Mysterious Skin

Mysterious Skin is a 2004 DutchAmerican drama film directed by American filmmaker Gregg Araki, who also wrote the screenplay based on Scott Heims 1995 novel of the same name. The film is Arakis eighth, premiering at the 61st Venice International Film Festival in 2004, although it was not more widely distributed until 2005.

Born in 1972 in Kansas, 8yearolds Neil McCormick and Brian Lackey are sexually abused by their baseball coach. Both boys are targets for abuse due to their dysfunctional families Neils single mother, Ellen, is neglectful and preoccupied with a string of boyfriends, while Brians parents are on the verge of divorce.Neil showed homosexual proclivities at an early agehe was fascinated with male models depicted in his mothers Playgirl magazines. He interprets the coachs abuse as an initiation into sexuality and becomes sexually compulsive, being mainly attracted to bearish, middleaged men. Neil begins to prostitute himself at the age of fifteen. Eventually he leaves home, drifts into petty crime, and becomes a prostitute in New York City. His friend Wendy, who harbors an unrequited crush, describes Neil as having not a heart, but a bottomless black hole, that you fall into. Neil does begin to show a compassionate side, particularly following an encounter with a man who was dying from AIDS, and wanted nothing more than a backrub, only to feel touched. The encounter leaves Neil to withdraw from his life as a prostitute and take a job as a cashier. One day on his way home, he is tricked by a large man into giving him a ride home. The man makes him snort cocaine before raping and beating him. ........

Source: Wikipedia