Aristotle

In Oscar Wilde’s case, his downfall came about when, at the peak of his career, he sued the Marquess of Queensberry for libel. Defence council Edward Carson discovered a long line of rent boys willing to testify, and so the case collapsed, and criminal charges quickly followed. Wilde knew the dangerous power those mostly working class youths posed to him; he described being with them as “feasting with panthers”. When Wilde heard that it was Carson, an old Trinity rival, who was to oppose him, he remarked “No doubt he will pursue his case with all the added bitterness of an old friend”.

Twenty one years later, Roger Casement was hanged for treason. His own diaries were found and circulated by British officials in order to discredit him; scribblings salaciously listing his many sexual exploits with men, especially youths he met out cruising at night in Europe and abroad. Appeals by his many supporters for clemency were, as a result, ignored.

A hero’s tragic flaw is one which is self-inflicted. The poet Cathal Ó Searcaigh, with the same taste for post-pubescent youths as Casement and Wilde, (which makes them pederasts, not paedophiles) welcomes a film crew into his life in Nepal, and the resulting damning documentary, Fairytale of Kathmandu, has become defamatory evidence that, at the time of writing, may or may not be used in a court of law against him.

You will have to wait till March 11th to see the documentary itself, when RTÉ broadcasts it. It’s a honey trap of a film; it starts off lyrical and soft, elegiac for the most part, a lilting portrayal of a popular charismatic figure and the obvious heartfelt love that surrounds him in Kathmandu. In the months that she is there with him, however, the director, his friend and neighbour Neasa Ní Chianán, also records the frequent visits to his hotel by young men, who often stay the night, and become his friend for a few days or a few weeks, and sometimes longer. We hear some boys talking and joking about the many, many young friends he has, laughing about the numbers. Unaccountably, the director doesn’t ask Ó Searcaigh about them at the time, nor talk directly to the youths herself. It wasn’t until the cynical, jaded hotel manager talked about Western exploitation that her “eyes were opened”. (One has to remember that this same hotelier had been happy to have Ó Searcaigh as a regular guest for years.) Then, and only after Ó Searcaigh had left Kathmandu, she puts the word out, decides to interview some of the youths (all 16 or over) with a counsellor. They tell tales of confusion, hurt feelings, shame about feeling that they had been “bought”, and anger. Which is, after all, exactly what she was looking for – the Nepalese are obliging to Westerners, whom they see as gods. Most of all, what comes across from them are stories of lost innocence.

Innocence is the theme of the film, a collective Fall from Eden. Although Ní Chianán portrays herself as having been innocent, only realising, with shame, that the subject of her biography had been busy having a sex life throughout her stay in Nepal, right in front of her eyes, it is not mentioned that she had already spent a winter filming him for a previous documentary, The Poet, The Shopkeeper and the Babu (2006). If I am to believe that her statements in the film are authentic, and not disingenuous, then she is guilty of letting her own freely-admitted hero-worship of Ó Searcaigh get in the way of what this documentary should have been: a piercing and fearless exploration of the man’s voracious sexual appetites, and how he squares it with his exquisitely sensitive nature. However, perhaps because she was nursing her second child during the shoot, and feeling very maternal and protective, which she freely admits, she avoided grasping the thorny issue of his sexual exploits until he had left the country. So, crucially, he is not present to hear his accusers, to respond, to account for himself.

This is not to say that it is right that he should leave so many ex-lovers unhappy, nor that he apparently bedded some of them under false pretences; but I am not convinced that an adolescent’s loss of innocence (over the age of consent) is necessarily the sin that Ní Chianán makes it out to be. It is a mother’s desire that children are protected for as long as possible from hurt and pain – it is only natural. But it is also important to recognise that, at some stage, that one’s children will make mistakes, will have sex, which is often disturbing and confusing. They will grow up. Boys become men. To interpret the experience of a teenager having sex with an older man for the first time as de facto abuse, and to see him only as a victim, is potentially disempowering, shaming, and even castrating. Seeing herself as a rescuer, setting up a trust fund for Ó Searcaigh’s“victims” so they can receive psychosexual counselling is, in my professional opinion, as a working psychotherapist, inappropriate and potentially unhelpful. The hurt that Ní Chianán discovered in the boys she interviewed was relational, in that they didn’t like their experiences with Ó Searcaigh. Their complaints should have been brought directly to the man himself, then and there, so we, the audience, could understand for ourselves the interpersonal dynamics, could judge for ourselves what had happened between them. There is no evidence to suggest that he would have refused this exploration; indeed, perhaps, unconsciously, it is what he was inviting, for we men can insulate ourselves from women’s perspectives on sexuality and relationships, often to our detriment. Instead, his erstwhile friend returns to Ireland and ambushes him with her accusations, and his shocked, defensive, blustering response is what ends the film. This lack of natural justice is why I am so angry with the film makers.

