Clifford Browder's Blog, page 4

519. Sensual

                 

                      BROWDERBOOKS

Two days ago I declined a contract with a small press to publish my collection of short stories, Wicked City: Stories of Old New York.  I did this because

The contract ran for five years --  too long!  Other publishing contracts I have signed ran for one year, or two at the most.If, for a given sales period, my paperback or e-book sales were under $100, they could terminate me.  I would love to have $70 or $80 or $90 in sales for a given period, yet I might be terminated.I have learned to keep control.  To do this, I either self-publish, or publish with a small press under a hybrid contract,  A hybrid contract gives the author access to the services of a small press, but lets the author keep control; only the author can terminate the book's publication and sales.  I was terminated once by a small press, which chose not to renew my contract when it expired.  That isn't going to happen again.
Moral of the story: When you sign a contract, read all that fine print and ponder it.  Weigh carefully what's in it for the other party vs. what's in it for you.  Don't be hasty; think! 

Okay, now let's get sensual.

                                     Sensual

First of all, what does this word mean?  "Relating to or involving gratification of the senses and physical, especially sexual, pleasure," the online dictionary states.  Aha, sex!  And because it implies sexual pleasure, the Christian tradition of the West gets nervous.  The thundering God of the Old Testament was not a God to mess around with, unlike the pagan gods of the Greeks and Romans.  Those pagan gods were always diddling one another, plus assorted nymphs and mortals.  And the gentler God of the New Testament, embodied in Jesus, was likewise leery of the sensual, though not given to tantrums and volcanic fulminations in discussing it.  But is sensual really such a big deal?  Let's see who and what are sensual.

Cats are sensual.  Just watch them stretch and strut.

Sharks are sensual.   See them in an aquarium, as I have done.  They twist, dart, plunge: streamlined killing machines, sleek and supple, with savage teeth and an evil grin.

Snakes are sensual.  Their skinny bodies slither in sexy curves, as they flee through the grass at our approach.  Few of them are harmful, and they have the good sense to get out of our way and avoid us.  We are bigger than they are, and in nature that's what counts.  I find them both sensual and beautiful.  

Art is sensual.  Think of all those roly-poly Venuses painted by Rubens and Titian.  And if plump doesn't turn you on, how about Botticelli's Birth of Venus, showing a young girl slender, naked, but almost modest in appearance -- for me, a subtly sensual work.  And if it's young guys you crave, there are loads of martyred Saint Sebastians bristling with arrows in their flesh.  

Is music sensual?  Ravel's Bolero, repeating the same theme with slight variations endlessly, is overwhelmingly sensual.  Bizet's Carmen is the super vamp of all time. And plenty in Wagner is sensual, though usually balanced by a Christian theme.  And for me, all violin music is exquisitely sensual.

Is dancing sensual?  If you feel the music go through you, as I often have, you surrender and do the waltz or lindy or boogie.  So good-bye reason and common sense and whatever else holds us back.  Jive, gang, jive.  Wahooo!

Flowers are sensual.  Those pretty little dainty things, smelling so nice, are really whores flaunting their private parts.  No human could get away with it, not without consequences.  Naughty lilies, wanton roses.

But not everything is sensual.  For instance:

Willows are sensual, oaks are not.Wine is sensual, beer is not.Eve was sensual, Adam was not.  

Adam was a good hunk of muscle, but not too bright; Eve was sensual to the core.  Of course she listened to the slick spiel of that evil Satanic snake, grabbed the forbidden apple, and got Adam to chomp.  Result: they were both kicked out of Eden.  So good-bye paradise.  We've all been sweating and straining ever since.  

Thanks Big Mama Eve.  If what they say is true, sweetie, you bamboozled Adam and axed us all.  But maybe we shouldn't blame you.  Maybe we should blame that cunning snake, or the Higher Authority who set the whole thing up.  Anybody but ourselves.  Maybe.

So is sensual really a big deal in the world?  Yep.  And are we humans sensual?  Utterly, totally, flat-out, gung-ho sensual?  You bet your sweet ass.  Like Eve, we're sensual to the core.

©  2021  Clifford Browder

518. How Cities Die: by Water or by Fire.

                     BROWDERBOOKS

The book trailer for Forbidden Brownstones is finished.  There are two versions, each lasting only thirty seconds.  I will give everyone a link to the trailer very soon.  It's short, but it's an experience. I've never done this before.

Recommended by Sublime Book Review with a five-star rating. Available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and WiDo Publishing.

         How Cities Die: by Water or by Fire

Cities have many ways of dying.  If circumstances change -- a mine gives out, a railroad goes another way, etc. -- people leave and the town just fades away.  Such was the fate of the ghost towns of our old Wild West.  Such too was the fate of the great Mayan sites of Central America: for some unknown reason, people abandoned them and went elsewhere.

Death by fire is less of a mystery.  Chicago in 1871 was consumed by a fire that sent the inhabitants fleeing into Lake Michigan, where they watched this wooden boom town of the vast Midwest go up in flames and smoke.  I grew up in Evanston, the first suburb to the north, and when we drove into the city my parents never failed to point out, as we passed them, two stone structures on North Michigan Avenue that survived the fire: the Old Water Tower and the Pumping Station, though the latter's interior had been gutted.

San Francisco too was destroyed by fire, following the great earthquake of 1906, which ruptured the water mains and left the city defenseless as fire broke out and slowly began consuming the city.  I lived there for a short time on Nob Hill, and most of the structures in my neighborhood, often with charming bay windows, dated from 1906-1908, when the city began rebuilding.

New York has had many fires, but none ever destroyed the whole city.  The great fire of 1835 ravaged much of the financial district, and the fire of 1845 destroyed much of the same area, but it didn't spread beyond. Today, in spite of congestion, the danger of fire is greatly reduced, because of building codes and the ability of firemen to get to a blaze in a matter of minutes.  I know, having experienced two fires in my building, both caused by human error, that were quickly contained.

And death by water?  Manhattan's West Village, where I live, is vulnerable.  During a hurricane a few years ago, the water in the Hudson River rose up and in a twenty-foot-high wave flooded Bethune Street for a whole block before subsiding.  That unprecedented event flooded the basement of Westbeth, the huge artists' residence, leaving the residents without power.  My building, several blocks from the river, was not affected, but we lost power for four days, because the generators in a basement elsewhere had been flooded.  So New York is vulnerable, but Manhattan does not face the full brunt of hurricanes; that privilege is reserved for the New Jersey shore and Long Island.

In Chicago it's another story.  I relate to Second City, having grown up near it and stared wide-eyed when my mother took me there by the El, and the tracks crossed the Chicago River just after the massive Merchandise Mart.  Seeing no tracks, just the river far below, I felt that we were hurtling through space with no support beneath us: scary, but exciting.

Chicago, I now learn, was built on a swamp.  Why build at all, given the soggy ground?  Because geography made it inevitable.  As the native peoples had known for centuries, a brief portage let one go from the Chicago River to the nearby Des Plaines River, thus connecting the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River, since the Des Plaines flowed into the Illinois River, and that river flowed into the Mississippi.  And when the roads and then the railroads came, any road or line intending to reach the northern Midwest and West -- Minnesota, the Dakotas, and Montana, for instance -- had to pass around the southern end of Lake Michigan, where a fort and then a town was built.  And that town became a metropolis, the city of Chicago.

Chicago and my hometown Evanston get their drinking water from Lake Michigan.  So what does Chicago do with its sewage?  It pumps it into the Chicago River, and as that river flows away from the lake, its water is cleansed by a series of treatment facilities, so that clean water finally flows into the Illinois River and the Mississippi.  And this system, keeping Lake Michigan free of sewage, worked for decades, including the time when I grew up in nearby Evanston.  But it didn't work forever.

What happened?  Starting a few years ago, rain, rain, rain.  Rainstorms the like of which no one alive had ever witnessed.  On May 17, 2020,  the tainted water in the Chicago River rose to record levels.  To keep it from flooding downtown Chicago, some of it had to be released into Lake Michigan, endangering the city's water supply.  This was meant to be a brief emergency measure, but the unprecedented rain continued, so in desperation the gates were opened and closed repeatedly.  Basements were flooded, and electrical power was shut off.  With more such record-breaking rains predicted, the city found itself in a struggle against the lake, whose waters were rising ominously.  But even before that crisis, back in 1987 gale-driven winds had driven swollen Lake Michigan waters into the city.

When my parents drove us into the city of Chicago, they usually went by way of Lake Shore Drive, a lovely lakeside highway that always had the lake in view, often just a short distance away.  But now I learn that back in 1987 the lake flooded Lake Shore Drive.  Lake Shore Drive, that charming highway of my childhood, under water?  Inconceivable -- or so I always thought.  The fact of it shatters all my assumptions, the naive presumption that, just because some things always were, they would never change.  And change they did, as more storms sent Lake Michigan waters shoreward to demolish giant concrete barriers, float 3,000-pound cars, and flood low-lying city streets.  Chicago's south side has become a war zone, with patio furniture replaced by sand bags, concrete blocks, and barriers.  Aware that floods are eating away the very foundations of their buildings, residents live in fear.

