LOVING BOYS BY EDWARD BRONGERSMA
Dr. Edward Brongersma (1911-98) was a Dutch lawyer, parliamentarian, writer and knight who was almost the politically most eminent man anywhere in the 20th century to be open in public about loving boys.[1] From the 1970s, he dedicated himself to researching, writing about and speaking out in favour of Greek love, which was made possible by the Netherlands then briefly being remarkably liberal and tolerant by the standards of modern Europe.
His greatest work, Loving Boys, written in English and published by Global Academic Publishers in Elmhurst, New York in two volumes in 1986 and 1990, is the most substantial work ever on the subject and by far the most encyclopaedic in its coverage of the subject.
To gather material for it, Brongersma had engaged in a massive correspondence over decades, resulting in five hundred personal histories in his archive. By the time of his death, public intolerance of Greek love had increased sharply.[2] Only two years afterwards, Dutch police raided the chartered educational Brongersma Foundation that had custody of them, seized the personal histories and, after computer-cataloguing them with a view to persecuting the men described in them as sexually involved with boys, destroyed them.[3]
The result of this destruction, the greatest of a sexual archive since National Socialist stormtroopers burnt the archives of the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft in 1933, is that Loving Boys, which had drawn heavily on the lost personal histories, has considerable permanent value as a record of the practice of Greek love in the 20th century in the countries which spoke the western European languages in which Brongersma was proficient. It is the sections of the work where this is most the case and it may thus be considered a primary source that will be presented on this website.
Contents of Volume 1
INTRODUCTION 9
AUTHOR'S PREFACE 13
Chapter One: WHY SEX? 19
Different Aspects of Sex 20
Sex for Procreation 20
Sex as Expression of an Emotion 24
Sex Just for Pleasure 26
Sex in Surrender to the Forces of Nature 29
The Aspects of Sex in Relation to Children 32
Sex for Procreation 32
Sex as Expression of Love 33
Sex Just for Pleasure 34
Sex in Surrender to the Forces of Nature 39
Summary 40
Chapter Two: ADULT LOVERS 41
Sexual Variety in Men 41
Anatomical: The Organs 41
Physiological: Function of the Organs 41
Psychological: Attraction 42
The Importance of the Partner's Sex 43
The Importance of the Partner's Age 51
Attraction to Children 55
A Common Phenomenon 55
The Different Forms of Child-Love 57
Man/Girl 57
Woman/Girl 59
Woman/Boy 60
Man/Boy 66
Man/Boy Relationships 67
Boy-Love and Pseudo Boy-Love 67
Boy-Love and People with Different Orientations 73
History and Ethnology of Boy-Love 77
Ancient Greece and Rome 77
Western Europe and America 82
The Arabs 85
India 85
China and Japan 86
The So-Called Primitives 87
Boy-Lovers in Relation to Women 91
Variety in Age Preferences 93
Small Children 93
The Prepubertal and the Mature 94
The Importance of Puberty 95
Hair Growth 99
Lasting Friendships and Casual Meetings 100
Absence of Reliable Research 102
Personality Traits of Boy-Lovers 108
Old Age 109
Attraction of Social Opposites 110
Questions for Research 111
Importance of the Partner's Pleasure 113
Origins of Boy-Love 115
The Number of Boy-Lovers 117
Chapter Three: BOYS AND THEIR SEXUALITY 121
Physical Maturity 121
Growth of Genitals 122
Ejaculation 126
Psychosexual Development 128
Elements of Cognition 128
Importance of Puberty 133
The Experience of Maturation 135
Penis Size 135
Erections 144
Ejaculations and Wet Dreams 147
Orgasm 155
The Bloom of Youth 157
Rites of Initiation 158
Operations and Blood Offerings 160
Circumcision 162
In Western Society 166
The Beginning of Sexual Relations 171
The Outlets 176
Masturbation 176
Deterrence 177
Guilt Feelings 182
Fantasies/Methods/Frequencies 185
Beginning 193
Sex With Girls 197
Beginning 197
Disparity Between Boys and Girls of the Same Age 203
Sex With Other Boys 212
The "Homosexual" Phase 212
Special Friendships 225
Fear of Homosexuality 231
Sex With Men: An Impossible Love? 239
The Parents 242
Adult Lovers vs. Peers 246
Willing Boys 249
Bisexual Behaviour 262
The End of the Affair 267
The Boy as Seducer 271
Appendix: Penis Size vs. Age 282
Bibliography 283
Contents of Volume Two 332 Repeated at the beginning of volume II, and therefore superfluous.
