Dear NAMBLA:
I recently turned 15 years old and would like to commend NAMBLA on the Bulletin. I figured I would write to help educate your readers on what a 15-year-old thinks and sometimes has to go through in the 80s and now the 90s.
My father is an alcoholic and my mother passed away when I was ten. My life was in prepubertal turmoil. My father, when drinking, was verbally and physically abusive. In my opinion he really didn't care what I did. On many occasions I had to prepare my own meals. I already knew that I stood alone. It was time to run. I started missing school and became a streetwise tough.
I feel that I am a sensitive person and considerate to others, the way my mother was. But it wasn't always that way. Loneliness shadowed over me. I started at about 11 years old to steal and cheat my way through life, vandalizing property and the very things I loved most. I was lost, not knowing who I was.
From what I can remember about mother, she was an absolute angel, considerate and very willing to help others who were in need, sometimes taking from herself. Even though my father never gave her anything, she sometimes gave what she had most of and that was love for people. My mother understood life. But not enough to pull herself out of a crisis.
Despite all the good I remember about her, I continued to do the things I was doing. Even when I didn't want to do things, I forced myself into doing them for the hell of it.
Then one day when I was riding my skateboard at a local park I noticed a man about 30ish staring at me. At the time I had no idea what man/boy love was. However, I knew what faggots were. On the streets, me and my friends used to tease and harass them. I assumed he was one.
This particular day it was hot and I was thirsty. There was a water fountain about maybe ten feet from where this man was sitting. I was thirsty and decided to take the chance. I skated over to the fountain only to find out that it was broken. I looked back only to find the man standing in back of me. "Thirsty are ya?" he said. I looked up at him and said in a wise tone, "What's it to you?"
"I mean no harm," he replied, "just offering to buy you a soda.” He said he had two children about my age at home. He told me he knew what it was like to be thirsty.
I immediately built up confidence with him. We went to a local store for a soda. He asked me to sit and talk with him for a while. To pass the time, I did. I sat with him for about two hours. Those two hours changed my life in a very positive way. The conversation we had, made me feel like someone again. That is where this story really begins. We discussed many things mainly about myself. I told him what had happened to me, and that I felt rejected and unloved by everyone. He understood my feelings. Just talking made me feel better, and like I was someone, something I hadn't felt since my mother died.
It was getting late and I had to go. We said good-bye to each other and walked in opposite directions, never setting another date to meet. I got about a block away, and suddenly realized how great a guy he was. I turned and jumped on my skateboard, cruising at full speed heading towards him to make another time when we could talk some more. He agreed to meet me the next day.
This time he prepared me a lunch and brought me a soda. He asked me if I wanted to ride to a state park to relax and to talk some more. I agreed, and that is where we went. When we arrived he took time to explain some of the wildlife, and also the process of evolution. His objective was to broaden my understanding of life, and the difficulties of what anything in life has to go through to survive. We walked through the park for hours talking, and I felt a very special bond between us. He encouraged me to stay in school. Looking back at the steps he took before even bringing up school still fascinates me. He told me he was attending university and almost finished with his engineering degree, which made me feel all the more special. See, in my neighborhood there are not a whole lot of educated people, let alone someone who would get involved with me.
Over the next few months a deep friendship developed between us. I eventually found out that he wasn't married with children, he was a poor student who didn't have anything. I think that I became his biggest asset, as he was to me. My attendance in school improved as did my grades. I didn't feel dirty anymore, no matter how much my father tried to make me do so.
He took a lot of time trying to get through to my father, to help him enter alcohol rehab in order to save his job- the only good thing about my father- and he was about to lose it. He contacted my teachers and my friends' parents, trying to get advice on how he could raise the quality of my life. Surprisingly there were no suspicions on why he asked so many questions. Quite frankly, I had no idea myself.
Like I mentioned, he was poor himself, however, he bought me clothes. Not expensive ones, but clothes that raised my confidence within myself. He also directed some attention on keeping me off the street, in an indirect way, by spending a lot of quality time with me.
