It's not accurate to call this a "conclusion." A conclusion is a piece in which you draw together all the various strands of your thoughts and make a series of connections between them. It's taking all the threads and weaving a tapestry. Or, more accurately, you've already woven the tapestry in the series of narratives; the conclusion is when you ask the listener to step back as you explain what kind of picture you think you've created.

This "conclusion" isn't like that. I wrote different sections of it at different times, in different moods, and for different reasons. It took me longer than a year to write it. And I express different opinions, different emotions. As you can tell, I haven't reconciled my conflicting feelings about what I did back then, and who I was. I don't know if I ever will.

It's not important, I guess. Internal contradictions are okay. They illuminate the potential for synthesis, if nothing else. I'd worry if my life was a novel, with neatly-concluded chapters and a grand finale in which all is revealed. If that ever happened to me, I'd expect the stars to go out.

Poetry doesn't usually turn me on, but I like Walt Whitman. Walt had this to say, in "Song of Myself", from Leaves of Grass:

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then, I contradict myself.
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

-----

I'm split - fragmented - about my own sexuality, as is obvious on these pages. You've seen alot of variation in the attitudes I express. At some points, I'm radically positive - triumphant, celebratory - about my past. At the opposite extreme, I'm full of self-loathing.

The story about seducing Brandon is a good example of the radical positive, especially the conclusion, wherein I speak with 11-year-old Danny's voice. Here it is, repeated:

It's okay - it's wise - to worry about the legal issues, because as screwed-up as it sounds, that's a real danger. And it's okay - it's wise - to be alert to my signals.

But, if you worry that I'm not ready, or that it's wrong, or that I don't know what I'm doing... stop. Just stop worrying. It's not your problem. It's not a problem, period. I know what I'm doing. I know what I want. It was, and is, as much my idea as yours. I know what it's all about, or I'm learning; and, just as you know that NO means NO, you'd better believe that YES means YES. Anything else demeans and belittles me as a mere infant, incapable of thinking and deciding for myself. I am not. WE are not. We are eleven, we are thirteen, we are fifteen; we are strong, we are smart, we are ready if we say so.

Listen to us. Don't do what you feel or know to be bad or wrong. Don't fear to do what's good and right, either.

That's one voice. But there are others.

There are times I'm convinced I was a predator. It's obvious that I was not shy about initiating sex with other boys. I was pretty damn aggressive on occasion - sometimes physically, but more often I was a persuasive talker.

I was a gregarious and outgoing kid, as is obvious. As a boy, I made friends easily. Most of the time, that was genuine. I genuinely liked other people - I still do.

My motives weren't always friendship, though. Not just friendship.

It's oversimplifying to say that my friendships fell into two groups: kids I was naturally friends with, and kids I made a point to become friends with. That's too simple, because there was alot of overlap, and boys moved from one circle to another; and I was friends with too many kids to generalize and categorize anyway. But there's a truth in that, nonetheless; and here it is:

I found that many of the boys I made a point to become friends with, sexually and otherwise, fit a certain pattern or patterns. Maybe they aren't as attractive physically, such as being heavyset, or wearing glasses; maybe they are painfully shy; maybe they are seen as effeminate by other boys and don't like stereotypical boy-play, like team sports, or simple roughness; maybe they come from dysfunctional families and feel awkward. The common element was that they weren't popular, or cool.

Those boys were thrilled when I made a point to sit with them on the bus, or at lunch; or when I'd choose them for my team in pickup games, and they weren't left standing around till everyone else was chosen; or when I'd just talk to them. I wasn't in the most elite popularity circles; that was the football and basketball players (naturally), and the kids with money, and the alpha-dogs. But I was popular. I was the funny guy. I was the small kid with a big mouth, and that got on a few nerves, but more often it charmed. I was one of the cool kids. And having me as a friend was cool.