It took them two winters in Nepal to finally address the elephant in the room: the man who put cruising into the Irish language (ag crúsáil) was cruising, all the time. It’s there in the documentary, you can see him strutting through the streets of Kathmandu, late at night, his boys following behind him, cock of the walk. Some of the youths in his life are timid and shy – although it is impossible to know whether the pained awkwardness we see in one youth in particular, being treated to ice cream, is the result of being with Ó Searcaigh or having a Western film crew focussed on his every facial expression. Lest anyone think that we Westerners are bringing our evil ways to the innocent East, there are cruising areas in Kathmandu, and one, a small cruising park in the centre of the city, has between 100-200 guys visiting every night. There are trained outreach workers to spread the safe sex message, and a drop-in centre for gay people – with a staff of 23. There is even an annual gay pride march.

Desire makes fools of us all, and when it expresses itself outside of a relationship of equal status and common interests, which is what many people like to think sex should be about, especially women, then it brings its own contradictions, pleasures and pains. Ní Chianán really doesn’t understand this kind of sex, but, most unprofessionally, didn’t seem to want to understand. The first lad in the documentary who spends the night with Ó Searcaigh, a seventeen-year-old called Ram, seems at ease with him the next day and Ní Chianán’s voice-over seems mystified as to why this might be: “they were worlds apart”. Her curiosity should have been expressed to the poet, then and there. But then, we’d have had a very different kind of film, adult, intelligent and non-exploitative, instead of a pained but nevertheless vindictive response to her own disappointment, that her hero has feet of clay. In Fairytale of Kathmandu, we have a man innocent enough to believe that his friend would not become his nemesis, threaten him with criminal proceedings using the film as evidence, and refuse to supply him with a copy of the film so he could defend himself properly once it had begun being shown and marketed, when his very openness about matters sexual would have meant that he could have explained himself to his accusers on film, long before it had got to that stage. Ó Searcaigh’s hamartia, or tragic flaw, is that he was too trusting.

Apparently, Ní Chianán had an unfilmed conversation with the poet after she had completed the film, and she asked him to consider therapy, to reform himself. According to her, they parted on good terms, with a hug. His subsequent refusal to reform was interpreted by her as evidence that he was an unapologetic recidivist child abuser, to judge by the way she writes and speaks about him now. The answer may be far more complex and uncomfortable: this man, like many men and indeed some women, has a form of sexuality that is transgressive, and seeks to push the limits of desire as far as he can. At its root may indeed be a broken heart, as Ní Chianán alludes to in the film, and a desire to avoid the painful feelings of being dependent, of being possessive and obsessive. But it may also be driven by delight in pleasure, a love of beauty and gentleness, and a lack of shame about sex. He certainly needs to address the issues raised in the film about exploitation, and come to terms with the implications of being a rich Westerner in a poor country, and how that is a perilous path. He most definitely needs to face his accusers. But it occurred to me, as I was watching a few of the lads later on in the film, who were laughing genially and expressively at his every word, but not really getting his literary references, that they were humouring the old codger. Exploitation can be a two-way street, especially when it comes to sex.

“It is the Hera archetype that makes us see Priapus as distorted as we do” says the writer James Hillman. What he’s saying is that the more we look at relationships and sex from a matronly, family-orientated perspective, the more grotesque, threatening and repellent the male sex drive seems. This film is so biassed. Indeed, it is worse, it is prejudicial and punitive. Cathal Ó Searcaigh’s side of the story, in all its uncomfortable complexity, has yet to be told.

This article was originally published in Hot Press. See also the young men’s own story here. I discussed the documentary on The Kiosk with Nadine O’Regan on Phantom FM on Saturday 15th March. An edited version of this article was reproduced in Village magazine, April 2008.

Romeo and Juliet pitched at the bebo generation is a risky proposition. Ever since Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 film for the e generation, theatrical productions which aim to give this teen tragedy a contemporary feel, and reach new, younger audiences, have a hard act to follow. But, given the power of this play, it should survive most attempts to give it a make-over, if the text is respected, and the actors aren’t daunted by the language. Too often in Irish theatre, Shakespeare productions suffer because of a clumsiness or self-consciousness with the verse, that interferes with the fluidity of the story-telling.

