THE USUAL OBJECTIONS: “A WORLD WHERE THE CHILD DOESN’T YET BELONG”
BY EDWARD BRONGERSMA

Presented here is third part of “The Usual Objections”, a section of “Negative Aspects of Man/Boy Relations: Presumed and Real”, the fourth chapter of Loving Boys, the encyclopaedic study of Greek love by the eminent Dutch lawyer, Edward Brongersma, of which the second volume (including this) was published by Global Academic Publishers in New York in 1990.

“A World Where the Child Doesn’t Yet Belong”

Our discussion in Chapter Three bears on a new objection: that sexual contact with an adult brings the child into an unsuitable realm of existence, one where he doesn’t yet belong. Sexual activity, therefore, should be reserved for adults. If a child samples prematurely the forbidden fruit he will get into trouble because in so doing he will sever his connection with childhood and his relations with peers will be endangered. Those children who are happy in their sexually expressed relationships with adults are abnormal and need psychotherapy.^[1]

But, as we have already seen, nature doesn’t recognize a closed domain for adults only and in which children are prohibited. Every new-born child is receptive of sexual sensations; he enriches his understanding of them by acquiring new elements of cognition. Where his comprehension fails a sexual activity will simply go unnoticed. Give a pornographic photo to a toddler and he will put it in his mouth or tear it up and not be emotionally affected by what it represents. Adults are all to prone to project their own feelings and responses upon the childish mind. It is simply impossible to induce in a child feelings he is not yet mature enough to have; one cannot force him to enter a sexual domain which he is not yet ready to perceive.

In this context we must stress that adults in our culture usually underrate by far the maturity and capabilities of the child.^[2] Only a few centuries ago European boys married at the age of twelve, thirteen, and fourteen.^[3] In the Middle Ages and the Renaissance there were competent thirteen-year-old army commanders and cardinals of the Roman Church, fourteen-year-old fleet admirals, fifteen-year-old governors. In his “School on Boats” Léonid Kameneff^[4] discovered that contemporary boys and girls are capable of surprising achievements, provided they are entrusted with all the responsibility. A nine-year-old cook dealt competently and faultlessly with all the meals for a group of travellers, from purchasing the food to its preparation. Two fourteen-year-olds steered a sailing ship through a heavy storm along a rocky coast.

Thus it is not unreasonable to suppose that children possess far greater capacity in the realm of sexuality than adults commonly suppose. Until about two hundred years ago boys simply participated, and nobody thought twice about it.^[5] The essential truth – as we have seen – is that any problem here is imaginary: you cannot elicit from a person something that is not yet inside him.^[6] A child who doesn’t yet have the capacity to experience everything an adult might in a sexual episode will simply not experience it completely.

A man making love to smaller boys is usually quite aware of this and adapts his behaviour accordingly, limiting himself to kisses, fondling, cuddling, and the like. A psychiatrist like Van der Kwast^[7] is thus more concerned about the infantile level on which the adult must act than the adult level to which the child is supposedly forcefully brought.

Certainly it would overburden a child to demand from him fully grown-up and responsible behaviour in a love relationship.^[8] Any adult too stupid to recognize this may well hurt his younger friend by demanding he accept a load too heavy for his mind and, like certain kinds of religious instruction, crush it. But what causes the psychological damage in this case are the unreasonable demands, not the sex itself.

When it comes to enjoying sexual activity, it is well to keep in mind that Freud^[9] called the child “polymorphous perverse”, referring to the child’s almost unlimited capacity to be sexually excited in many ways closed to grown-ups. Nobody is less sexually “innocent” than the child: he displays a far greater and more varied capacity for sexual pleasure than the adult.

How a boy reacts to adult orgasm and ejaculation will depend upon his own developmental stage and how he was raised. He may perceive it as strange unsavoury, or he may think it is nice and important.^[10] One boy-lover confessed to me that for years he never let himself climax while making love to his beloved boy because he didn’t want to shock the child.

Continue to The Usual Objections: "The Child Will Be Traumatized"

^[1]De Levita quoted by Sandfort, Th., De ervaringswereld van kinderen in pedofielerelaties, DoktoraalskriptieKatholieke Universiteit Nijmegen, 1979, p. 138; Socarides quoted by Kessler, D. R., Book Review of Ch. W. Socarides’ “Homosexuality”,Journal of Homosexuality 6, 3: 89-95, 1981, p. 92. [Author’s note]

^[2] O‘Carroll, T., Paedophilia – The Radical Case, London: Peter Owen, 1980, pp. 134-135. [Author’s note]

^[3] Taylor, G. R., Sex in History, London: Panther Books, 1953, p. 35. [Author’s note]

^[4] Kameneff, L., Ecoliers sans tablier, Paris: Simoën, 1979. [Author’s note]

^[5] Matzneff, G., Le défi, Paris: Table Ronde, 1977, p. 145. [Author’s note]

^[6] Sengers, W. J., Pedofilie. In: Albarda (Ed.), Gewoonbizonder, Amsterdam: Humanitas, 1969, p. 22. [Author’s note]

^[7] Kwast, S. van der, Seksuelecriminaliteit, Leiden: Stafleu, 1968, p. 55. [Author’s note]

^[8] Schillemans, A., Vrouwentegenpedofilie. Jeugd&Samenleving13, 2: 133-139, 1983, p. 139. [Author’s note]

^[9] Freud, S., Drei AbhandlungenzurSexualtheorie, Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 1920, p. 102. [Author’s note]

^[10] Sandfort, Th., Pedofilie: wat het is en wat we ervanweten. In: Van der Velde, Wat doe jij met mijn kind? Utrecht: Veen, 1981, p.  191. [Author’s note]