Support...

Hey, "Other Side", When faced with what is a majority against you, who wish to twist the truth to fit their brainwashed views, and when support and understanding seem so far away, here are some things that helped me survive and win: 1. Know that you are right and they are wrong, no matter how much they tell you otherwise. 2. Know that people, especially your peers, can "smell" a victim a mile away, so don't play that part. Be bold in your self-confidence, even when you are anxious and uncertain. Act strong, even if you don't feel it -- eventually the act will become a fact. 3. Continue to remember and relive the times you spent with your Adult Friend as the good times they were. Don't let them make you feel guilty or dirty. 4. Reject the popular morality that love and affection between boys, or between boys and men, is evil or "sinful". Create your own ethics if necessary. 5. Question EVERYTHING. Don't ever take what adults say as automatic truth, no matter how authoritarian they sound. Most people don't have a clue what values are, other than the pablum they were spoon-fed from birth: the random cultural mores and defunct religious values that most people repeat to each other over and over without a shred of analytical thought. 6. Certainly question everything coming from the psychologist/therapist/counselor crowd. Their beliefs about human nature are not based on scientific method, but more on "political correctness" and majority whim. 7. If you choose to be confrontational, realize there will be consequences beyond your ability to foresee. Not all battles are worth fighting. Pick your battles carefully. For example, you might hold your head up high amongst your peers, defying their condemnations, while lying to your counselors and "therapists" (if any). Just to keep them off your back and out of your life, just agree with them to their faces, but slander them behind their backs. 8. Some of the BC posters have advised you to "go public". Well, that depends on your own stomach for public controversy. I would not advise it unless you understand that public controversy can wear you down in ways that conflict among your peers and immediate circle cannot do. Again, pick your battles wisely. Do what you have to do to get by. Don't be a martyr. Don't be a sacrificial lamb. Don't become a victim. I am a boylover who is well into middle-age. Never married. Never arrested. I've had about a dozen Young Friends ranging in age from 9 to 16. Some parted ways while others have remained friends on into adulthood with families of their own. I came out to all of them as a BL (except one) -- all within the first year or so of our relationships. When I was a teenager and into my early 20s, I lived hell on earth trying to figure out truth from lies, right from wrong, and declared war on my own sexuality. There is no greater suffering than condemning and loathing one's own self. I felt myself falling into madness. I won the war one day by simply giving up battling with myself. I felt immediate relief and happiness. I spent the next 3 decades deprogramming my Catholic upbringing and replacing the popular cultural values with my own complete, consistent, and powerful philosophy of life. (I plan to write it all down as a book soon) As a result of trying to sort out the meaning of being a boylover in an anti-boylover world, I am now serene, happy, and supremely self-confident. Nobody fucks with me. Ever. This 4th of July I'm having a party, and two of my former loved boys, now in their 40s, will attend (as usual) with their families. I believe that I survived and even flourished as a BL because, after I ended the war with myself, I went to war with the fucking world, rejecting morality, religion, stupidity, political correctness, and all the other bullshit that we must accept to "fit in" with society. Yet, I am friendly, polite, well-mannered, accepted, and respected amongst my peers. And where does my strength come from? The certainty of my own realities. "I am willing to kill for, and die for, my right to love, and be loved by, my beloved boy." That is my position, with no possibility for compromise. No one will ever blackmail me because they will not survive the attempt. I refuse to live in fear. "It is better to love than to hate, but it is better to hate than to live in fear." I hate the world, but love my life. Stay true to yourself, be honest with yourself, and never compromise on your innermost predilection, whatever that is for you. My email is linked at the top of the message if you want to ask me questions or need more support (Nickless.bc@hushmail.com). Good luck! Nickless