War effort

I've just been reading Jay's latest post, about his dad and his wartime service. Jay is justifiably proud of his dad, and it's nice that their country has recognised the contribution his dad made. I couldn't help feeling a little bitterness, though, about the contrast between that story, and how my dad's contribution to the war effort, and his subsequent working life seems to have been viewed by 'the establishment' over here. My dad was a coal miner, from leaving school at the age of 14 until he took early retirement at 59. He began his career in 1940, and was then effectively 'conscripted' into the industry, with no option to leave and pursue any other career, until 1952, by which time, hardly surprisingly, knowing nothing else, he opted to stay on. When he retired in 1985, he didn't receive as much as a letter of thanks for his lifetime working underground, and when he died less than a year later, the final indignity was that my mum, because she was still working herself, and earning more than some arbitrary threshold, had her widow's free coal allowance taken away. My dad didn't seek any recognition for himself, he just saw himself as an average working man, but I'm still proud of him, quite apart from the fact that he was just about the nicest man I've ever met, even allowing for filial bias.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Two choices

If we accept you're not bad, then you must accept that you're mad. Not that great a bargain, in my opinion. A friend kindly sent me a link to this article, and while I have to admit that it's rather more empathetic than most written on the subject, I was disappointed that there was such a focus on the 'treatment' of a 'mental illness'. Why can't people accept that those like me, attracted to boys (or, by the same token, my counterparts attracted to girls) aren't necessarily either inherently bad or mentally ill. We're just people who, through some unfathomable permutation of nature and nurture, have to contend with desires that the vast majority of the world at large consider unconscionable. It isn't, certainly in my case, and I suspect in most, any sort of a choice, and it isn't something I can voluntarily change, because if I could, I most assuredly would. As the article suggested, there is mental illness, and there is suicide, but I believe that much of it comes from without rather than within, born of the relentless tide of hatred we face, the endless chorus accusing us of monstrosity and worthlessness. If you hear these things repeated day after day, year after year, from the likes of the pundit quoted in the article, the desire for us to be completely isolated from society, if not killed out of hand, it's pretty hard sometimes not to believe the propaganda. When even those who try to understand and search for solutions are subjected to hate mail, the chances of anything changing in any foreseeable future seem very remote indeed. And, as a result, those who are attracted to minors have no option but to hide, until, in some cases, the loneliness and frustration overwhelms the dams of self-control, and a child is hurt, or worse. The haters, often, have blood on their hands, in my opinion.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Right, wrong, and who decides?

Another news story has had widespread coverage in the past few days, of a 15 year old girl who appears to have 'eloped', to use an old fashioned word, to France with her maths teacher. Several issues seem to be raised by the case. There are obvious ones such as the age of consent and 'positions of trust', and these have and will be discussed at length, no doubt, but less superficial aspects have also come to my mind. If the girl was substantially younger, say 11 or 12, there would be very little moral ambiguity, but, to judge by the photograph I've seen of her on a news website this morning, this is far more a young woman than a child, certainly in a biological sense - I'd be very surprised indeed if she's not of 'child-bearing age'. And that reproductive maturity would have been enough, for much of human history, and, indeed, would still be in many contemporary societies, to legitimise the relationship. By the standards of this society, 21st century Britain, though, the relationship, even if completely consensual, is judged to be 'wrong', and I have very little doubt that if the man returns to the UK, he will be imprisoned in pretty short order, and probably dubbed a 'paedophile' to boot, even if that word bears no resemblance to the physiological realities of the situation. There is always talk of 'protecting children' in connection with this kind of case, and I have no reservation in saying that young people should be protected from unwanted sexual approaches, and certainly from anything non-consensual, but I often wonder how much of the 'outrage' expressed is really to do with protection - I rather think a lot of it, with young people of this age, is far more to do with control, with lèse-majesté, the parents' and other authority figures' assumed 'right' to dictate how their offspring/charges should live their lives. When I was in Norfolk the other weekend, and discussing the implications of my being a boylover with my friend, one of the arguments he put forward to support his assertion that my attractions, if expressed, were 'wrong' was of how I would feel if my daughter became involved with an older person. 'You would be livid' was his take on the matter. Well, no actually, certainly not automatically. While I would be furious if my daughter was subjected to anything to which she hadn't given consent - and equally furious if she instigated anything non-consensual herself, for example with someone younger - at her current age, closer to 15 than 14, and possessed of a considerable degree of maturity for that age, I have no doubt that she would be able, in many circumstances, to decide for herself what she wanted, and be able to say 'yes' or 'no' accordingly. I'm not suggesting for a moment that I would encourage her to have a sexual relationship at her age, but if it was clear that that was what she was intending to do, I would consider my duty of care to comprise not of locking her in her room in a chastity belt, but of trying to ensure that anything that did happen was undertaken as safely as possible. Yes, I would go and buy condoms, or whatever, for her, if that was what she needed. Ultimately, she's an individual, an autonomous person, and I view my parental role as that of caretaker, not dictator.
So, once again, a topic without easy answers, in my opinion. Whatever else, I hope that this young woman, and her older partner, end by being both safe, as a first priority, and happy. The latter, though, is much more doubtful, sadly.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Stereotypes