Happily, in this production by Jason Byrne, (the first time the Abbey has ever staged this play), the actors are, in the main, in effortless command of the narrative. In particular, the stellar Gemma Reeves brought a moving simplicity and heartache to the role of Juliet, in a way that caught me by the throat. Her mother, Anita Reeves, playing the nurse, was also powerfully affecting, funny and human. As for Romeo, Aaron Monaghan helped make the famous balcony scene with Juliet one of the most gripping I’ve ever seen – risky, funny, and full of the adrenaline-rush of adolescent infatuation. I’m not sure, however, that his leggy laddy physicality was quite right for Romeo. But then, that part is one of the most difficult parts to play in Shakespeare (I know, I’ve played it) because there’s a spinelessness, a haplessness to his personality, as evidenced when he changes his mooning affections from Rosaline to Juliet in a conscienceless flash. In his scenes with the Friar Laurence, his immaturity and sheer gormlessness become apparent, almost to an irritating degree. Frank McCusker, as the friar, gave the most satisfying performance of all for me, in a way, because it was so surprisingly menacing, worldly and dark.

The dance sequence, in which Romeo catches first sight of Juliet, was just a bit too rich and self-consciously contemporary for me stylistically, with Amy Winehouse providing the backing track. But I loved the overall look of the piece – the design ideas that influenced designer Jon Bausor are available to look at on the show’s bebo page – and the stunningly stormy set piece at the end of Act I, with superb lighting by Paul Keogan, was filmic and exciting.

The naturalness of the speaking style in this production extended to allowing actors to use their own accents, which worked largely successfully, but contributed to a disjointed loss of place at times. And I felt a little bit uneasy at a couple of the scenes where there is a collective weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth over yet another death; sometimes, grief restrained is more affecting.

However, it’s Juliet who carries the play, and Gemma Reeves’ truly harrowing distress at the end left me wet-faced and shaken, as if I’d never seen this timeless tragedy before. And that, for me, is the mark a truly contemporary production; Amy Winehouse, and all that jazz, is but icing on the cake.

Update, February 2009: I finally get to meet and interview him for Hot Press, in his first extended English-language interview. It was published  Thursday, 12th February, 2009. More here.

There is no “truth” when it comes to understanding the motives for suicide. It’s a wretched business, purely speculative, and no one can reach any solid conclusions because the violence of the act leaves everyone close so traumatised, and, of course, the aggressor is not around to explain his or her motives. I say “aggressor” deliberately, because suicide punches a hole in the fabric of the consensus to which we all cling, with various degrees of effort: that life is precious and worth preserving at all costs.

We don’t have to be a signed-up Freudian to recognise that thanatos, the death wish, rumbles around in our psyches more often than we care to admit. Those frightened of heights are not so much scared of falling, but of the awareness that some part of them wants to fall, to jump. Those who buy packets of cigarettes wilfully ignore the words “SMOKING KILLS” every day. The death wish can manifest in a subtler way, through neglect; those who overeat and find themselves becoming obese, putting a strain on their heart and not really finding the will to diet, or those who starve themselves or are anorexic or bulimic. Those who get addicted to something, however harmless in small doses, find themselves centring their lives on something that is the opposite of engaging with life. Addiction has its root in a desire to manage feelings, to dam the flood of emotions that threaten to overwhelm our rationality, our stability, our sense of well-being.  It’s present in those who get a little bit too drunk and ending up having unsafe sex with someone they don’t know. And in those who endure endless levels of stress at work or at home and do nothing about it, and end up with a heart attack at the age of 50. All of us, at some stage, have been through phases in our lives where life doesn’t feel worth living, even if it’s just the passivity of waking up in the morning and just not being bothered about carrying on with the day.

When someone acts on that deathwish, we are confronted violently with our own, and that is a nauseating, disturbing experience. Those who loved the person who has died inevitably feel responsible, racked with guilt, driven to distraction wondering if there was anything that they could have done to avert it. The sad truth of it is that, despite everything we are taught, despite the conceit in the West that preserving life is our main priority, we learn each time someone takes their life that there can be a greater, darker force, one of a fierce, almost tyrannical,  individualism. It is the most powerful expression of the desire to take control over our feelings, to extinguish that which we cannot tolerate any more. Paradoxically, it is the ultimate expression of control over life.

The other paradox with suicide is that it is not the person who takes their own life that, necessarily, suffers. We can speculate at the struggle that led them to such a drastic act, and we can learn from those who have threatened suicide, who are dealing with depression or other existential crises, to examine at the rocky terrain that leads up to the final act. At heart, there is a monstrous obsession with one’s own pain, to the exclusion of all others. There may be cries for help, self-harming or talk of losing the will to live, or, indeed, unsuccessful attempts. They should always be taken seriously. For, as much as we may “tut tut” and dismiss such attempts as “attention seeking” or self-inflicted – especially in adolescence – the truth is, in my experience, that someone who is calling out for attention to their pain is demanding that everyone in their  family address a similar pain, which is often so frightening that few dare to wade into those shark-infested waters of the unconscious. The person who is acting out becomes the one with the problem, the sick one, the disturbed one, while the rest of the family, with the best will in the world, fail to grasp the nettle for themselves.  This is not to attribute blame to families – far from it – this is to point out that in our society we are deeply uncomfortable with allowing the expression of disturbing feelings, and we are loath to acknowledge the relational matrix that connects us like a web. Death, or the threat of it, is sometimes what it takes to call attention to what is wrong in a social system – whether that be a relationship, a family, a community or a society.  And what is wrong is usually an imbalance, rather than a matter of culpability; an (all too human) desire not to deal with savagely uncomfortable feelings.