If Lake Shore Drive can be flooded, why not all the shorelines of New York?  Why not Greenwich Village?  Why not any low-lying neighborhood in the city?  Death by water -- the death of a whole city -- now seems like a distinct possibility.  Not today, perhaps, and not tomorrow.  But sometime, sooner or later, in the future.  Those who study long-term weather conditions do not rule it out.  Our future: death by water.

Source note: This post was inspired in part by Dan Egan's article, "The Battle Between a Great City and a Great Lake," in the New York Times of Sunday, July 11, 2021.

©  2021  Clifford Browder

517. Interview with a Male Prostitute

 

            Interview with a Male Prostitute

A Male Prostitute and His Clients: the Lawyer, the Count, the Minister, the Alderman, and the Lover of Boys, plus His Meddling Aunt

This is a fictional interview with Tom Vaughan, the protagonist of  The Pleasuring of Men  (Gival Press, 2011), the first novel in my Metropolis series of historical novels set in nineteenth-century New York.  Tom, a respectably raised young man, tells how he decided to become a male prostitute and fell in love with Walter Whiting, his most difficult client.  I then interview other characters, too.  This is the only gay-themed work in the Metropolis series.  There is some gay sex (inevitable, given the subject), but nothing too graphic and no porn.  Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.


                              THE  MALE  PROSTITUTE

Me:  And so, Tom Vaughan, you admit you are a male prostitute.

Tom:  Oh yes, but not just any kind.  I service a rather select crowd.

Me:  You’re not ashamed of your occupation?

Tom:  Not at all.  My clients need me.  For some of them, I'm all they've got.

Me:  But they have to pay.  Quite a bit, I’m told.

Tom:  Of course.  I’m in demand.

Me:  You were respectably raised.  How did you get into this business?

Tom:  Through a friend who was in it.  He told me I was a b.b., a beautiful boy, and I could make money and have fine clothes.  Me:  But aren’t some of your clients, well, repulsive?  Fat, jowly, balding…

Tom:  Yes, but there’s always something about them – the eyes, a deep, manly voice, elegant manners – that is attractive.  I focus on that.Me: Who are these clients?

Tom:  Mostly married men.  Lawyers, judges, merchants, aldermen, ministers…

Me:  Ministers?

Tom:  Oh yes.  Even my mother’s minister, whom I see every Sunday at church. We met just once, but it was memorable.Me:  How can a man of the cloth justify seeing a male prostitute?

Tom:  Ask him.

Me:  All right, I will.  But remember, you can’t be a beautiful boy forever.

Tom:  You have to know when to get out.  I hope to team up with Walter Whiting.  He’s a great scholar and lecturer.

Me:  One of your clients, I gather.

Tom:  My most difficult client.  I’ve even met his wife.

Me:  His wife?  This is getting complicated.

Tom:  Interview him.  He’ll explain.

Me:  I will.  

Tom:  And my other clients.  Talk to them as well.

Me:  All right, I will.

                                     HIS  CLIENTS

The lawyer

Tom Vaughan?  A clever little rascal, he caught on fast.  Stuck his tongue out at me, teased me, ran around the office knocking stuff over, until I caught him and spanked him.  He loved it.  

The count

Yes, yes, I remember Tom: auburn hair, pert nose, sensual lips. At gala I give, he jump out of cake naked, astonish guests, but then there is riot.  When I leave for Europe, he cry, I cry.  I never see again.  
The minister
Ah yes, Tom Vaughan.  I trust this will remain just between us.  When he came to my rectory, we were both astonished, but we carried it off rather well.  Justify my seeing him?  So few understand.  Desire is holy.  What happene between us was glory.  

The alderman

Oh Holy Mother of God and all the saints in heaven, forgive, forgive, it was a moment of folly with that randy rum slut of a lad so ripe for reamin’, not a Catholic, niver would I do it with a Catholic, oh niver, niver, niver, just a pagan or Methodist or somethin’, a cunning sodomite set in me way by the Divil. 
The lover of boys

Yes, I am Walter Whiting, and a lover of boys.  Tom Vaughan interests me, but experience has taught me caution.  Does my wife know?  Of course.  I explained this all to her – ever so gently – long ago.  She insists on meeting Tom.  What will then happen I I don’t presume to say.  And if Tom's brother ever discovers Tom's double life, it could get ugly.
Jessica Ames

As Tom Vaughan's Aunt Jessie and a born meddler, I take an interest in him.  He has possibilities.  But he's up to something.  He has a dark secret and whatever it is, I intend to find out.  When Jessica Ames puts her mind to something, she rarely fails.
                    ***                    ***                    ***

Tom has to cope with Aunt Jessica, Walter Whiting, his brother, and a stranger who assaults him.  How does he do it?  Read the book.  Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
©  2021  Clifford Browder



   

516. Gay Sexuality: An Interview

                       BROWDERBOOKS

                           Wild New York

My new nextdoor neighbor Jennah asked to interview me on gay sexuality, in celebration of Gay Pride Month, June.  Here is the interview.  If it seems long, it's because she and I kept thinking of things to add.  Even so, she edited it to make it shorter.  My only criticism of it is that it makes me out as some kind of hero, when I'm not.  Like most people, I just plodded on, wanting to be myself, whoever or whatever that might be.

A bonus for those who read through the interview: Bob in drag!

Not me, though, I never did it.  My crowd didn't do drag; his did.  So I was a bit uncomfortable watching it, until I realized that it was a performance, a bit of theater, and I was the audience.  No one expected me to do drag, but no show is complete without an audience.  Realizing this, I was able to relax into it.  And what a show it was!

                   Gay Sexuality: An Interview

A Story of Pride: With 92-Year-Old Cliff Browder

Education, Essays / By Jennah DuBoisProcessed with VSCO with b5 preset- provided by Cliff Browder

In honor of Pride Month, I interviewed my 92-year-old neighbor, Clifford Browder; he is a long-time New York resident of sixty years, a published author, & a proud gay man. His story is a sweet one full of self-discovery, love, adventure, & sex. For many people who are part of the LGBTQ+ community, each story of self-discovery is different but can bear so many similarities. This validates the unique experience it is to be queer, making these stories all the more tender, relatable, & necessary. So, here’s Cliff’s story of navigating his sexuality, love, & life.

High School 

While attending high school in his home state of Illinois, Cliff started dating a young lady.  For a teenager in the ’40s, being gay wasn’t even really an option, but there was always something in him that never felt settled.

“In high school, I went steady with a girl, and I was attracted to girls; I have always been attracted to women. But there was one thing missing… Good, ole steamy LUST,” he said with a laugh.

“When I was going steady with this girl, it was our first big affair on both sides. We were sweet 16, and she was very patient, but I did get around to kissing her eventually. While we went steady, we had wonderful times together, but there was something in me that couldn’t accept this happiness. I would get angry at her for no reason, and it could spoil the evening. It bothers me to this day that this was the case. I just didn’t know myself. Now, with my ancient wisdom,” he said with a smile, “I know I just needed to know myself better, but at 16, how much self-knowledge are you really going to have?” 

He explains, “We broke up, on my initiative, but after that, we still dated. We would update each other about the other dates we had. And we necked like crazy! I no longer felt bound to her but was still involved with her. We were just terrific friends & during all that time, I didn’t think of myself as gay. I didn’t even know what it was.”

Cliff headed to California for college after graduating high school. 

He dated some women during his college years but claimed he must have been a “boring date” for the ladies since he never wanted to pursue anything sexual with them. During this time, he only knew of one gay man at his university (though this wasn’t how they referred to gays at the time), but he still didn’t consider himself gay. Looking back, he says he knows some of his friends were gay as well. But in the late ’40s, this was just the way it was! It wasn’t anywhere near normalized yet.

After college, Cliff moved home to Illinois for a year & struggled. He was later offered a full-ride scholarship to live & continue studying French (as he did in college) in France. He says this opportunity genuinely saved his life & gave him something to live for. During his time in France, he was hitchhiking & recalls one of his first conscious thoughts that led him to believe he may be, in fact, gay. 

“I was hitchhiking once during my second summer in France. There was this, I call it, camaraderie of the road. A guy on a motorcycle stopped to pick me up and take me to an intersection where he knew I would have more traffic. I just instinctively knew that if that guy made a pass at me, I would just fall into his arms. I didn’t really think about it; it was just a sudden feeling.” 

It wasn’t until he moved to New York to attend Columbia University that he began to explore his sexuality truly. 

Cliff says, “A friend of mine from college, who was gay, was making discreet passes at me. He brought me out, just as a nice thing to do for a buddy; He wasn’t enamored with me, which helped me process & focus on this new development.” 

Cliff explained that his friend had to take off quickly, leaving him alone after his first sexual experience with a man. This left him overwhelmed & feeling like he had to do quite a lot of debriefing on his own. So, he went to a basement restaurant at Columbia to get some food & ponder his new experience. 

Cliff then began venturing out to gay bars to meet even more exciting & like-minded individuals. 