I know this sounds arrogant. I'll add that I wasn't universally popular or respected. There are people from my school who probably remember me as an insufferable jerk to this day. Like all brash people, I stepped on toes, usually without realizing it. Sometimes I could talk and clown my way out of it, but not always. There were fistfights and other types of unpleasantness. One of my nicknames was Rock Star. The primary reference was to soccer: a "rock star" in team sports is a kid who likes to shoot instead of pass the ball; and I liked to shoot and to score. (I'll say in my defense that I played striker forward, and in striker you're supposed to shoot and score. :)) Soccer was the origin of Rock Star. But it was no accident that alot of people who never went near a soccer ball called me that, too. I had an attitude. I was a CSAK - Certified Smart-Ass Kid. And some people found me incredibly annoying. Just to set the record straight. :)

Back to my point. I thought those boys, the unpopular ones, needed friendship - they weren't usually socially adept, and don't know how to make the first moves toward friendship. I thought they needed to be gently brought out of their shells. I was happy to show them. I felt at the time that it was a special favor. Lonely kids often blossom when you give them a chance; it's just that few take the time and trouble. So I thought.

And I had a special way to bring boys out of their shells. Many shy or awkward boys are sexually inexperienced. In adolescence, kids who don't have sex are losers. It's not their fault, but that's how it is. I could fix them up with girlfriends (and in later years, I did.) But there's one special thing I could do for them, and it's the most special thing of all. I could help them lose their virginity. I could help them trade their innocence for experience. Innocence sucks, and experience rules. So I thought.

The journey from innocence to experience is a one-way ticket, though. You walk through that door, you let it swing closed behind you, and only then do you understand that there's no knob on the other side.

-----

I'd like to think I knew how to take "no" for an answer. But the truth is that I didn't know - not always. I didn't always understand the difference between "No... I'm nervous... it might be kinda cool... but I don't know...", and "No, I don't wanna do this." I don't think boys always know the difference, themselves. And, as an adult looking back, I realize I was wrong to press ahead. I think "No" must be taken to mean "No", pure and simple. I should have seen a boy's hesitation or silence as a red stoplight, not a yellow caution light. I stepped on the accelerator, more often than not.

Back then, I thought "No" was part of the game. That's the same excuse used all the time by heterosexual guys in cases of date rape. Some women use "date rape" to deal with the fact that they consented at the time, later felt guilty, and find it easier to shift all the blame to their partners. But that doesn't negate the fact that date rape really happens. I think the danger is greater for a boy at 10, 12, or 14 years old, with less life-experience. Boys don't always know themselves whether they want to stop or go.

In most aspects of a kid's life, choosing wrong isn't catastrophic; no boy or girl is traumatized by mistakenly thinking broccoli is gonna taste great, eating it, and then regretting it later. But sex isn't broccoli. Sex is serious, like it or not. And regretting something you did sexually, months or years after the fact, can mess up your head.

Compounding the above is the fact that many of the boys I had sex with, especially the virgins, were naive or introverted or shy kids. I rarely had any sexual contact with boys more than a year or two younger (nor with boys much older than me, except for a few conspicuous incidents where I was the aggressor, such as with Brandon.) But chronological age isn't always an indicator of maturity or ability to judge - in fact, adolescent boys are tremendously variable in that regard. Some boys are ready to make decisions about sex at age 11, some not until 19 (or 29, or 39, or...) And I think judgment can vary even within the same boy from day to day - partly due to hormones, I suspect. At any rate, I know in hindsight that some boys I had sex with were not ready, including some who were very willing at the time.

I know this all sounds completely predatory. Here's Danny, forever seeking out shy boys, so I could take advantage of their naivete. It wasn't that one-sided. The main reasons I befriended shy kids were that I genuinely liked making new friends, and I also felt sorry for them, caught in their loneliness. I was the boy who always sat next to the new kid on the school bus, or at the lunch table, and talked to them. Part of my motivation was the thought that maybe we could fool around sometime. It wasn't my uppermost driving force. That was friendship. I was happy showing a non-athletic boy that he could play soccer; or taking a shy kid to a party that he would've been afraid to go to on his own, and seeing him have a good time.

But I won't gloss over the baser motives. Yeah, sex was part of it, too. Sometimes a very big part. And I was wrong, in some cases. Very wrong. There were boys - not many, but some - who cried, after we had sex. I didn't have much of a clue, back then. It cuts like a knife to remember that, now. That is what I mean about self-loathing. It's a sin to hurt someone. And I don't know how to atone for that. Maybe spilling my guts here will help someone else avoid my mistakes. I guess that's the best I can hope for, because you can't take back the past.

