And justice for all?

Another day, another court case involving a 'paedophile'. But one with a big twist. An East London woman has been convicted going to a neighbour's flat armed with a knife, and stabbing him to death - because he was accused of sexually abusing two boys. OK, the man concerned had previous convictions, but none since 1991, and wasn't even an RSO, but she killed him anyway. And was convicted of manslaughter on the grounds of 'loss of control'. And had her original sentence halved by the judge, because of the 'exceptional circumstances'. Three and a half years, of which she'll probably only serve a year, for premeditated murder. If, when she gets out, I was to go and find her and do the same to her having 'lost control' because of her admitted actions, would I get the same sentence? I don't fucking think so. And that's completely aside from the fact that if I was convicted of having a completely consensual sexual relationship with a boy even six months under the age of consent, I'd get five years, minimum. I have no doubt at all that there will be a campaign launched, if it hasn't been already, to have the woman released and exonerated, probably backed by The Sun, or some other shit-stirring illiterate tabloid. feting her as a heroine for having rid the world of a 'predator'. That the 'justice' system is inequitable isn't exactly news, but when the prejudice is so egregious, it's impossible to contain the anger.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Who sent you?

A question I asked, silently, a long time ago, and, by UK standards, a long way from here, when I first saw the utterly beautiful blond-haired, blue-eyed boy who was my number one until DBJ finally eclipsed him, a quarter of a century later. The same question came to mind ninety minutes ago, in my local, in the face of another delightful boy, one I hadn't seen before, having a meal with his family. He wasn't quite on a par with his predecessors, but it was only a matter of a few percentage points. Of course, nobody sends them, it's all a matter of chance - after all, I saw one of my work colleagues at lunchtime, in an area of London where neither of us would've expected to have seen the other - but that doesn't make the pangs of unrequitable longing any easier to bear.

2100 edit: But then something awesome happens. Cameron was here, and, of his own volition, said goodbye to me. The first time he's directly spoken to me. Maybe he is going to be my boy, after all.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

And it was all going so well

Relatively speaking, at least. I met K's latest boyfriend last night, and he seems OK - he spoke to me, if nothing else, a step up from one or two of his predecessors - and my girl is happy at the moment, which is the object of the exercise, after all. Then, venturing out at midday today, I almost immediately came across one of those boys who aren't just cute, or pretty, or sexy, he was all of that, and more, simply adorable. He was just a 'ghost', of course, gone for ever in the mere seconds that my bus was at the stop where he was waiting for, evidently, a different service, but he made me smile inside, a mood that lasted for several hours, and through my seeing several more cuties on what proved to be a beautifully sunny early autumn day. It all juddered to a halt, though, in late afternoon. Why? Maybe surfeit, just one lovely boy too many. The boy in question wasn't necessarily the best looking guy you've ever seen, but the whole package, his 11-ish perfection, was too much for me to cope with, and my mood was comprehensively punctured by the implacable needle of 'never'. And now, back in my local, there's been no sign of Cameron, as has been the case all weekend - he can't come in on his own, obviously, so it's his family as a whole that have been on the missing list - which has made me even less happy with life. But then, 'society' would say, the likes of me don't deserve to be happy.

2250 edit: K's boyfriend has apparently said I'm 'really nice'. I hope my girl disabuses him of that misconception ASAP. I'm vile. The 99%+ of 'society' who would think so can't be wrong. Can they?

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Irony, irony

Fashion and I have always been total strangers, I've no idea, and even less interest, about what's 'in' this season. So when K mentioned last night that 'loli' was a trending look, I couldn't help but laugh out loud. K knew immediately why I'd reacted in the way I had - 'lolicon' is the female equivalent of the 'shotacon' boy anime I have to discipline myself to stay away from online, because of its unaccountable, given that it's nothing more than zeroes and ones in a computer processor, illegality. Look like a little girl, you're fashionable. Look at a totally imaginary representation of a young person, you're a criminal. And, of course, you're assumed to have 'chosen' your illicit preferences. As if.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Off the leash, again