“I was adjusting to a lot after moving to New York. School, making new friends, going to gay bars, & learning about gay life. I was sort of just learning who I was in this world,” says Cliff. 

In New York, Cliff explained, there were pockets of gay life relatively easy to find in The Village, but this didn’t mean that it was normalized yet. This was still the 50’s, after all. 

“During this time, the mafia owned most of the gay clubs & the police were being paid off to keep them open. You would be in a crowded or even overcrowded gay bar on weekend evenings, & police in uniforms would come in. They wouldn’t even bat an eye at what they were seeing & head to the back of the bar to talk to management. Then, they would come back out & leave. We took for granted that this was the way life was,” he explains.

Towards the end of Cliff’s time in school at Columbia, he began feeling an overwhelming itch for newness, adventure, unknowns, & self-discovery. He quickly finished his dissertation & moved to San Francisco, California, to begin a new era of his life. 

His first day in San Francisco was nothing short of the adventure he was so eagerly anticipating.

After dropping his things in his room at the Y, he wandered to Coit Tower to explore the city a bit. While at the tower, he met a man named Dick, who almost immediately struck up a conversation with Cliff and then invited him to lunch. He accepted & experienced his first sexual encounter in San Fran, fully embracing his new life in a new city. 

“Later that day,” he begins, “I went to The Coexistence Bagel Shop, which was a hangout for beatniks (a young person in the 1950s and early 1960s belonging to a subculture associated with the beat generation) & tourists. There I was, looking at a map of the city, & a guy said to stay at The Golden Eagle Hotel. I moved in for months & only paid $5 a week! $1.50 a night or $5 for the whole week!”

“That night, I went back to the Coexistence Bagel (having just had sex) & another guy approached me. This is not at all how I lived in New York, but he was very likable & invited me back to his place; I spent the night there. He wasn’t one to get right into things, so we slept side by side & very stealthily through the night; his hands made their way over to me. I had never had sex twice in one day & it was not the way I was going to live in the future, but it was part of my new life.” Two meetings of happenstance during his first week in California with passionate flings resulted in much-needed friendships. Cliff remained friends with both men & saw each of them quite regularly. 

During his time in San Francisco, Cliff taught at a Jesuit school, made many friends through his social life, & fulfilled his longing for something “new.” Cliff was later offered two new job positions out of state after living in California for a few years—one in Walla Walla, Washington, & one in New York City.

“It really didn’t take much consideration. What kind of gay life would there be in Walla Walla??” 

30, Flirty, & Thriving in the City

So, he packed up his life in Cali & headed back to NYC to teach French at St. John’s. Cliff loved his time teaching at St. John’s & said that the students were absolutely delightful. He also shared that he could tell some staff & faculty were gay, but sexuality was definitely not an open conversation since it was a Catholic school. 

This didn’t stop him from continuing to enjoy the gay scene back in New York. Cliff rented an apartment on Jane St. in the West Village which happened to be close to many gay bars & clubs. He was even reunited with his first Californian fling, Dick, again in NYC. 

Aside from exploring his sexuality, Cliff also began exploring other areas of himself that he hadn’t spent much time navigating yet. He started going to therapy for no reason other than to get to know himself better. “I sensed that I needed it for self-knowledge. It helped me look at parts of my life that I had never looked at closely. I learned how to show emotion & to not be afraid to show emotion.”

During this time, he also began stage writing. Although it wasn’t his full-time job yet, Cliff found solace in being creative & putting his words on paper. 

Now that Cliff was in his 30’s, he’d seen many friends marry, including gay friends. However, these gay friends weren’t marrying someone of the same gender; they were marrying women. This phenomenon happened because identifying as gay wasn’t socially accepted yet in the 1960s, many people would still marry, heterosexually, to start families & try to have a “normal” life. 

“For a while, I was tempted by ‘straight life’ because if you’re going to ‘change’, it would have to be now; I couldn’t wait forever. But like I said, I was always attracted to women, but the question was, how far could I go?”

“A friend of mine named Eddy got married and had a son before he realized he was gay. He wanted a second son, but it took a great effort to manage that, though he did. Finally, he told his wife they should agree to go their separate ways, but she wanted to stay married to him, even so. They were in Europe, where he taught in an American school, but then they came back here, he got a house in Vermont where he planted his family, and during the week, he taught in a school in Boston. On weekends, he rejoined his family in Vermont, but he frequented a gay bathhouse in Boston during the week,” 

Cliff explains, “A mutual friend and I agreed that this arrangement was good for him, unconventional though it was. For the first time in his life, he could satisfy his gay sexuality, but his family was not affected. Conventional morality would condemn the situation, but I don’t think it could fully appreciate its complexities.”

In the later 60’s while on a trip with friends, Cliff attended the show called “Pajama Game” & had one of the most unexpectedly dreamy evenings.

“The only seats we could get were the front row, which wasn’t ideal. The chorus came right up to the footlights. There was a chorus boy upfront & our eyes met for just a split second. After the show, we went to a bar & I saw the chorus boy across the room. He approached me & said, “You’re the one who wasn’t applauding!” As it turned out, he remembered our eyes meeting too.” 

“One of the chorus boy’s friends who owned a car offered to drive us to where each of us was staying that evening. In the car, I reached around and stroked the chorus boy’s neck without the driver noticing. Ted (chorus boy) mentioned to me later, “I liked that.” We dropped him off at his hotel, and then the driver dropped me off at mine. It was one of those warm summer nights & I just wasn’t ready to go back to my room. So, I walked back towards Ted’s hotel & who did I meet coming toward me? TED!” 

Cliff says, “It was one of those things you imagine happening in a novel! He took me back to his luxurious hotel room & we kinda fumbled around with sex but were pretty tired. I woke him up to watch the sunrise together that morning. Then, later that morning, Ted had a date with the same guy who had driven us home the night before. I was trying to get away before, but he ended up seeing me. It was a bit awkward, but oh well. Ted told me to come around & see him again at intermission for their last performance of the show that same evening.” He did, of course.

Love, Life, & Everything In Between

Around this same time, Cliff decided to quit his job, live on his savings for a bit, & pursue writing. He was offered a freelance position not too long after, through some connections he had, so his decision paid off in his favor. He now worked remotely (very ahead of his time) & he was pursuing a career that he thoroughly enjoyed.

While Cliff was in this stage of his life, he met a man named Bob who became his life-long romantic partner. 

“In 1968, I met Bob at a gay bar named near the West Village. He was sitting & facing the wall, away from the crowds. I noticed right away how tall he was. He was reading a Jane Austen book: Persuasion. I walked over to him & asked, “Are you reading this for class because you have to or just because you want to?” He was very courteous; that was the first thing that registered to me about him. Bob responded, “I’m just reading it for pleasure.” 

“Then we started talking & I discovered that he had wanted to learn French, so I spouted some French with him. As we were leaving the bar, Bob told me to go ahead of him & wait outside for five minutes, then he would follow. The name of the game that night was persuasion!”

“We walked back to my place, but Bob wasn’t interested in coming in. So, I walked him back to his place somewhere near 5th avenue. He let me come in & I sat on his bed. I remember he looked a little shocked, but there really wasn’t much seating in his place. He didn’t want to have sex that night, but he did tell me he wanted to see me again.”

Cliff says while laughing, “He counts the day we met as our anniversary; I count the day we first had sex.”  

For the first few years, they spent a couple of nights a week together & lived in their separate apartments, but after two years of exclusively dating each other, they decided to look for a place together. So, in 1970, they rented the apartment in the West Village that Cliff still lives in today! Cliff remarked they had only looked around for about five minutes before saying, “We’ll take it!” 

They were ecstatic to get settled & slowly began furnishing the apartment with Salvation Army furniture, much of which is still in the apartment today.

“When his friends met me, they approved because they knew he could use some stability & Bob gave me companionship. We had our ups & downs. The first three years, we didn’t know each other yet.”

“One time, after we’d been together for several years, we had an honesty hour on our couch that used to be right here,” he gestures to the wall he’s sitting against in his comfy chair. 

“My one indiscretion,” Cliff began, “happened when Bob wasn’t just out of the city, he was off in France. When he went off for the first time to Paris, I told him I didn’t mind if he wanted to have a little fling over there as long as it ended when he came back here. He insisted he wasn’t going to do that, but while he was gone, I connected with a man I already knew & we had fabulous sex. I was more interested in him than he was in me, which was good because there wasn’t any temptation to have an affair. He ended up losing his shorts while he was up here,” he said, chuckling, “I had to find them before Bob returned home. They had slipped between the bed & the wall, so I mailed them back to him.”

“Bob’s honesty hour was a bit more complicated. He had an affair with a man named Don in Washington DC back in the day. I knew he was seeing a friend Don upon his visits to DC for work, but I didn’t know that they were still lovers—but they were. While talking about Bob’s affair with him, I learned I wasn’t a jealous person. I have seen jealousy kill relationships.”

Cliff described him & Bob as a pretty conventional gay couple. However, Bob would love to get dressed up in drag with some of his friends for fun. Both of these photos are of Bob decked out in his drag attire. 