-----

At the same time, though...

I firmly believe that genuinely consensual, safe sex between two (or more) boys is okay. Some of the best experiences of my life were the times I had sex with my friends, back then. I think some of the narratives here reveal that. I won't elaborate here, because I think the experiences speak for themselves.

I have a prescription for society, radical and simple: The best way for boys to learn about sex is by experimenting with another boy of similar age. That goes for gay boys, bisexual boys, and heterosexual boys. Why? For these reasons:

• First and foremost - if he's your friend, and if you both want to do it, it's just a cool way to get closer. That was my experience, more often than not, on the occasions when it was genuinely consensual.
• It might help cut the roots out of the rampant, sick homophobia that permeates Western society nowadays. Boy-sex is not a cure-all for homophobia. Boys have been having sex for a long time, and homophobia has been around about as long; and some boys who eagerly get into boy-sex later become major gay-bashers, at least verbally - I know that firsthand. But anyone with any intellectual integrity will find it hard to reconcile condemning people for a sexual practice that he himself enjoyed. Of course, many homophobes, like bigots generally, have no integrity. I don't know how to crack that nut. But maybe we can at least wake up the silent conformists.
• Along the same lines: Society expects - demands - that kids (people) be orthodox, sexually. Kids grow up either: (a) heterosexual; or (b) guilty. I know there are gay and bisexual boys who are trying to fit in, and succeeding so well that they themselves don't realize their orientation until adulthood - or never. I guess it's not so tragic for bisexuals, although it's a shame to deny 50 percent (or whatever) of one's sexuality. For gay kids, it's wicked - literally. How many lives get ruined when a kid grows up thinking he's straight "like everyone else", gets married, has kids, and then finds out he's gay? The sooner he realizes, the better for all concerned.
• Boy-sex is alot safer that boy-girl sex. For one thing, the two biggest risks for kids having sex are STDs and pregnancy. A boy with another boy automatically cut the risk in half. Safe sex is still important; that goes without saying. But creating a baby, before one is ready for parenthood, is a tragedy. (At the risk of introducing further controversy, I'll say that I think abortion is dead wrong. I tend to be libertarian politically, and I think abortion should be legal. But that doesn't make it okay. I feel the same about gun ownership, smoking, and a bunch of other issues... but okay, enough politics. I promise. :))
• Boy-sex is a stress-reliever. It might seem weird to advocate homosexual experiences for heterosexual boys (who are, after all, the majority, even accounting for repressed alternative sexualities.) I think it's a good idea for them - for no other reason, it takes the edge off those raging hormones. Masturbation works, too, granted. But a willing partner is more satisfying.
• Want a practical reason? I'm not gonna get too graphic here. But take my word for it: two boys know instinctively how to make each other feel good - what spots are sensitive, for example. Boys and girls have to go through a big learning curve with each other, and that's a hassle when you're dealing with relationship issues, too (not to mention all the other baggage of adolescent life.) I think that learning curve is important for heterosexuals, because you have to learn early and deeply how to get along with the other sex. (One of my biggest reasons for disliking my military-school years is the lack of females - for social reasons, not sexual.) But there's something to be said for purely sexual encounters, and that's more likely to happen with two boys, than with a boy and a girl. Besides, women want to do all that talking, before. And after. :)
• Last, but not least: Who knows - you might fall in love. And that is the most awesome thing in the world.

-----

Lord of the Flies
William Golding
Excerpt from Chapter Five: Beast from Water

The tide was coming in and there was only a narrow strip of firm beach between the water and the white, stumbling stuff near the palm terrace. Ralph chose the firm strip as a path because he needed to think and only here could he allow his feet to move without having to watch them. Suddenly, pacing by the water, he was overcome with astonishment. He found himself understanding the wearisomeness of this life, where every path was an improvisation and a considerable part of one's waking life was spent watching one's feet. He stopped, facing the strip; and remembering that first enthusiastic exploration as though it were part of a brighter childhood, he smiled jeeringly. He turned then and walked back toward the platform with the sun in his face. The time had come for the assembly and as he walked into the concealing splendors of the sunlight he went carefully over the points of his speech. There must be no mistake about this assembly, no chasing imaginary....

