The Role of Androphilia in the Psychosexual Development of
Boys
David L. Riegel
Abstract
It is generally recognized that boys, and especially
later prepubertal and young adolescent boys, are openly attracted to older boys
and men. They identify with these more mature, most often unrelated, males;
they want to learn about the masculine world; they want to "be like"
these people. This paper examines both pre-victimological and more recent
literature in order to consider the extent to which boys' generalized
inclinations to explore, experience, and enjoy their emerging masculinity in
the company of older males also may be manifested in their psychosexual
developmental interests, desires, and activities. Insights from the literature
concerning boys' perspectives are taken into account, and various extraneous
factors which may negatively impact boys' psychosexual development are
considered. The authenticity of this juvenile male androphilic sexuality is
found to be supported, as is the repression thereof as a significant dynamic in
young male social alienation and maladjustment.
Citing Hertoft
(1980, pp. 278-289), Frederiksen (1993) describes apprentice-love as the "attraction a [boy] may experience
toward an [older male] whom he . . . sees as a model or teacher." He
further identifies hero worship as a
form of that apprentice-love, which led in his day to the
"super-heroes" in "books, comics, and movies boys are interested
in" (p. 39). In today's electronic world, bookmarks on a boy's computer
may include websites about these people, and his bedroom walls may be plastered
with pictures and posters of his television heroes: noted male athletes,
musicians, and other public figures. This admiration and attraction also can
exist locally with a coach or teacher, a friendly neighbor, or even an older
boy.
It is accepted by most that it is both appropriate and advantageous for
boys to emulate older males and learn from them experientially, either on an
individual basis or through organizations such as Boy Scouts, Big Brothers,
etc. These arrangements are accepted, encouraged, and seen as good and positive
in almost every area of activity and learning, with the notable exception of
sexuality, which society has decreed must be scrupulously avoided. In the last
few decades, even physical contact previously considered casual and innocuous
has come to be viewed by some as having sexual implications. The almost
paranoid necessity for these avoidances has, unfortunately, severely reduced
the number of older males who are willing to interact with boys, especially on
a one-to-one basis, for fear of exposing themselves to the possibility of
suspicions no matter how unfounded or unsubstantiated of sexual interest.
Furedi and Bristow (2008)
document how "cultural distancing of generations weakens the bonds of
community life. . . . through policies that encourage the erosion of the older
generations in the joint enterprise of socializing youngsters" (p. xiii)
and Hayes (2008) notes that "the lack of male role models is of
concern" and that "effects on boys are detectable early in life,
especially in areas of social development" (p. 502). Thus many boys are
unable to find and interact with the male role models and mentors they are
seeking, and are deprived of the bolstered sense of self-worth and other
benefits that such relationships can provide.
Nevertheless, there is much truth
in the observation that, in spite of efforts to repress them, "boys will
be boys" and will tend to ignore
or sidestep what they see as specious social taboos. While it may not be
universal, and the level of activity and pursuit no doubt varies among
individuals, "Young boys are sexually active from a very early age
and will pursue their sexuality whenever they can find an opportunity to do
so" (Wilson, 1981, p. 134). To boys these explorations are simply a matter
of curiosity and physical pleasure: "Priests, doctors, psychiatrists, and
others have invested sex with magical powers . . . [but boys] . . . saw sex as
being no more than just a game. . . " (Wilson, pp. 129-130). The harm that
some consider the inevitable result of any sexual activities with older persons
(e.g., Finkelhor, 1981, 1984) is dismissed as minimal to nonexistent by the
boys themselves, "They regarded the experience with a certain robustness,
if not relish, . . ." (Ingram, 1981, p. 177; cf. Leahy, 1992; Riegel,