As the months passed by my hormones started kicking in. Puberty was on its way. At night I would get erections. All of this was unexplained. Questions would have to be asked. But to whom? You guessed it. I was embarrassed to inquire, but I got myself together and went on a quest for sexual information.
I hope I'm not boring you guys out there.
Anyway I explained to him the occurrences I was experiencing. He explained in detail the reproductive process, also the sexual behaviors of a variety of people including man/boy love. At first it was a little scary. I kinda put two and two together and asked him if I was there for that reason. He replied calmly, "Only if you want it.” The conversation was dropped at that point. It was to give me a lot of thinking to do. I went home that night and started writing my very first journals. This man had given me so much in the year or so since I'd known him, and I had given him so little. It was time to repay what I called a debt.
I went over to his apartment the next evening and asked him what he meant about what he said the previous night. He told me that he was a little scared that I would never talk with him again, and that he should have never brought it up. I explained to him it was all right, and that I didn't know how to start. "I'll show you if you're ready and if you want me to show you," he said. He also stated that sex wasn't the most important thing in our relationship, but could be very gratifying if we did it right.
We went into his bedroom, and he asked me to sit on his bed. He tried to make me as relaxed as possible. I think he was as nervous as I was. He massaged my back and gradually worked his hand down to the button on my pants. He looked at me and asked me once more if I was sure that I wanted to go through with it. I hesitated and replied yes. [. . .] How gentle he was. [. . .] I'd never felt anything like it. [. . .] A relationship was in the making, at my own pace. (Eventually I did get better in bed.)
The months went by. Nothing could have been better between us. Until I made a big mistake and went with another guy that I met in an arcade. I really didn't feel there was anything wrong with it. By this time I was more experienced and wanted to seek adventure. Till this day I don't know how he found out about it. He got very angry at me and didn't want to see me anymore. I had hurt him in such a way that now I understand. After three months of being away, I had to make restitution with him. I tried calling him, just to hear his answering machine telling anyone who called that he would get back to them as soon as possible. He was lost and I was right behind him.
And pretty soon I again would have nothing. My father was selling our house. He could no longer maintain it with no income. But he had enough to drink every day. He was just going to get an apartment somewhere in Maryland. I had the feeling that he didn't want me with him. I lost interest once again in school, though I did attend. How could I be so stupid, I asked myself over and over again.
Then one day by coincidence I bumped into my friend on the street. I walked over to him. His first words were, "Take that earring out of your ear and do something with that hair."
"I'll see you tonight, I guess," I replied.
"Here's five dollars for a haircut. Intelligent people don't walk around like that," he said.
And we parted. That night I went over to his apartment and resumed our relationship, never once bringing up what happened.
It's a little over four years since we've known each other. He since graduated college and is living in another city, away from his apartment which I currently occupy at his expense. He is currently employed at a major company, making six times what my father ever made. My father is still drinking heavily. I no longer speak with him for obvious reasons. I am in the 11th grade doing well, and hope to be emancipated next year from my father. I am drug-free and also anti-drug. I hope to further my education. Maybe I'll set up a shelter someday for homeless and for abused boys.
I guess the point that I wanted to make which inspired me to write this article for your magazine is that I've heard so many bad things about pedophiles and the harm that they cause to kids. In some cases this may be true. If you are a boy-lover, don't supply boys with drugs. We already live in an oppressed society. It's difficult already growing up. Not everyone's situation is as bad as mine was. But due to someone who cared, my life has new meaning. My life has been for the last four years and will be more functional than it would have been even if my mother would have lived.
Please don't abuse the situation by incorporating pornography into your feelings towards us boys. You get caught and it makes the pedophiles who really care for boys look even worse than what people already think.
I also want to take time to compliment Louis Miguelito on his article in the May '92 Bulletin. Many readers probably couldn't understand what he meant. I think maybe I do. I wish you much luck in the future. Just feels like I know you.
The Peanut -- Delaware