Essay:Rethinking legal problems

Copied from BoyChat, 2007-September-20. This piece is all the more intriguing, thanks to what the pseudonymous author - at that time Webmaster of BoyChat has become known for. He may one day be released from prison in the 2030s. By that time, he will be in his 60s.

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I'm willing to bet that every single poster on BoyChat knows someone who's got legal trouble.

Yes, I know: it's not really a fair bet. Jimf3 was a very well-known poster, and he's got legal trouble. Bill Evans has been very forthcoming with BoyChat about the ins and outs of his legal trouble. And since you'd have to almost be a brand-spanking newbie to not have come across either of those two guys, it's pretty much guaranteed: we all know someone who's got legal trouble.

The question is, what do we do about it? Take Jim, for instance. He's my friend. I mean, beyond BoyChat: he's a personal friend; we had each other's telephone numbers and home addresses and each of us had a standing invitation to visit the home of the other, though due to the distances involved, we were never able to take each other up on those invitations. The fact that he's gotten arrested doesn't change the fact that he's my friend, and I don't see any reason to change that. Bill's a personal friend, too, and has helped me out in more ways than I care to count. I have another very good personal friend who just recently finished serving a sentence; I consider him just as much a friend today as I did before he got in trouble.

But when I start making a list, I think... geez. What does it say about me, that a list of my very best friends includes so many people who haven't managed to stay on the right side of the law? Add to that the fact that I myself recently had a spot of legal trouble... not to mention having served time in my youth... and, well, it starts to look like the bloggers and antis are right. We really are a den of criminals, aren't we?

But the fact that I do know these people means that I know some other things, as well. I know their situations. I know, in many cases, the circumstances that led up to their trouble. I don't want to give examples (because it would be identifiable details), but I'm talking about first-hand knowledge of situations that make reality substantially different than what the police reports paint them to be. In short, I know for a fact that the legal system is full of people who will lie, commit outrageous acts of abuse and extortion, and paint details in such a way as to make things seem precisely what they're not. My trust in the legal system is zero.

And my trust in the press is zero, as well. I've made post after post here on BoyChat questioning the wording used by the media when reporting these kinds of cases. I've caught Ernie Allen lying; I've caught Kurt Eichenwald lying; I've caught countless local reporters around the world failing to check their facts and saying improbable--if not outright impossible--things. Hell, it's almost not even fun anymore. I don't think I need to prove to you guys that the press lies; we've seen the articles. We've seen the way they write about BoyChat and Free Spirits and Epifora and various known names in the community. What appears in the news doesn't necessarily have anything at all to do with reality.

And then, to cap it all off, there's the simple fact that I'm a boylover, you know? I believe that boys are sexual beings and have the right to express their sexuality as they choose. I believe that admiring a beautiful boy, either in real life or in a photograph, is a perfectly reasonable use for one's eyes. In short, even in those cases where both the police and the press get it right and the guy in question really did do what they say he did, that doesn't necessarily make it wrong. Illegal, perhaps... but not wrong.

Let's go back to Jim. He's accused of having child pornography. Of course, the only people who can really know what kind of material he had are his local legal system and Jim himself. An independent reporter can't double-check and find out if maybe he's being shafted for "baby on a bear rug" material that's only pornographic by statute; this is precisely the question that Debbie Nathan keeps hammering home. I don't know what Jim had; I don't know if he was set up (I do know that Perverted Justice had specifically targeted him and I don't put anything past them), or if he had a vast collection of speedo boys or if he had videos of naked Russian kids orgasming all over each other. I don't know... but... I know Jim.

So let's say, for the sake of argument, that he really did have child pornography of the undoubtable kind. Boys having sex. Erect penises, penetration, and cheesy Casio synthesizer music over high-pitched "Oohs" and "Aahs" of prepubescent pleasure. The question is, "So what?" So, Jim got to see something that we all wish we could see. He got to see naked boys having sex. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say there probably isn't anybody posting on BoyChat who doesn't wish he could get a glimpse of it, too. Sure, most of us never will. Most of us are too worried about the legal trouble it brings (and rightfully so; child pornography is the easiest way to get to prison these days; the best advice I can give anyone is stay far the hell away from it). Many of us have moral concerns about the way in which it's produced, and many of us have ethical concerns about the implications of viewing it without the subject's permission. I understand all that. But that doesn't change the fact that the reason most of us will never seek out child pornography is precisely because of those legal, moral and ethical concerns... not because we're just not interested in seeing sexy boys doing sexy things.

I don't care who I piss off. If you tell me that you just have no interest whatsoever, not even in your darkest, most private fantasies, of catching a glimpse of a naked boy, not ever, not under any circumstances... well, I think you're full of shit. Either that, or posting on the wrong board.

