Testimony: Adult Male with Minor Male

• Minor report by David Tuller in Salon.com, July 22, 2002.
  • An aircraft maintenance worker describes his first experience at thirteen with a man of about 30 who had hired him to do yard work. After inviting him inside and showing him pictures of men wrestling, the man “started rubbing my crotch, and I was both nervous and really excited by it.” He went on to seek out other significantly older men. “I never felt used. I really wanted it, and except for the first time I always felt like the aggressor”
  • Noted gay novelist Edmund White (Wiki) talks about picking up men at Chicago beaches and public restrooms from the age of 13 or 14. “I was very oversexed, absolutely driven wild by desire. ... The first one was a handsome architect, who actually had children older than me. I was absolutely fascinated by him, and I seduced him. I followed him to his car, walked right up to him and started talking to him. My mother was away and I said, ‘Come back to my apartment.’ And it was terrific.”
  • In an essay about sex between adolescents and adults, David Tuller relates his own desire as a 15-year-old "tormented homosexual wannabe." Upon seeing the movie Summer of '42, in which a young widow "pulls Hermie into her arms and, in her grief, into her bed," he says, "I cried while I watched, ... because I so yearned for the tender moments that Hermie found."
  • A gay healthcare professional in his 50s discusses how the relationship he pursued with a family friend in his early 20s helped him learn at the age of fifteen that men could care for each other. "It was clear that it certainly felt good to both of us. ... In some way it was a real lifesaver, because it made me feel that love and affection and closeness and sex would be possible in my life. ... when we were together, it was like a little oasis where we could be ourselves."
  • A businessman in Denver recounts his two-year relationship, from age fifteen, with his 29-year-old boss at the restaurant where he worked. "It was frightening and invigorating and I felt clumsy and awkward. But he was playful and fun and very gentle. I never felt coerced. As foreign as it was to me I was very open to it. Afterwards, I felt good, like I'd experienced something I'd wanted to for a long time." Speaking of how it affected his life at the time, he says, "I wasn't an awkward, out-of-place kid anymore. I felt appreciated for being gay, instead of being an outcast and made fun of. Suddenly I had this new self-confidence. I didn't have to hate myself for being gay."
• A long and varied career by Ambar on BoyChat, July 2005.

  A man recounts his earliest sexual experiences, including with his best friend’s father at eight years old: “He became my second very, very, very best friend and so began a wonderful, loving relationship. I still adore that man :-)”

• Letter from John in HFP Mailbag and Sexual Abuse from a Victim by John Tate, December 7, 2004.

  A 17-year-old reports on the anguish in his life stemming from sexual activity with his grandfather from age seven and attributes the worst aspects to society’s attitudes about it: “I think if this sort of thing was tolerated I would not have felt so fucking alienated, so hated, as a child, I would have not been an outcast.”

• count me IN !!! :)) by siao on BoyChat, July 2005.

  A man recounts his first experience of sex with an adult at seven years old: “suddenly fun was "in" … gosh, what was that twirling feeling which went all thru me ???” He also speaks of such encounters with many other men, saying, “NOT A SINGLE ONE EVER ABUSED ME ! I was free to say 'YES!!!!' and also knew how to say 'no' if there were ever anything I might not want.”

• Boy Crazy in Boston Magazine, May 2001
  • Famous poet Allen Ginsberg commented on the 1977 pedophilia scandal in Revere, Massachusetts, "I had sex when I was 8 with a man in the back of my grandfather’s candy store in Revere, and I turned out okay."
  • Best-selling Canadian author James Dubro was 14 in 1961 when he started having sex with a 22-year-old college student who remains his friend 40 years later.
• My Story: A story of a boy by Elf on BoyChat, October 1998.

  A man in his mid-20s tells his story. When he was nine or ten years old, he responded willingly to the seduction of a 16- or 17-year-old neighbor boy. They had a passionate love affair for over a year until they were discovered and his father beat him savagely. The older boy’s family disappeared from town. This man wrote of that affair as the best thing that ever happened to him and attributed his deep problems at the time of writing to the brutal way it was torn away from him.