Everybody, virtually, is guilty of it. I know I am, when I think about certain groups of people. Having a stereotypical image of who they are, how they are likely to behave. One of my colleagues fell into the trap at work last night. He was talking about visiting a bar that he hadn't been to for some considerable time, to find that it had morphed into a gay meeting place. He said, as though utterly astonished by the revelation, 'they don't all wear leather caps and fake moustaches'. Straight away I thought, no, they don't - there's one sitting fifteen feet away from you, doing the same job, wearing his Aussie Rules polo shirt and jeans, and you've got no idea at all of what's beneath the surface. People are people, and one aspect of their life doesn't define who they are. And I would do as well to remember that as anyone else.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

The smell of burning bridges in the afternoon

It looks like I've contrived to fall out with my daughter. It was my fault, I niggled at her about the fact that I've been having problems getting hold of her of late, and she bit back. It was, in a way, an argument of equals, as opposed to a father-daughter thing, probably the first such argument we've ever had - the 'friends' part of our relationship has been at least as, if not more, important than the parent-child element since she was very young. If I lose her, I'm getting very, very close to 'last straw' territory. It might sound like melodrama to say that she's my only reason to live, but, looking around my life's landscape, there really isn't much else. Just when you think it can't get any worse....

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

I feel so sorry, for both of them

There's been quite a bit of national news coverage of a case in Scotland of a 4 year old boy who was sexually assaulted in a supermarket toilet a few days ago, and the news today was of an arrest in the case. Of a 19 year old. I feel very sorry for the little boy, having had something inflicted on him that should never have happened, but I feel almost equally sorry that he will now, I have little doubt, be traumatised further by the processes he will be swallowed up by, the assumption that he is now 'damaged goods', and needs to be 'mended'.
And, less politically correctly, I feel sorry for the young man accused of the assault, even if he is guilty. He's little more, realistically, than a boy himself, but his life, or large parts of it, will effectively be over. If convicted, he'll be an RSO for life, in all probablility, which will greatly restrict his access to education and employment, will determine where he can go, who he can meet, even whether he's allowed to use the internet or not. and that's always assuming some self-appointed 'vigilante' doesn't take matters into their own hands. I'm not suggesting that, if guilty, he hasn't done wrong, but does an effective life sentence - or maybe even death sentence - for what might have been one unguarded moment as a teenager constitute 'a punishment fitting the crime'? There are no easy answers in this kind of case, despite the inevitable kneejerk reactions it will elicit, and I don't have any better a solution than anyone else. All I can offer is my sympathy. To both parties.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Do I, don't I?

A reprise of a dilemma I faced a few weeks back has surfaced this afternoon. I've visited my daughter's YouTube channel, and found a very thoughtful and intelligent 'opinion piece to camera' that she's posted, and which I would ideally like to share with the world. I'd love everyone to be able to see how bright and interesting she is, but, as ever with my life, there's a problem. Because of other videos, and links, I would run a fair risk of losing my carapace of pseudonymity, and by doing so, also 'outing' my daughter as the child of a 'filthy paedo'. In the circumstances, I have to follow the precautionary principle, I guess, but it's disappointing that I can't do my small part to spotlight her talents.