So then... maybe Jim got to see it. Should I "cluck, cluck" and say, "Oh, how could you, Jim, you've let us all down?" No. What I would say if I knew Jim got a glimpse would be, "Way to go, boy." I'd give him a thumbs-up and, if I got a chance, I'd ask for a description. "C'mon, Jim, just tell me what they were doing... please... in detail..." Fortunately, outside of Canada, a text description still isn't illegal.

Now, such a positive reaction on my part is probably irritating our more hard-line moralists. "Dylan," they'd say, "you're encouraging him! By your positive response, you're advocating it! You're basically saying it's okay to look at child pornography!" Well, not precisely. Again, I happen to think staying legal and free is important for any human being, boylover or otherwise, and so I insist that looking at child pornography is one of the stupidest things a person can do in most countries. If you give into the urge and you get busted, you're going to jail and all I'll say is, you had it coming. But... once you're busted, once you've already gotten in trouble and you can't go back and change the past, there's no point pointing to a zillion "should've done" moments. You broke the law... but you didn't do anything I don't wish I could do, too. I won't... but damn, I wish I could. How much of a hypocrite would I have to be to hold that against you?

Some years ago, another good friend of mine IMed me and said, "Dylan, I'm in trouble. I got caught with a boy. I'm probably going to go to prison." I think I took him completely by surprise when my response was, "Good for you." He thought I was being sarcastic. But I knew this guy. I had faith in his character. I knew he wouldn't have raped or coerced an unwilling boy (and later details confirmed it). I wasn't being sarcastic at all: I meant exactly what I said. "Good for you."

He asked, "You aren't mad?" I said that I was to some degree pissed about the things he and the boy would both have to go through as they were ground up by the system, but the fact that he had sex with a boy? "Are you kidding? You got some! I dream about one day being able to have sex with a boy. Going to prison sucks, but it's too late to change the past, so if you've gotta go to jail, well, those are the memories worth taking with you."

He was a little annoyed that I characterized his relationship with the boy as "gettin' some," but then, that was kind of my point. The fact that he was annoyed by that helped me feel comfortable that the relationship wasn't one of coercion. Plus, I've always had a socially unacceptable vocabulary. It's very hard to be my friend if you can't get used to it. Having sex, making love, sharing your bodies, going for a roll in the hay... hell, it's all "gettin' some."

The point is... getting in trouble with the law just doesn't mean what it used to. If someone gets arrested for child pornography, for sex with a boy, or for showing up at a nonexistent boy's house where Chris Hansen is waiting, well, that can say a lot of things. It says the person may have been reckless. It says the person may have made a bad decision. Or perhaps it says the police or the media is lying again. Or maybe it says that the person made the calculated decision that it was worth the risk. Or maybe the person just didn't care about the risk and was determined to live his life on his own terms, consequences be damned. And dozens of other possibilities.

But is doesn't say that a person whom I knew to be good suddenly becomes evil. It doesn't say that individual is a bad human being, or a bad boylover, or a bad friend. Sure, I've got to protect my own security--don't ask me to hold on to your CD collection while you're in jail, and for the love of Timmy, if you know you're doing something illegal, don't fucking tell me about it--but I'm not going to write you off just because you do something that I wish I could do, but I'm not willing to pay the consequences. As far as I'm concerned, if you go to prison for something involving a boy (or a photo of a boy, or a movie of a boy, or whatever), you're not a "fallen boylover." You are a hero boylover. You did it. You've been there, you've done that. You now know what the rest of us can only talk about. I hate the price you had to pay for it, and I'm personally not willing to pay that price... but I maintain there is a distinction between doing something illegal and doing something wrong. You broke the law. You weren't wrong.

Now, I know there's someone out there thinking, "Dylan, these people are hurting boys! No matter how nice the sex is, the damage the boy will suffer... and how unethical it is to subject a boy to... and that boy never wanted a total stranger to see those images... and yada yada yada..." Just stow it. First of all, I've already made the distinction between illegal and wrong. When we have all the facts, if we can say, "What Ralph did wasn't just illegal, it was wrong, he coerced or abused or something else that's not a point of law but a point of decency," then we're talking about something different. I have no patience with someone who would harm another human being, boy or otherwise. If someone hurts a boy, I'll put him in jail myself if I have to. But I'm not going to assume, just because someone gets arrested and the newspaper article makes it sound lurid, that that's what happened. If I have the information necessary to make that kind of moral call, I'll make it. But I'll tell you what; I've had lots of inside information on lots of cases, and the ones where I've had to decide that something really wrong happened have been the minority. (I'm sure there are plenty of evil rapists out there, but they tend not to end up in my circle of friends, where I'd be most likely to have inside information.)

