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Two Young People Seeking to Escape
The Ethical Will of Donald Armstrong, Part 14
For an explanation of what an ‘Ethical Will’ is, please see my previous post, ‘I Leave to You … Whatever Wisdom I May Have Gained.’
I was twenty years old and home on leave from military service. While I wore Air Force blue, in so many ways I was really green (that is to say, naive). The little river town that I called home had about 950 residents, and other than drinking in one of the local taverns (I was too young for that) or fishing (which I considered to be cruel), there were very few recreational opportunities. Of course, one could always read or watch television — and I had done plenty of both.
My naivete was nowhere in greater evidence than it was in my sex life. I had never had sexual intercourse with a woman. I had briefly had a girlfriend when stationed in San Angelo, Texas, and we had engaged in some heavy petting a time or two, but nothing more. As a young teen, I had been sexually assaulted by a man ostensibly in his thirties — a customer on my newspaper route. That was my sole experience involving actual intercourse, and it was limited to oral sex.
I was aware of my sexual attraction to other young males, but I had read that most boys go through a homoerotic phase prior to becoming sexually active. At that time, they…
