AN AMERICAN IN LEBANON BY PARKER ROSSMAN
The following account of the sexual liaisons of an American with boys in Lebanon is from Chapter 9, “The Impact of Other Cultures” of Parker Rossman’s Sexual Experience Between Men and Boys (originally published in 1976). This chapter of Dr. Rossman’s book, introduced here, and intended to show how pederasts from repressive countries were changed by their experiences in accepting ones is a primary source for the history of Greek love, drawing on his interviews of the men involved.
The date of the liaisons described is obscure, the only hint being that the protagonist “went to Lebanon with the U.S. armed forces”. The only American military intervention in Lebanon before 1982 was in 1958, but that is not of course to say that no U.S. armed forces went there peacefully in the meantime.
An American in Lebanon
A young American who went to Lebanon with the U.S. armed forces, said that he would never have had the courage to make sexual overtures to a boy, even though he had long been tempted, had it not been for his experience with a 13-year-old Lebanese boy named Samir: “Actually it began the very first night, when two brats offered to carry my baggage and stay with me at a hotel if I wished. I discovered that the late buses were often met by young boys for that purpose. I got quite well acquainted with one of them. His father, who had five wives and dozens of hungry children, had placed him with a pederast barber whom he hated. He said he would be pleased to come live with me, as houseboy, for twenty-five dollars a month. I found him delightful company, and since I couldn’t hire a houseboy, I got a car and took him on a good many all-day trips. His uncle, a cabdriver, could not understand why I wouldn’t take the brat home to live with me, saying he had been to bed with his nephew and could recommend him highly. Out of curiosity, I propositioned the cab-driver for his own 9-year-old son. ‘He’s too young,’ the driver replied. ‘Touch him behind my back and I’ll kill you, but make an honorable arrangement to educate him in America and you can take him any time you wish.’
“He then introduced me to a boy named Wafi who, at the age of thirteen, considered himself to be a man, for he had a good job in a shop, supported his mother, and went to night school to study English. Wafi’s mother told me he had a passport and would be pleased to take trips with me. Wafi was extremely jealous of his best friend, who spent libidinous week-ends with a German sea captain whenever the ship was in port. Wafi and I had a fine experience together as equals and friends. He was very proud of our friendship and paraded me before his friends as an uncle from America. Although we didn’t have any real sexual intercourse, there was an erotic relationship between us that was powerful, so much so that it still moves me when I see a boy who looks like Wafi. One day I took him to a private swimming club, where there were only men and boys. Suddenly in exasperation he asked: ‘What’s the matter with me? I love you and you treat me like a little boy who doesn’t know how to please you in bed.’ I replied that I had so much real affection for him that I didn’t want to spoil it with homosexual intercourse: ‘Wafi, I feel like a father to you.’ He scowled and then grinned, saying: ‘When you’re my age and don’t have a woman, a father is no help when you get sexy.’”
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