SEX WITH MEN: THE END OF THE AFFAIR
BY EDWARD BRONGERSMA

“Sex With Men: The End of the Affair” is part of “The Outlets”, the final section of “Boys and their Sexuality”, the third chapter of Loving Boys, the encyclopaedic study of Greek love by the eminent Dutch lawyer, Edward Brongersma, of which the first volume (including this) was published by Global Academic Publishers in New York in 1986.

Since most boys have the capacity to experience the joys of sex with a man as well as with a girl, this eases the gradual transition from homosexual activities to (exclusive) heterosexuality. Where a real love exists between man and boy, it is an evil hour for the older partner when his young friend tells him, with his face beaming, that he is now “going around with” a girl. This invariably presages the end of their erotic relations: the boy has grown up, and outgrown this kind of relationship. It is no use struggling against the inevitable. Quite the contrary: opposing it can only destroy what man and boy have built together and make a gradual reduction of the sexual bond, which is the best solution for both partners, impossible.

In ideal cases – O’Carroll^[1] gives an example – sexual contact becomes less and less frequent. The boy continues to visit his friend, because this is an established pattern in his life, but it becomes ever more rare that such visits end in bed.^[2] 

In other cases the boy may bring about a sudden rupture, which may be caused by a variety of factors. Don’t ask him, however, why he has done it, for no boy can ever explain his own conduct. He may, consciously or unconsciously, feel that his relationship with his girl is threatened^[3], or develop qualms about being disloyal to her by having sex with a third person. It might also be that he is so strongly pulled toward heterosexuality that he wishes to put a period behind the earlier homosexual phase of his boyhood. Or it could be just the opposite: he becomes aware that heterosexual activity gives him too little pleasure and sex with a man too much, so suddenly he is worried – is it after all true that you become gay for the rest of your life by having homosexual sex? Better stop it immediately and make yourself “normal” by having intercourse with a girl. Only very rarely will a boy give verbal expression to such feelings and doubts.

162  One sixteen-year-old Belgian boy did, and said to the man with whom he had been intimate for three years, “It is better for me not to meet you any more, because I know when I’m with you I’ll want to do it again. Sex with you is so marvellous! It’s much more delightful than with a girl. But it’s better, healthier for me to limit myself to heterosexuality from now on.” He succeeded quite well on his first attempt: he is now a husband and father – and can meet his old friend again from time to time as someone with whom he shares many wonderful memories. (Personal communication)

Another boy is fearful of his comrades’ reactions were they to find out about his affair with a man.

163  Schérer^[4] cites the case of a boy who liked to sleep with an adult. He had told his mother about it and she fully supported the relationship. But he became afraid he would draw the derision of two of his schoolmates whom he liked very much.

When a boy suddenly announces that he wants to stop their sexual contacts, the man’s reactions are critical for the future of the relationship. His disappointment may be so great that he gets mad and says, “All right, if that’s the case I don’t want to see you any more.” In so doing he destroys, with one blow, all the other good things which exist in their relationship. The boy leaves him, convinced that his big friend never really loved him as a person but only wanted his body as a vessel into which he could expend his lust. The rupture is complete, the separation final, and both feel deeply disappointed.

There is a better solution.

164 Ken lived as a bachelor in a little village some thirty miles outside of London, sharing a house with his elderly mother whom he loved very dearly. When she suddenly died from a heart attack, he was inconsolable: after her burial he became apathetic and just sat in his house staring blankly at the walls, neglecting himself and everything in his home. Suicide seemed the only solution. Now, it happened that, before his mother’s death, Ken had frequently visited a swimming pool in a working-class quarter of London where he became good friends with a group of boys who used to meet there regularly. News about Ken’s sad condition circulated among these boys, and one fifteen-year-old by the name of Ronny became deeply concerned. Ronny was the typical Cockney boy: strong muscles, an enthusiastic football player, somewhat rude and course in his manners but with a sensitive heart hidden in his rough exterior. His family were decent people, his home poor but well kept. Having lost his father at the age of five, he was affectionately close to his mother and sisters. The following Saturday afternoon Ronny hitchhiked to Ken’s village, rang the doorbell and declared simply, “I’ve come to help you clean up the house after the funeral. Where’s the vacuum cleaner?” When everything was put right and tidy again, he made Ken go with him to the supermarket to buy food. Afterwards they worked together in the kitchen preparing a fine dinner, then looked at television. When it was time to go to bed Ronny, in just as matter-of-fact a manner, stripped naked and crept into Ken’s bed and had sex with him, the boy taking the active role. He was already experienced with other men, especially with a certain Jonathan whom he had once accompanied on a holiday trip.

