216. meta

NOTE: This post will contain a frank discussion of sex and sexuality. If you are bothered by such things, do not read. Oh, and NSFW, if you find yourself at such a place upon reading.

This week has felt aimless. Some of it has been the stress of moving and busyness at work, being around people, feeling overwhelmed by all of it, and consequently shutting down. Kind of like my computer shutting itself off when it overheats.

One of the areas I’ve been examining is sexuality—specifically, some of my own hangups about it. I’m always suspicious of latent fundamentalist Christian programming from my youth gumming up the works of my life and mental processes, so I’ve been trying to listen more to those voices and identify the negative ones. Mostly, this process is just frustrating rather than helpful, but I suspect that it will be helpful in the long term.

Lately, I found myself having a number of conversations about sex. Nothing explicit, exactly. More just thinking out loud with other people about it—why we feel the way we do about certain areas of sexuality, how we view ourselves, our bodies, what we look for, etc.

Because I haven’t been having much sex lately. Shortly after breaking up with Jason, I went through something of a slutty phase, trying to catch up on all the sex I hadn’t been having, though by that point I was becoming more aware that I’m really not interested in sex for its own sake. Rather, it’s more about the personal and emotional connection than getting off.

My “love style” is definitely more storge. (See the video below.)

However, I’ve been judging myself for feeling this way. Part of that, I suspect, is a reaction against my prudish, Puritanical roots; that I feel I ought not to care so much about emotional connection and throw myself into simply enjoying physical pleasure.

Another part of it is seeing other people do this and judging myself for not being more like them. For example, the other night, I had dinner with a friend of mine, and around 8:30pm I had to leave because he had to get ready for a “hookup date.” Frankly, I’m quite jealous of his prowess, of his ability to go after whomever he desires and be desired in return. Because I certainly don’t experience that myself. On the contrary, I more see myself as being invisible to most other gay guys—a TARDIS-like gay perception filter.

But if I’m being truly honest with myself (and you, dear reader), it’s more that I seem to be invisible to the guys I’m attracted to. I’m aware of being noticed (and, to a certain extent, desired), but it always seems to be by the men who I’m not interested in or attracted to. It never seems to be a mutual thing.

And I judge myself for this—yet another personal failing, something else that I hate about myself. And then I worry that this kind of self-hatred is partly to blame for this feeling of being invisible, that it’s holding me back from being truly free and uninhibited.

I’ve also discovered that yet another friend of mine is into bondage. A few weeks ago, I talked with a girl at a friend’s gathering about her involvement in the BDSM community, and her interest in being tied up, dominated, humiliated, etc. All things that truly perplex me. So it was curious when I learned that this recent acquaintance of mine is also into bondage, to an extent that even seeing watches on guys’ wrists is exciting to him.

This is also something that I don’t understand, and consequently judge myself for not understanding or being more open to—knowledge from experience, and so forth. As far as I know, I don’t have any fetishes. The thought of being tied up or dominated is truly disturbing to me, as is doing the tying or dominating someone else. I’ve no desire to do either.

The fact is, unless there’s an emotional connection with the guy I’m having sex with, it’s very difficult for me to stay present in the moment. It’s difficult to resist starting in on judging myself or thinking that my partner is having the same negative thoughts about me.

As you can imagine, this is a bit of a mood killer.

And the maddening thing is that I know the root of this is the toxic beliefs about sex (and homosexuality) that I got growing up. While I wasn’t consciously aware of the reality of my sexuality until around age 15, I knew prior to that I was attracted to guys.

I also knew it was something to hide and be ashamed of.

For we who grew up in predominately heteronormative environments, we become deeply self-conscious, ruthlessly critiquing our behaviors and mannerisms for anything that might out us to our communities as faggots.

Because, intentionally or not, that’s how we were taught to see ourselves: as dirty, sinful, depraved faggots.

When a kid grows up seeing only heterosexual marriages, hearing pastors quote passages like Leviticus 18:22 and Romans 1:26-27, and putting all that together when he then figures out that he’s gay—what other conclusion could there be?

So how could I not grow up to be self-judging, self-hating, self-critical? I never felt good enough to begin with. How could I believe that anyone else could think me good enough?

Basically, I’m still a thirty-one-year-old teenager when it comes to sex and relationships. I’ve only been out for five years, which means I’ll probably have gray hair when I actually find a guy to settle down with… if I find anyone.

This is why it’s said that many gay men go through a second adolescence, because at some point, we have to go back and do what everyone else does when they’re actually, physically teenagers.