Nine days off. Minimal plans. I predict hours of eye candy cruising and gallons of beer. Bad for me, physically and psychologically, no doubt. But I simply don't care.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Torment

A good while back, a good friend of mine described me as 'a tortured soul' because of my sexuality. I good-naturedly disagreed with his premise at the time, but, if I'm being completely honest, there are occasions when his assessment isn't that far from the truth. And much of today has been one of those occasions. And, as is almost always the case, the torture has come from within. However much I try to convince myself that I would never do this, that, or the other, my subconscious simply belies those assertions and, to paraphrase the Nickelback song, 'reminds me of who I really am'. I would love so much for Cameron to be a real friend, not just 'little friend'. But then, almost involuntarily, I find myself having sexual fantasies about him. I'm well aware of the difference between fantasy and reality, but the fact that my imagination so easily crosses a line that I claim would be inviolable in real life fills me, once more, with oceans of self-loathing. And underlines that I have to stay away from Cameron. And any other boy. It rips me up inside, but I simply can't trust myself to do the right thing.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Just because I don't understand something....

....doesn't make it wrong. I've always found gender dysphoria a difficult concept to come to terms with. I might have been conflicted about my sexual orientation for much of my life, but I've never felt my gender identity to be anything other than masculine. In recent years, though, as I've learnt more about the spectrum of human identity and sexuality, I've come across the 'T' part of the LGBT abbreviation - K has two close friends who are trans, including one I've met and got to know to a limited degree. I absolutely accept that their feelings of finding themselves in 'the wrong sort of body' are genuine, and that they have the perfect right to live their lives being considered to be a member of the gender that is opposite to their biological gender, but I won't even pretend to understand how that dysphoria can arise, and how difficult it must be to live your life under those circumstances. Much of the difficulty, of course, is brought about by the attitudes of others. Being a transgender person isn't wrong in any way. This kind of reaction is, though, 100% wrong.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Depressingly predictable

I've just seen a trailer for a new BBC adaptation of a book I've been very fond of over the years - I actually owned a limited edition illustrated version, one of the myriad things that were left behind in Cornwall - and it was immediately obvious that major changes have been made from the original. Mostly in that all of the main characters, from what I saw, are much older in this new take on the story than they were in the book. Why? Well, who knows, but I very strongly suspect it's because there are implicit references to 'underage sex' in what is an autobiography rather than a novel, and the BBC, in the wake of the Savile affair and the current climate around this subject, have simply been too craven to be faithful to the author's remembrances. I won't be watching the programme. The book? Cider with Rosie.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Dystopia

I read a story this morning at one of my most regular online haunts. An erotic story, superficially, but the socio-political aspects of the plot were more than a little thought-provoking. It was set in a near-future UK where economic collapse had led to a nationalistic/theocratic/fascistic one party state where boylovers had become a convenient scapegoat, their public execution by stoning becoming the modern equivalent of the Roman 'circus'. The means by which this 'dehumanisation' had been achieved were quite plausible, really only a ramping up of the 'trial by tabloid' depressingly prevalent in the 'real world', 'historic sex offence' this, 'paedo' that, with self-seeking politicians and religious leaders jumping on the bandwagon to maintain their positions of power and privilege - and wealth, needless to say. The plot twisted around a boy genius who effectively sold his body to further his education after his rich parents had been discredited and expropriated by the regime, inveigling his way into the system by becoming the 'loved boy' of a typically hypocritical member of the government before going on, as a young adult and boylover himself, to subvert society and wreak revenge on those who had hurt him and his family. The new society, though, despite it being ostensibly by and for boylovers, would be no more to my taste than its theocratic predecessor, most notably because the stonings continued, only the target - the theocrats and bigots - having changed, and because it became obvious that the now-grown boy had become just as greedy and self-seeking as those he had usurped. This was, I have to say, deliberate on the part of the author - 'power corrupts' was the message of the story's last sentence - and chimes with something I strongly believe, namely that plurality and tolerance for the views of others, even if you fervently disagree with those views, are the only viable basis for a workable, cooperative society. I'm commitedly, unashamedly rational, sceptical and atheistic, but as soon as I try to impose those views on anyone else, I become just as fascistic and authoritarian as the worst of theocrats. Freedom of thought and belief are essential, as far as I'm concerned, for society to live and breathe.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Named