2006, 2009; Sandfort, 1987; Tindall, 1978). Further, the symbolism and other
emotional baggage which culture tries to impose on their native views of sexuality
tend to be of little importance to them (Hertoff, 1993, p.10; cf. Leahy, 1992;
Okami, 1991; Sandfort, 1987), as most who have been boys, and who know and have
known boys as equals and confidants, can confirm. It is only when associated
with a serious emotional involvement typically with a girl and usually late
in adolescence or even into adulthood that a boy on his own may begin to
perceive sex as having emotional connotations and consequences. But until these
become significant, and so long as they fend off the incessant drumbeat of the
ideology that sex is something mysterious and unfathomable, a concept that
Wilson, as quoted above, refers to as "magical powers," it would seem
that many boys perhaps most tend to operate primarily within what they see
as the intuitively logical paradigm that sexuality absent physical force or
any other extrinsic coercion has no original intrinsic morality or immorality
of its own, and that any abstract moral values which other persons may attempt
to assign to sexuality are irrelevant to them (Riegel, 2006, 2009; Sandfort,
1987). Furthermore, a boys sense of immediacy is unlikely to allow for
delaying the exploration of his sexual curiosity and urges until some socially
mandated arbitrary time in what to him is the distant future. Both Wilson (1981, p. 133) and Holt (1974,
p. 270) have made the point that children should have the right to control
their own sex lives, and social and/or governmental interference with this
right is not only likely to be futile, but to result in the alienation of these
young people from their own society.
Innocence, Morality, and Relationships
Much is said about boyhood "innocence," but Calderone (1979)
and Levine (2002), among others,
have pointedly made the case that children are in no way unaware of their own
sociobiologically inherited sexuality. This innocence or more properly,
"ignorance" instead results from mythical qualities (i.e., Wilson's
"magical powers") that are attached to sex by those who dictate
"morals" to other human beings, such as Finkelhor (1981, 1984) and
Ondersma, Chafin, Berliner, Cordon, Goodman, and Barnett (2001 p. 711). This
ignorance may indeed be blissful until it collides head-on with societal sexual
taboos and restrictions.
Under this mantle of sex-negative morality, previous research evidencing
boys' willing participation in sexual exploration (e.g., Constantine &
Martinson, 1981; Gebhard, Gagnon,
Pomeroy, & Christenson, 1965; Sandfort, 1987; Tindall, 1978; Trobriands, 1993; Wilson, 1981) is disparaged,
and the expressed insights and introspections of boys in this body of research
are ignored by authors such as Conte (1985), Finkelhor (1981, 1984), Johnson (1988) and Ondersma et al. (2001). These moralists
unilaterally decree that boys have neither the
capacity to understand and/or evaluate their own personal sexuality, nor the
right to participate willingly in sexual exploration with other persons. Even
the usually accepted sex play of boys with their male peers is called into
question by some (e.g., Cunningham & MacFarlane, 1998; Johnson,
1988; for criticism see Okami, 1992). Boys
thus are forbidden any sexual contact with other persons a proscription which
is perhaps especially vigorous in respect to older males, but which boys may
very well see as nothing more than an unwelcome and illegitimate intrusion into
their private affairs.
Even though homosexuality has been largely depathologized, negative
attitudes toward homosexual behaviors persist in the United States and some
other countries. A particularly prevalent and insidious myth is that boyhood
sexual explorations with males are indicative of incipient homosexuality, an
accusation that can be especially onerous to adolescent boys. Another
impediment to boys' development is the campaigning of some feminists who view
boys' psychosexual masculinization as an undesirable sexist and antisocial
quality (e.g., Gilligan, 1996; Johnson & Steinem, 1997). These and other similar factors may
contribute to the feelings of estrangement described by Wilson ". . . young people in western countries
feel sexually repressed, alienated from adult company, and emotionally
bankrupt" (1981, p. 134; cf. Prescott, 1975).
