The History Boys

I watched the film during the flight home from Perth. From what little I've read about it, I knew that there were homoerotic themes in the film but that was not surprising, seeing as the film was set in an all boys school and having spent most of my formative adolescent years in that sort of environment, I know that having a horde of horny teenage boys in close proximity to each other every day, there needs to be some sort of outlet for the expression of what it is that a sudden surge in testosterone drives teenage boys to do.

Sport was an acceptable outlet for this and there were of course, the persistent rumours that the boys who stayed at the boarding school (I was a day student) engaged in mutual fellatio, not 69ing, as far as I was aware of but taking turns to suck each other off. It was more a sort if doing each other favours.

This of course opens up all sorts of considerations as to whether there is a distinction between same-sex sexual experiences and gay sexual experiences. I'll explore this in a future post but for now, back to the History Boys.

Having watched film on the plane, it seemed rather disjointed and perhaps it was intended to be that way - the viewer is intended piece together various elements of the plot as opposed to having the entire plot play out on screen. Alternatively, it could simply have been that certain parts of the film were censored because of the possibility that minors had access to it. I doubt that Alan Bennett's play would have had any overt male nudity in it and the same might not have been made part of the film for any number of reasons - reading about 17 year-old boys having homosexual experiences with each other is one thing but showing it on screen might well amount to kiddie porn.

This in itself is something of a double standard as the age of consent for gay sex in the England (I don't know the position in Scotland and Northern Ireland but suspect it is the same as in England but would hesitate to make a sweeping statement that this is the position for all the legal jurisdictions in the UK) is 16 and if a boy/man is deemed by the law to be able to consent to having sex with another boy/man at age 16, why would a graphic representation of something which is otherwise lawful per se otherwise malum prohibitum (my Latin is rusty and if I've used the wrong form of the words, I stand corrected) or perhaps in malum in se, depending on your viewpoint. It is beyond controversy that under English law, graphic representations of two males aged 18 years and above having engaged in sexual activity is lawful. Some would consider any form of graphic repsentation of sexual activity malum in se from a moral point of view (ie. all forms of porn are immoral) but my considerations are solely legal.

It is equally beyond controversy that any form of sexual activity between males, both of whom are below the age of 16 years is malum prohibitum, graphic representations included. This leaves us with an illogical lacuna of the position of graphic representations of boys/men between the age of 16 and 18 engaged in homosexual activities.

I'm sure that there will be records of the debates in Hansard as to why the age of consent was reduced to 16 from 18 and perhaps not lower given that in some other jurisdictions, the legal age for girls to be able to consent to sex is 14. I don't hear feminists complaining about discrimination in this instance.

I've wandered off the point again. I've been meaning to discuss the History Boys but I keep getting side-tracked. Having only watched it once and possibly not having watched the film uncensored, I think I will need to watch it at least one more time (and possibly read the play as well) in order to write something lucid about the film. For now, let's just say that I found some of the boys in the film very fanciable, namely Samuel Barnett (Posner), Jamie Parker (Scripps) and Stephen Campbell Moore (Mr Irwin). I recall a line in the film where the boys were speculating that Irwin was barely older than they were and reading the various biographies on IMDB, that's not very far from the truth. Stephen Campbell More and Jamie Parker are the same age in real life (both born in 1979) and Samuel Barnett is a year younger. I also found Russell Tovey (Rudge) quite fanciable but I think it was his onscreen personam that I fancied. I have a thing for rugby players and boys in rugby kit. Will explore this more in a future blog entry - I suspect that it has something to do with my sexually formative years while in school.