Well, he was before, of course, but I didn't know what it was. I've discovered - maybe overheard would better describe how it came about - that 'little friend's' name is Cameron. I ended up sitting, to all intents and purposes, right next to him when I arrived at my local about an hour ago, just a narrow aisle between my place and his. He was getting rather bored and restless while his parents and the other adults they were with talked amongst themselves, to the point that his mother told him off, hence my hearing his name, and, to my considerable annoyance, told him he was bothering me. As if! I would willingly, eagerly have engaged with him, talked to him, played a game, whatever. Except, of course, had I attempted to do so, my motives would immediately have, at the very least, been viewed with the deepest of suspicion. OK, maybe if he was four or five years older those suspicions might have at least a modicum of substance (although I still maintain I'd never act without informed consent), but at the 8 or thereabouts that he is now, all I want is for him to be a pal, nothing more. I got my smile from him when I arrived this evening. If he believes his mother's claim about my totally non-existent irritation, they might be in short supply in future.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

KC2, and a couple of oddities

I'm not long back from Birmingham, having been to see King Crimson for the second time in just over a week. It was another excellent gig, albeit not quite as blindingly brilliant as last week's version in Hackney. A couple of bits of irony, too, around the trip - firstly, despite the fact that I've lived more than half of my adult life in the Midlands and the North (including three years actually living in Brum - I walked right past the door of my old workplace on the way back to the station), this excursion was the first time I've ventured north of the M25 for almost two years, and, secondly, it only took an hour and 48 minutes from leaving New Street station to walking through my front door, less time than it takes me to get to and from work here in London on many occasions!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Stuck in the middle

To paraphrase Stealers Wheel, 'Cutie to the rear of me, cutie to the front, stuck in the middle with me'. 'Little friend' one table behind me, a cute boy I haven't seen before three tables in front, in my local. Neither, of course, will ever be my boy. Life's shit, except on those occasions when it's really shit.

2010 edit: Both of them have just gone. Rubbing salt into the wounds, or what?

Looking & best wishes to all
Sammy B

The next election is decided already

In my opinion, at least, although I certainly wouldn't object to being proved wrong. In choosing Jeremy Corbyn as their new leader, Labour have, in all probability, made themselves unelectable. That's not to say that I disagree with Corbyn to any great degree politically, except, perhaps, in some defence and foreign policy areas, but his election is an absolute gift to the Tories and their cheerleaders, in the same way Michael Foot, a very similar politician in many ways, was 35 years ago - Corbyn can easily be painted as a left-wing extremist, and undoubtedly will be by the right-wing press, and their politically illiterate, fundamentally selfish readership will believe every word. The oligarchs not only control the means of production, but, more tellingly, the means of communication - the best-selling and most popular paper in the UK is the totally odious Sun, brand leader of Murdoch's 'Wapping Lies' empire - and those means of communication will be ramped up to full volume in the next General Election campaign. So, another 9½ years, at least, of Cameron (or his successor) and his cabinet of public school educated millionaires. Plenty of austerity and sacrifice for the masses, while the 1% will continue to live high on the hog, and laugh all the way to the bank at the expense of the rest of us. A depressing prospect for my declining years.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Night shifts are ever thus

Another typical night shift week, albeit one day shorter than usual after my leave day to see King Crimson on Monday, nothing really to report but the work-commute-sleep-commute-work cycle. I didn't see K at all on Wednesday, as she'd left for school before I got home, and went to another gig in the evening, not getting back until after I'd left for work again. Still, as I've said before, I'll need to get used to my own company again all too soon, once my girl goes off to uni this time next year.
Perhaps the only item of note is that I've been spending most of what little spare time I have had this week in progressing with my latest 'Cassie and Robin' story over at Nephelokokkygia. No promises, as ever, but it might well be ready to be published within the next couple of days.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Togetherness

People, even some who don't believe it would ever happen to them, find themselves in relationships, find themselves getting together with the very kind of person they've desired for years. And good luck to them, I genuinely hope their partnerships are long and happy. But then I look out of my kitchen window, down into the communal garden below, and I'm confronted by the knowledge, in the shape and form of a beautiful pubescent boy, that what I want the most will never happen to me, in any foreseeable circumstances. No flowers around the door, no little impulse gifts, no arms around your neck when you get home after a hard day. No love, no hope. Forever.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Stunning!

