Desiring difference, desiring similarity: Narratives on sexual interaction between boys and men in the Swedish homosexual press 1954–1986

Abstract

The article explores talk about young men and relations between younger and older men in the homonormative rhetorical context of the Swedish homosexual press from the 1950s through the 1980s. The discussion is related to meanings of sexuality for the sake of pleasure (the pleasure ideal) and sexuality for the sake of love (the love ideal). Meanings of sexual relations between boys and men are nuanced in the homosexual press: by providing a variety of descriptions of sexual desire between men and boys, representing the boy as someone who can take both an active subject position and a passive object position in the relationship, and by separating homosexual practices from paedophilic practices. An earlier homonormative ideal or at least a socially sanctioned possibility of relationships between men and boys, as a less equal couple and partner ideal, is gradually replaced though, by a more equal couple and partner ideal based on an expectation of similarity.