“Why did she do it?” blares the headline in the Evening Herald in front of me, as I write. Her letter may offer a clue, and I understand it to be heart-breaking, but it is but one piece of the jigsaw of evidence. What’s missing is an understanding of the emotional turmoil that led up to the cold, clear decision, the process that led her to conclude that one shocking statement, one lament, would suffice. One of the most unsettling things that her family and friends will have to face is their rage at the choice she has made, how she (through whatever logic she employed) came to such a decision, to disregard the pain she would cause them. I believe it to be one of the most harrowing experiences of life. I hope they manage to find some peace of mind, and forgive themselves – and her.

In the main, I have been blown away by the experience of reading all seven books, and believe Rowling thoroughly deserves her success. An elegant, clear writer, she is a master storyteller, on a par with Tolkien, and each book had me turning pages well into the early hours of the morning, in thrall to her suspenseful art. Her stories have compelling resonance because of her wonderful understanding of the human condition, and in particular the subtleties of feeling, and her deep appreciation of the extraordinary power of grief. Like an exquisite painter, with emotions as her paint, she has created several very moving masterpieces of characterisation, each one painted with loving care and attention to detail. But they are also placed in a recognisably shoddy political and bureaucratic world of corruption and greed, mendacity and propaganda, with a compelling, sinister background theme of racial purity and supremacism.

A complex psychological truth informs many of the characters: from the multi-layered guilt of wise old Dumbledore and his knowledge that he should avoid real political power, to the unrequited love for Harry’s mother that continually tormented and motivated Snape, for which he sacrificed his life, to the irreparable damage that being orphaned did to Tom Riddle. And yet, being orphaned and subjected to abuse by his aunt and uncle did not damage Harry to the same degree. Dumbledore’s (and Rowling’s) core value is love, and in particular maternal love. Whether a child knows he was loved (Harry’s mother gave her life to protect him) or not (Tom’s mother bewitched his father to fall in love with her, and died in a black depression when the spell broke, leaving her son to fend for himself in an orphanage) seems to be the key to good character in Rowling’s world. However, hers is no simplistic understanding of humanity, with evil clearly delineated and projected on to the baddies, this is a world fraught with ambiguity and moral uncertainty, with, for example, nearly all the race of house-elves preferring slavery to freedom. Voldemort attempts to kill Harry, frightened by a prophecy, and yet by committing that act he creates in Harry a soul brother and equal: an enemy with the capacity to undo him. Fear of death leads to evil, which leads to self-destruction. It is the reaction to fate that matters, not the fate itself.

The turbulence of adolescence is achingly recreated by Rowling in the dynamic, enduring relationship between the three friends, Hermione Ron and Harry. The bad tempers, the misunderstandings, the huffs, the hatreds, jealousies, the tongue-tied obsessions and awkwardness, the tolerance and patience, the humour and affection. Though mindful at all times that she’d have a million parents sending howlers of outrage to her if she was overtly sexual or crude, she still managed to convey the queasy horrors of teenage infatuation and the monster-like nature of jealousy and desire with an artful grace. Rowling’s hero, Harry, is a profoundly sensitive boy, and she does for teenage boys what Joss Whedon did for teenage girls with his heroine Buffy. In choosing opposite-sex protagonists for their mythologies, both manage to say something wise and enlightening about gender roles and expectations, as much wish-fulfilment as reality, and both writers manage to stretch the boundaries of possibility for their readers and viewers, allowing the imagination of both boys and girls to fly to places they’ve never been encouraged to before.

But as I put down the last of the seven books, with a fond regret, I realised something important was missing for me. It’s as if a peculiar Invisibility Spell had been cast over Rowling’s world, that only those who have experienced such invisibility will recognize. In all the hundreds of characters, magical and muggle, teenage and ancient, eccentric and traditional, there is not one gay character. At all. The wizard world, loathed and treated with extreme suspicion by the uber-Muggle suburban Dursleys because of a profound fear of difference, has no place for sexual variety.