As noted by Vanggaard (1969), the
male sexual worlds of the boy, the older adolescent, and the man are neither
exclusive nor incompatible, they have much in common and constitute a shared
and unbroken continuum. A boy's sexual world no doubt is intrinsically and
inalienably very real and important to him, no less so than is the sexual world
of any other human being. Therefore, from the boy's point of view a view to
which science would do well to pay more attention it must be an inexcusable
offense against his masculinity, indeed, against his very humanity, to attempt
to make him feel guilty about his sexuality, to deny the existence of his
sexual world, and/or to forbid him to explore, experience, and enjoy that world
and the continuum of which it is a part. Various authors have commented on
this:
[L]earning about
sex in our society is in large part learning about guilt, and learning how to
manage sexuality . . . involves learning how to manage guilt" (Simon &
Gagnon, 1970, p. 34).
Sex robs children of their innocence, we
are told, as though the introduction to the world of sexual gratification is an
initiation into a world of guilt and burdensome knowledge which somehow spoils
the perfection of childhood (Klooger, 2009, p. 87).
Imagine, if you can, something you
experience often and intensely as real and present being accorded no
recognition of its existence whatsoever by the world around you. Or imagine
this real and intense experiencing of yourself being subjected over and over to
severe, totally bewildering disapproval and punishment. What kind of
silently tormenting existential hell is this to which we consign our children
from their earliest memories? Do any ever manage to live through it with
their . . . sexuality undistorted? (Calderone,
1979, p. 6, italics in original).
[C]hildren who are seeking a close
relationship with an adult do not necessarily feel that there is such a big
chasm between close mental and physical contact in the general sense and the
kind of contact which we . . . label as sexual (Hertoft, 1993, p. 9).
While the sexual aspect of a boy's
chosen relationship with an older male may only be a pleasurable and temporary
adjunct, his emotional attachment to that male may be of much greater
significance and duration (Sandfort, 1987), and depending on the depth and
intensity of the relationship, unwanted interruption for any reason potentially
could leave him "heartbroken" (Seligman, 1993, p. 232). In a
retrospective Internet sample of 103 such relationships, 80 were reported as
being at least somewhat important, 75 lasted over one year and 48 over two
years, while non-negative effects were reported by 90 and positive effects by
59 (Riegel, 2006, 2009).
Credibility
In Western cultures where boys are
explicitly prohibited from exploring their sexuality with older males, the
severest of punishments are inflicted on their partners, and, collaterally, on the boys themselves (Wilson, 1981, p.133), under "laws seemingly designed
for the protection of the young [which] are really intended to control
them" (Mirkin, 1999a, p. 503). But
the extent to which this prohibition is routinely and massively ignored raises
further questions as to its underlying premises and intrinsic legitimacy. Data
examined by Rind, Tromovitch, and Bauserman (1998), indicate that, in spite of stringent social prohibitions, 17%
of college males had sexual contacts with older persons when they were boys, some two thirds of whom reported their
experiences as nonnegative and thus presumably to some degree willing.
Additionally:
Among all samples, the Landis [1956] reaction data were the most
negative. In computing mean reactions across samples we employed weighted means, thereby giving the most
weight to Landis' negatively skewed data. . . . Using the weighted approach,
mean positive and negative reactions were 37 and 33 percent, respectively.
Using an unweighted approach would
have yielded . . . 43 and 30 percent. Dropping the Landis data completely would
have yielded . . . 50 and 24 percent (Rind, Tromovitch, & Bauserman,
p. 22, italics in original).
Therefore,
depending on the approach taken, from three eights to one half of boyhood
sexual experiences with older persons were perceived as positive, and as much
as three quarters as non-negative. It should also be noted that because of the
likely underreporting due to the stigma associated with such contacts,
especially when the older partner is male, the 17% incidence figure is almost
certainly an underestimate.