Because we learn a different set of lessons about ourselves as teenagers, which we have to go back and unlearn as adults.

That’s all so unspeakably irritating.

177. trachle

Last week on Facebook, I posted an article from Queerty about the results of a study conducted through Hunter College in New York that found that of the 800 gay and bisexual men surveyed, “many subjects received physical and mental health benefits from relationships with some degree of openness.”

The article ignited quite a good conversation, the emerging theme being some surprising indignation over monogamy bashing. I can understand how someone in a monogamous relationship might feel affronted over some labeling them sexually repressed, prudish, vanilla, or old-fashioned. The latter term I find particularly humorous as someone who considers “old-fashioned” anything relating to pre-agrarian society, and thinks of “oldies” as music written before 1600.

And I should say up front that the results of this study should not be taken to mean that all relationships should be open, that monogamy is unrealistic, or anything of that sort. Studies of this kind are always descriptive, not prescriptive – sort of a This is what we see rather than This is what should be. This is also a study of gay and bisexual men, and has little (if anything) to do with heterosexual relationships.

So I thought I’d take a moment to discuss open relationships and what they are (and are not), because there seems to be confusion over what “open” means.

First, it’s not a synonym for “polygamy” or “polyamory.” It merely means that a couple is not sexually exclusive, strictly speaking. This openness takes diverse forms, from a couple simply including a third person, to each partner having one or several outside partner(s), or a combination. And the degree of openness varies widely. A couple may be more (or less) discriminating about who they invite in. There may be one other person, or many. It depends on the couple and each partner’s comfort level and sense of trust and security established in the relationship. Each relationship is as unique as the people in it.

In other words, this is all about practicing good communication and doing what’s optimal for your relationship, and for yourself. If you’re the sort of person who’d experience emotional distress over entering into a sexual relationship with someone outside of your own marriage or partnership, then it’s not a good choice for you. But if you and your partner have both expressed an interest in other people, have talked about it and set parameters that you’re both comfortable with, and are pursuing those relationships in a safe and healthy way that doesn’t harm anyone – why is it even an issue?

I should talk briefly about my own experience with open relationships. Readers of this blog may know that I was raised in a Christian home where sex was barely ever talked about, and that sex outside of marriage was a serious sin. Because our God was the kind who enjoyed micro-managing, and because the Calvinist sect of Christianity that my parents ascribed to believed in predestination, I was taught growing up that from the dawn of time God had chosen one person [of the opposite sex] for each of us to marry (except, of course, for those who God had predestined to be celibate – i.e., homosexual). So the paradigm I had as a child and young adult was exclusive, one-person-forever monogamy.

My first encounter with an open couple happened a couple of years ago when a friend told me that he and his boyfriend were interested in me sexually. Now, even after I came out gay, my relationship paradigm was still exclusive, one-person-forever monogamy. I should also say that my first sexual encounter was with my first boyfriend – and I mean first everything – first kiss, first time being naked with anyone, etc. We dated for about six months, and in that entire time I was faithful to him.

After we broke up, I started to wonder if I could really commit myself to just one person for the rest of my life, now that I’d actually had sex. My parents have been faithful to each other all the time they’d been together. Most of the couples I knew had been faithfully monogamous, and we tacitly considered those who got divorced or cheated on their spouses less Christian for having broken their marital vows.

So there I was, being propositioned by a friend of mine and his boyfriend (who are married now and still happily together), and the odd thing was that it wasn’t that weird once I was actually face-to-face with the question. And since then I’ve got to know many other couples who are at different points on the monogamish spectrum.

I should say at this point that “open” is not a license to cheat, or have whatever you want. (My parents were fond of the saying, “Why buy the cow when the milk is free?”) Cheating implies sneaking around, which itself implies that something is not right in the relationship. All the open relationships I’ve been involved in have had the full blessing of both partners, and I’ve turned down guys whose boyfriends or partners didn’t know what they were doing.

And in a way, the friendships I’ve had with guys in open relationships (at least of the couples I’ve become involved with) have felt closer and more honest, mainly because we’re not tripping over all that dratted sexual tension. No one’s worrying about what’s okay or acceptable because we’ve talked about it.

Are all my friendships with couples in open relationships sexual? No. Only a handful, because I’m discriminating about who I get involved with. Just because I’m gay doesn’t mean I don’t have preferences and standards!

Next time I’ll cover another subject I’ve been thinking and talking about lately – monogamy.