Not one gay wizard, not one lesbian witch. Even on conservative American television, Whedon managed to weave in a teenage lesbian love story between the witch Willow and her beloved Tara. Despite Slytherin sleaze, there is not one bitter and twisted leather queen; despite Hufflepuff egalitarianism, there is not one loving pair of arts and crafts lesbians. I am not looking for caricature or stereotype here – I’m simply clutching at straws. There is the merest joshing at Ron and Harry’s friendship a couple of times, inoffensive and teasing. At one of Slughorn’s parties, one male guest brings another man as his companion, but of this nothing more is said. In the Triwizard tournament, one of the challenges has each wizard competing to save someone important in their lives; Harry’s greatest potential loss is revealed to be his best friend Ron – and Harry has to save him from the bottom of a lake. This is treated without any embarrassment or awkwardness by the two boys. And, lastly, unlike in When Harry Met Sally, this Harry loves Hermione as a sister, no more and no less. And that, dear reader, is the sum total of references to anything remotely resembling homosexuality in the entire Harry Potter series.

How, in Rowling’s incredible imagination and forensic insight into teenage life, did she fall under this Invisibility Spell? How is it possible to create such chilling and sadistic scenarios, such utterly grotesque and stomach-churning tales of violence greed and malice, and make no room at all for one variant of the human condition? Is a snog between two boys more taboo than the acidic sadism of the line “Kill the spare” uttered by Voldemort? Given that she is an expert at describing inner conflict and loss, loneliness and a sense of profound alienation, how could a gay character fail to qualify on dramatic grounds, or at least for curiosity’s sake? How could she avoid the issue of homosexuality in a British Public School, Wizard or Muggle, or at least its more familiar companion, homophobia? Given that modern Britain has extremely visible gay politicians and policemen, soldiers and sailors, singers and entertainers, children’s TV hosts and Big Brother winners, given that even Doctor Who flirts outrageously with both men and women, and given that at least two of the actors playing Hogwarts’ professors are gay to my knowledge, this Invisibility Spell is no minor detail. It’s quite a piece of work.

I have no desire to chastise Rowling for falling under this spell. I have a great respect for the creative process, and her vision of the world has introduced millions of children to the joy of reading books. I know that if Rowling felt obliged to bring gay characters into her world for realism’s sake, they would feel out of place – creativity is organic, it can’t be forced, and no artist of integrity should change their vision to make lives easier for other people. But Rowling has wilfully ignored the evidence of history, that so many people burned as witches, scorned as shamans, tolerated as weirdos, and honoured as healers have been sexual outlaws. She could easily have chosen to expand Colin Creevey’s hero-worship of Harry into something more like a boyhood crush; easily given Professor MacGonagall a life-long witch companion; easily added a layer of internalized homophobia to Draco Malfoy’s bullying character, so desperate to please his parents. All, alas is mere fantasy on my part. It’s only a story, after all. However, as I write, it’s a story that, the world over, children are discussing after their summer holidays.

The sad result of this Invisibility Spell is pain, especially to gay teenagers. Sometimes being ignored is a greater wound than being hated, especially in the school yard. In this vast and complex mythology, seemingly comprehensive, ostensibly holistic, supposedly delighting in eccentricity and diversity, gay teenagers the world over will get to the final chapter of the final book, in which our teenage heroes have paired off and become parents themselves, and they may not know enough about themselves to feel cheated, or angry, or be able to name their confusion, their loss. Like Harry, whose constant search for a father figure, a role model to guide him, to tell him how to live, proved frustrating and elusive, gay teenagers have to figure it out for themselves, and come up with their own answers, follow their own judgment, and find their own countercurse to the Invisibility Spell.

Update 20th October 2007: Thanks to Ronirokit, who comments below, I hear that J K Rowling, speaking in Carnegie Hall in New York yesterday, spoke about how she has “always” thought of Dumbledore as gay. A transcript of her talk is here.

1. My email two weeks ago to the Herald, with the subject line “Complaint to the editor about front page story on 11th July 2007 in the Evening Herald” has gone unanswered.
2. The office of the Press Ombudsman has not been filled yet, and in an email this week I learned that this probably won’t happen till mid-Autumn. I was advised to take my complaint up with the editor. (See 1 above.) I have, nevertheless, written a full complaint as if the Press Council Code of Practice is currently enforceable, as if it will be the first thing in the new Ombudsman’s in tray, and used its headings to form the basis of my complaint.
3. My purpose is to raise awareness of the dangers of inaccurate, simplistic, sensationalist reporting on a complex case, which is set to run and run. To this end, the more public this debate is, the better. As today there is news that Myspace in the US has revealed that there are 29,000 registered sex offenders on its books, it becomes even more important to separate fact from hysteria. (The Evening Herald story even made it to the Ritual Abuse Watch blog, which makes my point. There is not a scintilla of evidence to suggest any evidence of ritual abuse.)