Processed with VSCO with b5 preset- Provided by Cliff BrowderProcessed with VSCO with b5 preset- Provided by Cliff BrowderConsidering the time Cliff grew up, I was curious how navigatinghis life with family played out. 

When I inquired about his family dynamic & his being gay, he responded, “Back before Gay Lib, you didn’t tell your family you were gay. Result: They never really knew me—not completely. After Gay Lib, I came out to my two first cousins, both of whom had met Bob and liked him. They had guessed as much; I merely confirmed it. So there isn’t a lot to tell. My father died while I was in Europe. My mother and brother were in Illinois; I was in New York and saw them only at Christmas unless there was some special reason for me to go there at other times. My mother was not a clinging mother, but she quietly regretted that I showed no sign of getting married. But Bob sent her Christmas gifts that delighted her. They never met.”

“When Bob wanted me to meet his parents, I thought he was crazy, but once I met them, I realized that he had always introduced his friends, gay or not, to his family, so this was not so unusual, and we had many pleasant family dinners.”

Bob sadly passed away a few years ago, but since his death, Cliff has read all of the many journals that Bob left behind (an entire shelf’s worth). 

“I know from Bob’s diaries that he found it so wonderfully satisfying that we knew each other’s bodies so well. He loved that this part of his life he could just relax into. We got to know each other so well. It was so calming to know each other.”

“Once,” Cliff began with a laugh, “our bed collapsed. It was a Salvation Army bed & we didn’t have clamps on it. The lack of those could have caused the collapse, or maybe it was just the action.” 

Cliff (left) & Bob (right) Processed with VSCO with b5 preset

Cliff still writes his blog from home, he’s a published author many times over, & he has friends who visit him often. 

One of the things I love the most about listening to Cliff’s story is that he always seemed to remain true to himself even when it felt hard. No matter how you identify, what your gender is, what you believe in, what you want to do, or where you want to go, remembering to listen to that little inner voice that is quietly screaming at us who we are, is SO important.. 

Happy Pride. [image error][image error][image error][image error][image error][image error]Author

515. July 4: Honored Holiday or Time to Goof Off?

                         BROWDERBOOKS

                             Wild New York

Forbidden Brownstones has received another good review, four out of four stars, by a reviewer for OnlineBookClub.org.  The reviewer says:

"Browder's appreciation for the history and spirit of New York City ... comes out on every page, making it very difficult to put the book down."

For the full review, go here.

  July 4: Honored Holiday or Time to Goof Off?

Three years ago I polled my friends, business associates, and blog followers about what, if anything, they did on the Fourth of July.  Here is a summary of the results, originally published in full as post #418.

So what did we do on the Fourth?  Some twenty answers are in, enough to draw some conclusions.  (One of my publishers declined to answer, perhaps puzzled by my innocent intentions.)  Nobody entered Nathan's traditional hot-dog-eating contest on Coney Island, and for that I am grateful.  
        Few of us are patriotic as the old-time Tammany politico G. Washington Plunkitt understood the word.  He told of sitting with other Tammany stalwarts in a hot, humid Tammany Hall listening to a reading of the Declaration of Independence, followed by four hours of speeches and music, before the champagne- and beer-anointed celebration could begin in the basement.  Corrupt in other ways, Tammany honored the flag and the holiday.        Here now are our ways of doing the Fourth, presented in categories.  Admittedly, these categories are arbitrary, since a given answer may fall into two or three of them.  I’ll use the category that seems most relevant.

TRAVEL
·                 Friends who were traveling had little time for the Fourth.  One friend was waiting with her husband at Calgary International Airport in Alberta, Canada, for a flight to New York, returning from a two-week visit to Japan and her native Taiwan. 

·               Another friend was flying home to New Jersey after visiting his family in Traverse City, Michigan, which was hosting the National Cherry Festival, with cherries all over the place.  Back home in New Jersey, from his building's terrace he watched fireworks at night.

·               Another friend was with her husband in Paris, with no special plans for the Fourth.  But inspired by me, she decided to read the Declaration of Independence. 

RURAL  AND  SHORESIDE  DELIGHTS
·             One friend was with her partner at their country house, hacking at the jungle of weeds in their garden, then taking a quick dip in their pool.  A light lunch, then a nap, then dinner in a nearby restaurant.  No interest in the nonsense being staged in Washington; hopes afternoon rains will descend on the presidential (i.e. Trump) parade.             Another friend was staying with friends, “unplugged,” at a lake house that, ironically, belongs to a patrician English family.  They had grilled hamburgers and sausages on the Fourth, and discussed but didn’t see fireworks.  He is newly devoted to kayaking.              A friend who lives on Staten Island went to the Fort Wadsworth Overlook and sat in the shade on a lawn chair, gazing out at all of New York harbor, with the city in the distance.  As she did so, she listened to a seaside concert of band music from several decades.·             A friend who lives on a little island off midcoast Maine consumed a cold tuna salad and strawberry shortcake, then watched a beautiful sunset and the fireworks of the towns along the coast, their noise sounding like distant thunder.  She had flags and bunting on display at her shop and on the front porch of a nearby guest house, which for me is a reminder of how the Fourth used to be celebrated, and maybe still is, in small towns throughout the country.

FAMILY
·                  One resident of Lincoln, Nebraska, went to a lake outside of town where his grandmother used to live, and visited with nieces and nephews, and lit fireworks by day and by night.  (Fireworks are legal in Nebraska on and around July 4.)  Result: sunburn.

·                  A resident of Alexandria, Virginia, had a cookout on the Fourth with his partner, parents, siblings, and cousins by the dozens, prior to a big family reunion on July 6, some thirty strong.

            
NOTHING  MUCH·                      A friend in Massachusetts said that he didn't really observe any holiday.

·             A friend in North Carolina made a delicious banana nut bread on the Fourth, but otherwise did little else.

·           A (now former) publisher of mine, a resident of south Texas, announced emphatically that she doesn’t celebrate holidays.

·           A friend in Brooklyn Heights went to a barbecue in New Jersey, but then came back to the Heights and hid in his apartment, as his beloved Brooklyn Heights Promenade got overrun with people wanting to see the Macy’s fireworks.  He felt grumpy like a true New Yorker.

·           One friend ignored the holiday completely because his longtime partner had had some kind of an attack and was now in the hospital for tests, unable to recognize his partner or remember his name.  My heart goes out to them both.
RARE  AND  SPECIAL
·         One friend went to a couple of friends’ barbecues, but also donated money to RAICES, a Texas nonprofit, in support of treating immigrants humanely at the border.  She feels queasy about celebrating the nation’s hypocrisies with regard to liberty past and present.

·               Another respondent and a friend saw three movies in three different theaters back to back, getting drinks or snacks near the theater entrances in between.

·               A cousin in Kokomo, Indiana, said that Kokomo celebrates its automotive heritage just as enthusiastically as it celebrates the nation’s birthday.  Local pioneers claim with some credibility to have produced the first U.S. automobile (sorry, Henry Ford).  The festival fills the town square with booths selling food and silly games for kids, while a nearby park becomes a carnival with all kinds of rides.  She avoided the brouhaha at all costs, but took bran muffins to a friend recovering from surgery.  Otherwise, she hid.  But her husband, being a beer distributor, had no time off; his trucks ran all day.

·               Another Kokomo resident sat with family under a beach umbrella and did some reading at a nearby quarry that has a beach, and then did a few laps on jet skis, an aquatic motorcycle.
TRADITIONAL

For me, a traditional Fourth involves flags, a parade, and fireworks.  When I grew up in Evanston, Illinois, long ago, my family flew the flag from a second-story window, as did our neighbors.  Then there was a long parade that we watched on nearby Central Street, and a magnificent display of fireworks at Dyke Stadium, the Northwestern University football stadium, that night.          Personal fireworks were still legal, but could not be sold in Evanston.  We lit sparklers that traced patterns of sparks when we waved them in the air at night; little sticks called snakes that, when lit, stretched out like tiny black snakes; and Zebra firecrackers, which popped and crackled wickedly.  Somehow we managed not to burn or blow ourselves up, but this was all small-time kid stuff compared to Dyke Stadium at night. These memories of the Fourths of long ago were matched by only one respondent, maybe two.
·              On the afternoon of the Fourth, a friend in Lincoln, Nebraska, took her kids to a neighborhood party in a park  There the kids paraded down a sidewalk with decorated bikes and wagons, following which they ran in a sack race and tossed balloons.  In the evening she took them to their grandmother’s place and (quite legally) set off fireworks.

·           Another friend, based here in the city, had dinner with friends who live near the East River.  Then they went out to watch the traditional fireworks that were set off down around the Brooklyn Bridge.
        And what did I do?  After reading the Declaration (nine minutes), not much.  I made a note at the time, but I can’t find I, it must be lost.  I cooked in, but I don’t remember what.  And I listened to classical music on WQXR, so I must have had a dose of Bach and Beethoven and Vivaldi, though I can’t be sure.

CONCLUSION

Most of us don’t celebrate the Fourth in the traditional, old-fashioned way.  Maybe we take our freedom for granted.  But maybe just doing things that our society allows us to do, whether travel or relaxing in the country or kayaking or jet skiing or seeing movies or just loafing about, is a way of celebrating freedom.  Instead of talking about it, you just do it, you live it.

