobacco, and therefore they are more adamant about keeping youngsters away from homosex than from heterosex till "they are old enough". Such ideas do not accord with reality. Homosexuality is not an add-on to basic heterosexuality. It's not a choice. Nor is it harmful, any more than heterosex. In fact, one could say it is less harmful, since it does not lead to babies. Sexuality develops in a teenager from puberty onwards: some are heterosexual, some are homosexual. The increasing sexual curiosity for both sets develop at the same pace. If some heterosexual 15-year-olds go looking for friends of the opposite sex out of sexual interest -- whether for dating or bedding -- so some homosexual 15-year-olds will seek friends of the same sex for the same reasons. What we need to do as a society is to handle these trends realistically, e.g. sex education, and not be completely frigid about it.
If sex among teenage boys is a shock, just the mere mention of adults being involved brings on an epileptic fit. This is considered a completely taboo subject. When I intimated to a few persons my intention to touch on this subject in Yawning Bread, everyone advised me against it. I would be tarred with the paedophile brush just by even raising the issue. I'd be seen as a libertine. The emotiveness of this made me pause, but it also made it important to discuss the issue. Instinctively, I don't like taboos. We have brains to think, and no subject should be beyond the pale of intelligent enquiry. Discussing something doesn't mean we agree with it, it means an attempt to understand it. Despite what we may think, sex between men and boys has been common in history. The strong taboo that we blanket this issue with, is a recent invention. Recent doesn't mean it's wrong. After all, the ideal of women's equality is also a very, very recent one, and how many can say that is wrong? But nonetheless, I point out the historical perspective in order to highlight that how we view sex between men and boys is culture-dependent. At different times in history, in different places around the world, this subject has been viewed quite differently. Here are some examples: In Ancient Greece and Rome, sex between adult men and youths (i.e. post-pubertal boys) was fairly common. It's debatable exactly how acceptable it was, but it's been written about and depicted often enough in art for us to see that it was far from taboo. You can get a flavour of their time from the feature articles From Satyricon and The Cup, and all that filled it. You would notice that the precocity of the Roman youth in the story 'From Satyricon' mirrors that of the 15-year-old Singaporean on the Serangoon North feeder bus On the island of Crete, their culture had a ritual of men kidnapping youths for a few days to have sex with them. The boy would be returned home after the event with generous gifts as compensation. The interesting thing was, the captor would seek the assistance of the boy's friends to carry out the kidnap, and the friends would customarily help. Being kidnapped was part of growing up. In fact, a boy who was never so captured might feel extremely unwanted. It would be psychologically hurtful in their society not to be seized at least once. Right up to our present time, the Sambo tribe of New Guinea consider it important for young boys to fellate young men. Their belief is that while infants need mother's milk to survive and grow, a little older, the boys need to ingest men's milk to develop properly into masculine adulthood. Their culture requires young men of 19 or 20, to be sucked to orgasm by prepubertal boys. The book 'Passions of the Cut Sleeve', by Bert Hinsch [1], mentions many examples of intergenerational sex in China. Some are real-life accounts, some fictional treatments (which like all fiction, reflect contemporary society). The total impression one gets is that this was a continuing current running through over 2,000 years of Chinese culture. Of course these relationships were always coloured by the enormous class differences in what was a very unequal society. A Ming dynasty novel, 'The Golden Lotus', told of Ximen Qing's sexual relations with a handsome youth from Suzhou, nicknamed Shutong, giving a detailed look at the place of young male servants in wealthy Ming households. The boy compliantly said, "I will do your bidding in all things." In return for submitting to his master's sexual appetite, Shutong gained influence and prestige. Another example from the Ming period, set in the province of Fujian, which had a well-documented custom of male-male marriages, told of a brilliant and handsome scholar Jifang. The other partner was Ruiji, a beautiful 14-year-old from a poor family. Owing to a succession of natural calamities, all the men in their prefecture were ordered to attend a special temple festival to appease a deity. Since no women were allowed in, Ruiji excitedly predicted that during the festivities, everyone would be enjoying the "southern custom", i.e. homosex. He was not disappointed. Moreover, the assembled men held a beauty contest for handsome youths, and Ruiji won first place! Jifang fell in love with Ruiji and wanted to marry him. Accordingly, the former went to Ruiji's father to ask for his son's hand in marriage. In Fujian, bride prices for youths could be quite high, and some boys could fetch up to five hundred pieces of gold. In order to pay for the exceptionally attractive Ruiji, Jifang had to sell all his land. Some of the most beautiful youths went into acting. A nineteenth-century literatus described his personal reaction to a troupe of boy actors: "All of them were about 14 or 15 years old. After they finished their singing, they helped me with my drinks. They wore clothes made of light silk, their sleeves were narrow and tight. They were so delicate and lovely that one could not help but feel a sentiment of endearment." This slipped easily into prostitution. A Western visitor to the northern port city of Tianjin in 1860, estimated that its 35 male brothels contained approximately 800 boys. * * * * * * * * * * We should not read the past merely to condemn it by today's yardsticks. We have to treat different times and different places wholistically. But neither should we lamely point to some greater horrors of the past to excuse the redeemable ills of the present. Today, we are much more sensitised to exploitation. It is unacceptable, though admittedly, it's another problem altogether to decide how exactly to eradicate it. It think there is broad consensus that sex between a teenager and a much older adult presents a risk of exploitation. The older party is often in better command of the situation and his emotions. The younger one may not be fully equipped with knowledge or experience to fully understand what he is getting into. Even if he has freely given his consent, even if he initiated the sexual contact (as quite often happens!), that consent is compromised by this doubt in our minds. The reader who related the feeder bus story, ended by asking, rhetorically, what is our responsibility to those younger than us. My answer is that we should approach that as collective parents. Or, if you're still in your twenties, then as an elder brother. I think we should try to act in the teenagers' best interests. And generally speaking, it means: desist. Yet, I come back to the question of culture, which is a separate question from exploitation. Culture can paint homosex black even when there is no exploitation. As an aside, culture can paint it white too -- think of the Samba tribe where intergenerational fellatio is a cultural must! Exploitative situations are actually very rare, as rare in homosex as in heterosex. And among teenage boys interested in each other, rarer still. Yet our culture tends to paint it black. Our culture rejects the reality that all gay teenagers and not a few curious straight ones, would want to have a look at other's genitals, which can easily lead to playing with each other. It's part of adolescence and growing up. By itself, it is really the most natural course of events, but when our culture goes shrieking about perversion among the young, then the whole issue is deformed, even when no one has been hurt nor anyone been exploited. The damage to psyches is not from their developing sexuality. Rather, the damage, guilt and subsequent repression, is from the culture of strident phobia. So when it comes to gay 14-year-olds seeking out
other 14-year olds, or a 16-year-old dating a 15-year-old, I'd say to the
adults, hey, take it easy. Don't make a big monster out of something that is
really quite sweet. © Yawning Bread
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Footnotes
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