“YOUTH SEXUALITY IN TENSION BETWEEEN DESIRE AND DREAD”
BY WOLF VOGEL

This is the tenth chapter of Secret Love: Eros between Boy and Man (2022), an anonymous translation of Wolf Vogel’s  Heimliche Liebe: Eros zwischen Knabe und Mann (Hamburg: John & Ernst, 1997).

“Any growing boy, however normal and adapted to family and society he may be, can become involved in a pederastic relationship, but that tells us nothing regarding future abnormalities in his sexual development.” (Th. Vanggaard) Often, such relationships are fleeting or of brief duration, because a boy is striving not so much for a lasting erotic friendship with a man as he is expressing a frank or furtive interest in the manly physique, the genitalia included. “In this sense, the phallus is, for the boy, a symbol of the fully-developed man’s size, strength, independence, courage, cleverness, knowledge, influence over other men, possession of desirable women, and sexual potency, and it also stands for all of the other things which a boy admires in a man and craves for himself. Thus, the phallus is the bearer of a multitude of ideas and feelings which, in many cases have little to do with popular notions of sex.” (Th. Vanggaard)

That is why it is not out of the ordinary for normally-developing boys “to select older comrades and adult men as role-models and emulate them. This endeavor is an indispensable factors in boys’development, and helps them in their efforts to acquire the desired qualities of older boys and men by identifying with them. Strong feelings of attachment and love are integral components of these relationships and foster boys’ internal development.” (Th.Vanggaard)

Many adults’ insecurities with regard to this age-related curiosity were taken up by the Kinsey Report: “The anatomy and function of male genitalia interest young boys to a degree which can no longer be correctly assessed by older men who have become heterosexually molded and who are continually on guard against reactions which could be interpreted as homosexual.”

In his short story “The Baths,” the Danish writer Klaus Rifbjerg describes prepubertal boys’ deep fascination with masculine genitalia. Boys are astonished first and foremost by the difference between their own little penis and the large genitals of adults, which drop down so dissimilarly, and seem so thoroughly interesting in all of their particulars. In the short story “Ill-Mannered Jensen,” this same author describes the sexual relationship between a band of boys and an adult shopkeeper in a Copenhagen suburb.

A fascination with fully-formed genitalia is certainly not the only reason why a boy might develop an erotic interest in a man. Frequently, sex with a man is a substitute for an aspired to—but not yet attainable—intimate contact with a girl. For boys, sex with a man at least means not having to worry about an unwanted pregnancy. With the beginning of puberty, boys often already harbor pronounced homoerotic desires and interests which, in the course of pubertal development, might die down again and even vanish completely. But there is no such thing as being seduced into becoming a homosexual.

The Dutch jurist and parliamentarian Edward Brongersma has been collecting reports of sexual relationships between boys and men for several decades now, and has published them in various books and compilations. Three brief examples shall be cited here.

A 15-year-old describes the ploys he uses in order to make contact with adults:

“I knew what I wanted, but I didn’t know how to go about getting it. One day, I was at home with my uncle—everyone else was away. I steered the conversation to sex, and then I asked him if he’d do it with me. He didn’t want to, and therefore, I said that, if he didn’t do it, I would scream as loud as I could. I finally got him to actually do it, and this would not be the only time. We kept on and on at it, for about six months. I didn’t fall for people so easily, and I knew that he wanted it. Therefore, he had only been afraid because I was still so young.”

With great persistence, a 14-year-old paperboy tried to get in closer contact with a bachelor to whom he delivered the daily newspaper. As soon as they got to know one another a bit better, the boy began cracking jokes about girls that—in his opinion—the man would’ve had over to his house, and spoke of his own attempts to “chat up” a girl. One day, after they’d already been on friendly terms for quite some time, the boy mentioned that he had an erection. Didn’t the man see how the front of his pants were bulging out? The man accepted this obvious invitation, and sex was the result.

Each day, two 15-year-old gymnasium students came for private lessons with a teacher they were on very friendly terms with. They were also sexually intimate with him. They were in the habit of—upon arrival at his home—taking off all their clothes, doing their homework with him, and then laying down on his bed, where the man took turns, one day having intercourse with one while the other watched and masturbated, and then the next day, vice versa.