©   2021  Clifford Browder

514. The Crime of the Century

                        BROWDERBOOKS

                             Wild New York

Work is now underway for a new edition of Fascinating New Yorkers: Power Freaks, Mobsters, Liberated Women, Creators, Queers and Crazies.  Why another edition?

Wait a minute, someone might say.  Wasn't that book published by a small press, Black Rose Writing?

Yes, it was.  But the publisher chose not to renew my contract and stopped selling the two books of mine in his catalog.  Amazon now reports Fascinating New Yorkers as out of print, with limited availability.

Maybe the book didn't get good reviews?  (hee hee)

On the contrary, you jerk, it got good reviews.  So I decided to self-publish a new edition with a front cover you won't easily forget.

Otherwise it's the same?

Not quite.  There's a new chapter on the writer Norman Mailer, plus a few small updates elsewhere in the text.

So when will it come out?

Can't say exactly.  Later this year.

Meanwhile everyone is supposed wait with baited breath until it shows up?

Yes, you cynic.  With baited breath.  (What a cliché!)

I can hardly wait.

Get lost, vermin.  I will gladly wait, to make sure it is done right.  Meanwhile let's have a look at the crime of the century, vintage 1906.

               The Crime of the Century

On the evening of June 25, 1906, a fashionable audience was assembled on the rooftop of Madison Square Garden, a vast Beaux-Arts structure at 26th Street and Madison Avenue, for the premiere of the frothy musical comedy Mamzelle Champagne. At 10:55 p.m., while the performance was nearing its conclusion, a burly redheaded gentleman of fifty with an abundant red mustache entered alone and sat at the table customarily reserved for him, five rows from the stage.  Resting his chin in his right hand, he seemed lost in thought, perhaps eyeing the young female performers onstage, as was his custom, since he was a connoisseur of teenage girls. 

Some ten minutes later a handsome younger man left his own table, walked about nervously while muttering to himself, then approached the older man’s table. As a performer onstage began the song “I Could Love a Million Girls,” the younger man took out a revolver from beneath his coat and fired three shots at point-blank range into the older man, one bullet hitting his left eye and killing him, while the other two grazed his shoulder. The victim’s body fell to the floor, and the table overturned with a clatter.  The murderer then left holding his weapon aloft to indicate that he was done shooting.

A stunned silence gripped performers and audience alike. Spectators thought at first that this was part of the performance or another of the party tricks common in fashionable circles at the time. But then, grasping what had happened, people screamed, leaped to their feet, and began a panicky flight toward the exits. At the theater manager’s insistence, the orchestra made a feeble attempt to go on playing, but the performers were frozen in horror and the panic continued. Someone put a tablecloth over the body, and when blood soaked through it, added a second one as well.

The following morning the murder rated a triple headline in the newspapers, for the victim was the most famous architect of the day, and the murderer was a well-known man-about-town.  The cause of the murder?  A young woman of exceptional beauty who had been involved with both men, though not simultaneously.  What happened on the night of June 25, 1906, would haunt her for the rest of her long, long life.  

It was the crime of the century, witnessed by scores of people, and would even inspire a movie, for which the young woman, by then no longer young, was hired as an adviser.  And the murderer?  He got three trials and after a rather comfy stint in prison was finally set free.  Being rich, he had good lawyers.

Who were these people, and what became of the murderer and the young woman?  See my next post one week hence to learn more about the crime of the century.

©  2021  Clifford Browder

513. When we should lie.

                   BROWDERBOOKS

                              Wild New York

My historical novel Forbidden Brownstones has a cover that I like, but some say that even fiction should have a subtitle on the cover, so as to let buyers know the genre at a glance.

Recommended by Sublime Book Review with a five-star rating. Available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and WiDo Publishing.
But I'm now inclined to add a subtitle on the cover of future works.  For my unpublished collection of short stories I have done exactly that:

                      Babylon:  Stories of Old New York

Will this help sell it?  Who knows?  It hasn't even got a publisher yet.

                    When We Should Lie

This is a postscript to last week's post on man/boy love.  In his unpublished memoir my former pen pal Joe tells how, when he was working as a counselor in a boys' camp in North Carolina, one of the boys -- we'll call him Jim -- told him an interesting story.  A man moved into his neighborhood who started having consensual sex with the local underage boys.  Word got around; the boys flocked.  Jim himself had sex with the man, as did his younger brother.  But one day the police came calling: word had reached them too, and they wanted Jim to testify against the man, so this predator could be locked up.  Jim didn't want to, but under great pressure he agreed.  There was no mention of his younger brother, so only Jim was involved.  

        When the day came, Jim went to court with his father.  There he saw the man, now in custody, and realized that the whole case against him depended on Jim's testimony.  But Jim reflected: he liked the man, liked the sex, and didn't think the man had harmed, or would harm, anyone.  So when he took the stand, with all eyes on him, he testified that yes, he knew the man, but they had never had sex.  Pandemonium erupted in the courtroom.  The prosecutor and a social worker upbraided him, while the judge pounded his gavel for order.  The session was suspended, so the social worker could talk to Jim in private, with only his father present.  

        In another room the social worker, a woman, again described the man as a monster and said it was Jim's duty to testify against him so he could be locked up. "Lady," said Jim, "right now I'm more scared of you than I am of him!"  Her jaw dropped, and Jim's father intervened: "If you don't mind, I'm taking my son home."  And so he did.

        For the next few days Jim's father kept a close eye on him, lest he see the man again.  But the man, now at liberty, soon moved away.  End of story.

        This anecdote taught me something useful.  We are all told that it's wrong to lie; one should always tell the truth.  But it isn't that simple.  It isn't enough to just tell the truth.  You must tell the truth for the right reasons.  Jim lied in his testimony -- indeed, he committed perjury -- but to have told the truth would have gone counter to his own perceptions of the situation and betrayed a man who he felt had done him no harm.  Few teenagers would have had the courage to do this, least of all in court; I applaud him.  

        Could this rule be abused?  Of course.  The cases where it applies are special and rare.  But I hold to my conclusion: It isn't enough just to tell the truth.  You must tell the truth for the right reasons.

©  2021  Clifford Browder

512. Hot Topic: Man/Boy Love, the Great Taboo

 

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                                  WILD NEW YORK

So much to report.  A week ago I donated over a hundred books, but in the process discovered some that had inscriptions, and these, gifts from me and others to my partner Bob, go into his collection to be given to the gay history archive at the Gay Community Center on West 13th Street, once it reopens.  I also found Bob's 1960 Rutgers/Newark yearbook, with photos of him as a graduating senior, and notes, some brief and some lengthy, from his classmates -- a thick book also destined for the archive.

Also, my next-door neighbor Jennah came to interview me on the subject of gay sexuality, part of a project she is doing as a "sexuality coach." The interview will honor Gay Pride Month.  She just put her mobile device down between us and let me rattle on.  She also asked for photos of us, and I later turned up a bunch of them of them that she is now adding to the interview.  One point that she considered essential: gay and hetero sexuality aren't separate, unrelated phenomenon.  On the contrary, they are simply the extremes of a continuum ranging from gay and mostly gay through a series of gradations to mostly straight and straight.  One conclusion: we're all in this together.

Related to all this is my reprint here of my most popular and controversial post.  

Hot Topic: Man/Boy Love, the Great Taboo

d Tuesday, June 28, 2016239. Man/Boy Love: The Great Taboo
[This post is a reblog of post #43, the most visited of all the posts in this blog, originally published on January 20, 2013.  The comments that followed are included.  It does not appear in my book No Place for Normal: New York, because Mill City Press feared legal complications -- a concern that I think exaggerated, since I do not promote (or condemn) these relationships, but above all want to understand them.  My friend Joe is now out of prison and doing well; he is on good terms with Allen, though they are now only friends.]
         I myself have never experienced man/boy love, neither as the younger partner nor the older one, or felt any urge to do so.  When, long ago, I would at times  encounter a gay teenager who was obviously eager to connect, he was always too immature to interest me.  So my attitude toward such relationships was vague, casual, and rather orthodox: if the boy was under the age of consent and therefore "jail bait," such a relationship was dangerous and best avoided.  Yet man/boy love has been documented and even illustrated in many cultures, so graphically, in fact, that I wouldn't dare show some scenes from Pompeii, or certain Japanese and Chinese works, lest my blog be labeled a porn site.  And in classical myth Zeus became so enamored of the beautiful young Trojan boy Ganymede that he whisked him off to Olympus to be the cupbearer of the gods.  (How his wife Hera felt about this is not recorded.)  But for me such love was even more remote than Olympus, so I didn’t think much about it.
        What changed?  In July 2000, having heard of his case on Grandpa Al Lewis’s WBAI program (see post #19), I wrote to an inmate in North Carolina named Joe and initiated a pen pal correspondence that continued for years.  Joe, I learned, was serving 25 years in prison on 25 counts each of indecent liberties with a child and crime against nature, and could hope to be released sometime in 2014.  “Crime against nature” – the very term angered me.  Against what nature, whose nature, etc.?  But be that as it may, Joe at my request gave me a streamlined account of his consensual three-year relationship with a young teenager named Allen (a fictional name) and how it led to his arrest. 
Shah Abbas and a wine boy.  Shah Abbas ruled Persia
1587-1629.  
         Fascinated by Joe’s story, I urged him to write his memoir, telling in detail the entire story from beginning to end. Though he had never written anything before, with my help he set out and over many months, sending me periodic installments, told his story in three sections: My Life before Allen, My Life with Allen, Locked Up.  Because of his remarkable memory for detail and his skill in description, it reads like a novel: a gripping and very moving novel.  Hopefully, someday he will self-publish it, so as to give his version of the story, totally at odds with the statements of the prosecutor at his sentencing hearing.  (With great effort I obtained the official court record of the proceedings, so I know exactly what misstatements and falsehoods were uttered.)  Clearly, this three-year man/boy relationship was doing no harm to anyone until other parties interfered, and the heavy-handed criminal justice system brought trouble to all concerned.

