12 April 2015
I have posted some comments about this issue before, but this is my first chance to look at my experience in detail. What I will suggest here will irritate most of you, including those in the gay community. Nevertheless, I am not about to be remorseful or apologetic Feel free to reply to this, but do not criticize me for the way I dealt with longing and despair.
Perhaps this topic has been thoroughly dealt with long before now, but postings I have seen suggest not—or at least not from the viewpoint I want to take. I am writing basically to encourage adolescent and younger men (I am not talking about children) who find themselves in a consensual, non-exploitative relationship or encounter with an older man,, and to ask that others, who know little or nothing about this area, yet still want to give advice, to think twice before accusing, discounting, or trivializing the experience of many of us.
From what I read on such sites as gaybros on Reddit, the usual pattern is that a younger man will write in to to an LGBT advice site to wonder if what he is experiencing with an older man in an intimate relationship is OK, healthy, beneficial, etc. Then, many other men who have no personal understanding write in to denounce it as sick, paedophiliac, even incestuous, and offer stupid pop psychobabble about “daddy issues.” The younger man backs off, left feeling bad about himself for reasons that most likely have absolutely nothing to do with his situation at all. I would like to counter this by speaking as a man who learned about sexual intimacy and love through older men, and can now look back on my life to say quite insistently that I am so glad it happened; and I doubt that I could have come to maturity and a knowledge of love if these men had not been there.
I don't know if there is a general pattern for adolescents and young men attracted to those older than themselves. In my own case, I came out of a childhood of extreme physical and emotional abuse from my mother while my father did nothing to stop her. The only time I ever called her “mommy” was when it was part of “Mommy, please don't hit me,” but it never stopped her. I never knew what being touched, held, embraced, wanted or loved was. By the time I was 14 or 15, I was actively seeking this away from home. It meant hanging around public washrooms and making myself available by what I later learned was called “cruising.” I automatically gravitated to older men—at my age then, that meant any guy over 18. As I got more experience I favoured men in their late 20's and in their 30's. I wasn't just looking to get my rocks off, but connection with someone who would at least show me that he cared. I sure wasn't going to get this with kids my own age—that meant circle jerks and scout camp orgies which was not what I was after. It would also inevitably mean being bashed and bullied even more than I was being. Older guys were gentler, kinder, and wanted to make me feel good as much as I wanted to make them feel good. I want to emphasize that I NEVER hooked up with an older man who was in an authority position over me or one of trust. But to be honest, if I had found myself in such a situation, I would probably have gone for it. On the other hand, you don't need to tell me how very lucky I was not to have hooked up with the wrong man, especially when I was just beginning to wander.)
I was never taken advantage of, never used in a demeaning way, never asked to do anything I didn't want to do. And I wasn't “seduced” by dirty old men. Actually I was the aggressor—oblivious of the trouble I could be getting the older guy into. I would have regarded cries of statutory rape as totally off-base and hardly likely to have altered my behaviour. My parents probably knew early on, and certainly knew by my later teens, but they didn't really care what I did. So I could play Robin to another' man's Batman, Justin to another man's Brian with no one to stop me. With the help of the older men I met,I learned what being wanted was about. I left it to my school mates to think about baseball, the prom, how to buy beer on Saturday night,or even maybe get lucky, while I dealt with life in a much more direct way. Out of fear, in my early days I never saw the same man twice. But even the most casual one-off encounter was at least an echo of love, certainly far surpassing anything I had at home. I did run into a few situations where alarm bells went off in my head and I backed away before anything happened—like the time I was returning to Hawaii aboard an ocean liner. I was still standing at the rail waving to people on shore as we got underway when a man came up beside me and invited me up to his stateroom. I knew where this was headed , but thought “Why not?” If he had been a nice guy I would certainly have gone for it, but he starts out by pouring me a huge tumbler full of bourbon . I was 17; if I had drunk it I would have passed out—which was probably the idea. This guy was a creep and I got out. I think the men I had hooked up with before had shown me how to distinguish between the creeps and the good guys. But, in spite of what I learned by all these interactions, it was just casual sex. I didn't know there was anything more until I went to sea
I was still pretty young in the way I looked and thought, so it wasn't until I was just about to turn 18 –emotionally more like 15—that I got a job sailing on a survey ship working the Pacific. There I met a 23-year old fellow crewman. 23 was still for me “older” He was quite a man, and quite a lover. I was definitely not the aggressor that time. This was my first time in love, and what an all-consuming passion it was—for both of us.. He was smart, funny, was the biggest, toughest man on board and could take down any other man on the ship who might criticize a relationship that was obvious to the entire crew, AND he had a Ford convertible—our magic carpet to one adventure after another when we were in port. After he touched me, casual sex was never to really satisfy me again.
I don't remember actually seeking out older men when I was in my late teens,, but that was the way it always seemed to work out. When I got to be in my late 20's and 30's myself, the age of men who I wanted to hook up with did not continue to go up, but stayed there. However, guys in their 40's were looking pretty good too. I never was attracted to men much younger—i.e., to reverse the process. Even in my fantasy life, I was still the younger man. In real life it no longer mattered.
Those of you familiar with Greek history will recognize what I have been describing as the typical pattern amongst Greek warriors in the Beloved/Protector relationship. The Greeks had the same-age gay relationships that we have, but the older-younger one was more common. Straight biblical scholars try their best to discount this, but many people read the friendship between the older Jonathan and the younger David in 1st Samuel this way too. I am not trying to romanticize this kind of relationship, just saying it is what it is.
I want to urge men who are in such relationships not to feel guilty or insecure about them, but to learn from them, and bring to them the same degree of passion and maturing that characterize other kinds of gay relationships. To those of you who would dismiss them as by their nature,sick, you are slaying dragons where none exist. You will be buying into the idea that such relationships are on some level always exploitative and non-consensual. In some cases they may well be, and such relationships demand intervention . But not in all by any means, certainly not in mine.