But applying even this minimal percentage to the ninety million males 15
or more years old in the United States census of 2000 produces a figure of some
fifteen million of what some would label as "male victims of child sexual
abuse," but which others, apparently including many of the participants
themselves, consider to be consensual, non-abusive, and personally satisfactory
sexual experiences. Gebhard et al. (1965), in their classic study of sex
offenders done for the Kinsey Institute four decades ago, documented three
levels of willingness among boys sexually involved with men, finding that in
the majority of cases the boys encouraged the sex, especially early adolescent
boys. For boys aged 12 to 15, according to the boys' accounts in official court
records, 70% of them were encouraging, 11% of them passively consented, and 17%
were coerced or forced (2% were classified as mixed cases). Similar indications of willing participation
have been reported by Bentham (~1785), Bender and Blau (1937), Kinsey, Pomeroy, and Martin (1948),
Tallman (1953), Tindall (1978), Sandfort (1987), and others. It would seem that in the real world the prohibition of boy/older male
sexual contacts has little credibility with many of its intended young
subjects.
Questions and Hypotheses
Given the academic antipathy (e.g., Conte, 1985; Finkelhor, 1981, 1984; Ondersma
et al, 2001), social service inquisitions (Goodyear-Smith, 1993; Levine,
2002), and zealous law enforcement
coupled with media hyperbole (Dineen, 2001; Jenkins, 1998; Salkin, 2006) with which society attempts to stifle childhood sexual explorations with
older persons in general, and more specifically this apparent seeking out by
boys of older males for sexual mentoring, puzzling questions emerge: Why, year
after harassed year, decade after beleaguered decade, generation after denying
generation, does this boyhood androphilic phenomenon continue to persist,
apparently undiminished (Schopenhauer,
1819/1958)? Is there something
inherent in the psyche of many if not most boys which is irresistibly drawn
to older males for mentoring, including sexual instruction, experimentation,
and enjoyment? Is there something inherent in the psyche of some if not many
older males (Freund, 1970) which
predisposes them to accept and participate in both the nonsexual and sexual
explorations and education of boys?
Nearly 40 years ago, Danish psychiatrist Thorkil Vanggaard (1969)
investigated these issues and proposed the existence of a mental or psychic
attribute which he called the "homosexual radical" to describe the
sexually expressed attraction that he saw as existing between boys and older
males, carefully excluding what we know today as adult male homosexuality. He
defined this radical as: "[S]omething inherent in humans, something which,
. . . exerts a powerful pressure, and which therefore has to be dealt with
either by being given discharge in some form, or by being suppressed in one way
or another" (p. 16). Supported by the above mentioned wholesale flaunting
of prohibitions by boys apparently driven by this radical, as well as by many
recent, historical, and cross-cultural examples (e.g., Ford & Beach, 1951; Kinsey et al., 1948; Murray, 2002;
Percy, 1996; Sandfort, 1987), Vanggaard's proposition would seem to be quite
reasonable and logical.
Additionally, it can be hypothesized that
a tendency for boys to be sexually attracted to older males is an evolutionary
development. Feierman's Pedophilia:
Biosocial Dimensions (1990) compilation took the concepts of Wilson's Sociobiology (1975) and applied them to
the issues of sexually expressed child/older person relationships, devoting
four chapters by four different authors to the evolutionary aspects of these
issues. In his introduction, Feierman noted that "Selected behavior that
leads to an increased chance for the individual to survive and reproduce is
called adaptive behavior" and that "aspects of the behavior result
from an interaction of genetic and nongenetic determinants and . . . genetic
determinants were subjected to positive selective pressures . . . in our
evolutionary past" (p. 2).
Proceeding from Feierman's thesis,
it can be postulated that in prehistoric times it is likely that many children,
due to violence, disease, poor nutrition, and life spans that were considerably
shorter than what we have considered normal for the past couple of centuries,
found themselves without either parents or other adults who would be willing to
take on the burden of looking after and feeding a not yet productive child.
