THE BOY TRAMP AND PERVERSION
The boy does not need to remain long in hobo society to learn of homosexual practices. The average boy on the road is invariably approached by men who get into his good graces. Some “homos” claim that every boy is a potential homosexual. This is without doubt an exaggeration as well as a defense, for not all boys are subject to persuasion. Sometimes boys will travel alone or with other boys to avoid the approaches of older men. Often boys will refrain from traveling with adults, even well-behaved adults, because they realize that they will be under suspicion. It is not uncommon to hear a boy who is seen traveling with an older man spoken of as the “wife” or “woman.” It is only natural that many boys fear to be alone with adult tramps.
53. The case of M. is typical. He is a sixteen year old boy who travels alone. He is a handsome lad; small for his age and neat in appearance. He is just the type of boy that would attract the average “wolf” who idealizes pink cheeks and an innocent appearance. He travels alone because of his fear of “wolves.” He had not been away from home three weeks and he says that he has been accosted several times. Although he had been in Chicago but a day he had received advances from two men who tried to persuade him to go to a room.
Many devices are employed by them to place the lad in their debt or under their protection. If methods of persuasion do not work, force is sometimes used. One man gave a brakeman a dollar to put a boy off the train at a lonely siding. Another man learned which direction a certain boy was traveling and followed him from town to town, “accidentally” meeting him at each place. The lad was without funds, and so was the man, but the latter was able to beg and usually had a “lump” when he met the boy and he always divided. Another man led a boy a mile or so out in the country to a place where he claimed he had worked during the previous year and where he knew they could both get something to eat.
Another common ruse is to take a boy to a room or a box car to sleep. The man suggests that he knows a clean car in a safe place with plenty of straw or paper on the floor. In a big city the boy is often enticed to a room for the same purpose. There are many cases on record in the Chicago courts.[53]
54. A. F., a boy sixteen years old, was being held in a room on West Ohio Street to which he had been enticed for immoral purposes by John M. J. M. was arrested on complaint of one F. He was found in company with another boy in a room in the E. Hotel on South State Street. John was held for trial on $3,000 bonds which he could not furnish. He died in jail waiting for trial.
55. C. J. This man worked on a boat plying between Michigan ports and Chicago. He persuaded a Michigan boy whose home was near Lansing but who had run away and was loafing about the docks on the lake front, to come with him to Chicago. He promised to help the boy get a job, etc. He took him to a room on South State Street where he held him for three days and had improper relations with him. Prior to his apprehension he had turned the boy over to another man for the same purpose.
Josiah Flynt, who was familiar with tramp life, seems to be of the opinion that most boys are forced into the practice. However, it does not seem probable that force is so extensively employed as is sometimes believed. These accounts serve as a defense reaction on their part, yet we cannot say that such forced initiations do not occur. But even those who at the outset were the victims of “strong arm” methods often become reconciled to the practice and continue it. Often they become promiscuous in their relations and many of them even commercialize themselves.
Writers on the sex behavior of men and boys often refer to the relationship as it exists among tramps as a sort of slavery. By slavery is meant that boys are held in bondage to men and forced to steal and beg for them. This condition may exist in isolated instances but it is not general. It is even suggested by some authorities that there exists some sort of organization among tramps through which boys have been “caught” and kept in servitude. The best evidence that such an organization does not exist is the fact that perverted sex practices are frowned upon by the tramps themselves.
The court records show, however, that not infrequently boys are held in rooms, or taken to lonely buildings, or out on the lake front, or in the parks, but the case that gets into court is seldom one in which both parties were free agents. If there is slavery in these latter cases it is slavery to their passions, or to a state of mind growing out of their habits and their isolation.
The duration of an intimacy of this kind in the city is seldom more than a few days. On the road, however, the “partnership” may last for weeks. Whereas, out of town the pair can travel as companions aiding each other, in the city they can get along better alone. It is difficult for partners to remain together long in the city, especially if one has money and the other none, or if one drinks and the other does not. Living in a metropolis is a problem the tramp can solve better alone.