Just a small edit - I've been thinking about what I'd written in this post over the past few minutes, and I don't want anyone to get the impression that I care about what anyone thinks of me personally - even I don't give a shit about myself, so there's no reason anyone else should - but I do care about my daughter, and I don't want to run even the slightest risk of causing any problems for her.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Summer's end

The last day of summer, and it is rather grey, breezy and generally autumnal looking outside my window. Not that it's made a great deal of difference to me today, because I've been in bed for most of the day, being between night shifts as I am. The end of my first summer back on my own, after twenty shared with another. Am I coming to terms with my new situation? Difficult to say, definitively. I don't seem to be having quite as many 'bad days' as I was a few months back, but there are still times when I find the motivation to carry on very tenuous indeed. It's not just what's been lost, it's the absence of any prospect of anything at all to take its place, I suppose. But, realistically, I knew that all along, which was why I was hiding the truth in the first place. But the truth, as they say, will out, and it did on that evening in February. And where, as I've asked before, is my darling boy? As elusive as ever, perhaps never to be found.
And winter is on its way. Literally, and maybe figuratively, too.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

The pictures in my head

This post has sexual content, please don't read if you're likely to be offended.

He was sitting on my bed, on that school summer holiday afternoon. He was my brother's friend, but I got on with him reasonably well, too. I was 14, he was 11, just finished primary school, joining me at grammar school when the new term began in September. He'd come round to see my brother, but there was no-one in but me. I can't remember where everyone else was, but a shopping trip seems most likely - I was at an age where going to the shops with my mum and siblings wouldn't have had much appeal. I don't recall any of the context, how what happened next came about, but I suspect we'd started talking, as boys will, about 'dirty stuff'. I'd just learned about masturbation, a few months earlier, and I'd found that the pictures in my head, my fantasies, when I practised my new-found 'skill' were almost exclusively of boys rather than girls. I'm surmising here, but I think we reached the point where 'you show me, and I'll show you' had been suggested. He went first. He wasn't a particularly good-looking boy, just average, and well-built for his age, not fat, but tall and sturdy. Seconds later, there he was, still sitting on my bed, but with his trousers and underwear pulled down to hip level. He was erect, his genitals in proportion with the rest of him, not huge, but perhaps slightly bigger than average for his age, certainly bigger than I had been at 11. Still hairless, though. I was utterly entranced. I'd never seen an erect penis apart from my own, as far as I can remember. I wanted so much to touch him, but I just didn't have the words to be able to ask. He became uncomfortable, maybe sensing that my interest in him was more than just curiosity, that there was desire involved. He covered himself up, didn't ask me to fulfil my half of the 'deal'. Nothing else happened, the incident was never mentioned again, as far as I know - I certainly didn't tell anyone else.
It struck me earlier today that my experience with my brother's friend still resonates with me today - the passage I wrote in Diary where Cammy first undresses and allows Tony to see his 'boy bits' has elements in common with that afternoon in my bedroom, and I read a passage in an online story yesterday which again had echoes of that day, and which I found powerfully erotic. I've read that the brain is considered by far the most important 'sex organ' in the body, and it's difficult to argue against that view, as far as I'm concerned.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Thanks a lot, Blogger

I've logged into Blogger after getting in from work this morning to find I've had the 'new Blogger interface' imposed on me. Well, it's shit, in my humble opinion, I'd revert to the old version in a heartbeat. Except, of course, that it's no longer available. The new one is no easier to use, lacks at least one feature I used regularly, clicking on the small black arrowhead next to a post in the post list to be able to read in a user-friendly format without having to go into the blog itself, or be thrown into the 'compose' frame, as happens now. And each time I've been into the 'compose' frame, and try to navigate away, I'm being told I have unsaved changes, even if I haven't changed anything. The whole thing is an exercise in corporate masturbation, as far as I can see. Utter rubbish.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Inclusivity and invisibility