K and I have just got back from one of the best gigs I've ever been to, and a long-awaited one at that. King Crimson at the Hackney Empire. No fancy stageset, no squillion pound lightshow, no pyrotechnics, just virtuosic musicianship. And Robert Fripp is a total, utter genius, no-one will ever convince me otherwise. Simply amazing.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Welcome to the 19th century

If you can't beat them, ban them. Do these 'Family First' (no doubting, of course, the only sort of families they'd approve of) tossers really believe that the target audience for this novel don't already know more than enough about sex, drugs and 'offensive language', or that, through censorship, such knowledge will mysteriously evaporate? Unbelievable, especially in a supposedly 'first world' nation like New Zealand.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Even those on your side....

....don't understand. My brother and sister-in-law, along with my niece and her fiancé, came up to town today, and, on the whole, we had a pretty good day. We did Borough Market, the Natural History Museum, a latish lunch and then Harrods. All very congenial. At one point, though, my brother mentioned something related to 'my stuff', how my sister-in-law had stumbled across a news story about a former neighbour of theirs who'd been convicted of a 'historic sexual offence' and been given (in my opinion, at least) a ridiculously disproportionate sentence. I don't understand, my brother said, we knew him, I can't believe it. Of course you don't understand was my reply, unless you've actually been in the situation of being attracted to someone the law says is untouchable, how could you possibly understand? When your allies don't 'get it', what earthly chance do you have against your enemies?

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

In your honour

I've just amazed the bar staff in my local by ordering a drink I've never had here before, and, indeed, haven't had anywhere for, probably, twenty years. Jay was a bourbon man, but I don't like whisky, at all. The nearest I can manage is Southern Comfort, and that's what I'm drinking now. Here's to you, my friend.

1930 edit: And I've got my smile from 'little friend', too. Life is shit, but there is still an occasional bright spot.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Which universe do we live in?

I began watching a programme about cosmology by that name last night, an episode of the BBC's long running Horizon science series, probably, overall, my favourite TV programme over the years. I didn't, in the event, get to see much it, because my ex rang me, and we ended up having a fairly lengthy chat, about our respective situations, and their financial backgrounds, and how both relate to K and her immediate future as she embarks on her last year at school and, hopefully, her subsequent move on to university in twelve months time. By that time, I'd already arranged with work to take today off, in the aftermath of yesterday's terrible news - my initial reason for not wanting to go in was that I was shocked and upset, but, as the evening progressed, my feelings turned more to anger and resentment, focused on a so-called 'society' that can hound a fundamentally good man to kill himself because of attitudes towards an innate difference, and I realised that there was another good reason for my staying away from work today. If anyone had come out with the daily, and it is virtually daily, dose of mindless homophobia in my hearing, I would've been extremely likely to have punched them in the mouth, not something that would do much for my career prospects, and, like it or not, I can't afford to lose my job, as I've said before, for K's sake. The possibility of a flashpoint will still be there when I do go back to work, but as I'm not in again until Tuesday night, the immediate rawness of the situation will, hopefully, have diminished somewhat. So, which universe do we live in? Not one I would choose, if there was a parallel with more compassion, more intelligence, more tolerance to move to, that's a certainty.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Gone

People come, and people go, that is an inevitable part of life. But when a very good friend goes, far too soon, by his own hand, it's really hard to take. R.I,P., Jay, I'm going to miss you. So much.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

'Little friend' back on side

Smiles, two of them, after the (doubtless only in my head) 'snub' of the other night. He's a complete little darling, who, of course, owes me absolutely nothing. I'd just love it if he could be a real friend, nothing more, but it will, in any foreseeable circumstances, never happen. The smiles invariably make me feel so much better, though.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B