About the Author 334
Contents of Volume 2
Chapter Four: NEGATIVE ASPECTS OF MAN/BOY RELATIONS: PRESUMED AND REAL 9
Introduction: A Cautionary Tale 9
The Usual Objections 12
‘The Child is Not Yet Mature Enough for Sex’ 12
‘The Child Cannot Give Informed Consent’ 13
‘A World Where the Child Doesn’t Yet Belong’ 15
‘The Child Will Be Traumatized’ 16
‘The Boy Will Be Turned Into a Homophile’ 27
‘The Partners are So Unequal’ 30
‘The Child is Manipulated’ 41
Circumstances Which Cause Concern 46
Incest 46
Sexual Activities and Remuneration 56
The Depiction of Sexuality: Boys as Models and
Observers 80
Sexual Violence and Cruelty 93
Penal Law 121
Attempts to ‘Cure’ 138
Collision with Social Norms: Secrecy and Discovery
142
The Age Groups 153
Depth and Superficiality of Love 155
The Brevity of Bloom 158
Chapter Five: SEXUAL REPRESSION AND SEXUAL LIBERATION 175
The Effects of Sexual Repression 175
Nervous Troubles 177
Aggression 182
Guilt Feelings 189
Obsession 196
The History of Repression 200
The Substrata of Sexual Repression 206
Sexual Freedom 211
Sexual Information 216
How to Talk About Sex 219
Freedom from Shame 233
The Cult of the Phallus 239
Shame 241
Sexual Abstinence and Self-Control 255
Sexual Distress of Youth 263
Visual Aids 265
Exercise and Practice 273
Ethics for Boy-Lovers 310
Benefits to the Boy 311
The Adult Friend and the Boy’s Parents 332
Retrospective Judgments 342
The Benefits for the Man 354
Chapter Six: SEXUALITY AND EROTICISM 359
Importance of Sexuality and Eroticism 359
The Various Practices 363
Active and Passive 369
The Preferred Practices 369
Adapting to the Child’s Evolution 377
Hand Techniques 388
Interfemoral Intercourse and Similar Techniques 393
Sexual Activity with the Mouth 397
Anal intercourse 412
Active & Passive 426
The Primordial Force 454
Supplemental Bibliography 477
Index of Persons and Sources 484
Index of Subjects 502
Edward Brongersma was born in Haarlem, in The Netherlands, in 1911, the son of a medical doctor. He studied law at the University of Amsterdam between 1931 and 1935, and for the next five years worked on his Doctor’s thesis on Constitutional Law and wrote articles for a number of legal and general interest publications. In 1940 he received the degree of Doctor of Law at the Catholic University of Nijmegen.
During the war years, and until 1950, he was a barrister in Amsterdam, becoming a Labour Party member of the First Chamber of the States General (the Dutch Upper House of Parliament, or Senate) in 1946. Both careers were interrupted in 1950, when he was arrested, tried and convicted for having sex with a 16-year-old boy, and the next 11 months he spent in prison. Upon his release in 1951 he made a living as a journalist and was also employed as a social worker, becoming in 1956 Director of the Federation for Social Assistance to Problem Families in Haarlem, a post he held for the next three years. Debarred with his conviction, he was reinstated at the bar in 1959 and thereafter carried on a legal practice in Haarlem until his retirement in 1980.
From 1960 until 1968 he was Chief Scientific Collaborator at the Criminological Institute, State University Utrecht, and two years later the Labour Party once again asked him to consider becoming a member of the Dutch Senate. He accepted this call; from 1963 until 1977 he served his second period in the Upper House, from 1968 until 1977 as chairman of the Permanent Committee for Justice. In 1975 the Queen made him Knight of the Order of the Dutch Lion for distinguished service as Member of Parliament. He founded the Dr. Edward Brongersma Foundation in 1979 to receive and preserve his collection of literature and private documents on sexuality and make it available on a confidential basis for responsible research.
Dr. Brongersma has authored numerous articles and professional papers on law, politics, social conditions, philosophy and religion. Able to read virtually all of the Western European languages, he has written books on the Civil War in Spain, Portugal and the Portuguese, Penal Law and social problems. Beginning with his years at the Criminological Institute, he has written extensively in the area of sexology, especially on pornography and paedophilia. His books on these subjects include Das verfemte Geschlecht (On Boy Love, 1970), Sex en Straf (Sex and Punishment, 1972) and Over Pedofielen en ‘Kinderlokkers’ (Paedophiles and ‘Child Molesters’, 1975). He contributed chapters in Sex met Kinderen (Sex with Children, Van Eeten, Ed., 1972), Sexuologie (Frenken, Ed., 1980) and Handboek voor seksuele hulpverlening (1983).
Since his retirement in 1980, he has devoted his working time to the Brongersma Foundation collection of material on youthful sexuality and to public enlightenment on sexual matters. Always an enthusiastic photographer and avid traveller, he has visited by car nearly all of the European Scandinavian and Iberian countries, as well as much of North Africa. Some ten years ago he made a Land-Rover safari with friends down through the Sahara, into Nigeria, the Camaroons, Central Africa, Congo and Angola. He has travelled by plane around the world twice, visiting India, Sri Lanka, Singapore, The Philippines, the USA, the Netherlands Antilles, Dominican Republic and Haiti.
[1] A few French writers, André Gide, Roger Peyrefitte and perhaps Henry de Montherlant and Tony Duvert, surpassed him in fame, but as purely literary figures. The Nobel Laureate American scientist Carleton Gajdusek was only open in old age after being exposed and imprisoned for practising Greek love. The only open boy-lover to surpass him in political eminence was much earlier in the century: the last emir of Bukhara, Said Mir Mohammed Alim Khan (1880-1944).
[2] Explaining this in an interview with Robin Sharpe in 1994, Brongersma “said the general blossoming of tolerance after the war in Holland was partly due to the collective guilt over the pre-war rejection of the German Jews and the ensuing holocaust. But this is now beginning to fade.” (https://www.robinsharpe.ca/Brongersma.html)
[3] “Burning the Library”, The Guide, February 2001, p.8.
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