Per, 16 years old:
I met Niels when I was 12. He was 38. We met at a summer camp for children
sponsored by the municipality so that children could be in the open air and have
fun and take part in various outdoors activities. Niels was a youth leader in
the camp. I felt right from the beginning that there was something special
between us.
After summer camp was over I started to visit him at home and gradually we got
to know each other. At first we were just friends. Afterwards our relationship
was more coloured by love. Perhaps I received from him some of the affection I
didn't get at home.
I learned many things, including sexual things, from him. I had just turned 13
when I asked him one day what sex was like, and couldn't we try it out sometime.
So we did. It was very nice. I could never have gone to my father and asked him,
"Dad, may I play with your prick?"
We're not always together. We do fine without each other. Several months may
pass without seeing each other. At other times it may be only a few hours
between meetings. We have had a quiet and pleasant relationship; we've had good
times together when this suited us - we've kissed each other in public and
shocked people when we felt like it.
I'm not jealous when Niels gets it on with another fellow, or when he sometimes
takes a girl with him. Likewise, Niels is not angry when he hears about some of
my sexual adventures.
What do your parents say about it?
Many parents believe that their children will become homosexuals if they have a
relationship with a homosexual. And many parents find it difficult to accept a stranger suddenly coming into the
picture. I believe my father was afraid that some second father would slip in
between us. My mother was afraid of child molesters and "that thing"
happening. She always kept asking me, "What do you do together? How do you
pass the time?" She has been asking this kind of questions for four
years now, plus making all kinds of little hints. And I can't answer honestly,
so it is lie upon lie, and lies being discovered.
What she likes to do is turn the subject around all the time. She has developed
a whole lot of fantasies about our relationship. Her problem is that she cannot
be absolutely sure. It is as though she hopes to make some discovery or other,
for example, surprising us together in bed.
She always says, "You must be home by 12 o'clock," or "You
absolutely must come home to sleep." Once I ignored her. I had a marvellous
night at Niels' place. When I got home she slapped my face and said, "How
many times have I told you to come home on time," and, "I have
problems too, you know. You're giving me goitre." And so on and on.
The first time I went to visit him she said, "If he starts to touch you
must come right home, for then it's sure he's a child molester," and,
"If he asks you to take off your clothes..." etc.
Both she and my father have some very deep-rooted ideas about homosexuals and
child-lovers. They've aired them on me. At one time they nearly gave me a
stomach ulcer. I felt tempted to jump into the quicksand, to disappear into a
black hole.
Finally Niels came to my home and tried to talk with my parents - tried! He
started discussing it a little with my mother, but my father blew up and tried
to throw him out the front door.
The result is I have to be on my guard all the time. I can never behave
naturally.
What does Niels mean to you?
Niels is a tremendous support. If things go wrong at home or with some friends,
or if I've met a nice fellow, then Niels is always ready to discuss it. He is
much more experienced than I am; he can explain so clearly why people behave as
they do. Since I became friends with Niels, I find it easier to discuss things with
people and easier to make contacts with others like me. Niels has been a refuge
for me. In the beginning he was the only one. I didn't know any others.
I've never had many friends. It has always been difficult for me to make them.
Niels tried to make me accept myself as I am and learn to be relaxed with my
friends.
There were always problems for me taking friends home - Mother's fine room, her
silver. This was always a worry. My parents would ask questions about my
friends: "What is his father's profession?" and "Does he have
quite a bit of money?" It was always better when they were well-to-do.
I was a spoilt child; I got everything; but gifts and material goods were also
used as weapons: "You won't get a colour television if you don't stop
seeing Niels."
These stupid prejudices people have! They've grown up in another age and they
don't know anything about gays, for example. My gay experiences have been
positive. I have slept with some boys and also with a couple of girls. I don't
know whether I will stay entirely gay later on, but I think it is fine that you
can love your own sex. The newspapers are filled with stories about homosexuals
raping 12-year-olds at the swimming pools and so on. It may be that such stories
give people their prejudices.
It is horrible that some people are ready to put others down because they think
they're gay. There was a story - also on television - about a boy who was thrown
out of his home because he told his mother he was gay. The same thing almost
happened to me. My mother once said to me, "If you're gay, I don't want to
see your face here any more."
They never write about the good situations, where boys have benefited from
sleeping with adult men, where they learned something from this, also in the
sexual area. There is never anything about that in the newspapers.
Have you ever been afraid of "child molesters"?
No. Because it was always me who set the stage for something. But there is of course this crazy law saying that you must be fifteen before you're allowed to do certain things.
Were you afraid that the police would be involved?
I was not afraid of the police, but of my parents.
What were your thoughts about your first sexual experience?
It was strange and magnificent at the same time. I couldn't understand why there
was such a big gap between what I felt and what my parents had told me about
such contacts. Purely sexually, it was beautiful and pleasant, and I didn't
think there was anything unnatural about it. But it was a collision between the
authority of my parents and my own reality.
At first I may have been afraid of becoming gay. Now I've discovered that I'm
not exclusively gay. Maybe I was afraid to become 100% gay. But it seems to me
it would be awfully boring to be purely heterosexual.