And I know that once a case hits the courts, there are going to be consequences for the boy that go beyond anything the boylover did directly. But I place the blame for that where it belongs: on the system that does the harm. Yes, I know the argument about, "If you know the system will do harm afterwards, then by creating the situation in which that could happen, you're partly responsible for that harm." And I'd be hostile to any boylover who had sex with a boy and then turned himself in saying, "Okay, now it's time for the system to grind the kid up!" I've never heard of that actually happening, however. What normally happens is that the boylover takes all kinds of precautions to prevent ever coming to the attention of that system, but something goes wrong anyway. That's a consequence of the behavior, one which it is incumbent upon a boylover to understand and accept, and make sure the boy understands and accepts as well. But let's call it what it is: extortion. It's blackmail. It's the system saying, "Even if the sex doesn't harm him, if you have sex with him, I'll harm him and then say it's your fault!" We already have plenty to be responsible for; there's no "honor" in assuming responsibility for atrocities committed by others.

And then there's the argument about, "When a boylover gets arrested--especially a high-profile boylover like Jim--then our enemies point to that and use it to prove how we're all a bunch of criminals! It justifies their view of us, it makes us all look bad." Bullshit. First of all, we already look bad. An arrest doesn't make us look worse; it just superficially supports what our enemies already believe and have no interest in ceasing to believe. Do people really think that if we all live trouble-free (and, correspondingly, boy-free) lives that suddenly the pressure will be off? It must take a lot of effort to be that naive. Many of the highest-profile cases used to put pressure on pedophiles are cases in which no pedophile is demonstrably involved. At least one anti-pedophile law in the U.S. bears the name of a child who was never shown to have been touched by any pedophile at all; two high-profile cases that spurred legislation in the U.S. and Europe respectively are similarly devoid of any evidence of pedophile involvement whatsoever. Being "good boylovers" in that sense doesn't accomplish anything except a metaphorical self-castration. It certainly doesn't help "the cause."

And besides, the deck is stacked by the other side. When our enemies say, "Look, another BoyChatter got arrested, that proves they're evil child molesters!" I usually just laugh. The response is, "All it proves is that the laws are written by people who don't like boylovers." Yes, of course we're a bunch of outlaws! When you outlaw who we are, we don't have any choice except to be a bunch of outlaws. Gimme me a break: let me write the laws for a while. I'll make heterosexual behavior illegal, and then we'll see how long everyone else can stay out of jail. Our boylove criminals aren't something to be ashamed of; they're something to be proud of! People who pay the price for being who they are anyway. Jimf3 got arrested? Yes, bloggers, he did. I'm not "embarrassed" that he gave the community a black eye; I'm pleased as punch that he got a peek (if indeed he did)! He didn't embarrass us; he just gave us another example of how boylovers are persecuted for things heterosexuals take for granted: the ability to look at nekked pitchers.

So, to all of you who are currently in legal trouble, or have been in the past, or may be one day in the future (which, by the way, is all of us--if you think the fact that you're not doing anything illegal protects you from getting in trouble, I'm afraid you're the worst kind of wrong)... you don't just have a place in this community; you have, as far as I'm concerned, an honored place in this community. You suffered for reaching where the rest of us don't dare.

In the ideal world, it would be easy to tell the difference between someone who genuinely harmed a boy and someone who simply had sex with a boy. It would be easy to tell the difference because it would make a difference, because the distinction would be important enough to delineate. But we don't live in that world. We live in a world where consensual sex and rape are synonymous. This is a disservice to real victims, and creates even more victims once they're all put into the same sausage grinder. We must not take responsibility for that because it is simply another technique to convince us that we are the problem. We are not the problem. And the absence of that distinction means that we cannot assume that an arrest means a boy was harmed. We cannot assume that a lurid newspaper article means a boy was harmed. We cannot assume that an excessive sentence and sanctimonious "I've never seen anything so horrible!" statements from judges and prosecutors means a boy was harmed. The only way we can assume that a boy was harmed is if we know through reliable channels that a boy was harmed (and "reliable channels" leaves the courts and the media out).

Does that mean we're at risk of welcoming with open arms someone who really did do something just plain wrong? Yep. Is that preferable to shutting out someone who did something illegal, but nothing wrong? Yep. My list of friends includes people who have been to prison, people who are awaiting trial, people who have narrowly escaped prosecution, and people who are most likely guilty of things they haven't been caught for yet (though as I said, I'd prefer not to know about it, in that last case). And I'm proud of every single one of them.

When there's an arrest, I can be disappointed in the system. I can be disappointed in the situation. I can even be disappointed in the judgment the person used getting into the situation in the first place. But if I find myself being disappointed in the person, then it's time to rethink it. Being mad at someone for doing something that I merely wish I could do is either jealousy or hypocrisy, but either way, the only person it reflects poorly on is me. Jim... keep on fighting. Bill... hang in there. To my buddy who just got out... welcome back; I missed you. To my buddy who just went in... I'll keep a light on for you.

To everyone else, this is our community. I'm proud of it. Criminal records and all, I'm proud of it.

Much Love,

Dylan Thomas

[expired email address redacted by admin]