He lost himself in a maze of thoughts that were rendered vague by his lack of words to express them. Frowning, he tried again.

This meeting must not be fun, but business.

At that he walked faster, aware all at once of urgency and the declining sun and a little wind created by his speed that breathed about his face. This wind pressed his grey shirt against his chest so that he noticed--in this new mood of comprehension--how the folds were stiff like cardboard and unpleasant; noticed too how the frayed edges of his shorts were making an uncomfortable, pink area on the front of his thighs. With a convulsion of the mind, Ralph discovered dirt and decay, understood how much he disliked perpetually flicking the tangled hair out of his eyes, and at last, when the sun was gone, rolling noisily to rest among dry leaves. At that he began to trot.

-----

I think one of the most telling things about my life, back then, is that I had sex with dozens of boys, and gave or received hundreds of BJs. But never once did I kiss a boy, nor was I kissed by one. Not one time. It didn't occur to me to kiss anyone, not even Alex or Kenny.

Yeah, I was a popular kid. I had zillions of friends. I was a decent athlete and was on swim team and played soccer. I went to cool parties.

But I also remember walking in the woods up behind our house for an hour or two at a time, thinking "Why do I feel this way? Why do I feel lonesome, when I have all these friends?" I couldn't figure it out. How could I be lonely?

It wasn't until adulthood - very recently, in fact - that I realized that I had this small hollow spot in the center of my being, back then. I tried to fill it with sex, and sometimes other stuff like alcohol. (I was lucky to escape having a drinking problem - alcoholism runs through my family.) And I stayed busy as I could, all the time.

I don't know what to make of my past. Sometimes I think it was fantastic. And sometimes I think it was all just efforts to hide from my emptiness. Something like turning your stereo up loud, to avoid noticing that your house is cold and empty.

-----

Innocence. There's a concept for you.

Does early sexual activity take away the innocence of a young boy? I can't answer in the abstract, but I can tell you this: I was never innocent, ever. I lost my innocence before I was old enough to remember. My question is whether the thing that took the place of innocence is an improvement or not.

Do I miss innocence? How can you miss something you never knew? I'm also colorblind. I can't see red, green, or brown. I don't miss those colors - I've never seen them. How can you miss something you never knew? Most of the time it's not a problem. In fact I get enjoyment out of playing the game with others: "What color does this look like to you?" But there are times when I look at the rainbow, which to me is a blue stripe, a yellow stripe, and a bunch of grays. It seems shabby, compared to the way people always describe their rainbows. And I say, "I wonder what that thing looks like, really...?"

The concept of innocence appeals to me deeply and strongly. I've tried to puzzle through that appeal, rationally, but it's not rational. And it won't go away.

Who took my innocence? I don't know. I guess I did it myself.

Did I take away those other boys' innocence? Yeah. No question, in some cases I did. That's not a debate. My debate is whether I gave them anything valuable to replace it. Some of the time, I think I did: self-confidence, self-esteem, a good feeling about themselves... And sometimes I didn't. I gave them tears, sometimes. Tears - others' tears - are like acid. Except acid eats you outside, and the scars show. Tears do their work invisibly.

I think of 10-year-old kids who have nothing more complicated in their lives than which flavor of ice-cream to pick, and love means a kiss and nothing more complicated, and swimming and riding roller-coasters are the most fun activities they can think of. I think of me at 10 years old, giving and getting BJs, and thinking that's the most fun activity I can think of. Who's better off?

Sex was a gigantic magnet for me, then. Magnetism is just a force. It's not good or bad. It just IS. Magnets don't care what they attract. They can heal and they can kill. A magnet is a great and terrible force.

I have three kids of my own, young boys. They are innocent. I see it in their eyes. When I think of their innocence, I turn into a big hypocrite, because I wouldn't want my kids to do what I did.

And yet I don't regret everything I did either. I was young, and I didn't know any differently. At that time, it was the world's highest and fastest and most thrilling roller-coaster ride. I had a blast.