Zeus embracing Ganymede, an engraving by the Italian artist Cherubino Alberti 
(1553-1615).

(Some versions describe what Ganymede is holding in his right hand as a purse, suggesting prostitution, but Ganymede didn't need money; closer inspection reveals it to be the male genitals!)






















        Joe’s story caused me to reconsider my attitude toward man/boy relationships and the notion of the pedophile and pedophilia, terms that are used – and misused – much too freely.  Webster’s New Collegiate defines pedophilia as “sexual perversion in which children are the preferred sexual object.”  In this context I take “children” to mean young persons who have not yet reached puberty.  In the scandals regarding priests in the Catholic Church, the perpetrators were invariably referred to as pedophiles, though most of the cases involved teenagers.  We lack a term for sexual attraction to adolescents.  The word  “ephebophilia” exists but has not passed into the general language – hence the misuse of “pedophile” and “pedophilia.”  Joe was 26 and Allen was 13 when they met, but at 13 Allen was tall, rather broad-shouldered, and well past puberty, so for me this story does not involve pedophilia. 


Man/boy love in ancient Greece.  An Attic vase of the 5th Century BCE, now in the Louvre.  Ah, those Greeks!  In pre-Christian times they got away with a lot, incorporating ephebophilia into their societies, on condition that the partners in time marry and beget offspring, so as to assure the future of the city state.

         My interest in Joe’s story led me to two books treating the subject of man/boy relationships, one studying the problem in Denmark and the other in Holland, but both now available in English.  The Danish one, originally published in 1986, offers interviews with a defense attorney, a judge, admitted pedophiles, and a number of boys involved in consensual relationships.  One boy, who says he isn’t totally gay, asserts that it would be boring to be purely heterosexual.          A boy of ten (the youngest of those interviewed), when asked how old a person should be before having sex, replies, “Zero years”; his mother, aware of the relationship and her son’s love for his older friend, refuses to interfere, and regrets that the relationship has to be hidden from the outside world.  Another boy describes himself as bisexual, deriving great pleasure from sex with girls, though he says his best experiences were with his stepfather, when he could just surrender and let the stepfather take the lead.  Finally, a boy of 16, now interested in girls, says of the older friend whom he started having sex with at age 13, “He understands me better than my own mother”; he expects that, even without sex, they will remain friends indefinitely.  The aim of the study, the authors say, is to induce parents, teachers, and the various authorities to listen to what the boys say, and to understand their joy in the relationships and their need of an older friend. Just as the boys reach 15 or 16, their older friends lose interest in them sexually, and the boys usually begin having sex with girls.  Significantly, the English translation’s title is Crime Without Victims.
          First published in 1981, Theo Sandfort’s Dutch study was based on a government-funded report examining the stories of twenty-five boys currently involved in a consensual man/boy relationship, all but one of whom considered the relationship a decidedly positive experience.  When, before the AIDS epidemic appeared, a limited English edition reached these enlightened shores, it was reviewed by a pediatric psychiatrist in Contemporary Psychology (vol. 30, no. 1, 1985), who dismissed it as the rationalizing of a criminal activity, tainted both because it avoided the usual labels of "victims" and "perpetrators," and because it was sponsored in part by an organized group of pedophiles (which was news to the Dutch government!).  Circulating here at the same time was the accusation (never substantiated) that a tidal wave of "kiddie porn" was flowing across the Atlantic from Amsterdam; those permissive Dutch were trying to corrupt our youth and undermine the moral fabric of the nation!  There were other negative reviews of Sandfort’s work as well, all but dooming the boys and their partners to fire and brimstone, and Sandfort, the voyeuristic author, to a new persona as a pillar of salt.  Obviously, even with an influx of porn, the relatively tolerant attitude toward sex that prevails in secular Holland has not corrupted our fair land.  

         And what of the 25 boys themselves, age 10 to 16, of whom 11 were clearly beyond puberty?  When interviewed, they usually said that they met their older partner through family or friends; certainly they were not stalked.  And after the first encounter, which rarely involved sex, it was the boys who sought to renew contact and develop a friendship.  The ensuing friendship did involve pleasurable sex, but even more important were shared activities like swimming, movies, or visits to an amusement park.  At their partner’s home the boys were more relaxed and enjoyed more freedom than at their own home, even when the boys had good relations with their parents.  Trust and loyalty developed, and the ability to talk freely about anything: as an American teenager in a similar relationship once said to Oprah, "I can tell him anything and not feel judged!"  While the parents usually knew about these friendships, they didn’t know about the sex, which they would think “really bad” or “not nice” or “dirty” – attitudes that the boys considered old-fashioned and stupid.  A common thread in these stories was the boys’ determination to live their own lives, regardless of the opinions of others.  The study concluded that, for boys in pedophile relationships, the present laws in Holland posed far more of a threat than a protection, and urged the passage of more enlightened legislation.
         In the light of such studies, which reinforce the lessons of Joe’s story, I revised my attitude toward consensual man/boy relationships.  Of course child molestation exists: three friends of mine were molested as children and bear the resulting emotional scars to this day, but these were nonconsensual encounters.  I now view consensual man/boy relationships as legitimate and constructive, if the boy is past puberty and able to give knowing consent.  This does not mean that I go along wholeheartedly with the arguments of the North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA),

which beats the drums for complete tolerance of these friendships, regardless of the age of the boy.  Certainly I agree with their plea for greater tolerance and understanding, and their wish to free all men imprisoned for having had consensual sexual relationships with minors.  But they want no age of consent at all, which at this point I find questionable; arbitrary as it is, the age of consent -- 15 or 16 in most states, but 17 in New York -- should be lowered but not abolished.  Yet even here I confess that NAMBLA's arguments against any age of consent at all are powerful, since such stipulations are not only arbitrary but subject to prosecutorial abuse.          NAMBLA's is a lonely path, shunned and even condemned by mainstream gay organizations, who don’t want their campaign for gay rights to be contaminated with anything that might be construed as child molestation.  Pedophiles are only a tiny minority of the gay population and suffer prejudice and misunderstanding accordingly.  I am not of them, but I can sympathize.  Which puts me in a strange middle place, tolerant, yet tolerant with a few reservations.  But since when was life not complicated?

Source note:  The two books mentioned earlier are: 
Crime Without Victims, ed. the "Trobriands" collective of authors, trans. E. Brongersma, Amsterdam: Global Academic Publishers, 1993.

Theo Sandfort, Boys on Their Contacts with Men, Elmhurst, NY: Global Academic Publishers, 1987.

[Wanting feedback, and permission to use a photo on their website, I queried NAMBLA by e-mail. Their response, and subsequent comments in my blog, follow.  Apologies for any cramped print, over which I have no control.]

Hello, Mr. Browder,

Thanks for your message, and for your interest in our organization.   It has taken me too long to respond, and I must apologize.... [Their editorial staff] asked me -- to ask you -- that you wouldn't misrepresent us (as others have done, too often).

Once I read your blog, my doubts were gone.  You are a shrewd and generous commentator on our society and its foibles.  Thanks for writing on this subject!  And, feel free to use anything on our website as you see fit.