• "Spike" on his website

  A 15-year-old boy writes about his adult lover: “When I was 10, I found myself a mentor, a wonderful old man that needed me as much as I needed him. … J has been the best thing that could ever have happened to me. Everything I am today I owe to J. He and Mom are both educated people who believe that I must prepare myself for adulthood by learning how to learn, how to think for myself, and how to believe in myself … Mom sees the results of my association with J, and she could not be more pleased.”

• Hoby on his website

  A boy proclaims his interest in adult men and says, “You should be able to love whoever you want when you want and as long as you both happy it dont matter what anyone else thinks.”

• My Complaints by David Alejandro, December 1996, on his website.

  A 13-year-old boy makes an impassioned plea for sexual freedom: “I want to love and be loved by whom I want. For the last two years I have an older friend. I am not gay, I like girls. He doesn’t, but we understand each other very well. It is nobody’s business what we do or don’t do. … Stop protecting me, please!” (Note: His site history page indicated that he was 13 when he posted this page and 15½ in June 1999. The English index pages said that he lived in the “Land of the Incas.”)

• Voor Een Verloren Soldaat (For A Lost Soldier), autobiographical novel by Rudi van Dantzig, 1986 and 1992 movie made from it

  Acclaimed ballet dancer and choreographer Rudi van Dantzig tells the story of his brief romance at twelve with a Canadian soldier at the end of World War II.

• Stefan on his webpage

  A 12-year-old in Holland says, “I will tell you about my BEST friend. He’s 28 and works at home. I love him the most in the world and he loves me. He says I’m the cutest boy in the world.”

• Scott O'Hara, quoted in his obituary at the Spirit of Stonewall Press Conference, New York City, June 24, 1994.

  The publisher of Steam magazine says, “When I was 12 and 13 years old I would have joined NAMBLA in a minute, because I knew I was gay and I wanted to go out and get laid, not just read The Gay Mystique all my life; I needed personal contact.”

• Ik Wilde Meer! (“I Want More!”) in Martijn (PDF, 6 Mb), December 1980, page 16-18, in Dutch.

  A married man reports on his 6-year-long relationship with a man who showed him erotic art and masturbated him. The relationship later turned platonic and the younger man was at the older’s deathbed 37 years later.

• tribute to frank by mick15 on BoyLover.net, December 7, 2005.

  A teenaged boy describes his loving, sexual relationship with his soccer mentor, who had recently died.

• I want to speak out!!!!!!!! by “15 yr old boy” on BoyChat, September 2000.

  A 15-year-old boy writes about his adult lover: “He is the best thing that has ever happened to me. … I wish this world would just open its eyes and see that relationships like this are healthy and good for boys my age—but yes only if the boy wants the relationship.”

• There is Magic Out There by Joshua Adam on his website.

  A 13-year-old in the 10th grade writes about the emotional support he gets from his older friend, Angel, who is helping him overcome the hatred cast upon him by his family and school for liking other boys. Angel and Adam have never met in person and do not plan to do so. Their relationship is entirely nonsexual, although it is definitely one of love and mentorship.

• Author Kirk Read

  In his 2001 book, How I Learned to Snap, Kirk Read tells of his sexual experiences with adults starting at age 13, which he says saved his life. Reviewed by NAMbLA.

• Shane on his website

  A 14-year-old gay boy in Australia says, “I have one really good adult friend that knows about my sexuality, … Steve has never tried anything sexual with me, although I often wish he would.”

• Under My House . Tent Sleeping . Neighbors Bedroom by Linca on BoyChat, July 2005.

  A man recounts his first experiences of sex, including with an adult neighbor at 14: “[He] did with me … what he had been wanting to do with me since I was 8 years old. We are friends to this day.”

• Two posts by hyacinth on BoyChat: May 2002 [1] and July 2005 [2]

  A man describes his childhood sexual experiences with adults. The first was anal sex with a benedictine monk at 14 years old: “I was't stupid, at 14 I knew my way around … He was very nice and very gentle, and I liked him alot.” [1] Next was a relationship that lasted for a year and a half with a man and his two sons. [2]

• Letters of a Loving Boy--Excerpted letters and diaries of boys, edited by Jarod Benjamin, 1997.