A couple of things have happened today that has made me think along the lines encapsulated in the title of this post. The UK coalition government is in the throes of making an announcement about the reform of the school examination system, effectively returning to something far more like the system that appertained when I was at school, where the qualifications a pupil gained, or failed to gain, were largely based on the ability to pass a one-off, written examination, as opposed to the more course work, continuous assessment based regime that has been in place since the late 1980's. The old system suited me admirably, because I was good at exams, but very lazy, so I could get away with doing little or no work during the year, and still end up close to, or at 'the top of the class'. For the whole of a young person's academic career, and thus their future opportunities, to hang on a handful of sessions in an examination room, though, seems to me to reopen for many the prospect of their becoming members of an educational underclass, those who might have a goodly amount of native aptitude, but through accidents of upbringing, teaching techniques or simply feeling unwell 'on the day' will have no concrete way of displaying the fact to a potential employer or further education provider. No exam system can be perfect, there will always be those who fall through the net, as well as those who can come out with perhaps more than their overall efforts deserve (and yes, I am looking at 'the man in the mirror' when I say that), but to go back to a system that seems to almost wilfully lend itself to creating a generation of second-class citizens, largely, it appears, for reasons of political expediency, to keep 'Middle England' on side with this benighted government who seem to have little or no rapport with 'ordinary people' is, for me, indefensible.
On a more personal level, the reaction to my last post has seemed to me to underline my lack of prospects of being accepted as having a valid place in 'society', whatever that cypher is taken to mean. If I can only 'fit in' by submerging and suppressing my true self, by being 'invisible', then the outlook for my life is pretty bleak. Especially as I have abided by the law over the years, but even expressing my attractions openly appears to be too much for some to countenance. How far are we from Orwellian style 'thoughtcrime' laws, where the likes of me are locked up simply for desiring the wrong thing? As I've said before, there are many, especially on the religious right, who would happily round up every boylover in the world and throw us into the gas chambers, irrespective of whether restraint has been shown or not. Few would oppose such a move, either, I suspect, until it became clear that a precedent had been set, and the gas chambers began opening their doors to those who professed the 'wrong' religion or political affiliation, were born with the 'wrong' sexual orientation, possessed the 'wrong' skin colour....

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Fix me?

Back in harness today, to one of my periodic double-shift Sundays - I'm in the 'intermission' at the moment, I've had a couple of hours sleep, a shower and something to eat, and I'll be heading back to work in the next hour or so.
The last day of my break, yesterday, though, was an interesting and largely positive one. I met up with an old friend and colleague, who I hadn't seen for around three years. As I mentioned when he got back in touch with me a couple of months ago, he used to espouse some pretty strident homophobic views, so I didn't think he would really be that impressed with 'the new me'. He assured me he had changed, though, and he had been a good friend for many years through most of the nineties and into the 'noughties', so arranging to meet up with him didn't strike me as being too massive a risk. So off to Norfolk I went yesterday morning, to his adoptive home town - he was actually born in London, but moved to Norfolk as a boy, and did most of his growing up there. The original plan was for us to head out to a place way off the beaten track, with a very intermittent train service, but, in the event, we went somewhere which, while still pretty rural, was rather more accessible. It was a thoroughly nice late summer day, warm and unbrokenly sunny, and much of our day was spent sitting by a Broadlands river, in more than one beer garden, watching the world go by over the rim of beer glasses. And talking. About the changes in both of our lives, and the implications of those changes. He had, as he'd suggested, mellowed considerably, to the point, after a couple of hours, in response to his enquiring about where I was going to head next in my life, that I was able to tell him about the second half of my equation, that I'm a boylover. He was pretty surprised, I think, but did a fair job of assimilating my admission. He didn't, however, approve, as, indeed, most people wouldn't. I tried to explain my perspective, as best I could, about my doubts about the validity of a 'one size fits all' age of consent, and about what I would and wouldn't be prepared to do. He seemed to assume that I am the way I am because of some 'trauma', the implication being that I'd been abused myself. I did my best to convince him that no such thing had ever happened, which it hasn't, but I still think he ended by thinking that I was 'broken' in some way - he actually called me 'a tortured soul' at one point - and that I needed counselling/psychiatric intervention to be 'fixed' - he suggested that if I spoke to a professional in that kind of environment, that I'd remember some incident that I'd forgotten that had 'made me this way'. Except that there really, really was no such incident. Nothing palpable happened in my childhood or youth to lend any explanation to my sexuality. Which is why I don't subscribe to the view that I need to be fixed. This is me, this is who I am. I don't, as I said recently, know why I am the person I am, but how many people really do have that degree of insight about themselves?
Still, the lack of convergence in our views notwithstanding, it was a good day, and nice to reconnect with someone I'd lost touch with. And I doubt if it will be last trip to Norfolk.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Not welcome