Sincerely,
Arnold Schoen
©  2013  Clifford Browder7 comments:Gerry BurnieJanuary 20, 2013 at 7:18 AMA very interesting and thought-provoking discussion.
I think it is unquestionable that there is a good deal of paranoia associated with man/boy love, and therefore more emotion than logic or common sense.
The bottom line is that it happens, and it is more often consensual than exploitative. Moreover, youths often benefit from the erastes-eromenos relationship.
Another great tragedy associated with the topic is that logical discussion is discouraged by the hysteria involved. It is indeed the love that dare not speak its name.Reply  Chris AlbertsonJanuary 20, 2013 at 11:08 AMI agree with Mr. Burnie and understand your own conclusion, shift, or whatever we should call it. Growing up in Denmark, in a household that neither condemned nor embraced religion, I suppose I took free thought for granted.
I recall how my friends and I, as teenagers and young adults, laughed at American movies that showed chaperones and referred to pregnant young ladies as being "in trouble." We also found the mere idea of "panty raids" on college campuses ludicrous beyond belief. It all added up to an impression of Americans as uneducated and naïve. Having spent a couple of years in the states during WWII, attending PS 101 in Forest Hills, I could vouch for low standard of education, at least in elementary school. It was appalling—I learned not a thing other than English, and that was something I absorbed in the schoolyard and through listening to Captain Midnight, Suspense, etc.
Thank you for another interesting article.ReplyClifford BrowderJanuary 20, 2013 at 2:23 PMThanks for the comment, Chris. Coming from a Dane, your comment is especially interesting, since one of the books mentioned deals with these relationships over there. I think we're making slow but (I hope) steady progress here, except in fundamentalist circles. But you're a better judge of that than I am.ReplyGeraldine EvansJanuary 21, 2013 at 8:26 AMMy, Clifford, but you're a brave man to post such an article. But, for a woman brought up strict Catholic, I found it very thought-provoking. You've certainly given me something to 
Clifford BrowderJanuary 21, 2013 at 11:33 AMYou're keeping an open mind -- bravo! The emphasis, of course, is on consensual relationships. The main thing now, I think, is: LISTEN TO THE BOYS. Adults have so often failed to do that. But this will be debated forever. Better debated than ignored. Thanks for the comment.ReplyPeter HermanJanuary 23, 2013 at 1:48 PMDear Mr. Browder,It appears that NAMBLA owes you an apology for its delay in responding to your request for permission to use a photo from our Web site. It is not that we ignored you but that our system of consultation is rather slow. Our need to deliberate carefully is informed by the too many who seek only to misrepresent us. Your essay was indeed a refreshing departure.
As for the photo you requested, I had communicated misgivings on its use to our steering committee. We tend to rotate images so as to give a broader view of our organization but do not always have the manpower to update our Web site.
Your remark on our position on age of consent is interesting in that you immediately follow it by recognizing one of our reasons for this stand. Another point in defense of this position is that human sexuality is no different from other aspects of development. For example, human beings are capable of absorbing knowledge from the earliest years. Yet no one would suggest that even a one-year-old Einstein would have been able to digest differential calculus.
Consensuality has been our guiding principle from the beginning, and it goes without saying that we have always condemned subterfuge and force. These would indeed be greatly reduced if through peer pressure and transparency the acceptance you promote were to become actual.
I am writing this to you as an individual member of the MAMBLA steering committee and without having consulted with it.
Peter HermanReplyPLATANIA AETERNUM KLINGSORJune 25, 2015 at 9:16 AMI'm a Boylover and I'm pro ancient paidophilia conceptReply

©  2021 Clifford Browder

511. Cancer: My Adventure with Alternative Medicine

                  BROWDERBOOKS

                                Wild New York

US Review of Books gave a good review of my latest historical novel, Forbidden Brownstones, and has offered me (for a price) silver stickers saying RECOMMENDED.  And why do I purchase them?  Because at book fairs I have seen how anything recommending a book -- a bright cover, a quote from a good review, a bright gold or silver seal promoting it -- nudges a potential buyer toward a sale.  They are tempted to buy, but need a little encouragement to take a chance on an author and a book they never heard of.  So a silver sticker saying RECOMMENDED -- even if from an outfit unknown to them -- provides that extra nudge.  Gimmicky?  Perhaps.  But that's how book fairs work.

US Review of Books RECOMMENDED Rating

 

                 Cancer: My Adventure with   
                  Alternative Medicine

         Cancer: a word that terrifies.  A scourge, a killer.  When the figures are in, in the U.S. alone some 608,570 mortalities are expected in 2021.  Scary. #Cancer
         For me, it all started with my annual physical back in January 1994.  When my doctor reviewed the results, she reported:  “You’re a bit anemic.  If you were a menstruating woman, I wouldn’t be concerned.  But for a man, it’s suspicious.  I’ll refer you to a gastroenterologist for a colonoscopy.”

         I didn’t know what a colonoscopy was, and I couldn’t even pronounce “gastroenterologist,” but it seemed that I was bleeding internally.  Having no symptoms, I I doubted if anything was amiss.

         I soon saw a gastroenterologist, Dr. Malinovsky, a genial older man who gave me instructions for the colonoscopy.  Primarily, I had to fast, drink some foul-tasting liquid called MoviPrep to clear out my bowels, and then, the following morning, show up at my medical center at Third Avenue and 96th Street at an ungodly hour.  

         So on April 5, 1994, I showed up, undressed from the waist down, lay flat on my belly on an examination table, got sedated, and let the good doctor rape me gently with a finger-thick, lithe black snake of a tube that he poked into my rectum.  On a table next to me, right at eye level, was a screen that showed what was happening in color.  It beat any TV that I had ever seen, flashing red, orange, red, as white dots of popcorn flitted across.  

         “The colon wall,” said the doctor.  “Now we’ll make this turn.”

         His assistant plied my belly; cramps.  I hardly noticed, riveted by the screen’s polychrome display: green splotches, egg yolk, orange peels, then ever receding grottoes, tunnels, and reefs where light had never been.  “Another turn,” said the doctor.  More massaging, cramps.  On the screen, crypts of cantaloupe, brown lichens, candied yam.  

         “There,” said the doctor quietly, “is what we’re looking for.”

         Nested in a niche, blobs of an aborted mushroom, a wrinkled, hunched pink worm.

         “Biopsy,” says the doctor.  On the screen, tweezers appeared, tweaked it.  A red kiss, then another.  “A polyp or a cancer,” said the doctor.  “Probably a cancer.”

         Under sedation, I took this gently, philosophically, almost as if he were speaking of someone else.  I felt distantly vulnerable, important. 

         One last look at the screen: sleeping, coiled pink muscle of eel.  My enemy, my threat.  Almost an embryo, mine, weirdly beautiful.

        Cancer: the dread of the word.  Not some infection from outside, but my own body in rebellion, its cells in disorder, engendering a small lethal worm of a tumor that could kill me.  

         Surgery was ordered, as soon as possible.  Another baffling word came up: metastasis, meaning the spread of cancer from its original site.  I did some research. Survival rate of colon surgery before metastasis: 90 percent.  After metastasis:10.  
         I saw the surgeon, a man with a friendly, reassuring smile.  “A common surgery; I do two or three a week.  We’ve got lots more colon than we need; you can spare some, not to worry.  Unless, of course, the lymph nodes are involved.”  He scheduled it for May 3, 1994.
        The results of the biopsy came through: yes, malignancy, requiring immediate action; the date of the surgery was advanced to April 19.  Also, there was a lovely photograph in color showing the bulbous, pink tumor nesting in my gut.  

         Surgery would remove the tumor, but unless I did something, the cancer would return.  I consulted a holistic MD, who took one look at the photograph and said emphatically, “Get that thing out of you as soon as you can!”  For my follow-up treatment after surgery, he recommended an alternative cancer treatment: antioxidants -- vitamins and two supplements that I had never heard of: Quercetin and Co Q-10.

          At noon on April 19 I checked into Beth Israel Hospital on the Lower East Side.  Soon I was in my room, donning a hospital monkey gown and awaiting the residents, the nurses, the anesthesiologist, and whomever else might have reason to see me.  The following morning I was taken down for surgery.  In the room adjoining the room of the actual operation, I chatted amiably with one of the staff, a motherly black woman of about forty who told me she was trying to stop smoking; I encouraged her and wished her well.  Then, nothing; the anesthesia had done its job.  Soon enough I was back in my room.
         For early word of the surgery results I queried the hospital residents on their daily morning round.  Sure enough, one had witnessed the surgery.  “A tumor as big as a golf ball," he said.  "Probably in there a good ten years.  But the liver looked fine.”  Later I would learn that his comment on the liver was encouraging, since that was where colon cancer usually spread next.  
         In time, liberated from a catheter and intravenous feeding, followed by the joys of hospital food, I went home.  Visiting nurses came daily to change the dressing on my wound.  One of them told me that even after a surgery wound has closed, the body continues healing within, though the patient is completely unaware of it.  I found this wonderfully reassuring.

         The wound closed; the surgeon’s job was done.  In a last session he explained my situation.  Of 25 lymph nodes removed with the tumor and examined, one had cancer.  Metastasis; they had operated just in time.  Cancer, he said, is like a fire in a house.  At first it is small, confined to one room; if, outside the room, you put your hand to the wall, you would feel no heat.  Then the fire spreads throughout the room; if you put your hand to the wall, you would for sure feel heat.  This is where I was.  Then the fire burns through the wall and spreads to the whole house: metastasis: only 10 percent survive.

         Chemotherapy was recommended.  The surgeon himself was neutral; some of his patients did chemo, some did not.  He suggested that I talk to the oncologist and hear what he had to say, then decide.  So I did.

Chemotherapy
         The oncologist proved to be a nice little man with a mustache -- less a threat than the look of your favorite uncle.  In a soft voice he explained that, in my case, the chances of recurrence were 40 percent; chemo could reduce it to 20.  I would come once a week for several weeks and let them drip chemicals into my veins.  I said I would ponder the matter and let him know.