  A 14-year-old boy wrote a series of love letters, unsuccessfully courting an adult friend for a more intimate relationship.

• Just Like Greece? — Gay Teen Dates Septuagenarian, an interview of “:John ”: by Brandon K. Thorp in Mogenic, June 2006.

  A 22-year-old man talks about the 67-year-old man he met at the museum where they were both volunteering when he was 13. A friendship emerged based on unusually common interests for such a pair. The relationship evolved into mentoring and eventually romance, which became sexual two years later. They remained occassionally intimate for five years while the teenager also began to explore relationships with his age peers. Looking back on the man’s death when he was 20, he says, “He enhanced the quality of my youth, and his influence will likely enhance the quality of my entire adult life. And I enhanced his old age. We both got something out of it.”

• Aaron, on his website

  A 15-year-old boy talks about his adult lover on his website.

• Boys Speak Out on Man/Boy Love, NAMBLA, 1981.

  NAMBLA published a book with first-person accounts of 29 boys about their relationships with older men. Titles include The Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me by Greg, 16, It Shouldn’t Be a Crime to Make Love by Bryan, 12, If It Wasn’t for Mark I’d Probably Be Dead Today by Carl, 14, I Need My Lovers by Tyrone, 16, and It Was Me Who Started It by Frank, 15.

• The perspective of a loving boy in On Boys and Boylovers by Jarod Benjamin, 1997.

  Jarod Benjamin’s 1997 study of male-male pedophilia includes a section that reports on pedophile relationships from the point of view of boys in them. Reference is also made to 620 quotes of boys in Edward Brongersma’s Loving Boys.

• Baseball, Boys, One Man on Illegal Love

  A boy happily participates in a sexual and emotional relationship with an older man beginning at age 12. "Jesse is less than half John's age and turned 15-years-old in April, but the boy is not his son. Jesse "is my lover," John said, "but the feelings are mutual, this is a consensual relationship." John met Jesse (not his real name) when the boy was homeless three years ago. [...] In Jesse's own words, "John knows me, he's here inside my head already, I mean all along. He is my dad, boyfriend, best friend, brother, all in one. He's great," he grins as he chats with a friend on the office computer. [...] "I brought it up and told him how I felt and offered to take care of him. That is when he said he was in love with me and never wanted to leave," John said."

• Lee

  Gay sex at 8 / various illegal / all consenting "Lee is 14. He's been having sex with boys since the age of eight, and with men since he was 12. Lee has a serious problem. He wants a steady relationship and has been going out recently with a guy in his mid-twenties, who he met at the hairdressers. But in the eyes of the law, Lee's partner is a paedophile and Lee is a victim of child abuse. That's not, however, the way Lee sees it: "I want to have a boyfriend. It's my choice. No one's abusing me. Why should we be treated like criminals?". This is a live issue for Lee because he prefers relationships with older guys. "I don't get on with people my own age", says Lee. "They're too immature. I like men in their 20s or early 30s. They are more experienced and serious. With them, you can get into a closer relationship than with a teenager"."

• David

  Gay sex at 13 with a man in his mid-30s. "[O]ne day he started telling me about all the boys he'd had, and.., we finally ended up in the next room. We had a good time. I actually thought it was a little funny; at one point I even started to laugh. I don't know why -- I just had this weird need to laugh. [...] It was all so new. It was exciting. [...] (Interviewer: It [your relationship] all sounds very rosy...) Yes, it's really, really great."

• Unnamed 13/14-year-old boy

  Claims that he consented, but others saw it very differently! [username: as@df.com, p/w: asdf] "The young lad in question, who was 13 when his contact with these paedophiles began, claims that the sexual relationships he had with them were all consensual. In other words, he is stating that he was not raped, and that, to his mind at least, there was no abuse."

• Pat Kelly

  Aged 5, he helped a boy, 17, masturbate; was grateful for his invitation (Forum down. Pat was the webmaster behind the rational humanist website LogicalReality.com and the associated forums. He claims to have enjoyed hiding in a garage and masturbating the other boy, much like a schoolboy would enjoy being allowed into the staffroom - the world of adults, with which he was so fascinated).