Update: found some quality blog posts about how this story was seen back in March via Irishblogs.ie:  Suzy, Tuppenceworth, ball*istic and Rob Synnott, as well as this perspective from gay.com.

I despise this sort of reporting because it is prejudicial to those who are accused – implying a conscious malicious intent – when the truth was, reportedly, in at least two incidents where the lad met men, they then (and only then) realised his age, and sent him home. If that is true, then they must have been unaware of his true age before they met him. This lad was looking for sex on Gaydar, pretending he was 18. This point needs to be made clear in media reports. If this essential piece of information is ignored in press coverage, it whips up the complexities of the story into one poisonous scapegoating dust storm, at the grave expense of the truth. And without truth, there cannot be justice.

When I began mentioning in my own Gaydar profile that I was looking for information and opinions on the case with a view to this column, I was met initially with outrage. Before it had been confirmed (on RTÉ’s Prime Time) that it was indeed the Gaydar site where it all started, I had some hysterical responses. I was apparently linking paedophilia with being gay, and giving Gaydar a bad name. Paedophiles were mostly heterosexual, and it was disgraceful that I should even ask the questions I was asking. I also bore the brunt of many people’s suspicion of the media, and had to face some tough questioning before it was acknowledged (but not by all) that it would be better I wrote from the perspective of being a Gaydar member, and that I did it openly, without being undercover or underhand. However, most of the men I talked to online were thoughtful and concerned.

Their suspicion of the media is justified. The coverage has been woefully hysterical and conflicting. Central to the popular press’s discourse is that this was a “paedophile ring” that groomed this young lad; a conspiracy of conscious deliberation and intent, to seek out children and exploit them. There has been no understanding of the way men can meet each other, online and off, for sex. On the Late Late Show discussion on Friday night, the gay male sexual perspective was completely absent, although one contributor had earlier been advertising for sex himself on Gaydar. The nature of cruising online needs to be understood in order to put this case in perspective.

There is an atmosphere sometimes of the stockroom trading floor in Gaydar chatrooms – men making bids for sexual encounters, displaying their wares, buying or selling different flavours of contact. It’s capitalism run riot, but it’s sexual not financial capital, displaying men’s capacity to commodify and market themselves, exploit each other, for the pursuit of pleasure. No money exchanges hands, as a rule, although there are a few prostitutes openly advertising their services, in defiance of Irish law, as well as men soliciting for paid sex, on a daily basis. But in the main, this is a free market in all senses of the word; it’s a heady, often frenzied, search for hook-ups. Some have more chance of success, those in major urban areas who are sexually a top and with good photographs; others, living in rural areas, middle-aged married men with little or no chance of instant gratification, spending their time in a fantasy world, toying with the unattainable. But this is not a “gay community” – this is a men-only sexualised environment. Many members do not identify with being gay – some are married, some keep their private lives to themselves and never enter a gay bar, some are “bi-curious” and flirting with exploring “no strings” sex, the preoccupation of many men, of all orientations. Many, however, are friends who go on the gay scene regularly, and it is a forum for catching up and bitching about last night at The George or hearing about new gay pubs or clubs in towns across the country. The fact that in the Irish chatroom some intelligent and funny conversation happens is a tribute I think to the Irish character, for it is not so in other national chatrooms. Perhaps because there is only one Gaydar chatroom for all of Ireland, and it is the busiest of its kind in Ireland, with often hundreds of men online at any one time, it is possible for some interesting things to happen. Many enlightening discussions are held, regularly, about HIV and sexual health, about coming out, about all sorts of things about life in Ireland. There are some very funny entertaining characters, some wise old souls, some obviously disturbed individuals, and some provocative little shits who enjoy stirring things up. There are Polish and Asian and Russian men, men of all ages and body types, fetishes and obsessions. Cross-dressers to bears, “lads” to “daddies”, “skinheads” to “chubbies”. But even the most sensible and serious conversations in the chatroom are constantly interspersed with appeals for sex in all its variety and complexity. A “cumslut” will repeatedly ask for all takers to fuck him bareback in his apartment. An elderly cross-dresser in West Cork will appeal for young men to have phonesex with him. And so it goes on, ad infinitum, ad nauseam. The fact that any sensible chat happens at all is a miracle, given the atmosphere of sexual anarchy that prevails. And yet, in spite of this, friendships develop, relationships can start, enjoyable sex can be had, and sensible advice and information can be found.

But the truth is it’s largely a fantasy world – many men enjoy chatting about meeting for sex but are only using it for masturbatory purposes and have no intention of meeting anyone else. Many men use fake photos, and most profiles in Ireland have no photos at all – a feature I think of the Irish need for privacy, not necessarily evidence that everyone is in the closet. But if ever you needed evidence about the prevalence of bisexuality in this country, and the number of married men getting it off with other men, Gaydar is the place to find it.

