SEX WITH OTHER BOYS: SPECIAL FRIENDSHIPS
BY EDWARD BRONGERSMA

“Sex With Other Boys: Special Friendships”, is part of “The Outlets”, the final section of “Boys and their Sexuality”, the third chapter of Loving Boys, the encyclopaedic study of Greek love by the eminent Dutch lawyer, Edward Brongersma, of which the first volume (including this) was published by Global Academic Publishers in New York in 1986.

There is another important aspect of all of this. Deep, sensual friendships often spring up between boys of different ages.^[1] These are the amitiés particulières, the “dangerous intimacies” which meet with such implacable disapproval in many boarding schools. The love of two pupils provoking the jealousy of their teachers is a classic theme of literature (Roger Peyrefitte, Les amitiés particulières^[2]; Henri de Montherlant, La ville dont le prince est un enfant^[3] and Les garçons^[4]; James Kirkwood, Good Times, Bad Times).^[5] It is interesting that in Montherlant’s novel the boy’s mother actually prefers him to make love to another boy (she perceives this as a passing phenomenon – it therefore doesn’t arouse her jealousy) than to lose his heart to a girl.

Every day there are tragedies resulting from the way adults repress, often with naked cruelty, the sexuality of young people. In criminal procedures involving sexual acts upon 10- to 14-year-old children, adolescents are conspicuously over-represented in number.^[6]

114  Hans Blüher writes in his autobiography^[7], “When I was in the last form at the Steglitz grammar school, the ‘erastes’ system flourished – or, rather, we made it bloom into a conscious culture where heretofore it had lain dormant. In the first place, all of us – and I don’t mean just Rudi and me – had our favourites, or eromenos – whom we also called ‘Dédé’, from a sentimental Belgian novel by Achille Essebac. In our arms and on our lips would hang these beautiful fifteen-year-old blossoms of boyhood, who in the first gush of their youthful vitality, found in us their first lovers. They were better off with us than they were at the dancing lessons. It was a distinction for every well-brought-up youth to have his own boy. We didn’t just help them with their homework, we also participated in their family lives, gave them support and counsel. We virtually impregnated these young beings with all that was in our minds. Teachers and parents couldn’t praise us enough and fell all over themselves extolling our virtue and altruism: how dear they were! We would certainly have been ashamed if all of this had been done out of virtue and altruism alone! But I didn’t hear of one single instance where this boy-love led to salacious molestation. For us it was simply good manners not to touch a boy before he came into puberty. We totally despised bourgeois morality, yet our ethical standards far exceeded its demands. Yet anything which we ourselves permitted we carried out exactly the way we wanted to. (…) Among ourselves, on the other hand, the erotic relationships were much more vigorous; here a fully inflamed Eros had us in his grip and swept us away through every kind of darkness.”

“Does there anywhere exist a more delicate and noble feeling than the friendship, at the same time passionate and timid, of one young boy for another? The one who loves dares not betray his affection by a caress, a look, a word.” So wrote Jacobsen sixty years ago.^[8] But there isn’t always so much restraint on the part of the older boy – nor would the younger always welcome it himself.

115  In my first book^[9] I told the story of a Frenchman, the source of which is a letter written by him years later when he was a married man, the father of a daughter and a son. Maurice, as we shall call him, met while he was in boarding school a somewhat younger student, Roger. For one whole year their mutual attraction was only expressed by ardent looks, sitting hand-in-hand at the movies and by a furtive kiss one night on a deserted playground. But gradually Maurice became conscious of the strong sexual overtones in his affection for his friend.

“Normally I always started with sex first, and then later got attached to a comrade. But of course it had to be the other way around with true love!”