• Andre and Dennis

  Educationalist on his relationship with a primary schoolboy. ". Actually, it really lasted quite a while before the sexual side of our relationship started to take shape; I did not dare begin with this so soon. André does feel a bit guilty towards Dennis' mother that he never brought up the sexuality. He asks himself if she may not have figured out after all, because every now and then she has made remarks that could point to that. She does know that Dennis and André have a very physical contact with each other and kiss each other. Basicly, he would like to talk about it, but, understandably, this is not easy. On being asked, Dennis had a clear opinion: 'She does not need to know!'"

• "11-year-old faggot"

  Talks to NAMbLA. Boys speak out. Order: Nambla, P. O. Box 174, Midtown Sta. New York, NY10018 "My first statement is that I want to dispel the image that a child is an innocent little puppy dog. Children have plenty of knowledge about life, the universe and everything. But adults tend not to listen to their children. This innocent puppy syndrome represses the child's social, sexual, political, economical, and emotional desires. Children are not taken seriously and are expected to conform to a society in which they can't question its validity. This has got to stop! [...] A child is a sexual being. Therefore, children should have the right to explore any aspect of sexuality they desire to engage in. Why do parents, politicians, and police (the 3 p's) feed guilt into children that are sexually active? [...] Many people have been destroyed because of intergenerational relationships, people who could offer the world a lot if they had just not been persecuted for being different. Burning witches is a pastime which is just regaining popularity in the States."

• Johnny

  Maternally approved Gay sex at 12 "(Interviewer: What are the negative aspects of your contact with Ferdinand?) Tss ... There aren't any. [...except] to explain that to my family, or to keep his orientation hidden from them."

• Peter

  Happy with pedophile contacts from an early age (around ten) "(Interviewer: What are the negative aspects of your contact with Ferdinand?) I don't have any."

• Stephan

  Descriptive account of yet another acceptable relationship, beginning at age 11. "Ferdinand really picked me up in a terrific way. I have learned lots from him, I've had many experiences and I've done lots of things with Ferdinand. I have learned something about human nature from Ferdinand. And other important things in society, responsibility, how to go about with money. I still don't do that very well, you know, it just didn't stick with me. But, you know, that sort of thing. The important things in life. Before Ferdinand I didn't know about any of these things and through him I have discovered them. Also, I always say, "I didn't have a childhood until I met Ferdinand. Then I received my childhood." And that is really how it was because before that I had so many problems. [...] (Interviewer: What are the negative aspects of your contact with Ferdinand?) Not one! That is very easy to say. Not one."

• Pluto

  Emotional need for sex with a boy, at 56, after enjoying the reverse long ago. Pluto's early childhood experience involved showering with a grown man, and enjoying sexual contact. At the time of the act, it would have most certainly been disapproved of, but there was no moral panic in place to rob him of his self-worth. "Yes, I did have sex with an adult when I was very young--10, 11, 12 years old--and I treasure and cherish the memories... [...] I was not hurt in any way by it. i only wish there had been more times when he fooled around with me."

• Thijs and Joop

  Befriended by a boylover at nine, and enjoying sex "(Interviewer: What do you find the unpleasant aspects of sex with Joop?) There aren't any. I don't know of any, at least. [...] (Interviewer: Can you say who starts it, when you have sex?) Either of us. Sometimes me, yeah, mostly me. But he, too, real often. [...] (Interviewer: What do you think your mother would feel about your having sex with Joop?) I guess she'd think it was dirty. She'd think a man doing that with a child wasn't normal, that you just shouldn't do it. That's what she'd say. (Interviewer: And how do you fell about her thinking that way?) Rotten stupid! Although I wouldn't tell her it was rotten stupid. I mean, what business is it of hers? It's my business what I do. [...] (Interviewer: How do you feel about your having sex with Joop?) It's just really nice. (Interviewer: It's no problem for you?) It's just like a man going to bed with a woman--I think it's exactly the same: nice. And the feelings and so on they have, I have too."

