Idag vill vi presentera ett öppet brev från Dylan Thomas, en amerikansk homosexuell man som attraheras av pojkar, riktad till den vuxeninriktade gayrörelsens aktivister. Ursprungligen postades brevet som ett inlägg på ett forum (http://www.boychat.org/messages/1092708.htm) för sk boylovers vilket är ett samlingsnamn för de som attraheras av förpubertala eller könsmogna pojkar. Dylan Thomas är en mycket högt respekterad person i boylover-rörelsen och agerar bland annat som administratör för forumet Boychat i vilket det öppna brevet postades. Vi vill även rekomendera våra läsare att klicka på länken ovan och läs kommentarerna till det öppna brevet som i sig mynnat ut i en intressant diskussion kring ämnet och bidrar med många olika perspektiv.
Värt att veta är att Dylan Thomas anser att termen pedofil omfattar alla som attraheras av personer som inte uppnått en ålder av sexuell självbestämmanderätt och tar därmed avstånd från kategorier som hebefili/efebofili utan använder pedofili för alla. Detta avståndstagandet till de termerna är relativt vanlig i amerikanska boylove-sammanhang och av en del uppfattas kategoriseringen som ett hot mot gemenskapen boylovers emellan. I USA har de ofta en högre gräns för sexuell självbestämmanderätt än här i Sverige vilket gör det mer naturligt för de som attraheras av ej könsmogna och de som attraheras av könsmogna barn att sluta sig samman i vad de ser som en gemensam grupp som är lika utsatta.
Vi finner hans öppna brev intressant samt med en del viktiga poänger, därför väljer vi att posta det öppna brevet i sin helhet här på vår blog.
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Open letter to gay activists.
Dear Friends in Alternative Sexuality,
It’s been a while since we’ve spoken. I’ve offered my silence over the years–a sort of “peace offering,” as it were–and tacitly supported your efforts to win credibility and basic civil rights in modern society because, for the most part, I believe it’s the right thing to do. Everyone deserves the right to live his own life free from government or interest-group influence, and that certainly includes homosexuals. Though I was distressed with the ease with which “mainstream gays” (if that isn’t an oxymoron) attempted to distance themselves from youth-attracted gay men, and I remain concerned by the way gay youth themselves are often publicly treated as some sort of caged curiosity within the community, for the most part, my staunch libertarian streak has prevented me from doing much more than comment wryly upon it. After all, it’s your movement.
Nonetheless, more and more I find myself wondering one simple question. Over the last few years, I’ve watched us–the boylovers, that is–change from the monsters under the bed to Godzilla stamping on the fabric of society. We used to be perverts; now we are terrorists. We used to be dirty old men; now we are the forces of evil. We used to be avoided; now we are rounded up into virtual concentration camps, the left-over space in red-lined cities. And that one simple question for you, the gay community, keeps running through my mind:
Don’t you think it’s about time for you guys to cut the bullshit?
I mean, really, who do you think you’re fooling? (Well, that’s obvious: you’re fooling the same people who were already dumb enough to believe in artificial lines between one sexuality and another, between one age and another, in the first place. But those people were already fooled; you’re simply riding the wave.) You’re not fooling your real enemies, the guys that hate you. The righteously moral, the ones who see gay marriage as a threat to the fabric of society and believe the “gay agenda” has something to do with incorporating Anal Sex 101 into the junior high curriculum… those guys aren’t swallowing your propaganda. Their agenda doesn’t depend on truth; it depends on fear. Fear will consistently trump truth in any society that’s learned how to gossip. You’ve gone as far as you can, so cut the bullshit.
You think there’s a difference between a gay male and a boylover? That “honorable gay men” shouldn’t be confused with that malevolent “pedophile menace”? What bothers me isn’t so much the fact that this is pure crap; what bothers me is the fact that most of you know it’s pure crap and continue propagating the myth anyway because it’s politically convenient.