One day, they arrived quite agitated, recounting how they had encountered “this real gay swine” who made a pass at them. “Now, we really beat the crap out of him; that’ll teach him that we ain’t no homos!,” they said, as they undressed themselves for their daily sex play. With that, they then resorted to the expression that many boys employ: that what they do with adults has nothing to do with homosexuality, which they detest.

As one of the first scientists to study boy-man relationships, the Dutch psychologist Frits Bernard has looked into what negative effects they might have. He came to the conclusion that in those cases in which the sexual relationship came about as a result of mutual desire, there were no detectable disadvantages or harm whatsoever. According to this study, detrimental outcomes resulted—at most—due to the hysterical or rejecting postures of parents, the surroundings, or the justice system:

“Of greater significance here is the attitude of the child’s immediate environs. Because of a negative posture, something which was nice for the child can suddenly be turned into a problem, and the relationship finds itself thrust into the legal arena.”

On another occasion: “Experience shows that, in reality, no one really gives any thought to the fate of children following ‘sex offenses.’ Their task is merely to testify accordingly, so that the case can be brought to a close. Their opinions are not welcomed, their needs are in no way met. Often, the child is not taken seriously. The attitude of one’s environment, of society, can constitute a real threat to the child here.”

Through his activities as an expert witness in criminal proceedings, Bernard has found that “being questioned by the police, however proficiently and congenially it is conducted, can have a traumatizing effect. Intimate things are discussed, which canbe extraordinarily unpleasant for the child. The ‘betrayal’—because of which the older person gets arrested—causes psychological harm to many children, which effects them throughout their entire lives.”

When a child is summoned to a police interrogation because of a sexual relationship with an adult, he probably knows full well that this does not involve an official commendation. He senses very clearly that this is connected with a contact which is strongly condemned by his environment. His natural reaction to this is to be disturbed and anxious; or, he adopts the view of his surroundings, in order to not jeopardize his own social integration, and retrospectively feels ashamed about the sexual contact. Many children and teenagers’ fears about their relationship with an adult being discovered have been expressed in statements collected by the Dutch sociologist Theo Sandfort, in the context of an extensive scientific study carried out under the auspices of the University of Utrecht (in the Netherlands):

“Yeah, I am afraid that at some point someone will find out, the neighbors will notice, or something. And then they’ll tell the police, etc.”
(Boy, age 14)

“Yeah, when I think about this—and I’m not supposed to tell anyone—then I already get anxious etc. I think about it, and I would like to talk about it with somebody just once; but if I tell someone, and then he repeats it to someone else—I’m already anxious about this.”
(Boy, age 13)

Many children also internalize the strong taboo surrounding sexual affection with adults. The child is familiar with the expectations that have been placed around it, and knows that parents are not happy when these expectations are not lived up to. By an early age, he has already incorporated the norms of the adult world so deeply within himself that, oftentimes, he suppresses his own desires, and sees his own spontaneous behavior as ‘naughty’ or‘fresh’ when he goes against the expectations of his parents.

Remarks along these lines may also be found in Sandfort’s study: “If my mother says ‘that isn’t right,’ then I have to think the same way.”
(Boy, age 14)

“Of course, sometimes I do feel I’ve been bad, yes. That I do this, and no one actually knows about it—my mother, etc.”
(Boy, age 13)

“I think there are people who do not think this is a good thing etc., but I happily do it anyway. For example my mother, who, if she knew about it, probably would not think it was a good thing, and my father probably wouldn’t either, and many others also would not think it was a good thing; but I myself feel quite wonderfully naughty, and do it anyway.”
(Boy, age 14)

The fact that, in the past, Dutch scientists first and foremost have been willing to tackle research into sexual relationships between minors and adults is not surprising. For one thing, our neighboring country’s tolerance towards and interest in diverse manifestations of sexuality has traditionally been greater; this is verified, among other things, by the fact that he “Dutch Society for Sexual Reform” has, at times, numbered more than 200,000 members. For another thing, the presence of sexual child-adult relationships in Germany is subject to a strong suppression mechanism, which categorically characterizes all such relationships as “abuse.”

The first extensive German study of erotic relationships between children and adults was carried out between 1989 and 1991 by Rudiger Lautmann, Professor of Legal Sociology at the University of Bremen. Prior to that, no German sexual scientist had dared to study and describe such (not known to the legal system!) relationships.

One the other hand, the present book takes up the subject for the first time in the form of interviews with and reports from persons who are now adults. At this point, it shall resume with a further depiction: A father tells us something of his own puberty.