Men Loving Boys Loving Men (essay)

This is an important essay by Gerald Hannon on BoyLovers.

There's a painting in the foyer of my YMCA. It's a dedication portrait, the kind you still expect to see in banks over an "Our Founder" plaque, except that banks have pretty much surrendered to the framed fabric school of interior design. Not so trendy, the YMCA. The ones I know still rely heavily on dark wood veneer and respectable oil paintings like this one of C J Atkinson, "Leader in Boys' Work." Or so the dedication reads. It continues: "...here he realized a dream of his young manhood in the building of a community in which boys learned to do by doing."

He worked with boys, did Mr Atkinson. He cared about them, worried about their welfare, worried more about the ones society didn't seem to have much of a place for, and finally arranged for the construction of this building, a sanctuary -- at least until recently -- for boys, for young men, "a dream of his young manhood."

I think I know something about C J Atkinson. I think he was a pedophile.

I don't know for sure, of course. If I did -- if anyone else had -- there wouldn't be an oil painting of the man gracing the foyer of a building belonging to the Young Men's Christian Association.

But I do know what he did. I know, at least, why he was celebrated. He loved boys. He had dreams for them. He made them his life's work. If you are what you do, C J Atkinson, benefactor and "leader in boys' work," was very much a pedophile. [...]

Continue reading the essay at the link below.

See also

Gerald Hannon

External links

http://www.clga.ca/Material/Records/docs/hannon/ox/mbm.htm