Finally one night he just couldn’t hold out any longer, and he stole into the younger boys’ dormitory with a burning desire to touch Roger’s body. “I looked at him as he lay there asleep. I was transfixed. The beauty of him! His relaxed face, his closed eyes with the deep shadows around them, his full lips half opened, his tousled hair… The covers had slid down and only partially covered him. I lifted the sheet cautiously, bent over him, and saw that his right hand covered his cock, hiding it from me.… But the heavy, pungent smell of sperm rising from his sleeping body told me very clearly what the darling lad had been up to earlier that night… His whole body smelled sweetly of love and desire, but, strangely, my own desire vanished, as though daunted by the idea of violating him… Suddenly I realised the big risk I was taking. If I was caught here I would be expelled from school and I would never see Roger again. Oh, no! I bent tenderly over the sleeping boy and pressed my burning lips to his mouth.” Days passed. “But now the flesh was demanding. I had many boys willing to amuse themselves with me; in fact at that time there were more of them than ever before. But I wanted Roger, and for myself alone. I knew if I waited too long someone else would beat me to it and break him in. I desired his body, his cock; in my nose still lingered the scent of his seed and his sweat as it had emanated from his sleeping body, so delightfully soiled, that night.”

On their homeward journey at the beginning of Easter holidays, Maurice and Roger managed to find a railway compartment where they could be alone. “As soon as the train left the station we lay in each other’s arms, mouth upon mouth, drunk with joy and passion.” Maurice pressed his body against Roger’s so the younger boy could feel, through their trousers, his erection. “ ‘I love you,’ Roger whispered, his eyes brimming with passion and his eyelids twitching with excitement. ‘I love you,’ I replied softly. ‘Do you feel how much I love you, what you’ve done to me…down there?’ He looked straight into my eyes, very seriously, and said, ‘I feel it, of course – and I think it’s wonderful.’ ‘Roger, do you want to do it too?’ ‘Yes. I want it. I’ve been waiting for this forever, I’ve been longing for it. You can do everything you want!’”

Still Maurice hesitated for about a quarter of an hour before he dared go on and undress Roger. When at last he took Roger’s penis in his hand, the younger boy heaved a big sigh and whispered, “ ‘That’s for you, only for you – for you alone. Nobody else has ever touched it. And when I stroke it myself I always imagine it’s your hand doing it.’ ‘Won’t you feel bad about this, later?’ ‘Of course not. You can do anything you want with me.’”

Now Roger wrapped his fingers around Maurice’s erection and they brought each other to climax. With typical schoolboy romanticism, Maurice decided they should mix their sperm together and drink it. “With an intoxicating kiss I shared with Roger the gift of our intimately mingled seed.” Later that night still more intimacies ensued and, as Maurice’s finger explored the anus of his friend, Roger said, again very seriously, “ ‘If you want, you can take me this way, Maurice. You can do it to me, even if it hurts – even if it hurts a lot.’”

It wasn’t long after Maurice came home that his mother realised what kind of friendship her son had with Roger. She saw how deep and serious the feelings were that united the two boys; she did nothing to hinder them. She even helped Maurice by inviting Roger to stay over one night after they had seen a movie together, and she arranged for the two boys to sleep in the same bed. And so it came to anal intercourse, in which Roger courageously suffered the initial pains but only with difficulty was persuaded to take the active role himself: in his mind, only the passive position was suitable for the younger partner. Their relationship lasted for over two years, until Roger’s family moved to the south of France and the German occupation cut off their communications.

Today, the adult Maurice values his boyhood friendship with Roger as one of the treasures of his life, and he is happy to see that his own son, now fifteen, has a sexually expressed intimate relationship with another boy; Maurice has made it plain to his son how heartily he approves.