In the meantime, if you want to share any thoughts about open relationships, experiences, or angry notes, you can do so in the handy contact form below. Or leave me a comment!

Hugs and kisses.

127. pettifog

pettifog, verb: 1. To bicker or quibble over trifles or unimportant matters. 2. To carry on a petty, shifty, or unethical law business. 3. To practice chicanery of any sort.

For a bunch of puritanical prudes who object to every manner of sexual deviance (at least according to their narrow and hysterical definitions), they certainly do seem obsessed with the subject.

To the point where I’m tempted to say, “the lady doth protest too much, methinks.”

In case you’ve been living in the darkest parts of the Peruvian jungle for the past year, there’s been a bit of buzz in the news lately about contraception and its moral turpitude (or lack thereof, depending on who you ask).

Last week seven states filed lawsuits against the federal requirement that religious employers offer health insurance coverage that includes contraceptives and other birth control services. Surprise of all surprises, the Catholics are at the epicenter of it all.

The “Blunt Amendment” (so named for its author, Sen. Roy Blunt, R-MO) would have achieved just that end, allowing “employers and insurers to opt out of portions of the president’s health care law they found morally objectionable.” Which could cover just about anything. Find some spurious support in your holy book for why your so-called god finds such-and-such practice morally reprehensible and voilà! you now don’t have to follow the same rules as everyone else.

Thankfully, today the Senate rejected the effort to reverse the Obama administration’s policy in a 51-48 vote.

The funny thing is that these employers and insurers have qualms about offering birth control to their female employees (merely offering, mind you, not requiring every single woman to accept it), but have no qualms about accepting government money to, for example, run hospitals. Including Catholic hospitals, which are not private institutions.

Talk about biting the hand that feeds you.

I’m all for freedom of speech and freedom of religion. The First Amendment is one of the core values of this country, that you can say and believe anything you like (given certain reasonable restrictions, of course—hate speech, inciting violence, supporting terrorism, defamation and infringing on intellectual property are not protected), regardless of how insane.

However, your right to free speech ends where it begins to tread on the right to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. You don’t have the right to kill me because your prophet commanded you to kill the infidels. You don’t have the right to lock me up and attempt to “cure” my gayness because you believe that homosexuality is a sin.

You sure as hell don’t have the right to tell a woman what she can and can’t do with her body. Which is precisely what republicans wanted to do with this amendment, and what conservative legislators wanted to do in Virginia by requiring women to submit to an invasive trans-vaginal ultrasound probing (I turned more gay just typing that) before they can receive an abortion. Fortunately, that bill was also shot down.

Mitch McConnell said on Rachel Maddow’s show last month that “[overcoming Obama’s opposition to their measure] would be difficult as long as [he] is rigid in his view that he gets to decide what somebody else’s religion is.”

Hello, Pot—meet Kettle. That’s precisely what they’re trying to do—imposing a Christian sexual ethic on the entire country. “Freedom of religion” does not come with an asterisk and the caveat, “*so long as Jesus died for your sins.”

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines chicanery as “deception by artful subterfuge or sophistry.” It defines subterfuge as “deception by artifice or strategem in order to conceal, escape, or evade.”

And that is precisely what is going on with these measures, with the One Million Moms movement, with John Piper, Michele Bachmann and the rest of the conservative religious establishment. They know that their bigotry wouldn’t stand up in court if they actually came right out and said that they just didn’t like gays, don’t like to see two men or two women kissing or holding hands, and certainly don’t like even the idea of a gay couple getting married. So instead they point to things like the historical tradition of marriage, and the fact that only a heterosexual coupling can produce offspring. When all else fails (though this is increasingly becoming their first line of offense), they drag out the First Amendment and claim that allowing gays to marry will infringe on their Freedom of Religion.

Even though lawmakers in Maryland specifically stated that no one would be forced to marry a gay couple, provide pre-marital counseling, etc.

Just as no one would be required to accept contraceptives from their employer. This isn’t Brave New World. Nowhere in the policy were “Malthusian belts” mentioned. Employers only have to make contraceptives available.

But that’s not what’s really going on, as any magician will tell you when explaining how to do a bit of slight of hand. Religious conservatives are trying to hold on to whatever power and influence they have. For almost two thousand years the Church was able to direct the personal and sexual lives of its followers with promises of heavenly rewards, and threats of divine, eternal retribution.

They are terrified now that people are taking more charge of their own lives and decisions, and like an overbearing, controlling parent, they’re threatening to take away the T-Bird. Only I think they really know that it’s not their car to take away, and that they only ever had as much control as we gave them.