After that Ronny returned every weekend. For Ken these were the high points of his life just then. “Ronny kept me from committing suicide; his love made my existence meaningful once more. I owe my life to him.”

That summer I was a guest in Ken’s house. Ronny was also there. Their relationship had now lasted for seven months. I saw Ronny looking at magazines with nude pictures and I asked, “What do you prefer, girls or boys?” He smiled, mischievously, and told me, “Boys!” and that he was crazy about the twelve-year-old brother of one of his friends. That evening Ronny willingly posed as a nude model for my camera, sporting a persistent erection the whole time. On my departure I invited Ken and Ronny to pass the Christmas holidays at my home.

They arrived on December 20th. Ken immediately took me aside and said, “Please don’t make any allusion to Ronny’s sexual past, because that will make him very angry. A month and a half after you stayed with me he suddenly declared that he didn’t want to visit me any more, because he wished to put an end to all the sex between us. He had now found a girl. Of course this came as a heavy blow to me. But at the same time I told him I loved him dearly and he would always be welcome even if there was no sex. Moreover, I promised to respect totally his decision and not try to make him change his mind. He was evidently very impressed by this and since then he has returned regularly for the weekends. At the moment he is somewhat exhausted, since yesterday he took leave of his girl-friend – that is to say they were naked in bed for eight solid hours making love to each other. Even for a boy as potent as Ronny this is quite a feat!”

The firm friendship between Ken and Ronny continued in this fashion for the next two years, devoid of erotic expression. Then suddenly Ronny received a staggering blow. The police accused Jonathan, the man with whom Ronny had been formerly intimate, of sexual activities with boys, but didn’t have much solid evidence. Searching his home, however, they had come across Ronny’s address and they now hoped to use the boy as their chief witness. Ronny denied everything, but the police weren’t so easily put off. His mother and his guardian were informed, and they even forced Ronny to submit to a medical examination. For two months the detectives returned to Ronny’s home every Saturday to question him. In their fanatic zeal “to protect children from corruption”, they drove Ronny to despair. The boy became mortally afraid of his girl-friend and her family, of the whole neighbourhood being informed, and of himself breaking down under his tenacious lies. The healthy, happy boy changed in a short period of time into a miserable wreck, with pale, sunken cheeks and apathetic demeanour; he seriously contemplated suicide as the only way out. At this point Ken intervened. With considerable risk and expense to himself, he managed to thwart further police meddling with Ronny. On the night when Jonathan’s trial had reached its end, without Ronny being compelled to give evidence, with all dangers having at last been averted, the nightmare finally over, Ronny laughed for the first time in weeks and ate dinner with a hearty appetite; later he went to Ken’s bedroom, stark naked, stated serenely, “A little bit of cuddling will be allowed now!” and slipped into bed beside Ken. The next morning Ken told me, “I’ve never spent a night like that, experienced such tremendous passion. Every time he came he started afresh – he was inexhaustible.”

Thus the ultimate consequence of the police meddling was that Ronny resumed his forbidden sexual activities with a man, for from that night on he continued to have sex with Ken rather frequently. The fears which had caused the fifteen-year-old to terminate sexual relations with his big friend were no longer present in the seventeen-year-old who had adequately proved he could function as a full-fledged heterosexual. He now found that the heterosexual expression of his love for his girl-friend was quite compatible with a homosexual expression of friendship and gratitude.