This phenomenon of love between boys of different ages reveals itself in all cultures and in every period of history. In a primitive tribe in India, the Ho, all the boys sleep together in a dormitory, and it the custom that the smaller boys must serve the mature boys as if they were girls.^[10] A fine description of two boys, 13 and 10 years of age, awakening to conscious sexuality in their mutual love, is given by Nigel Downsbrough in his novel Paedomorphs I.^[11] Whether or not sexual intimacies actually occur, a strong erotic element always underlies such relationships, offering enormous educational advantages. “It is evident that the first unfolding of a strong attachment in boyhood or girlhood must have a profound influence; while it occurs between an elder and a younger school-mate (…) its importance in the educational sense can hardly be overrated.^[12] And this benefits both partners. The younger feels protected; the elder sets him an example; he is much more willing to let himself be guided and counselled by him than by most adults. The elder learns how to take responsibility; although at this age he may often behave ruthlessly and brutally, he will spontaneously treat his young friend with tenderness and consideration. When society in its all-pervading fear of sex tries to break up such relationships – because, so often, they quickly progress toward a sexual expression of intimacy – it deprives itself of a powerfully constructive pedagogical force and brings down on its younger members untold misery.

For these friendships can be the source of such intense happiness that they can reconcile a boy to a very hard lot indeed.

116  A Belgian who had never known parental affection and passed his whole boyhood as a poor, rejected child in poor orphanages and boarding schools where life was drab and dreary in the extreme, lamented in his diary, “Mérovie – oh, Mérovie, what a wave of longing sweeps through me as I remember your gloomy, dim walls, your bleak, stupid people! What nostalgia I feel for your red and grey buildings, the joyless playing fields – this horrible boarding school where I passed so many dark months! Oh, god of my misfortunes, I would gladly sacrifice all those twenty years between then and now; yes, I would sacrifice the rest of my days if only I could return again to Mérovie, reverse mortal time, just to be with my friend again, as he stood guard in front of the cubicle where I slept embracing a young body. Then, in those long-lost years, I could love. I could have sex: sometimes without repenting it, sometimes repenting it. I could be pure and impure without restraint.” (Personal communication)

117  At the age of fourteen Lothar lost both parents in a traffic accident and was taken in by the large, affectionate family of an uncle. There he was to share a bedroom with one of his cousins, Stan, who was about his own age. All during the first day Lothar put on a brave act, but in his bed that night, with the lights off, he broke down and began to weep. Stan heard this and, feeling sorry for the lonely and lost boy, went over to him, kissed him, stroked his hair and finally lay down beside Lothar to try to console him. It was a hot night; both boys were sleeping without pyjamas, and the contact of their naked pubertal bodies soon brought them both into an intensely aroused condition. Stan had already experienced some sex with an adult man and so he knew how to satisfy his desires. Now that first tender and compassionate approach to Lothar quickly led to an impassioned, raving act of love. For Lothar it was a ride into completely unknown realms; he was overwhelmed, but it was so enormously beautiful and made him so happy that afterwards he fell into a deep and untroubled sleep, convinced that he would be accepted and loved in this house as he had been in his own. From that night on the two cousins became inseparable friends. (Personal communication)

A boy on the verge of puberty is insatiably curious about what it means to be physically mature. Nothing could be more natural than for an older friend to demonstrate. Scenes of couples so engaged are often touching in the extreme: you see the evident pride with which the older male exhibits his manly, naked body, his full-sized penis, with an arm protectively and lovingly thrown over the younger boy’s shoulders; you observe the equally frank curiosity and admiration in the face of the latter. Together they form a tableau of the most intimate alliance and closest friendship. During group masturbation, so common at puberty and early adolescence, the immature boys are always fascinated by the shooting sperm of the older ones. Sexual prowess thus makes the mature boy very popular with his younger comrades.

118  “At about the age of ten, I made friends with a boy of fifteen who became quite friendly with me (…) Every opportunity, he exposed himself when urinating, or just showing me his hard-on. It was twice as big as mine, and I guess I was a little envious. He talked to me about sex things (…) One day about six months after we started running around together, we were out at our local park (…) We were talking sexy things, and he had his hands in his pockets (…) He stopped, turned, and opened his coat. He had a royal hard-on sticking out of his trousers. It was red from rubbing it, and the head was wet (…) He said to take it out and show it to him. I took it out and we looked at each other’s penis for a time (…) He started masturbating. He told me to do the same (…) I did like he said, as he said it would feel good. Well, it sure did. The feeling was just starting for me when he started coming, and I watched as the sperm shot out onto the grass, and his hand was flying up and down to make it come again. The sperm was white and thick over his hand and penis, as he worked towards another one. Just about the time in my excitement that I was coming and my little hand was flying up and down, along came these two old ladies from behind us. They had seen us, and came over to see what we were doing. I quickly started to put mine away, but stopped when my friend kept doing it, and when the old ladies exclaimed, ‘My word!’ he said, ‘Mind your own business!’ and started coming almost at their feet. I was so excited seeing him shooting, and I had kept flogging mine, I started to come. It was something I will never forget, it was great. We finished together as the old ladies walked away in a huff babbling to each other.^[13]