But they’re not for a moment going to let on that they know that we know that they know.

On the issue of contraception and the federal mandate that all employers (not excluding the ones who don’t want to follow the rules like everyone else) must provide access to birth control through their health insurance plans—if you don’t want to do that, find another source of funding. If you’re going to accept government money, then like any employee you are obligated to do things your employer’s way.

61. desideratum

Soooo… Easter.

Tweeted a bit about this on Sunday morning. It was strange, driving around and seeing everyone going to church, and knowing that a year ago I was one of those people. And frankly, it was a little lonely. There’s comfort in being a part of a group, in marking the passage of time in ritual, and in such a manifest way and explicit terms.

Jesus is alive…

Satan is defeated…

I spent the first part of the morning watching the Marx Brothers’ Night at the Opera with my friend Emily at her place. And the strange thing is that it felt just like any other day. It wasn’t until later, when I was driving back to my place to get ready for a 10am meeting with my Former Fundementalists group that I really noticed the church-goers; the couples holding hands on their way to church; the little girls in their pink and white dresses; the families piling out of mini-vans like clowns packed into a Yugo.

Last week, a blogger I follow posted an entry that consisted of a note card with the following quote from Spinoza’s Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (trans. Samuel Shirley): “The things whose goodness derives only from authority and tradition, or from their symbolic representation of some good, cannot perfect our intellect; they are mere shadows, and cannot be counted as actions that are… the offspring and fruit of intellect and sound mind. ”

Basically, this is how I feel about religion right now. After lunch on Easter, both my mom and dad and brother-in-law ganged up on me to try to poke holes in my fledgling belief system and save my soul from damnation—which, if you know me, is about the least effective way to try to get through to me. It only resorts in me reverting to lizard behavior and digging myself further into whatever defenses.

Here’s the facts, as I know them: My gut tells me that there’s a God, and that Jesus was a real person and who he claimed to be. I feel uneasy when saying anything else, and I’ve learned to listen to that inner compass. However, I simply don’t buy Christianity as it’s wrapped and sold these days; believe in the tenability of evolution as the origin for the human species; am still not sure whether the whole resurrection thing happened; and would be far more likely to side with a more ancient and non-western sect of Christianity (e.g., Eastern Orthodox) than with Evangelicalism and its dogmatic fetishism. I still consider myself a skeptic (with secular humanist leanings), don’t believe the Bible to be the inerrant “word of God” (any more than any other book is “inspired”), and, as Augustine presumably advised (I’m still looking for a direct citation for where that idea comes from), favor science over religion where the facts seem clear:

When they [scholars] are able, from reliable evidence (erax documentum), to prove some fact of physical science, we shall show that it is not contrary to our Scripture. But when they produce from any of their books a theory contrary to Scripture, and therefore contrary to the Catholic faith, either we shall have some ability to demonstrate that is absolutely false, or at least we ourselves will hold it so without any shadow of a doubt. (Book I, Chapter 21)

Augustine wrote that in 402 AD, and it’s a much more generous stance than what we hear today from the Church, which is often Bible-thumping dogmatic dismissal of scientific evidence. We have the faculties of logic and reason: why should we turn off that critical thinking part of the mind when it comes to religion that we apply to every other field of human learning and research? When the facts seem to say that the earth is older than 10,000 years, based on both physical geological and cosmological data, who do we side with? Science? Or a book written two thousand years ago by a bronze-age people with rudimentary scientific knowledge of the universe (who, I might add, weren’t even attempting to write a scientific treatise in the first place, and were basing their creation account around contemporary Near East etiological myths)? I believe that we can glean truths from any human writing when we properly use the aforementioned logic and reason, and that the physical universe is just as much revelation as anything else.

Basically what Augustine is saying in his treatise on Genesis is that science and religion don’t necessarily have to conflict; that one informs and shapes the other; and I’ve always felt that. It’s the dissonance that comes from the conservative right saying that science is anathema that has bothered me, and it’s that that I’m distancing myself from, not necessarily God. (That said, however, I also must admit that from a scientific perspective, the earth, our solar system and the universe behave exactly as they would if there weren’t a God. It seems to largely run and correct itself.) For example, on a personal level, that’s the conclusion that I came to in wrestling over whether homosexuality was a sin or not: that this is my experience; that I’ve always been attracted to men (as supposed to being abused or something); that the mounting psychological and psychiatric data suggests that it’s a normal expression of human sexuality; that trying to alter an individual’s orientation is dangerous and unnecessary; and that the religious right’s opposition and scrambling to throw up objections to homosexuality comes from a patriarchal panic over their threatened status quo and losing what power they still have over the culture at large.