Every gay man I’ve ever talked to, provided the conversation was private and casual enough, has pretty much agreed with me on one significant point: boys are sexually attractive. Greater minds than mine have made scandals writing books about the intrinsic sexuality of boys. I can’t count the number of times a plain vanilla gay man has told me something to the effect of, “Sure, I find some boys attractive, but…” There’s always the “but.” Everything that comes after the “but” is shit. The “but” is a game, it’s a smokescreen, it’s a pathetically transparent attempt to somehow separate what you are from what I am. We all find young bodies attractive; we all find “fresh meat” and “forbidden fruit” to be erotically alluring. The only differences between the gay community and the boylove community are ones of recognition and application. Basically, we admit it; you repress it. We defend ourselves; you protect yourselves. But it’s time to cut the bullshit.
I’ve been to gay bars. I’ve seen what happens every time that one kid walks in. You know the kid I’m talking about: the hot young thing that can’t be a day over fourteen, the one that has all the rest of you glancing back and forth uneasily and asking yourselves, “Is he even old enough to be in here?” The new kid. Once the community representative goes and checks with the doorman (“Well, his ID said he’s 18…”) and the “all clear” is signaled, every dried-up old fag in the bar is suddenly flocking around that boy like Pig Pen’s dust cloud. You say you’re different than pedophiles? I’ve never seen that boy go home alone. Hell, I’ve never seen him left alone; that kid can’t even take a piss without an entourage. Don’t tell me you’re not boylovers. You’re every bit as hot for hairless young body as the most clueless and perverse poster on BoyChat.
Hell, a hapless pedophile like myself doesn’t have a chance to get close to that boy. I can’t get all the old queens out of my way.
I must say, the public relations machine of the moral mainstream has certainly handled you well. By dangling such golden societal recognitions in front of you–”gay marriage,” “joint tax returns,” “insurance benefits”–and keeping them just-barely-but-not-quite out of reach, they’ve herded you beautifully into running exactly the direction a stable, moral and sexually intrusive society needs. Why fight to keep the government out of your bedroom when allowing them to come in with their imprimatur of marriage comes with such wonderful prizes like lower taxes and better health insurance? These benefits too can be yours as long as you tame yourselves: children are not sexual, therefore gay children cannot exist and men who like gay children must be deviant monsters. Never mind that you yourselves were gay sexual children and you yourselves are attracted to sexual gay children to this very day.
Sure, you’ll now fall all over yourselves to point out how wrong I am. I’m a pedophile, and therefore lying; real gay men would never find a twelve-year-old attractive. Never, Mary. Real gay men figure it out at seventeen (so that they can have one good year of high-school horror stories to tell) and then enter gay adulthood, where we never look down. Gay youth are marginalized to ghetto websites which gay adults staunchly avoid (but damned if those pedophiles don’t somehow manage to keep invading) and where gay activists write pithily about preparing for their gay futures but nothing whatsoever about enjoying their gay presents.
It’s all a show. I know it’s a show; you know it’s a show. You’re terrified that the societal status quo you’ve been courting for so long will find out it’s all a show, and so you’ll attack me for daring to mention it. (Hell, that’s why the gay movement attacks boylovers in the first place: you’re terrified someone will figure out there’s isn’t a difference.) So cut the bullshit. Quit pretending like half of who you are doesn’t exist merely because it’s politically expedient. Quit making perfectly normal gay men who have a perfectly normal attraction to youth feel bad about themselves and have to hide yet another part of themselves in yet another closet. Quit making gay teens and gay children believe that there’s still no place for who they are or what they feel. Quit trading passion for legislation.
And really, just quit the fucking bullshit. Come to BoyChat, talk to people who aren’t terrified of finding the same kids cute that you do, and just get it over with. Boys are sexy. You’ll feel better.
Don’t try and tell me there’s a difference between you and me. When I was thirteen, you couldn’t keep your hands off me. What happened, you found “gay enlightenment” and all your non-statutorily-supported desires vanished in a rush of nirvana? Bullshit. I’m not your nigger and I’m not your fag, Mary. You stared at that boy’s bulge just as hard as I did.
Much Love,
Dylan Thomas
dylan@boychat.org