It is in this milieu that this young lad apparently signed up, pretending to be 18. I imagine he watched and learned for a while – and indeed sometimes youngsters can learn a lot of useful things from being online. One of the surprising things for me now, at 44, is that I get approached by young men looking for older men, a relationship dynamic that is as old as the Greeks. Quite often I have referred them to the youth group, at belongto.org, believing passionately in the principle of gay youth groups, for I still have friends from that time, nearly 30 years later. It is in youth groups that kids can really explore who they are and make necessary friends, in a safe, non-exploitative way. However, this lad found himself in this meat market, and quickly found that his youth was appealing to a certain kind of man, and, perhaps, something he could exploit, if the reports of him asking for money are true. Was he too young to make this decision? Probably, I would say. But people mature at different ages. What will he think of it all when he’s 17? One man wrote passionately to me deploring the fact that he would now be immersed in counselling, being encouraged to see himself as a “victim” when he may have been totally in control and very confident about what he wanted. But my hunch is that this young sexual man won’t lose his penchant for sex, and is on his way to being one of those who enjoy it in all its exciting variety. A mother may wish him to settle down and find a nice boyfriend, once she gets over the shock of realising he likes men – but in my experience, and from what other men have told me, such early experience of sex will lead him to want to explore it more. To a large degree, the law is understandably biased towards the values of parenting and protection of children. But in terms of the natural justice for this lad, in terms of his future development, unless he manages to find someone with whom he can talk honestly about sex with men, and figure it out for himself in a reflective way, perhaps with peers in a youth group, he may find that the legal actions, and the attention this case has provoked, may cause much more damage than good in his life.

I’ve had conversations with many men during the course of researching this article, who have told me they were sexually active at 14 or 15. Some faked Gaydar profiles just like this lad did, and some had sex, just like he did. If the internet was around when I was 14 (or perhaps, being honest, 15 for me) I feel sure I would have had a Gaydar profile myself. Many older men like me have said the same, but before the Internet it was the back pages of Hot Press that were the obvious route to making first sexual contact. One 19 year old told me he had indicated he was under 18 in his Gaydar profile text, when he was 14, and never got into trouble. He made an informed decision who to choose to have sex with, and did it, and has no regrets. And he’s not the only one by any means. Another man said he had been treated well when he was 14 when he had sex with older men; he believes it’s impossible to have an intelligent debate about underage sex, and that there is a big difference between consensual and forced sex. Another man told me he’d have “killed” to have had sex at 14. Someone else said to me that that lad was “a little shit” for fucking up so many people’s lives.

Another young man told me that he was reported to Gaydar when he was online at 16, and his profile was deleted. He now says he is grateful to the person who did it. He had been sexually assaulted before and the guy responsible recognized and haassed him when he rejoined, when he was legal; although he reported it to the Gardaí, they told him there was nothing they could do. He was “shocked” by what had happened to this 14-year-old; but felt it was bound to happen.

Another man told me that, about a year ago, he had been approached by a young lad in his rural town claiming to be 19, and they were going to meet. For about 3 weeks they exchanged very explicit texts. However a friend tipped him off that the lad was in fact only 15, so he immediately terminated the contact. But the teenager continually harassed him, and the fact that the man was a teacher made his position extremely vulnerable. Eventually he had to change his phone number. He made the point that there is no provision in law for younger lads “grooming” older men. His experience frightened him.

Most of the correspondence I have had over the past few days has been full of concern for the young lad, and his family. But many expressed sympathy for those who had been caught up in it, if they hadn’t known he was 14. It is this crucial detail that I imagine will only come out in the trial(s).

No one sensible I have spoken to online about this believes that this was a paedophile “ring”. “It’s not the way gay sex happens” wrote one man. It’s opportunistic, it’s random, it’s chaotic. If someone is hot and looking for hook-ups, their details are passed on to others. It is anarchic, in the sense that the law is ignored, especially in the chatrooms in relation to the laws of prostitution. Personally, I have an aversion to the law when it comes to the realm of personal sexual morality, because when I was a teenager/in my twenties, I believed I was doomed to a life of criminality for being sexual in this country. Happily, it is now being acknowledged that whereas three men went through and had sex with the lad, two others met him and sent him home, proving that not everyone involved in the case is the monster the media would like them to be. Crucially, we may never see it being understood by the media that there is a big difference between sending sexual texts and actually having sex. Motive is all – and the truth of the matter is that when it comes to internet sex chats, most exchanges never manifest in actual sex – no matter what age the correspondents are. Anyone who has ever cruised online will have had the experience of falling for extremely plausible invitations, detailed and chatty exchanges, with the guy simply not turning up at the time and place arranged. No matter how persuasive or convincing or lurid the conversations beforehand with this lad, they all should be taken with a pinch of salt. But the demonization of the texters involved (the “sick paodos”) may not allow for that reality to be understood. I fervently hope that there is a gay man on the jury or juries who can appreciate that distinction, if charges are brought against the men who never met the lad.