I really haven't got the emotional wherewithal at the moment to describe the whole incident, and its perceived implications from my point of view, and, indeed, many people might see it as being ridiculously trivial, anyway, but something happened yesterday evening that underlined my feeling that I haven't got a place in this world, as it's currently constituted. The degree of paranoiac hatred of those, like me, who are attracted to boys, regardless of whether that attraction is actively expressed or not, is close to being unbearable. I really didn't choose this, I can't make it go away or pretend it doesn't exist - if only I could. There might have been a place in the past, or there might be a place in the future, where I could feel 'at home', but here and now certainly doesn't fall into that category. Once more, I'm wondering why I bother to carry on.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

On the slide

When I set out from 'domicile-ville' this morning,  I had a certain amount of 'bounce', both physiologically and, more unusually of late, psychologically. Although it wasn't nearly as warm as over the past weekend, there was pretty much unbroken blue sky, and I was feeling as well as my hiccuping heart, and the minor aches and pains of middle age, normally allow. As the day has progressed, though, things have rather deteriorated. My feeling of physical well-being has ebbed somewhat, for no easily definable reason, while my mood has also declined from the dizzy heights of near-cheerfulness it was threatening to reach earlier. Perhaps the dip in my satisfaction quotient is partly explicable - the weather has taken a distinct turn for the autumnal, cool and grey with some spots of rain in the air, and I also got to thinking, apropos of nothing in particular, about what would probably happen to me if a failure of self-control put me on the wrong side of the  judicial/penal system. Not, I have to say, a happy prospect, either way, really - deny your real self forever, or find yourself as the most hated - and vulnerable - of hate figures. Heads you lose, tails you lose as well.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Why would you want to commemorate that?

Out and about again, and I've just passed a pub whose name made me think of the question above. The name of the establishment was 'The Hung, Drawn & Quartered'. I know it's easy to be anachronistic, and judge medieval practices by modern standards, but I still wonder why anyone would want to name a place of conviviality after one of the most appallingly barbarous methods of execution of all time.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

It jumped out at me!

I was thinking about what, if anything, to say about my day, and couldn't really come up with anything much, so I wasn't going to bother. Being at a relatively loose end, I logged onto Spotify for the first time in weeks. And was greeted, as part of a playlist recommendation, with this:

Only, in my humble opinion, the most beautiful portrait photograph ever - I owned, until the recent implosion of my life, a framed copy of this album cover, one of the myriad things that were left behind in Cornwall. In case anyone isn't aware, it's the cover of U2's first album, Boy - at least, it's the European version of the album artwork, a different cover had to be used in the US after accusations that the band were advocating paedophilia. Which just goes to show that the insane paranoia about depictions of beautiful boys isn't exactly a recent phenomenon, I suppose.

Love & best wishes to all

Sammy B

The curate's egg

It's been one of those weekends - some very good parts, but some which weren't quite as congenial.
Yesterday, as planned, I headed west to spend the day - or five hours of it, at least - with my daughter. I met her in Plymouth as planned, but she decided she didn't want to stay in the city, so we found ourselves on another train, heading into Cornwall. To say I had mixed feelings about the next few hours was a considerable understatement. Her company, and the lunch had together, was great, but being in one of my favourite Cornish seaside places, knowing that, certainly for the moment, I've 'lost' Cornwall, was very tough to swallow. There were two sides of the same coin, in a way, in my head - the thought that I shouldn't have gone there, that we should've stayed on this side of 'the bridge', and the flip side, that I wanted to go to the nearest estate agents, find a flat to rent, and move back down there next week. To make matters worse, the chances of my seeing my daughter again before the end of October are slim - she's at school, obviously, on weekdays, and involved with her drama school, including starting a Saturday morning job there next week, every weekend until almost Christmas. I just hope we can sort something out at half term.
Today's outing was much more positive, though, catching up with a good friend, nice surroundings, nice weather, a very pleasant meal, a few beers, and, most of all, good company. The only real downside came towards the end of the day, when I allowed myself to do something I was determined not to do today, and let some of my troubles creep into the conversation. My friend was very understanding, but I was disappointed with myself, nonetheless. Just a small dark cloud, though, on what was, in general, a thoroughly good day.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

There must be a reason....