• Unnamed Indian Boy

  Newspaper article about M8 + M19 sex and the victim syndrome "Once I was about 15, I grew familiar with terms like paedophilia and child abuse and started to realise what I had been through. This too had a downside. I found myself in 'the victim syndrome'. I started using this incident as an excuse to endear myself to people and constantly looked at myself as victimised in relationships and emotional circumstances. This persists even today but I try to rid myself of this misery."

• Sateryn

  Got a 'kick' out of illegal sex play with adults, at five, but disliked the following investigation "you know the most traumatic part about being molested as a child? sitting in a room with your parents and a therapist staring at you, forcing you to take naked cloth dolls and use them to put on a puppet show to show the adults what happened to you. the physical act of it? the molestation itself? hell, it was interesting... i was 5, it was something new, and i lucked out in that it wasn't violent, just people getting their rocks off - and quite frankly i got a kick out of it, at the time."

• IIDB

  Another member comments about their indifference, and expands later on. "I remember one incident when I was 9 or so and my uncles were 20 and 21. They brought me and a cousin who's about my age to their room and we engaged in oral sex. It was a one-time thing, but I didn't repress the memory, felt ashamed by it, or otherwise damaged by it. We didn't talk about it though, and it doesn't come to mind often. Is that counted as abuse? I had no strong feelings about it then or now. [...] I don't claim that it didn't affect me then, but it affected me in the way sexual activities affect us at that age - that of guilt of doing something I was taught is wrong or shameful. It's the same feeling I got then after masturbation and sexual experimentation with my friends, male and female."

• Hangtwenty

  1950s boylove with an oversexed 12-year-old. "....The most intense affair happened between 1956 and 1958.... The boy, who was 12 when it started, not only told me that I was his 'best friend', but that I was his 'only friend'...! ....Since we both lived with our parents then, and both lived in the same apartment house, we were together alot... His intensity to be sexual with me was much stronger than mine was for him..!"

• Prominent British men on fagging in their public schools

  Article by the Guardian

• Gerald

  Convicted for loving sex with teenage boys, after they made unfortunate spousal choices.

• Dirk Tieleman

  A journalist claims that a slightly coercive relationship worked to his own benefit. "When I was thirteen, a boy of seventeen sexually used me for a period of time with slight coercion, but I never really felt bad about that. He jacked me off and forced me to jack him off, and at first I felt uncomfortable about that, but after a few times I began to enjoy it myself and the aspect of coercion trailed off. Off course, being a thirteen-year-old boy, I found it curious that I was doing such things with another boy, but I realize now that this first sexual experience has helped me approach girls - to whom I was far more attracted - confidently and without qualms later on. That first sexual experience with a boy was, to me, the perfect introduction to sexuality. [...] In the past years, since the Dutoux scandal, I've been hearing people say all the time that any form of sex with children would automatically lead to great disturbances and 'damage the innocent child's soul beyond repair', but I feel confident in stating with absolute certainty that I haven't suffered the least bit of damage from my first sexual experiences with that older boy - not as a child, and not now. On the contrary: I have always had a very normal and healthy sex life, perhaps even because of that first experience."

• Men loving boys loving men.

  Multiple man-boy accounts (Researched by the gay activist Gerald Hannon)

• Kevin B. Johnson's Boyfriend

  "The second boy [15/16?] described a sexual relationship with Johnson that began when the youth was a freshman in 2004 and continued until last month. He told police, "I am not a victim. I was a willing participant," according to the affidavit."

• Floyd Martinson in his book "Infant and Child Sexuality"

  Martinson quotes another's experience: "My first homosexual experience came at the age of five or six, when I would play with this boy who was at that time about sixteen. He would ask me if I wanted to go into his house for something to eat, like some cookies or something. Of course I would go. Next he would ask me if I would go into the bedroom with him. Upon entering the bedroom, he would undress and ask me to do the same. I would, probably out of fright. I distinctly remember his body being very hairy, so perhaps I underestimated his age. Anyway, after undressing, he would tell me to bend over and then he would insert his erect penis into my anal region and start thrusting back and forth. He would then stimulate my penis and want me to do the same to him. We also masturbated each other, with him reaching orgasm and myself only being stimulated. I also spent some time in oral-genital contact. I did find the whole experience quite pleasing and continued to engage in these activities for a week or two. Then, and I don't recall why, we suddenly stopped doing it completely."