As for Gaydar itself – it’s one of the most successful internet sites for men looking for sex on this planet. It has no age verification system in place, and so it is likely that many other 14- and 15-year-olds are using the site at the present time, and no doubt will continue to do so. Were age-verification to be introduced, which normally involves using a credit card, Gaydar would lose a lot of members, and no doubt gay teenagers will find other sites. Gaydar probably won’t change unless it is forced to by law, and apparently so few people in Ireland bother to pay for membership they aren’t really interested in the Irish market commercially, so they may just withdraw from Ireland.

Ideally, boys should be taught about the good sites, the youth group, community-orientated chatrooms and other supportive environments, but that would have to mean that the education system in this country takes seriously the needs and sexual drives of teenagers, which is, sadly, a long way away. Until we realise the importance that many men place on sex outside of relationship, on recreational sex, we are not going to be able to communicate with lads such as this 14-year-old in a language they understand.

In the meantime, gay people are going to be suspect in this country for a while, because in this instance, I believe it is a function of the way men have recreational sex with each other that has allowed these sad events to unfold. I may be proven wrong, but Gaydar is not the obvious place to look for children, so I doubt that the men caught up in this case are paedophiles in the generally accepted sense of the term, in that they find pre-pubescent children sexually attractive. I imagine they find sexually mature teenagers attractive, and in a sense, if they are legal and sound, their beauty can be extremely intoxicating, even to me, whose tastes are generally for people my own age, or maybe from their twenties up. When a young lad offers himself for gay sex online, it is vastly different to a case where a child is befriended by an adult in a non-sexual chatroom in disguise, and “groomed” for coercive sex.

As I write these words, a 19-year-old is talking online in the public chatroom about how he’d love to have his “fresh hole abused” by someone older. Another young guy is telling the room that he’s just been having camsex (video chat) with another young lad, both of them wanking away, when the other guy’s sister walks into shot and waves at him. This is in the nature of sex, and the way the young generation are having sex. Not everyone, of course, by any means, but a significant minority, and we still haven’t come to terms with it in our culture. It is unstoppable, it is not going to go away, and the internet has transformed the way Irish people have sex forever. There is so much deeper thinking needed about this than is evident at the moment.

In the end, in spite of all this sexual freedom and license, this era of infinite possibilities and dangers, it boils down to individual responsibility and morality. I can’t forgive the men who had sex with that lad. But also for the sake of his own development and maturity, I hope the young lad doesn’t get persuaded to see himself as a rape victim, or buy into the apparently universal media consensus that he fell into a consciously pre-meditated trap, designed by perverts. He knows what he has done, and has to acknowledge his own part in it, for his own sanity, to ensure his own later growth into a sexually confident and responsible man.

Hazel O’Connor blazed into my consciousness when I was seventeen – the impressionable age, the impossible age. This was the punky/nihilistic zeitgeist, the early Thatcher chill, hunger strikes, Berlin Wall still permafrosted solid, the dour Moscow Olympics, a buffoon of an actor heading, bafflingly, for the White House, and everyone obsessing about who shot JR. This was before personal stereos – the only place to hear music was around a record player, or on the radio. I would stop in my tracks whenever and wherever “Will You?” came on: her broken hearted voice, and that incredible sax, all that teenage angst about dating and sex. It is a perfect song. Music was incredibly bland and soupy and sweet in those days, all Cliff Richard and Air Supply and Babs singing “Woman in Love” and anything with an edge was devoured: Blondie, Joe Jackson, The Pretenders, Madness, Talking Heads, and Breaking Glass, the soundtrack, by Hazel O’Connor.

]]> http://bonhom.ie/2006/01/soundtrack-for-seventeen-year-old.html/feed 1 http://bonhom.ie/2005/11/kate-bush.html http://bonhom.ie/2005/11/kate-bush.html#comments Thu, 24 Nov 2005 21:25:00 +0000 Dermod http://81.17.252.110/~dermod/2005/11/kate-bush.html Kate Bush is my adolescence, my yin, my yearning. I listen to Kate and it’s as if I never left those heartsick years, I’m still waiting for that man with the child in his eyes. She moves me to my soul. Listening to her talk on this Radio 2 documentary on 19th November is a pleasure, she sounds content.