THE ADVENTURER TYPE OF PEDERAST BY PARKER ROSSMAN

The following is one of the sections of the first chapter of Dr. Parker Rossman’s Sexual Experience Between Men and Boys (originally published in 1976), entitled "Dimensions of a Complex Problem", introduced here. His intention in this chapter was to give an unavoidably simplified but general idea of the different types of pederast and their prevalence. Actually, however, his evidence was mostly limited to what was then recent in countries with a Judaeo-Christian tradition.

The Adventurer

Sorensen[1] divides human beings into two categories: a) the monogamists who tend to go steady with one sex partner, and b) the adventurers who seek varied sexual experiences. Sex is more of a game than it is loving, paternal, or husbandly, for such an adventurous male who may make sexual overtures to any attractive young person he meets just to see what the response will be. This type of pederasty is rooted in and begins with the more or less normal adventuring of all adolescents in the pre-love or love-seeking and dating phase of their sex life. Most pederast-adventurers do not at first intend to get involved in illegal sex play when setting out to play platonic-erotic games with adolescents, much like the young boy who may pretend to be eager for sexual intercourse when in fact he is still quite scared of the idea. However, the person who sets out on the prowl for new types of sexual experience is likely to find it. Teen-age boys are more readily and easily available for sex than perhaps the adventurer anticipated.

The adventurer’s quest is often at first simply a search for new experience in the adolescent spirit of “I’ll try anything once.” No one type of sexual activity is dominant, except the game of “cruising,” which is often satisfying in itself even if no sex partner is actually found. Some pederasts are like adolescents in that they are theoretically searching for the ideal sex partner or for a permanent liaison. Others are more like the soldier or tourist who is simply out for some fun as a diversion. Some are simply voyeurs who sexually amuse themselves by observing the erotic foibles of others.

Of the practicing pederasts we interviewed, less than 5 per cent were promiscuous adventurers, except perhaps on occasion when away from home, for pederast adventurism is an occasional thing in the lives of many men. For example, one pederast, whom we here call Evert Evans, was an adventurer only while he was in Vietnam. He would not risk cultivating his new taste in the United States, but hoped to make periodic visits to Southeast Asia for sexual adventurism - only some of which will be pederast. Americans who are pederast adventurers at home tend for the most part to be younger men, unmarried, who define themselves not so much as pederasts as liberated bisexual swingers. Or else they are men of the paiderastia type previously discussed who went underground to avoid arrest or whose lives were in some other way disrupted so as to make them more cynical about the need to be prudent and circumspect in their relations with boys in our society.

By profession, Evans is a scientist who works terribly long hours under great pressure. He is unmarried, and every few weeks he seeks a liaison with a woman prostitute. For a day or so ahead of such intercourse, he relaxes from his work by walking around his city, from parks to playgrounds – any place where he can watch adolescent boys at play. He talks to them until he finds a boy who flirts with him a bit and who will play a few hours of “hunt and chase” with him. He has no intention of touching the boy sexually, but when he succeeds in finding a boy who is sexually experienced with men and who is available, he plays a game of sexual pursuit which is not unlike a fisherman who enjoys the sport whether he actually catches anything or not. In this case he is a fisherman who enjoys trailing an unbaited line behind his boat, perhaps it doesn’t even have a hook. For him, and often also for the boy, it is a profoundly arousing sexual experience, building up an erotic tension which makes his sexual intercourse with a woman more pleasurable. Indeed, he usually fantasizes sexual intercourse with the boy when he is in bed with the prostitute.

Of course the man who so frequently goes fishing may sooner or later catch something, even if he does not intend to. The pederast adventurer who enjoys sexual encounters with boys overseas on his vacation may on occasion bait his hook at home to enliven the game. Adventurism may thus lead the voyeuristic pederast who does not dare get sexually involved with the boy at home to risk sex play when he is away from home in another city, especially with a boy of the same age and type as the one he would like to be involved with at home. From fantasizing sexual intercourse with a boy while he has intercourse with a woman, the next step may be to fantasize sexual intercourse with the boy he really wants, while engaging in a sexual relationship with a boy who is available, such as a boy prostitute.

Most large cities have “cruising areas” which at night are full of men looking for either a girl or a boy, and where there are many adolescent boys looking for either a girl or a man. Since the adventurer takes obvious risks in making sexual overtures to strange boys, one might expect this type of pederast to be most often in the hands of the law. Why is this not so? One reason is that if he is a skilled adventurer he may run less risk from the police than the man who has a continuing affectionate relationship with a boy which will be noticed. Also, an intelligent pederast who learns all the tricks of avoiding the law is harder for the police to catch, much as the professional thief who moves from city to city is harder to apprehend than the amateur who bungles a series of crimes at home. The adventurer-pederast of the promiscuous sort soon learns the places which are safest to “cruise” – a route which often varies from week to week. Furthermore, since the boys who are on the prowl to meet him are equally anxious to keep the sex play secret from parents and friends, they are co-conspirators who rarely cause trouble unless they are abused or disappointed. These adventurers are rarely arrested unless a boy or his family press charges.[2] The police have no other way to pursue such a pederast, except to trail him in the hope of catching him in a sex act with a boy.

Casimir Dukhasz[3] has written witty novels about the experiences of a pederast adventurer with a series of boys of all types, most of them disappointingly unable to live up to the expectations of his fantasies. Many pederast adventurers are cruising around, simply amusing themselves by looking for the “ideal boy.” Some have found this ideal at one time or another, but young adolescents quickly grow into young men; so the man who seeks his erotic amusements with boys of thirteen or fourteen must continually be on the prowl to find a new boy, no matter how pleasing his last experience may have been. Evans is realistic with himself at this point. Boys seldom live up to the expectations of his dreams, and if they do, it doesn’t last long, so he gets his erotic kicks from a type of adventurism which consists essentially of playing courtship games. Sometimes he goes so far as to proposition a boy in order to see what the reaction will be, even offering money as a thank-you gift to the boy for spending some hours playing the game. Or sometimes he may hire a boy to prowl with him, to help him find another boy who may be interested. Obviously Evans is only one type of adventurer, for at least 5 per cent of the pederasts we interviewed prowl for boys until they find a boy who will go to bed with them. Sometimes, however, adventurers like this find a boy with whom they enter into a paiderastia relationship or, as their cruising becomes more promiscuous, they may move into the next category.

[1] Robert Sorensen, Adolescent Sexuality in Contemporary America (New York: World, 1975), chapter 10.

[2] Michael Schofield, Social Aspects of Homosexuality (London: Longmans Green, 1965), pp. 21, 46.

[3] For example, Casimir Dukhasz, The Asbestos Diary, New York: Oliver Layton Press, 1966.

Comments

If you would like to leave a comment on this webpage, please e-mail it to greek.love.tta@gmail.com, mentioning either the title or the url of the page so that the editor can add it.