However, a boy who was sexually androphilic (Vanggaard, 1969) would have the
potential advantage of closely bonding with an older male whose sexuality
included a male-directed pedosexual component, and who would preferentially
protect, provide for, and teach the boy the skills necessary to survive and
prosper. Studies have identified such secondary boy-attracted pedosexual
tendencies in 20 to 30% of self-identified heterosexual adult males (Freund,
1970; cf. Briere & Runtz, 1989, Quinsey, 1984, West, 1980), and these tendencies
would not be selected against so long as the bearers were primarily
heterosexual and only secondarily male-oriented pedosexual. There is no reason
to believe that these percentages were not similar in prehistoric times; there
is some evidence for familial transmission (Gaffney, Lurie, & Berlin,
1984). In the absence of our modern day taboos, such adaptive and beneficial
boy/older male relationships could proceed unimpeded, the boys juvenile
androphilic sexuality would typically be supplanted by heterosexuality as he
matured (Sandfort, 1987), he would then pass on his genes, and thus both of
these traits would be maintained in the gene pool.
Cross-cultural
Comparisons
Current ethnocentric "consensus morality" (Rind, 2002) holds
that all other cultures and times are/were inferior to the present state of
Western enlightenment, and that victimology and child sexual abuse anxiety are
significant and superior features of the current culture. However, there is
much evidence that the sexually expressed relationships between boys and older
males that are reviled and prosecuted today were considered innocuous,
acceptable, desirable, or even the norm in many other times and places and in
some cultures still are (Murray, 2002). Percy (1996), for example, has cited writings from classical Greece
stating that such relationships were one of the factors that distinguished
Greek society from the "barbarians." Various other authors, including
but certainly not beginning with or limited to Ford and Beach (1951), Bliebtreu-Ehrenberg (1991), Bauserman (1997), and continuing on
through Murray's 507 page magnum opus
(2002), have catalogued and described an impressive number and large variety of
accepted and/or institutionalized sexual contacts of boys with older males wherein
the boys were not only willing partners, but desirous of the relationships. In
Melanesia, oral and anal insemination "is initiated by the young
adolescents themselves" in order for them, based on their beliefs, to
mature into men, and "appears for all practical intents and purposes to be
grounded in personal affection rather than obligation" (Murray, 2002, p.
32).
Sexologist, physician, and legal scholar
Richard Green (2002) has presented his own list of such cultures, including the
Siwa of northern Africa wherein males of all ages seek out and practice anal
intercourse with other males (Ford & Beach, 1951, pp.131-132), and the
Etoro of New Guinea, where a boy who receives semen from an older male does so
to "make him grow and strengthen," and who "is demonstrating his
desire to be masculine" (Murray, 2002, p. 33). Green observed: "These
cross-cultural examples are not cited to argue for similar practices in Los
Angeles or London," then rhetorically asked: "But are we to conclude
that all the adults engaged in these practices were mentally ill?" (2002,
pp. 467-468). Multiple additional examples could be provided from the authors
cited above, but those cited are sufficient to frame the question: If willing
boyhood androphilic sexual activities with older males are not psychopathogenic
in North Africa or New Guinea, then on what rational basis can Western culture
justify defining similar voluntary behaviors as supposedly psychologically
and/or emotionally traumatic in Chicago or Cambridge?
Cross-cultural comparisons of
sexualities tend to elicit the criticism that: "Well, some cultures also
engaged in infanticide, human sacrifice, and cannibalism," and these and
other repugnant practices have, in fact, appeared in history. But, unlike these
relative rarities, boy/older male mutual sexual attractions and/or interactions
do not normally cause bodily harm, are generally evident in every time and
culture, and are of "universal nature and persistent ineradicability"
(Schopenhauer, 1819/1958, p.
562). Stekel also noted that "My daily contact with patients proves to me
. . . the phenomenal ubiquity of pedophilic tendencies" (1922/1952,
p.284). One has only to consider the previously mentioned statistics (Rind et
al., 1998) and their extrapolation to realize that this ineradicability and
ubiquity of boyhood sexual androphilia is very much in evidence today in the
United States and other Western countries, and perhaps even more so in other
places in the world whose cultures are not yet so extensively affected by Western
influence. Ethnographically, in
cultures where such interactions are not pathologized, willing participation
apparently is nearly 100%. The question then becomes: In this ongoing
clash between, on one hand, the intrinsic, universal, ubiquitous, and apparently
benign or even beneficial sexually androphilic nature of boys, and on the other
hand, Western extrinsic, ethnocentric, inconsistent, restrictive, and
potentially iatrogenic "moralities" (Mal๓n, 2009b), which should take
precedence?