The Garden of Eden story in the Bible speaks to me strongly. Adam and Eve were innocent, until they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That took away their innocence and they had to grow up and leave the Garden (childhood).

I read another book some years ago: The Quiet American, by Graham Greene. The book is fiction. It's about the Vietnam situation. A paragraph in that book struck me powerfully. I don't have the book any more, so I can't quote it exactly, but here's the essence:

Innocence calls to us strongly, when we would be so much wiser to avoid it. Innocence is a dumb leper, wandering the world, ringing his bell, meaning no harm.

Sometimes I see myself in that quote. Sometimes I reject it utterly.

I guess I'm bisexual, for lack of a better label. I honestly don't know. I have no wish to have sex with anyone except my wife, these days.

But the interesting question to me is this: If I had a time machine, and could go back and relive the days I've written about in these narratives... what would I do the same, and what would I do differently?

Well, some of the sex things were cool. No question. But I wish I'd waited for sex. I used to say, laughingly, "I didn't lose my virginity - I got rid of it like it was a house on fire." That's true... but I don't laugh about it, nowadays. I think virginity has value.

If I could go back,
and if I found that I wanted to put my mouth on my friends,
the boys and girls I cared about -
I'd rather kiss them.
If I had to choose, I'd skip the sex and fall in love.

-----

And so, at last, the end.

The tale is told; the bottom of the well in my core is reached. It's a deep, deep well where that came from. You don't know, till you let the bucket slide down the mossy walls. There might be nothing down there but dust. There might be fabulous treasure, like in the movies - gold and jewels. Or there might be a bucketful of water. Just water. Ordinary water. Water, so ordinary, so everyday. Life-giving, asphyxiating water. There are days I wish the rope would break, and the bucket would just stay down there, and I'd reel up a cord with nothing but frayed splintery hemp-fiber at the end,
and be free.

I was a fiery comet when I was nine, when I was twelve, when I was fifteen. I was a child of the sun, and my fiery tail reached a hundred million miles and touched worlds. Now, my orbit has taken me to a cooler, dimmer place - a place full of water (nothing but ordinary water). What do I know?

Someone told me not long ago that I was a great soul. It was a sweet thing to say. I can't accept it. My narrative here doesn't reveal a soul. In this narrative, I'm a ghost. I haunt the past. I replay, over and over, the fire I found and the ashes I kept. Comet who passed too close to the sun. I can't be a soul, a soul has a center, and I've lost mine, it's been burnt out of me, I'm only a shell, I'm all hollowed out, and why can't I fill myself back up? Maybe the rope broke?

-----

One afternoon in December a few years ago, instead of coming home after work, I needed to go into a nearby larger city for some reason now forgotten. As I approached the urban area, the highway widened from two lanes to four, and instead of fields and forest, I began encountering spread-out suburbs and strip-commercial development, all before I reached the city proper - I'm sure you recognize the pattern.

At some point along this stretch, I came to an intersection. The light was red, so I stopped. I was the second vehicle waiting in line; there was one vehicle in front of me - a small blue car. The truck I drove at the time was high enough that I could see inside.

Inside the car was a woman, by herself. On the passenger seat next to her, I saw a present, all gift-wrapped and pretty. And, floating above the present, I saw one of those mylar balloons that people give on special occasions. The balloon said: "It's a Boy!"

The tears came, and I sat there crying to myself, to no one, and I said to myself (to no one): "It's a boy, and he'll grow up, and if he's lucky he'll see the wonder and the magic, and he'll never look behind the scenes to find the horror until he's old enough to take it. He's innocent, and I pray he'll stay innocent until he's ready, and that he never closes the door behind him and only then realizes there's no knob, and I pray that if he does, there's no mirror on the back of that door."

-----

Excerpt from Chorus X
The Rock
T.S. Eliot

In our rhythm of earthly life we tire of light. We are glad when the day ends, when the play ends; and ecstasy is too much pain.
We are children quickly tired: Children who are up in the night and fall asleep as the rocket is fired; and the day is long for work or play.
We tire of distraction or concentration, we sleep and are glad to sleep.
Controlled by the rhythm of blood and the day and the night and the seasons.
And we must extinguish the candle, put out the light and relight it;
Forever must quench, forever relight the flame.