119  At the home of friends in Sri Lanka I once met a strikingly handsome, healthy and sparkling boy of fifteen who, I was told, had a very strong sex drive, needing at least three climaxes a day to satisfy it. His greatest delight was in initiating younger, inexperienced boys into the joys of sex. He drew them like a magnet; wherever he went there was always a crowd of young admirers swarming around him.

Love between boys, be they of the same or different ages, can sometimes be very passionate.

120  Carpenter^[14] gives an example from India: “The boys – who were about sixteen years of age – were both at the same school, and were devoted friends; but the day came when they had to part. One was taken away by his parents to go to a distant part of the country. The other was inconsolable at the prospect. When the day arrived, and his companion was removed, he soon after went quietly to a well in the school precincts, jumped in, and was drowned. The news, sent on by wire, reached the departing friend while still on his journey. He said little, but at one of the stations left the train and disappeared. The train went on, but at a little distance out, the boy ran out of the bushes by the line, threw himself on the rails, and was killed.”

Continue to Sex With Other Boys: Fear of Homosexuality

^[1] Schérer, R., Une érotique puérile.  Paris: Galilée, 1978, 183. [Author’s reference]

^[2] Peyrefitte, R., Les amitiés particulières. Paris: Flammarion, 1945, [Author’s reference]

^[3] Montherlant, H. de, La Ville dont le prince est un enfant. Paris: Gallimard, 1967,  [Author’s reference]

^[4] Montherlant, H. de, La Ville dont le prince est un enfant. Paris: Gallimard, 1967, [Author’s reference]

^[5] Kirkwood, J., Good Times, Bad Times. Greenwich (CT): Fawcett, 1968, [Author’s reference]

^[6] Kerscher, I., Kubitzek, D. & Schütz, Chr., Didaktisch-methodische Aspekte einer emanzipatorischen Sexualerziehung. In: Kerscher (Ed.) Konfliktfeld Kindersexualität. Frankfurt a.M.: Päd-extra, 1978, 152. [Author’s reference]

^[7] Blüher, H., Werke und Tage. München : List, 1953, 218-219. [Author’s reference]

^[8] Gide, A., Corydon. Paris: Gallimard, 1925, 136 [Author’s reference].

^[9] Brongersma, E., Das Verfemte Geschlecht-Dokumentation uber Knabenliebe, Munchen: Lichtenberg, 1970 [Author’s reference].

^[10] Elwin, V., Maison des jeunes chez les Muria. Paris: Gallimard, 1959, 272. [Author’s reference]

^[11] Downsborough, N., Paedomorphs I. Taipei: Kiryudo Publishing Co., 1978 [Author’s reference]. According to a short review in Pan, issue 6 (Amsterdam, 1980) p. 23 this is “supposedly drawn by Downsborough from diaries and tapes of a middle-aged German emmigré sentenced by an Australian court to 14 years of prison at hard labour for sexual contact with a minor”, so it is doubtful that it can be called a novel [Website footnote].

^[12] Carpenter, E., The Intermediate Sex. New York: Mitchell Kennerly, 1912, 78-79. [Author’s reference]

^[13] Carpenter, E., The Intermediate Sex. New York: Mitchell Kennerly, 1912, 39-40 [Author’s reference]

^[14] Carpenter, E., The Intermediate Sex. New York: Mitchell Kennerly, 1912, 139. [Author’s reference]