The Internet
The Internet, especially in the
United States, has opened up a new and virtually uncontrollable venue for
children and adolescents to reach out for personal contacts. Various web sites
oriented to young people provide for the posting of personal information, and
the chat forums on these sites permit initial contacts which can lead to
private conversations on line or by other means. For a tech-savvy androphilic
boy looking to establish contact with an older male, these sites provide both
an escape from outside interference and potentially anonymous opportunities to
investigate potential sexual contacts, with the option of unilaterally
terminating any unwanted conversations with the click of a mouse. The sheer
number of these private conversations makes it logistically impractical to
monitor or control what is discussed, so an unknown, since this obviously
cannot be investigated or quantified, number of these may lead to in person
meetings which may include sex. Describing these liaisons, Wolak, Finkelhor,
and Mitchell (2004) invoke the standard terminology of "victim" and
"offender" while admitting that many are consensual and repetitive,
but then go on to say that young people need to be convinced that what they do
freely and willingly is seen by society as inappropriate and detrimental.
A principal response developed thus far by
law enforcement is the "sting" operation, directed not at the boy
(who cannot be entrapped without first being illegally "seduced") but
at his hoped-for older friend, in which operatives pretend on line to be
androphilic boys who are receptive to sexual invitations, thus luring the older
males who respond into real life meetings (i.e., de facto entrapment) where they are arrested and fed to the media
as evidence of pedophilic depravity and police effectiveness (Salkin, 2006).
One view of these unfortunates is as naive or imprudent or even downright
stupid to fall for such a transparent ruse, but another very credible
possibility is that there may be such ongoing substantial numbers of undiscovered
successful boy/older male liaisons that those entrapped are only a fraction of
those who succeed, thus the vast majority and especially the more experienced
and wary are unlikely to stumble into these ambushes: ". . . you simply
can't get caught . . . if you know what you're doing, . . . " (Gillespie,
2008). Law enforcement, the media, and some activists seem to be convinced that
this is the case, at least judging from the hyperbole about the pervasiveness
of these "evils" and the pleas for greater funding to combat them
(e.g. Fournier, 2008).
Also, according to the media
reports, many of these ensnared older males turn out not to be the
playground-haunting "turned down fedora and trenchcoat with candy in the
pockets" caricature of the sociopathic child molester. They instead tend
to be personable, bright, well educated, and socially successful individuals:
teachers, Scout leaders, clergy, policemen, attorneys, judges, etc., that is,
people who are eminently capable of contributing positively to boys' overall
development if the sexual involvement were not so unacceptable. It is heretical
in today's sociopolitical climate to suggest that such contacts may not be
intrinsically injurious; nevertheless it is interesting to reflect on the
possibility that these Internet facilitated liaisons in some cases might be
serving the dual positive functions of harmlessly satisfying boyhood needs and
desires for androphilic sexual exploration and other mentoring, while providing
equally harmless connections for older males who are emotionally and sexually
attracted to such boys. It even might be that by providing an
"outlet," these contacts reduce the likelihood that either the
younger or older males out of frustration will commit antisocial or even
violent sexual acts, as in the case of 15-year-old Sam Manzie, a victim of what
appears to have been a dysfunctional family, inept social and legal services,
and overzealous law enforcement. Sam apparently was pushed over the edge when
his highly valued and voluntary relationship with an older male was destroyed
by police interference, and he impulsively and senselessly raped and murdered
11-year-old Eddie
Werner (Dribben, 1997).