But more than anything, I believe that God would want me to get out and enjoy life, not worry about whether I’m living in “his perfect will” or whatever it is that the kids are saying nowadays. Be good to people, play fair, and leave the world better than you found it. That’s my religion.

53. journaling

Hi friends. Sorry, it’s been a while so any readership I once had has probably drifted on to more active pastures. As far as a quick update for those of you who care, I’m currently temping at a company in Minnetonka processing mail and customer rebates and for a couple of weeks while their receptionist is out sick. It’s thrilling. But it’s a job.

Let’s see, what else. I’m in the middle of the fall piano teaching semester and being challenged by my more advanced students, and am feeling slightly inadequate. But it’s good, and keeping me honest.

I’m gearing up for this year’s NaNoWriMo, trying to work on a few other short stories before NNWM commences, and kicking around two plot ideas for the Big Write. Got a few leads, but we’ll see what happens come November 1st. 50,000 words in 30 days. If the math is correct (and yes, I can do basic math, friends), if I consistently write about 1,700 words a day I should be able to meet the challenge, with extra time left over for editing. But for sure it’s going to kick my ass. Writing short stories is one thing; being able to hold a reader’s interest for an entire novel is a horse of quite a different colour. If you’d like to add me as a writing buddy, please do! My user page can be found here.

As you might have gathered from my last post, I’m venturing into queer theory and gender studies. Sociology and psychology have always been serious passions of mine, which led to my becoming a storyteller; but given some recent conversations I’ve had over the past couple of months, GLBT studies is (are?) becoming a real area of research interest for me, especially coming at it from a Christian perspective. I want to be able to better understand and articulate my own experience and relate it to my faith, as well as really plumb the depths of my own experience, put it into context, and not take anything for granted; challenge my assumptions—or, as Rumi put it, plow the earth and get moving.

My entry point was suggested by my friend Sand who writes over at his blog, FuckTheory: Judith Butler’s seminal treatise, “Gender Trouble.” I just started it today and haven’t even finished the preface yet, and am already astounded. She writes at the beginning (this is her writing in 1999 on the original 1990 text):

As I wrote it, I understood myself to be in an embattled and oppositional relation to certain forms of feminism, even as I understood the text to be part of feminism itself. I was writing in the tradition of immanent critique that seeks to provoke critical examination of the basic vocabulary of the movement of thought to which it belongs . . . In 1989 I was most concerned to criticize a pervasive heterosexual assumption in feminist literary theory . . . It seemed to me, and continues to see, that feminism ought to be careful not to idealize certain expressions of gender that, in turn, produce new forms of hierarchy and exclusion.

This very much echoes my current sentiments about the gay rights movement right now, that a good part of the movement has a dominant heterosexual framing.

So that’s the start. I’m also getting into Eve Sedgwick’s “Between Men.” This feels like learning to read all over again.

52. the locus of language in sexuality

I was just asked about this tonight, and thought I’d write a quick post about it:

“Are you a top or a bottom?”

This is probably the most frequent question that comes up amongst gay men when entering into a sexual relationship. It helps to define sexual roles and lay out expectations about who will be, for lack of a better word, fucking who; who will be “dominant” and “submissive.”

For me though, this type of language and labelling isn’t very helpful, and is more indicative of the hetero-proxy sexuality that has permeated the gay community since it came into the mainstream back in the 1960s. Without going into a lengthy discussion of Eva Sedgwick or Judith Butler, I posit that this sort of boxing of gay sexuality into “top” and “bottom” is a mere co-opting of existing and established heterosexual roles rather than the fostering of a true and authentic expression of the Mars/Mars interaction that takes place between men in a sexual relationship. It assumes that one partner will play the part of the “man,” and the other, by extension, the part of the “woman”, which by inference presumes that “gay sex” = “anal sex”, when there are far more expressions of eros than the few we make do with. Many gay men have no interest in that at all.

Furthermore, such language limits and suppresses exploration between partners, and locks them into predefined roles such as “dominant” or “submissive,” bolstering the idea that a “bottom” is naturally the passive partner in the relationship, and that such a pairing is one of domination and subjugation rather than an egalitarian one built on mutual love and respect.