A few years later Ronny married, and Ken was best man at the wedding ceremony. (Personal communication)

This story is rather typical. It is not at all unusual for a boy in such a relationship to suddenly one day put a stop to the sexual activity, but to return to his friend, also sexually, after a period of months, or even years. The only requirement is that the man show understanding and respect, and unchangeable affection.

165  One boy-lover was a close friend of a family with three sons spaced two years apart. The oldest, Didier, was a member of the secret society referred to in No. 106 where schoolboys, by putting an automobile badge on their jackets, signalled each other of their desire for mutual masturbation. When he was in a confiding frame of mind one day, Didier told the man about the sex club. The man said, jokingly, “But you never wear that badge when you come to visit me!” Immediately, with a big grin, the boy put it on and said he had always wanted to do it with a man but had never had the chance. After that Didier came every week to the home of his friend and had sex with him. And evidently he boasted to his brothers about it, for soon the second son, Eric, came to the man with the same desire, and later so did the youngest boy, Pierre, when he was twelve. Their parents didn’t have the faintest idea of what was happening until Eric, now fifteen and probably more strongly drawn to homosexuality than were his two brothers, began to worry about his sexual make-up and finally told his mother. The parents were shocked and immediately forbade their sons ever to see the man again. Didier and Pierre vigorously denied that they had had sex with the man. They were so furious about Eric’s treachery that for one whole year they cut him out of all of their activities and wouldn’t even talk to him.

About a year later Eric, now sixteen, presented himself on the doorstep of his former friend. At first the man refused to let him in. But the boy asked to be listened to, and when at last they were alone together in the man’s room he burst into tears and begged forgiveness. The man replied, rather coldly, that he wouldn’t blame him any longer for what he had done. Eric said, “There is only one way you can show me that you really forgive me,” and before the man could stop him he threw off his clothes and ran to him naked with a big erection. The rest of their meeting took place in bed, where Eric made love with uninhibited passion. After that he returned regularly.

Didier was seventeen, Pierre fourteen, when a married woman, wife of a neighbour, initiated them into heterosexuality. Both boys then put a stop to sex with their male friend, saying they were now too old for it. But they continued to visit him and confided in him all their heterosexual adventures, discussing them in great detail and often asking for advice. More than a year passed in this manner. Then one night Didier arrived and as he talked he was obviously embarrassed about something, beating about the bush, until he suddenly blurted out, “Would you mind going to bed with me?” The man was quite surprised. “Of course I will, it would be a great pleasure. But I thought you didn’t like it any more and only did it with girls.” “Well,” Didier declared a little coyly, “it’s fine with a girl, but in bed they let you do all the work, and sometimes I’d just like to stretch out and let everything be done to me.” One month later Pierre came to him, quite independently, with the same request. (Personal communication)

There are even instances of adult, married men returning one day to the intimate companion of their receding boyhood, starting a fitful conversation about the good old days, touching upon moments that had been so intensely enjoyable and finally bursting out with the proposition, “Let’s do it for old time’s sake, like we used to do it then.” Their explanations are usually similar to that of Didier: with women you have to do all the work, and once in a while it’s nice to be brought to climax passively.

Continue to Sex With Men: The Boy as Seducer

^[1] O’Carroll, T., Paedophilia–The Radical Case. London: Peter Owen, 1980, 83. [Author’s reference]

^[2] Hennig, J.-L., Thomas, 30 ans: Bruno, 15 ans: le nouveau couple zig-zag. Recherches 37: 137-166, 1979, [Author’s reference] 158.

^[3] Lambert, K. The Scope and Dimensions of Paedophilia, in: Kraemer, Gordon, Lambert & Williams, The Normal and Abnormal Love of Children. Kansas City (MO): Sheed Andrews & McMeel, 1976, p. 107. [Author’s reference].

^[4] Schérer, R., Une érotique puérile.  Paris: Galilée, 1978, 17. [Author’s reference]