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Saturday, Jul 11, 2009
Sex between teenage boys and older men is not always coercive -- and it can be more ecstatic than traumatic.
Jul 22, 2002 | When I was a tormented young homosexual of 15 (actually, a tormented homosexual wannabe is more accurate, since it would be five more long years before I could muster up the courage to allow myself to be seduced), I went to see "Summer of '42," one of the sleeper hits of 1971. For anyone under the age of 40 or so, the movie, which takes place at a seaside community, tells the story of Hermie -- about my age at the time -- as he fumbles through his first attempts at dating while nursing a crush for Dorothy, the young wife of a soldier away at the front. When the soldier dies, his widow -- played by the achingly lovely Jennifer O'Neill, in her first and only significant role -- pulls Hermie into her arms and, in her grief, into her bed.
At the time, the movie was praised for what it was: a touching coming-of-age tale that explored, with sensitivity and taste, the issue of teenage sexuality and the eternal horny-boy fantasy of being initiated by an older and experienced beauty. I cried while I watched, but mainly because I so yearned for the tender moments that Hermie found -- although I craved a seducer with, unlike Jennifer, a penis I could touch, kiss and hold onto.
It's hard to imagine that a film that spoke to my deepest longings could attain the critical acclaim and popular appeal of "Summer of '42." In fact, in the current era of Catholic Church sex scandals, it's hard to imagine a film like that not being blasted top to bottom for promoting child abuse and all manner of other evils, even if it portrayed as thoroughly mutual the desire of both man and boy to find solace in each others' bodies.
I mention "Summer of '42" because it's been on my mind these past few months as I've watched the priest drama unfold. More than once, as I've read accounts of the misery wrought by these loose-fingered clerics and the bishops who enabled them, I've wondered about others who have chosen to remain silent -- men who, as adolescents, entered willingly into sexual relations with a priest -- and maybe even enjoyed it. At first I chastised myself for this notion; I was clearly a bad and unfeeling person for entertaining such thoughts. But then gay friends of mine began to broach the same idea -- usually gingerly, with an undercurrent of embarrassment or guilt -- and I felt relieved.
Let me state right here that I don't at all doubt the agony suffered by the victims who have gone public. Their despair and rage is palpable and heartbreaking. And this includes those who were, at the time of abuse or later, struggling to come to terms with their own homosexuality. Gay kids are no more immune from the ravages of molestation and abuse than straight ones -- and they could even, perhaps, be more easily recognizable as potential targets by older men with well-honed powers of gaydar.
But it doesn't take a huge stretch of the imagination -- at least not of my imagination, nor, as it turns out, the imaginations of other gay men of my acquaintance -- to believe that there are some men whose lives were not destroyed, or may even have been enhanced, by adolescent sex with a priest. They have not gone public, nor would I expect them to, especially in the current environment. But that they exist -- somewhere -- I have little doubt.
Obviously, there's never a defense for coerced sex. And just as ethical and legal guidelines restrict sexual contact between psychiatrists and their patients, or between employers and employees, priests should not be fucking their parishioners, of whatever age. After all, those relationships depend upon trust and the careful exercise of authority, which can easily be disrupted when sex enters the picture.
And yet there's a subtle subtext beneath the general reaction to, and media coverage of, the current scandal. And that's the notion that sex between a minor and an adult is inherently abusive and always wrong. Wrong, that is, as an unquestioned and unquestionable eternal truth, independent of time and place and context.
That's why, in the wake of the scandal, Judith Levine has hit such a nerve with her recent book, "Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children From Sex." Her suggestion that children actually have sexual feelings and should be allowed a certain amount of sexual freedom has drawn denunciations from across the political spectrum. Likewise, a 3-year-old essay by Harris Mirkin, a political science professor at the University of Missouri, questioning the blanket condemnation of intergenerational sex, sparked outrage among state legislators, who promptly stripped the university of $100,000 in funding. Here is a sample of what Mirkin, a self-described heterosexual grandfather, wrote to create such an uproar:
"As is usual in sexual politics, issues are framed in terms of nature, and of absolute good and evil ... Definitions are characteristically vague, so that statistics from the mildest activities can be blended with images from the most atrocious. Six and 13-year-olds are grouped in the same category ('child') ... In the same way as adolescents are merged with little children, all sexual activity is equated with violent or coerced sexual activity ... According to the dominant formulas the youths are always seduced. They are never considered partners or initiators or willing participants ..."
