PrivateTim

Seriously? I wonder if you have read the same Dom Luka stories I have. The only one where a kid was beaten for being gay was The Long Way and that is a reality many gay kids have had to deal with and it was really a minor part of The Long Way & In the Fish Bowl. Dennis was abused bu his father and brother, but not for being gay, just because that is who his father was, that too is a reality for lots of kids. Rory didn't fit any of the formula BigDave laid out, neither does Quinn and certainly not Nelson & Milo. I thought BigDave was really right on with his formula for Nifty and The Fort maybe, but the character development of Dom is so much deeper and the situations and reactions so much more realistic I just don't see the formula BigDave laid out.

That might be the Nifty formula, but not what I have read in the works of Dom Luka, Mark Arbour, Adam Phillips and what limited dkstories I've read. I've also read some works of the newer younger authors and they may not have the sophistication of the people I've noted, but there have been some fine works.

76 is the new 61.... or something like that. My grandfather at 82(almost) still surfs with his buds three days a week.

Really great chapter Mark, one of your best efforts. You are painting Will's angst like Monet would paint a painting. You get all the emotion, but you don't need a completely clear picture, the impression conveys everything.

Neither Robbie or Jeanie is the glue that holds together the family, they have created a ton of drama in the family. People might go to Robbie & Jeanie with their problems because they are the weak ones who won't give them grief. Most people don't like having tough conversations so they avoid them. In human kind the Alpha Male isn't necessarily the strongest of the herd physically, money is power too and in most ways more important, so is a strong will. That is what made JP the Alpha Male of his generation and why Brad is for his. As to athletes in fraternities, I knew a lot of guys in fraternities like me who were athletes. My house was the water polo swim house at Cal, another house had the football players, a third had the baseball players. It was the same with my friends at Stanfurd, certain houses had more athletes and of a certain sport. Here is the 2009 Fraternity All American Football Team. These are DI & DII players who were All Americans and were in fraternity houses. 2009 Fraternity All American Football Team

Not Gathan's fault, blame Arbour, I swear he always has sex on his mind! If Brad is okay, and we don't know that yet, I don't see Will being especially scarred by the incident. I can see some guilt issues, but not major, Will seems pretty resilient and I assume it is going to lead to an incredible sex scene between him and John as soon as the occasion arises. I was disappointed that Gustave didn't turn out to be a good guy.

I am so disappointed that Gustave turned out to be a ship (with a t). Nice to see JP reassert himself as the Alpha male of the herd. We don't know if Brad was in the same area or not or if the crazy old prof took him someplace else. Nice chapter though except that it might ruin Paris for Will. Personally I've never been a huge fan of Paris, I am more of a Nice, Arles, Aix-en-Provance kinda guy.

My guess is you got negged for a haughty attitude of "I know better" or "I am above it all", but then I got negged for listing sources. Everyone has their reasons for negging people. You were actually 1 in the hole so I gave you a pos to get you at least even. I don't think there ought to be any + or - for people's opinions, it just leads to bullying, but the system is what it is.

Naw, CIF (California Interscholastic Federation) has very strict rules about who can play on 9-12 teams, but there are a lot age group lacrosse teams. The Menlo School has a kid at Princeton currently along with a kid from St Ignatius (SF Jesuit school). Most of the prep schools in CA have lacrosse and lots of public schools in the more affluent areas are getting them, but you just have to accept that water polo is the lacrosse of CA.

Gunn is good for a public school, but still doesn't have the kind of programs and achievements that a school like The Menlo School does. The world and the circumstances of the Schluter/Crampton families have changed since Brad, Claire & Jack were in school. Kids from families with that kind of wealth just do not go to public schools in CA.

I can see John Sr. and Claire not letting Darius slide like he did in Malibu, but I've always thought of Claire as also very level headed and I don't see her being stressed over pre-school. I don't see her and John sending their kids to public school though; not with as bad as CA schools have become the last 20 years, I definitely see them sending John Jr to The Menlo School to give their kids the best possible education and a place where he would be challenged and pushed. I see Claire more like the Tiger Mom, Amy Chua, strict, but not obsessive.

Hippo Birdie Two Ewes!!