• Bruce Rind

  Rind quotes the story of a relationship between in 13yo boy and his 22yo brother in a 2001 study. "Subject and adult brother often massaged each other. "This time, however, I got a little hard and then he noted I had grown so much since he last saw me naked. He asked me jokingly if he could suck my dick. I said 'yes' so we got off on each other. He did me and then I did him. He came all over me but I did not. This lasted a month until he headed back to work. I do miss him as a friend and a brother. Was nothing romantic." Subject added, "I liked it, ... felt good. I wanted to do it again and again. I already knew my brother was gay and that I was attracted to men so this did not prove or disprove that I was gay."

• My Father and I

  Positive man-boy incest is interrupted by a mother. "My father molested me from the time I was two till I was 15. We would lie naked and he would play with my penis. Then he would give me oral sex. When I was old enough I then started sucking him too. He never hurt me or tried to have anal sex with me, even though I wanted him to. I had anal sex with him, a few times, once my father decided my penis was big enough. My father and I would plan things around the times where we could meet and make each other feel good. My mother found out and two months ago my father was sent to prison. What my father did to me was not rape, at all. He never hurt me. In fact, I looked forward to spending the time with him but my mother and the police don't seem to listen."

• William Percy

  Article "UMASS professor advocates pederasty" William Armstrong Percy III says that when he was 14, he seduced a male soldier while traveling on a train. "I never got enough sex with an older man. I don't see that I was harmed at all, except being deprived of not having more," said Percy. "I was already the aggressor."

• The male adolescent involved with a pederast becomes an adult

  Several accounts. "During his 11th year he began spending his spare time around a service station, where he became acquainted with a master mechanic who was then in his early 40s, married, and childless. [...] On a fishing trip, during a break on an island, they began talking about sex, which led to Denver's being fellated by the mechanic and to masturbation of the mechanic by Denver. For the next 5 years mutual fellatio occurred two or three times per week. Sexual activity with the mechanic ceased at about age 19, but a close relationship continued to exist until the mechanic's death. Denver is now 44 years of age. [...] Denver remarried and has been a valued mechanic with the same company for 20 years. He has a supervisory position and believes that his relationship with his mechanic friend helped him reach his goals. He says he would have approved a similar relationship for either of his sons, had he become aware of such a situation. He reports no desire to have sex with males since approximately age 20."

• Mark Foley

  Former American Republican, @13y/o. "The Rev. Anthony Mercieca, 72, described several encounters that he said Foley might perceive as sexually inappropriate, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune reported. They include massaging Foley while the boy was naked, skinny-dipping together at a secluded lake in Lake Worth and being nude in the same room on overnight trips. "Once maybe I touched him or so ... but I didn't, it's not something you call rape or penetration or anything like that," Mercieca told West Palm Beach station WPTV in a phone interview. "He seemed to like it, you know? So it was sort of more like a spontaneous thing". Mercieca said."

• Richard Dawkins

  From an article of his, that despite not being exactly sex - positive, goes as far as is 'acceptable' in playing down the impact of nonviolent, situational fondling of children by priests, whilst attacking the religious dogmas that sometimes cause so much shame after such encounters. "Being fondled by the Latin master in the Squash Court was a disagreeable sensation for a nine-year-old, a mixture of embarrassment and skin-crawling revulsion, but it was certainly not in the same league as being led to believe that I, or someone I knew, might go to everlasting fire. As soon as I could wriggle off his knee, I ran to tell my friends and we had a good laugh, our fellowship enhanced by the shared experience of the same sad pedophile. I do not believe that I, or they, suffered lasting, or even temporary damage from this disagreeable physical abuse of power. Given the Latin Master’s eventual suicide, maybe the damage was all on his side."

• Heinz Kohut

  Strozier, quoting the Psychologist on his relationship as a child: "I had this private tutor, who was a very important person in my life. He would take me to museums and swimming and concerts and we had endless intellectual conversations and played complicated intellectual games and played chess together They also did sexual things together, which they both enjoyed, but Kohut felt the sex was more or less incidental. The important thing for him was the relationship. He said "I was an only child. So it was in some way psychologically life-saving for me. I was very fond of this fellow." Heinz was about 10 or 11 at the time. He describes his years with his tutor as being perhaps the happiest ones in his life."