This ... ?
... or this?
         Ponder I did not, for I had already made up my mind.  I was doing volunteer work for the Whole Foods Project, a small nonprofit advocating a nutritional approach to AIDS and cancer.  There I could take cooking lessons and absorb a different, unorthodox approach to healing.  Would I rather lie passively and let them drip alien substances into me, or take an active role in my healing, learning to cook and eat vegan?  Chemo, like radiation, was the best that mainstream medicine could offer, but it involved unpleasant side effects, some of them horrendous, and would treat the symptom only, not the cause of the cancer.  For me, an easy choice: I chose an alternative cancer treatment and went  vegan.  When the oncologist phoned, I told him I would not do chemo.

         So I took cooking classes and learned to eat vegan: lots of fruits and veggies, lots of beans and whole grains, less salt, no sugar, no meat or dairy.  I discovered the wonders of barley pilaf, apple and sweet potato roast, sea vegetables, leeks, and millet and tempeh loaf -- all delicious.  It was easy, it was fun.  Then suddenly, one day, there were severe cramps in my abdomen.  Lying down didn’t help, nor did standing up and pacing in the apartment.  I was desperate; it was hell.  Then, just as suddenly, the cramps stopped, stopped cold.  I contacted my surgeon.  My body, he explained, was adjusting to the surgery.  

         There would be cramps again, twice; both times they stopped as suddenly as they began.  After that, no more cramps.  I went out birdwatching again, and in June I marched joyously with the Whole Foods Project in the madness of the annual Gay Pride Parade.  In the following years periodic colonoscopies revealed either nothing or a small polyp easily removed.  I had healed.

No, I'm not in this one.  But you get the idea.
Diana          My cancer never returned, so my cancer story has a happy ending; many do not.  Lacking professional credentials, and knowing how people cling to their habits, I was not one to preach alternative cancer procedures to others.  But on two occasions I did, for they involved close friends whose fate greatly concerned me.  Both listened, neither was persuaded.  They lived orthodox, and orthodox they died.  It hurt.
        Alternative treatments for cancer are controversial, to say the least, and medical orthodoxy takes a dim view of them, stressing that they may not be harmful in themselves, but become harmful if they displace standard treatments.  I only know that orthodox surgery saved my life, and holistic medicine and a vegan diet prevented recurrence.  
         I still have the report of my final diagnosis, and the color photographs of the tumor that tried to kill me.  The tumor: weirdly beautiful, I thought at the time.  Today, obscene.
©  2021  Clifford Browder

510. Americans Are Pigs

                        BROWDERBOOKS                                          Wild New York
Lots is happening:I and an in-house editor are working on my new novel, Lady of the Chameleons, no. 6 in my Metropolis series of historical novels set in nineteenth-century New York.  It will hopefully be published this year.I continue to promote Forbidden Brownstones, no. 5 in the Metropolis series.I and a technical expert are working on a one-minute book trailer for  Forbidden Brownstones, something I have never done before.I am working on a new edition of Fascinating New Yorkers, no. 2 in my Wild New York series of nonfiction titles about New York and New Yorkers.  The new cover is stunning.I just finished a Books Butterfly promotion of the e-book of New Yorkers: A Feisty People..., no. 3 in my Wild New York nonfiction series.  The e-book was offered at .99 cents, bit is now $2.99.Yes, I'm a busy boy.  But not without problems, mostly technical.  Hopefully they will somehow be resolved.  But SEO (search engine optimization) continues elude me, and mastering it is necessary to boost your online sales.  So it goes.
              AMERICANS  ARE  PIGS

I have often visited the Jefferson Market Garden on Greenwich Avenue near Sixth Avenue in the West Village.  As I walk its paths, I usually see litter near the fence.  The litter is only near the fence, where passersby on the sidewalk outside can toss it onto the grounds; the rest of the garden is clean, for people who visit it are not ones to foul it with litter.  But the litter near the fences reminds me of something the renowned theater director Harold Clurman once said at the Actors Studio, while commenting on a scene from a play about life in small-town Middle America: “Americans are pigs.”  He said this in a certain context, but it has stayed with me ever since.

New York City litter, as seen by a Dutch visitor.
Steven Lek
         Yes, Americans are pigs.  We have many redeeming qualities, but when it comes to littering and the environment, we are pigs.  We use gardens like ashtrays, and parks like  dumps.  In my hiking days a trail sometimes went for a short distance alongside a highway, and always, without exception, the shoulder of the road was littered with plastic cups and spoons, tinfoil, crumpled paper napkins, cigarette butts, whatever, and the litter often went for eight or ten feet off the road.  People in passing cars toss stuff out the window and, for them, it is disposed of, vanished, gone.  Yes, it has gone, but it hasn’t vanished; it has added to the litter along the highway.  I experienced this especially on the Palisades and in Pelham Bay Park.

         Once, on Staten Island, I was hiking through the woods in Wolfe’s Pond Park, hoping for a bit of nature, but what struck me most was the litter.  Disgusted at first, I finally began to feel a weird fascination at the richness and variety of it, and began jotting down notes that would later become a poem.  Looking at that poem today, I find a chronicle of the specifics encountered back then:

·      Cheese Doodle bags

·      Yoohoo bottles (“Five vitamins, three minerals”)

·      matchbook covers (“Finish high school now”)

·      Tangy Taffy wrappers

·      dented Budweiser cans

·      crumpled tinted tissues

·      soggy mattresses

·      Eureka disposable dust bag and filter packages

·      empty Merit and Marlboro and True cigarette packages

·      Snickers and Doublemint wrappings

·      Pepsi bottles

·      deranged grocery carts

·      bits of foam rubber and sponge

        This list is, in its strange way, a comment on American consumerism, and as regards the culprits involved, the proximity of Tottenville High School is not irrelevant; the youth of our nation are just as culpable as their motorized elders.  But the presence of discarded grocery carts and mattresses incriminates the elders of the neighborhood as well, or rather, it incriminated them back then, since I don’t know what the situation is today in Wolfe's Pond Park or Tottenville High School.




An attempt at better in New York, courtesy of the EPA: a cement trash 
can, not easily overturned or stolen.  But have you seen one lately? 
This was back in 1973.
         New York City litter can sometimes achieve the status of surreal.  The French Surrealists of yore imagined a locomotive abandoned in a forest as surreal, but in this country their fantasy has become only too real.  While hiking the Blue Trail in the Greenbelt of Staten Island (with apologies to the responsible citizens of that borough), I often crossed over the Staten Island Expressway on an abandoned highway ramp known as Moses’ Folly, a relic from an attempt by Robert Moses to ram a highway right smack through the Greenbelt, a project that was stopped by local opposition.  The abandoned ramp, lunging high in the air to nowhere, is surreal enough, and the graffiti covering it do not detract from the victory, literally monumental, of the embattled local residents and environmentalists.  But after crossing the expressway on the ramp, the Blue Trail turns sharply to the left and steeply descends a wooded ravine to a trickle of a stream, before climbing up another steep incline to another abandoned ramp and continuing on its way.  In that wooded ravine I have seen numerous abandoned cars, overgrown with vines almost to the point of vanishing: New York City litter on the grand scale, if you like, and absolutely surreal, but litter none the less.  

Tommi Nummelin Email a link
to this file Information
about reusing

         On Broad Channel in Jamaica Bay, Queens, while accessing the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, I once also encountered an abandoned car.  Incensed at this violation of otherwise unspoiled nature, I relieved my bladder on the offending vehicle.

         Visitors to our cities have commented on the prevalence in the streets and parks of trash, particularly used condoms and orange peels.  With some justification they conclude that Americans have a great propensity for making love and eating oranges.  To the litany of New York City trash I would add plastic as well: plastic cups, plates, knives, forks, and spoons that I have found fouling the most delightful vistas of natural scenery, not to mention the gutters and abandoned lots of our cities. Such is trash, nycike .  And in winter, when the trees are stripped bare of foliage, one can see, impaled high lup on twigs like tattered ensigns, dozens of plastic bags.

         Yet Americans, when they set their minds to it, can do better.  The state of Maine, where I have often vacationed, has highways free from litter.  The moment you cross the state line, you notice the change, the result of a statewide campaign to keep Maine green.  And here in New York City, the volunteers of various conservancies and neighborhood organizations have done wonders in eliminating trash and litter from our parks and public spaces. 

         Keep Britain tidy: such were the signs that I used to see during a visit long ago to England.  “Tidy” is not a concept to be applied to the United States, a vast nation stretching the width of a continent; we’re just too big to be tidy.  But if every citizen picked up a single bit of litter every day, the result would be astonishing.  
        Humans are capable of keeping their cities clean.  A world traveler of my acquaintance assures me that Tokyo, with a much greater population than New York, is spotlessly clean and unlittered.  But here in the U.S., except for a blessed minority, we are too hurried, too involved in our busy lives, to be concerned about such trivia as trash and littering.  To judge by the litter in New York City and its environs, yes, alas, Americans are pigs.
©  2021 Clifford Browder