Has anyone here seen L.I.E.? It’s an independent film directed by Michael Cuesta and it’s about a young teenager named Howie who basically winds up under the wing of a homosexual pedophile (or possibly ephebophile) played by Brian Cox. Someone reading the back of this movie might well assume it’s another pretty-teen-debauchery-fest along the lines of Larry Clark’s films. Not so. The power of this movie comes from the fact that it takes a creepy old pederast and makes him a truly sympathetic character. I don’t know if the writer of this movie is a pedophile, or had experiences with an older male partner as a teen (I would strongly suspect that one of those is true, simply because the content of this film is not the kind of shit you can make up,) and I don’t know how many actual young boy/older man “Greek-style” relationships are actually of the loving, paternal, caring character depicted in this movie, but I have to say at the very least L.I.E. made me wonder about it.
Those with a preference for young boys are demonized in society today - they are truly made to be the ultimate evil. People are terrified at the idea of pedophiles living in their communities. And honestly, they have good reason to feel that way. I think that if one child is hurt, one life destroyed, by a pedophile, that is reason enough to be suspicious of them all. On the other hand, a pedophile is not a beast. He is still a human being, someone with a heart and a soul, who still has feelings and still has the capacity to be kind.
Can a pedophile be cruel, exploitative, manipulative? Absolutely. But plenty of men are cruel and manipulative to their non-underage partners as well, male and female.
Can a younger boy truly have a loving and genuinely decent relationship with an older man without it being exploitative and evil? I don’t know. But L.I.E. definitely made me ask the question.