....but I don't know what it is. A reason why, travelling on the bus I've just got off of, that the tall, attractive looking young woman, of prime child bearing age, with all the relevant curves in all the right places, left me cold, while the 12/13 year old boy in his QPR shirt had me sighing and wishing I could lay my heart at his feet. I pride myself on having a rational, scientific turn of mind, so the irrationality, in an evolutionary sense, of my attractions is something I find difficult to come to terms with. It makes me feel even more of an outsider than I usually do.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Off the leash

On holiday, for the first time as what amounts to a 'single man', since my second trip to Gran Canaria in August 1991. From when I signed off at work at 7:30 this evening, I've got 228 hours to do, within reason, whatever I want. But what, ultimately, are the chances of me achieving what I really want to do? As close to zero as if I was going to spend the whole time locked in a dungeon. I'll just end up eating and drinking too much, no doubt, and failing to feel guilty about it. Another example of Orwell's 'Freedom is Slavery' adage, I guess.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Frazzled and frozen

Yet another twelve hour shift at work today, at fairly short notice (I was asked at teatime yesterday if I was available). It wasn't anything particularly out of the ordinary, busy but routine, but by the time I finished this evening, I felt as though I'd been put through the wringer. Mental fatigue, I guess, after concentrating for hours on end. Still, only one more shift to do, with an early finish tomorrow evening, if all goes according to plan, and I'll be into my nine day break.
It just goes to show how my life is bumping along the bottom, that by far the highlight of my day was getting back to the accommodation this evening to find that the 'management' had replaced the larder fridge in our communal kitchen with a fridge/freezer. At a stroke, my culinary options have doubled, at least, given that I can now buy, or, more to the point, store frozen food. And I can have some ice cream (my only real 'sweet tooth' weakness) to hand, too! My cup runneth over!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Past and future

Last night, I found a YouTube video my daughter had made - not that it was hidden, especially, there was a link from her Tumblr - which made me think about what I might say in a similar production, if I were to indulge in such things. The video was a sort of 'letter to her future self', asking the sort of questions she might ask the 18 year old version of herself if they could 'meet' in some fashion. Pretty interesting, stuff, really.
I have no idea what I might say to my future self, not least because I'm still unsure not only what my future holds, but how much of it there's likely to be. What I would like to do, though, is to be able to send a letter to my past self, me at 14. It wouldn't be a long missive, in fact I doubt it would be more than a couple of sentences. Something along the lines of 'Be yourself, no matter what, don't let the world frighten you into trying to be something you're not.' Whether, of course, I would have been willing or able to act on such hypothetical advice, is another matter entirely.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Time off impends

After this Thursday, I'm off work for a week and a half. As I've said before, I've been working pretty much seven, or at least six, days a week for the last few months, as much for drowning of consciousness as financial reasons, so nine days without the anodyne of routine is going to be an interesting experience. I have got some things planned, I'm going to Plymouth on Saturday to spend the day with my daughter, and I'm hoping to catch up with a couple of friends I haven't seen for a while on two of the other days. I'm also, at some point next week, going down to Kent to take my brother and sister-in-law out for a birthday meal - my brother's birthday is this week, while my sister-in-law's was just over a week ago - and I may stay for a day or two, that part of the plan hasn't been finalised yet. All a case of doing fairly normal stuff, I suppose, but when the landscape of your life has changed as radically as mine has recently, even these relatively mundane things, socialising with people you know but who now know you're not exactly the person they might have thought you were, has an element of strangeness, of risk, almost. I know I haven't changed, but others' perceptions might not be as fixed. Still, this is what my life is now, so I need to start getting used to the new thing, if I'm going to make any progress at all.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B