Lessons Not Learned
Beginning in the 1700s and continuing
through the middle of the 20th century, it was claimed that childhood and
adolescent masturbation were intrinsically harmful, even to the extent of
causing insanity, although this activity is now known to be innocuous and even
beneficial (Hare, 1962; Laqueur, 2003; Mal๓n, 2009a). Money (1985),
paraphrasing Santayana, noted that the many parallels between the now defunct
masturbation hypothesis and the victimological child sexual abuse hypothesis
were "an example of those who have not learned from history being
condemned to repeat it, replete with all its dreadful consequences" (p.
97). Another sacred cow was the concept of marriage as the only permissible
venue for sexual intercourse, with virginity prior to the wedding being vital.
Those who failed to conform were seen as "trash" and children born
outside of marriage were considered "bastards," but this nonsense now
largely has been consigned to the rubbish heap of history. With homosexuality
at least theoretically no longer available as a "hate" target, the "magical
powers" fable (Wilson, 1981, p. 129) which society inflicts on the
sexuality of children and adolescents is perhaps the last remaining major
bastion of Augustinian sexophobic morality. The only responses that
self-realization-seeking androphilic boys and other young people would seem to
receive are more stringent restrictions (raising the age of consent), more
repression ("abstinence only" sex education), and increased
persecution (through their older partners). But here again, the disregard for
these prohibitions pointed out by Rind et al. (1998) and the apparent explosion
of sexual interactions originating through the Internet are giving clear
indications that young people are as young people have done before
rejecting this taboo as meaningless, and are taking matters in their own hands.
Perhaps it is time for the rest of society to face up to this reality.
Controversy, Chills, and
Conclusions
There are, of course, many issues
in this paper which, while not new, admittedly are quite controversial and need
to be brought back into the bright light of full and open academic and
professional investigation and discussion, rather than as has been the case
for some two or more decades being summarily dismissed as polemical nonsense
or simply ignored or suppressed. What can only be described as a full scale war
(Mirkin, 1999b) on open and
honest research and discussion of boyhood androphilic sexuality has been, and
continues to be, waged by the pseudoscience of victimology (Money, 1988), the
"Psychology Industry," (Dineen, 2001), and the media (Jenkins, 1998).
The unfortunate victims of this war, besides the researchers holding positive
views about boyhood sexuality, include truth, boys, and older males who may be
very important to the well-being of these boys, and thereby society.
It is interesting to note that
various researchers have, when they were younger, evidenced an understanding
of, and professional respect for, boyhood androphilic sexual exploration with
older males. Their papers and books included phrases such as "positive
contact" with older persons, and sexual contacts between boys and older
males that were "positively experienced" (e.g., Leahy, 1992; Okami,
1991). Boys' sexually expressed "contacts with men" were described as
having "no negative effects," that they "might also have a
positive influence upon the youngsters," that "relationships [were]
based on personal factors of close friendship and trust," and that
children "may be (e.g.,
Bauserman, 1997; Constantine &
Martinson, 1981; Sandfort,
1987). In later life, however, almost all of these researchers for all intents
and purposes have at least publicly abdicated their insights in favor of
pragmatic self-preservation. I am aware from personal contact and private
communication with some of them that their withdrawal has much to do with the
danger of victimologically generated academic stigmatization and social
hysteria. This chilling effect began to be evident in the late 1980s, became
more pronounced in the 1990s, and, as a result, next to nothing new on the
subject of positively experienced boy/older male sexual relationships has been
published by academically based researchers since the end of the 20th century.
Also apparently as a result of these insidious pressures, some have left
academic research and writing in favor of other fields, and at least one has
left the homeland where he conducted his landmark research to teach other
subjects in another
country. Most of these formerly active researchers now completely avoid mention
of their earlier investigations and publications, but private communications
with some of them indicate that their views have not changed, only their public
expression of those
views. One in particular has been very helpful to this present author, but when
offered a coauthorship after making major contributions to another paper, he
demurred, noting that he did not wish to "jeopardize my family and
professional position."
