Hi Rainboy,

I welcome your input.

Just because the book was titled with the word "abuser" doesn't mean they are actually abusers! The title reflects the opinion of the author, the media and the law.

It was a while ago that I read the book, but I can clearly remember one testimony where the guy had really enjoyed having a sexual relationship with his AF as a boy and had nurtured a similar relationship with a YF as an adult himself. He strongly believed that both relationships had been healthy and harmless. I can't remember how he got caught but he felt a great injustice had been done. I don't call that traumatised.

Another of the testimonies was of a boy who'd grown up in some kind of orphanage where sex amongst the boys and adult carers was the order of the day from the time he was 3 years old. He got out of the home as an adult and the first time he found out that such a thing could be thought of as wrong was when he was arrested for sexing a boy on the outside. To him that was just how life was... what boys did. This kind of neutral reaction came about because he grew up unexposed to a culture that told him what he was doing was bad. Again... no trauma until he enters the "it's all wrong" world.

I think to say that someone can be "traumatized, whether they realize it or not" is a bit contradictory. How can there be a trauma and you don't feel it... surely a trauma is, by definition, something you feel negatively. Perhaps you are arguing anyone who wants to sex a boy is experiencing a trauma in that the desire IS the trauma. I'm sure that, whilst it IS difficult coming to terms with a BL sexuality in our current society, that BL desire of itself is no more traumatic than heterosexuality or any other orientation.

How does one define a "positive effect on sexual development"? Just because someone has sex with a boy doesn't mean his sexual development is somehow negative or unhealthy. Really, if it wasn't for God's command to the contrary I think men and boys could quite "positively" engage in sexual activity and why shouldn't they? Of course, God's command makes all the difference.

Blessings
Cat.