THE THIRD ACOLYTE READER
The Third Acolyte Reader, was published in November 1988 by The Acolyte Press, a publisher in Amsterdam recently founded by the American writer Frank Torey (1928-96) and dedicated exclusively to pederastic publications. It was the third of twelve volumes published over a decade when hopes for acceptance of Greek love had recently evaporated and it was coming under rapidly intensified persecution, both in the Netherlands and elsewhere. The stories in all the Acolyte Readers are by various authors, but they were all edited by Torey.
This article serves as both a synopsis and a review of the third volume’s content. The original list of contents is represented in brown. There was no introduction.
Contents [list, synopsis and review]
Unprecedentedly for this series, no less than seven of the dozen stories were by newcomers, and this was partly the cause of unfortunately sharp drop in quality. The stories in the Panthology/Acolyte Reader series were always a mixed bunch, but the preceding volumes all had two or three gems as well as a similar number of duds. In this one, at least half were duds and there was only one gem: old-timer Henderson’s Afters stands head and shoulders above all the rest. Mostly it is a poignant account of something not often written about, the inevitable end that every truly pederastic affair faces as a sexual relationship and the consequent evolution of the still special friendship that often endures. Deeply and fascinatingly realistic (again in contrast to all the other stories here), its brief description of full sex is also the most erotic, simply because it is convincing.
Four other stories are entertaining enough. A Different Drummer Boy and Small Blessings by newcomer Leonard Taft are appealing despite being slightly unrealistic, and so, just about, is Esser’s Boyfriends, while May’s Three Stories are whimsical fun.
The books in this series were firmly intended to appeal to pederasts, and it should be pointed out that, like images of beautiful 13-year-old boys, this will sometimes entail having nothing directly to do with Greek love. There had from the outset been the very occasional story that failed on these grounds to qualify for posting on this website, but in the volume now under consideration, there are two, hence it is time to point this out.
Greek love also features only briefly as the depressing and poorly integrated anticlimax to what is, unfortunately, by far the longest story, P. D. by I. L. Ingles. The best that can be said for this story is that it is not as dreadful as the same writer’s deeply disappointing full-length novel, Explosion.
At the other extreme, incessant and excessive man/boy sex is the undermining of Casimir Dukahz’s regular contribution. Though not mentioned in its introduction here, Dukahz had actually died five months before publication, so this was his last writing apart from the posthumously-published Shakespeare’s Boy. His characteristic erudite wordplay is still in full vigour, but it no longer sparkles much, and, like most of his writing in old age, the story is shallow and lacking the subtle emotional resonance of his oldest stories.
5. A Different Drummer Boy / Leonard Taft
Pennsylvania, 1863: a horny boy of 14 accidentally finds himself taken to the tent of a Confederate general and takes advantage of the man’s evident attraction to boys to get critical information for the Union army on the eve of the battle of Gettysburg. PDF.
18. Boyfriends / Kevin Esser
Pretty, free-spirited 14-year-old Ethan sets out with determination to seduce 16-year-old Dandy, a virile newcomer to his American town hitherto only interested in girls. PDF.
37. Sweeps / Leonard Taft
Set in London in 1894, a dialogue involving two chimney-sweeps of 12 and a woman cook they encounter who invites them to a tryst they decide to practise for. No Greek love content.
46. P.D. / I. L. Ingles
A British father’s letter recounts the gradual disintegration of his family due to his prudish and bullying wife, ending in a scene where he has full sex with his elder, 16-year-old son (both of them suddenly revealed to be firmly homosexual) before aban-doning them all. PDF.
87. Llanitos / Leonard Taft
Silly American dialogue between two Chicano boys of 13 who visit the grave of a youth of 17 (recently dead from a heroin overdose), who had played sexually with one of them. PDF.
96. Master Feelgood / Casimir Dukahz
Dialogue-heavy account (with endless wordplay) of the sexual antics of the author and a hustler of 12 during a summer in Kentucky. PDF.
121. Two Texts / Hakim Bey
Two obscure writings with a pederastic theme, claimed by the editor as poems despite his admission “they tend not to look much like” them on the page. PDF.
126. Afters / Bob Henderson
Henderson’s autobiographical-sounding character, David, living in Athens, continues his love affair with the 14-year-old artist, Angelos, the beginning of which was described in the preceding Reader, but mostly this is given up to reminiscences of the end of his affair with Vassili, then 15 and now 20, and the subsequent evolution of their friendship. Original PDF. Improved PDF.
147. Small Blessings / Leonard Taft
A quite amusing and heart-warming skit about a bold and appealing 12-year-old in the New York Cathedral Choir seducing a reticent 15-year-old. PDF.
158. Almost There / K. I. Bard
Dull and anti-climactic account of mild sex play between boys of 12-13 out camping for a night. PDF.
168. Three Stories / Andrew May
Amusing whimsical skits celebrating the sexual enthusiasm of beautiful pubescent boys, the first parodying the mediaeval festival of a saint, the second about the chance encounter of a man with a boy in the East End of London with unexpected experience, and the last the planned corruption by the KGB in Moscow of a visiting British military envoy with a know predilection for boys. PDF.
182. Two Poems / Christopher
Crude, unpoetic and very American, with no content faintly resembling Greek love.
Contributed by Edmund Marlowe, 19 December 2021.
Comments
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5. A Different Drummer Boy / Leonard Taft
Man the adventurer, the brute, the hero, the conqueror—and ever the reliable dupe of any bit of skirt or likely lad passing by. There’s gotta be something in that more than philosophical, if nature would cough it up.
Woman uses sex as siren, luring the full-masted ship of man to his domestic ruin. But the boy, he wields sex like a grappling hook, he will board that ship of man and monkey all the rigging before the captain knows which end of his mast is up.
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Anonymous 81, 25 January 2022
I like to see the complete Acolyte Readers and The Panthology series.