• Pim Fortuyn

  Populist, anti - immigration, homosexual Politician from the Netherlands (deceased): "Fortuyn's first experience occurred when he was five years old. "The Dutch soldier asks if I want to see his tent. That's what I want. I like it and they all are sleeping on the ground in a sleeping-bag. I ask if it is hard and cold to sleep on the ground. Oh no, come here. Together we crawl in his sleeping-bag. The soldier asks my name and I ask his name. “He is called Arie and he asks if I like that name. Yes, I think that's a nice name and I lie beside him, nice and warm." Fortuyn then described a close sexual encounter with the soldier before leaving his sleeping-bag "to go and play outside." He added: "Can I come back tomorrow? Yes, tomorrow I may come back, says Arie." A few pages later, he describes another incident: "I went to the park for a walk, it was very silent and the sun was shining. On the bench sat a young fellow. I stood still, curious." Fortuyn relates another sexual encounter - this time in explicit detail. He concludes: "I was frightened and ran away to my home, to my mother. Excited, I ran into the room. My mother looked at me searchingly and asked what had happened. Nothing, of course. Watch out, little man, was the only thing she said. A glass of lemonade made me calm down. Yes, that was exciting." Most telling is his appraisal of these memories. "In chapter 1 about the 1950s, I wrote about my early sexual experiences, experiences that I see as an enrichment. Today, an experience like that in the park could easily lead to a complaint by parents to the police because of paedophilia, and the relevant young man would be in trouble. But why? "He didn't do me any harm. On the contrary, he showed me something that was incomprehensibly exciting and I could feel and touch it, but today we are ready to interfere with complete teams of professionals. By interfering in such an irritating and grown-up way in the world of children, we make an enormous problem of something that for a child is no problem at all and is only exciting.""

• Todd Nickerson

  A self-declared pedophile writes: "I did have a single sexual encounter with an adult when I was a child, though I would hardly describe it as traumatic or even unpleasant. My memory of being touched—and that’s all it amounted to—is that it was, at most, a little confusing since I didn’t really understand what was taking place. Not that I really minded, though. In fact, after it occurred, I went immediately to a relative and bragged to her about it."

• Boylover.net member on experiences as an 11-year-old boy

  "We piled back into the limo and it drove us to Toronto where we went to a stage play. I don’t remember what we saw because my head was still spinning about the fact that this attractive man, one who could have any female he wanted, was in love with me and was doing all this to make this night as special as he could. After the play, we headed for home. Limo drivers must have orders to ignore whatever they see going on in the back because ours got quite an eyeful. He was treated to the sight of an eleven-year-old boy and a nineteen-year-old man acting like boyfriends. We kissed, we petted, and we worked each other into an erotic frenzy, a frenzy for which there could only be one consummation."

• Boylover.net member on intercourse

  "I was 10 and it was with an Adult Friend. I did not, nor do I now think I was abused. (well not by my AF anyway) I liked it. We only ever did the things I wanted to do."

• Frans Gieles in an article of his

  "Craisatie (1998, among others page 117) describes a client who, as a child, had frequented a group, which in the book was called 'a child pornography ring'. As a child, he never had seen this as being abuse. Contrarily, he said that he'd gotten a lot of love, comradeship and care, which he did not get at home. Craisatie describes it as an example of successful treatment that his client ultimately abandoned his feeling of being loved and changed it into the feeling of being abused although this occurred only gradually and very late in the treatment process [...] Ehrenreich (2004) describes a man who for nineteen years was held in a closed clinic. He denied his offense, thus refused to speak about it, thus he did not cooperate, thus year after year his stay was renewed. Then, he changed tack: he 'acknowledged' his offense, he spoke about it, he did exactly what the therapists ordered, and said that he benefited from their treatment. This was the only way to be released. The man has been released. Then it turned out that is accusers had lied about everything they had said, under high pressure of the police: there never had been an offense."