I dunno, Will seems to be doing okay so far andas to the rape of Will, if that is what you can call it when you are the inserter and not the insertee, he seems to have not minded his attacker all that much. I get it is a fine line to walk and Mark is walking it carefully, but Will did have an attraction to his captor. Will thought him "handsome", had a "shockwave" go through his body, his appearance was "engaging", his kisses "intoxicating" and Will "began to trust him." So I suspect Will will not be overly scarred, or at least not by the sexual encounter, and I think the handsome, engaging young man with the intoxicating kisses will turn out to be more good than bad.

And of course you forgot Thomas Magnum..... He had two "buddies", a porn star mustache if ever there was one, he lived with an older man, got to drive the older man's expensive sports car around and he was in the US Navy.

Umm, couldn't he have been so normal you didn't know he was gay? Like Dumbledore?

Did you miss the other thread James? It is already an ongoing topic.

Not sure that 4th grade soccer is the same as Division 1 in Germany, England, Spain, etc. Basketball is pushing, like girls do. An elbow swung and connected is usually an ejection or a fight starter, you don't see them very often. Soccer has much more severe physical contact because it usually happens at top speeds with lots of room to run. Every corner kick. even at lower levels like a top high school or college game, is closer to a wrestling match than 'futbol'. A clean violent collision in soccer is just that, a clean violent collision. Every clean violent collision in basketball is a foul, usually flagrant or intentional, drawing a stiffer penalty. You can compare the low post in basketball to soccer, it isn't even a close call.

Soccer is much more physical than basketball.

Indoor football plays an intense bone crushing game in a small space. Football, indoor and out is often about man on man play as is soccer. Tripping is soccer can draw you a yellow or red card very easily and it is a big focus for the officials. Ditto for football, lots of blocks have been removed from the sport and were removed in one season. Gone are crack-back blocks, hi-lo blocks, rolling blocks, trips and many other behaviors. Football is certainly every bit as physical ice hockey, but fights are rare because they are not tolerated. No one makes excuses for them. "Nuts" are certainly not fair game in water polo and can draw a brutality ejection that will leave your team a man down for the entire game if the official deems it bad enough. Ditto for a punch thrown in water polo, if it lands you are almost certain to draw a major brutality and have your team play a man down the rest of the game so no one does it, or seldom does it. They are plenty of other ways for payback so you don't punch or kick in retaliation as a reaction, you mark it down mentally and wait until you are swimming back down the pool and the refs attention is someplace else. Maybe you didn't pay attention to the NFL last season and see all the fines and players set down for the high hits and unnecessary hits. You probably won't see any this coming season because coaches won't tolerate an individual hurting the team through stupidity. The other difference is that clips are seldom an intentional act, they happen through poor timing and techique, if the official thought the clip was deliberate and otherwise vicious, they can eject the player and you can be sure the league would further fine or suspend the player. Fighting is always a choice and intentional. No one throws a punch accidentially. To say "Fighting is part of the game" followed immediately by. "It is not condoned" is contratictory. As long as people say "it is part of the game" it is being condoned. Other sports have cleaned up their acts, I still think it is time the NHL did likewise.

Can't believe there were two guys in a bar smoking......

If that were true, they would allow fighting at all levels and it seems to me it really only proliferates at the NHL level.

Cams were around but they were not ubiquitous because so few households had high speed Internet, you needed a minimum of a 128k connection and 256k was better. At a dial-up modem you didn't see motion per se but snapshots. As bandwidth cost dropped and cable companies upped their speed, the cams became very common to the point now I would say everyone below 30 has a cam. Oh please HS gay boys and HS girls experience heart break every 24 seconds. It is a proven scientific fact.....

I can't think of any other sport that at its highest levels tolerates fighting. Guys hit just as had in the NFL yet fights are rare. Baseball is famous for its brawls but you only have a few of those every season and lots of players get suspended and fined when they do. So why does the NHL tolerate it? I can't imagine they allow fighting in high school hockey. Throwing a punch in high school water polo or wrestling would get you banned for the season in CA. Two red cards in water polo and you are done for the season. p.s. and when a ref steps in, if you didn't back off in baseball, football, etc, if you touched the ref, you'd be done for the season with huge fines.

But of course in private chats in 1994 you had no way of knowing if that other "15 year old with a swimmer's build and the 8 incher" was 15 or 50, swimmer's build or building build and 8 or 4 1/2. Not until the Internet got fast enough for cam to cam chats could you be sure who you were talking to. That wasn't until maybe 2004 or so at the earliest. I know it seems like high speed Internet has been around for ever now, but it wasn't ubiquitous until just recently.