GayToday.com - Pen Points

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Pen Points

Pen Points
Letters to GayToday

Were You Gays Molested as Children?

I have a handful of gay friends most of whom have mentioned that they were molested as children. Of my straight friends, none have ever mentioned anything like this.

Is there any hard data regarding this? Has GayToday taken a survey? Would they?

I get the feeling this is a sensitive question, but I do not know why it should be.

Thanks,
Neal

The Editor Replies:

Dear Neal,

Our GayToday surveys are hardly scientific. We run these surveys just for fun. I've been "out" for 51 years, however, and having been highly observant since 1951, I'd say that a small minority of gays have been molested. I knew of a straight father, for example, who molested his son, a friend of mine, in the 1950s. But when his son later came out to him -- Dad tried to kill him. There's no connection between molestation and orientation, however. That's a myth.

And 95% of all molestations are by heterosexuals, often by relatives. If intergenerational sex occurs with gays, it is more often than not because it is the aggressive teen who initiates.

Interestingly enough, the famed Kinsey report (1948) found that gay males were very likely to have reached puberty early and were (throughout life) often more highly-sexed than their straight counterparts -- who --reaching puberty later, at 15 or so, were less highly-sexed and, generally, heterosexual in orientation.

Best wishes,
Jack Nichols

The Editor's Reply to Me Said:

"I knew of a straight father,
for example, who molested his son, a friend of mine,
in the 1950s. But when his son later came
out to him -- Dad tried to kill him.
There's no connection between
molestation and orientation, however.
That's a myth."

So, your molested friend is gay? That is another one I can add to my list! I want to make it clear that I am not talking about molesters being gay. What I am getting at is - does being molested as a child make one gay?

I know it sounds stupid, but that is my question.

Thanks,
Neal

Before You Add Him to Your List:

Dear Neal,

But if you do include this little matter of my friend's dad in your whatever you're doing, I caution you to realize that you're using mere anecdotal evidence for your theory and not the scientific method. There are strict scientific standards by which such matters are investigated. Kinseyesque standards.

And if you should quote me in your study, you must also quote something else that I've said, namely that only "a small minority of gays have been molested" -- and that the percentages of molestations are much higher among heterosexuals.

GayToday Editor Jack Nichols

The friend about whom I spoke and who is gay already felt himself somehow to be gay prior to his molestation by his STRAIGHT Dad. He didn't dislike what was happening to him. He himself never blamed his homosexuality on his father's behavior.

We're still close friends today and his life has been one of living monogamously and happily with another male for the past 32+ years. Better that they both enjoy same-sex affection that is real -- some human caring -- than to conform to phony standards that so often wreck confused conventional affections that make people so inept in matters of love, going nowhere.

If 50% of marriages end in divorce, are even 25% of all marriages -- anywhere -- truly happy ones? Affection is too rare, and so if it exists we should welcome it. There's hardly a need to question why it should exist.

So -- if you're looking for scientific evidence as to a cause of homosexual feelings, I can assure you that you're nearly a century behind academic/scientific studies if you cling to the old theory of molestation. You are, kindly speaking, barking up the wrong tree.

Better that you should ask another question: "Why is it that one in three men that I pass on the street are likely to have reached orgasm with another male at least once in his adulthood?" (Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, by Alfred C. Kinsey et al, 1948)

If you want to read a fine biography of America's pioneer sex researcher Dr. Kinsey and his discoveries about what ordinary people actually do, I suggest Jonathan Gathorne-Hardy's book: Sex and the Measure of All Things: A Life of Alfred C. Kinsey. (published 1998): http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0253337348/qid%3D1031180172/sr%3D11-1 /ref%3Dsr%5F11%5F1/103-6893162-8687029

But, if you're looking at homosexuality from a religious standpoint, and simply collecting stories, then I recommend my own latest book: http://www.prometheusbooks.com/site/catalog/gay3.html

Peace,
Jack Nichols,
Editor

How a DEA Exhibit Exploits September 11th

Esequiel Hernandez is featured in the Marijuana Policy Project as an innocent victim of the war on drugs

This week the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) begins press previews of a new exhibit -- Target America: Traffickers, Terrorists and You -- designed to exploit Americans' grief and anger over the tragic events of September 11, 2001. The Washington, D.C.-based Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) has responded with its own exhibit, which tells the real story of terrorism and the "war on drugs."

The DEA exhibit opens to the public September 10 at the DEA Museum in Arlington, Virginia, and will later tour the U.S. According to the DEA's Web site, the display "traces the historic and contemporary connections between global drug trafficking and terrorism." The September 11 attacks and images of World Trade Center rubble will be prominently featured.

This is a sad exploitation of the memories of the 3,000 people killed September 11. We felt it was important to tell the true story: It is the war on drugs that funds terrorism by driving up drug profits and forcing the drug trade underground. And the DEA and its allied agencies have committed any number of acts that certainly feel like terrorism to their victims -- from raiding medical cannabis dispensaries and literally stealing the medicine from the sick and dying, to killing completely innocent people without benefit of charges, evidence or a trial.

Unfortunately, we don't have millions of taxpayer dollars to build a museum, so we had to create our exhibit on the Web, MPP's exhibit, Target America: The DEA and You, can be seen at http://www.mpp.org/TargetAmerica .

Highlights include:

Photos and stories of innocent drug war victims, such as religious missionaries Roni and Charity Bowers and 18-year-old Esequiel Hernandez;

Documentation of the harm done to AIDS and cancer patients by the DEA's medical marijuana raids, including a letter written to the U.S. Senate by San Francisco Director of Health Mitchell Katz, M.D.; and

Analysis of the real links between the drug war and terrorism, including a recent Ottawa Citizen editorial and a prescient 1989 statement by Nobel Prize-winning economist Dr. Milton Friedman.

The Marijuana Policy Project works to minimize the harm associated with marijuana -- both the consumption of marijuana and the laws that are intended to prohibit such use. In association with Students for Sensible Drug Policy, MPP will hold its first national conference -- featuring a special appearance by comedian Bill Maher -- on Nov. 8-10 in Anaheim, California. For more information, please visit http://www.mpp.org .

Bruce Mirken,
Director of Communications,
Marijuana Policy Project

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