And an email inquiry to another one about further research into boy/older male
sexual contacts elicited only an angry retort and an abrupt dismissal.
Dr. Paul Wilson, who, as of this writing,
holds the Chair of Criminology at Bond University in Robina, Queensland,
Australia, published what is perhaps the most profound apologetic ever for
juvenile male sexual androphilia (1981), noting in the introduction how
controversial the truths in the book would be: "The conclusions I draw . .
. are, it seems to me, inescapable, even if they are bound to be
unpopular" (p. vii). He, like the other researchers referred to above,
regretfully has written nothing more on these issues since, but nevertheless
this present paper could conclude in no better manner than with the following
quotes from this distinguished scholar who described, analyzed, and discussed
Clarence Osborne's self-recorded sexual contacts with some 2,500 boys (p. 1),
of whom "not one . . . ever complained to the police" (p. 2):
[C]hildren should have the right to
conduct their sexual lives with no more restrictions than adults . . . [and]
must be provided with all information about sex and related matters so that
they are in a position to make reasonable choices. . . . A punitive and
draconian justice system that directly punishes a paedophile, indirectly
scapegoats a boy who has been involved in a sexual relationship with an older
man, . . . and does so with an impact that severely damages both. . . . For the reality is that boys have come to
men and will continue, for time immemorial, to come to them in order to have
their sexual and emotional needs met (p. 133, emphasis added).
For [Clarence Osborne] has shown us
that . . . young people in western countries feel sexually repressed, alienated
from adult company, and emotionally bankrupt. . . . Young boys are sexually
active from a very early age and will pursue their sexuality whenever they can
find an opportunity to do so; young males wish to give and receive affection in
ways that we as a community have not clearly understood before; men who have
relationships with boys often do so for benevolent reasons. . . . But if we
don't heed the lesson that Osborne taught us, then we will continuously
reinforce bigotry and prejudice and we do so at the cost of further damaging
our children's welfare (pp. 134, 135).
Although the academic and media
uproar that followed the publication of Wilson's book has faded, and the wounds
that were inflicted over his failing to paint the "monster" and
"victims" that were expected and demanded must have largely healed in
the 30 years since that time, one may surmise that some of the pain and the
scars still remain. But despite all this acrimony, Wilson's perceptive and
incisive analyses and conclusions, like those of Sandfort (1987) and others,
have never been disproved, only disparaged and dismissed. For decades and
centuries the vast majority of research about boyhood sexuality unquestionably
was and still is severely compromised by the ideologies of what too many investigators
presumed "should be," instead of being an objective, unbiased and
impartial quest for "what is." It is therefore legitimate to ask,
even with the occasional insights of Wilson, Sandfort, and a few others, just
how much of the real intrinsic nature of boyhood sexuality is known and
understood and even more importantly, how much is recognized and accepted
by the academic and scientific communities.
Furthermore, the problems Wilson
and others have identified of young male sexual repression, alienation,
emotional bankruptcy, and the anger and antisocial behaviors these generate,
are still very much with us. Should not science at long last free itself from
"magical powers," ethnocentric superstitions, and narrow minded
taboos that cannot be shown to have any basis in fact, and which may well
exacerbate (Mal๓n, 2009b), rather than ameliorate, these afflictions that
burden young males? Crittendon (1996) proposed that consensual sexual
relationships between children and older persons be "considered more as a
common variant of human behavior than abnormal behavior" (p. 166), and it
would seem that the time has arrived to part company with the failed
pseudoscientific myths of victimology (Mal๓n, 2009a) and the child sex abuse
industry (Dineen, 2001), and to replace them with a model of boyhood
psychosexual developmental motivations and behaviors that is built upon honest
and unbiased empirical observations, truth, and reality a genuinely
scientific paradigm that accurately reflects, and properly serves, the
fundamental qualities and needs of boys.
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