This is not to say that we can’t or shouldn’t have preferences for one thing or another, sexually speaking. There are some guys who truly enjoy being “tops” or “bottoms.” What I’m saying is that we shouldn’t allow ourselves to be defined and labelled by those preferences, just as I personally don’t think that I should automatically be labelled “gay” for having a preference for men, and more than mixed gender persons should be labelled “straight.”

Language like this has only served to divide us and promote stereotypes and misunderstanding. As Martin Luther King, Jr said, “Men often hate each other because they fear each other; they fear each other because they don’t know each other; they don’t know each other because they can not communicate; they can not communicate because they are separated.”

48. bias

The assumption of male gender superiority is a significant aspect of the historical and cultural context of the biblical passages that seem to discuss homosexuality. Old Testament scholar Martti Nissinen has concluded from his cross-cultural research that “ancient Near Eastern sources in general are concerned with gender roles and their corresponding sexual practices, not with expressing a particular sexual orientation.” Thus, generally in the ancient Near East, sexual contact between two men was condemned as a confusion of gender roles. The cultural emphasis on male gender superiority also appears in Old Testament narratives and laws. Old Testament scholar Phyllis Bird concludes, “In the final analysis it [prohibition of homosexual behaviour] is a matter of gender identity and roles, not sexuality.” The same attitude is present in the New Testament, reflecting its Greek and Roman cultural context. New Testament scholar Victor Paul Furnish states that Romans 1:26–27 presupposes “that same-sex intercourse comprises what patriarchal societies regard as the properly dominant role of males over females.

Rogers, Jack. (2006). Jesus, the bible, and homosexuality. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Pr.

032. consternation (or, wtf in the garden of eden)

Sorry it’s been so long in between posts (not that anybody really missed me, I’m sure). Work is changing and bringing more responsibility with it. I’m doing more writing, though at the moment more waiting to see if my submissions were accepted.

With the health care bill passing it feels like I’ve been playing catch-up on what’s been happening nationally. What disturbed me most was that Pilosi snuck and ramrodded her bill through Congress, giving Americans a mere seventy-two hours to respond, vote, or object to what was in the 1,999 page document. Now we wait to see what happens in the Senate and hope to God that true conservatives there stand up to the pressure from the left, and from Obama to give him a “positive outcome.”

One other thing that disheartened me last week was the repealing of same-sex marriage in Maine. It’s not so much that I’m a huge proponent of it (since I’m nowhere near being married and it isn’t an issue for me). It was the victory sound bytes from the opposition which bordered on vainglorious gloating from the conservative right that deeply bothered me (the following quotes are from an ABC news article):

“We’ve struggled, we’ve worked against tremendous odds, as we’ve all known. We prevailed because the people of Maine, the silent majority, the folks back home spoke with their vote tonight.” – Marc Mutty, campaign manager for Stand for Marriage Maine which opposed gay marriages.
“I believe that marriage is for a man and a woman… and I don’t believe that [gay marriage] should be taught in school, period.” – Mary Lou Narbus, a 51-year-old mother of three from Rockwood, Maine.
“I don’t feel anybody has the right to redefine marriage. I would have been heartbroken for our country if it did not pass… We had a prayer night last night for it to go the way it should.” – Ellen Sanford McDaniel, 35, of Fairfield, Maine.

In response, there are a few points I’d like to make.

These are supposedly “my people” saying these things, conservatives and Christians, and I’m not sure what angers me more—that these blatant misconceptions about same-sex marriage are still being circulated and promoted, or that ignorance and fear got the upper hand once again. Yes, there are gay activists out there who want to promote homosexuality in schools, and yes, they are a vociferous minority and they do have an agenda they want to force down people’s throats and make them accept it. I never thought I’d ever say this, but as Sean Hannity once said, “If a conservative is homosexual, he quietly enjoys his life. If a liberal is homosexual, he loudly demands legislated respect.”The intent of the majority of homosexuals is not to erode the American family unit or destroy family values. It’s to make up for years of imposed silence and shame from the status quo. It’s straight couples who have managed to erode family values by jumping from marriage to marriage, or bed to bed, leaving broken partners and children in their wake, all without the help of the gays (or the gay bandidos). There are homosexuals who have lived together, faithfully, for decades, who practice fidelity and monogamy more authentically than many heterosexual couples.(On a side note, I don’t think homosexuality needs to be “taught” in schools any more than heterosexuality should be promoted. It’s not the job of the schools to socialise students—but that’s another discussion.)
It upsets me that anyone would pray for things to go the way they want them to, and even more that they expect God to sanction their position. Whatever happened to “thy will be done”? And not that Christians shouldn’t get involved in politics, but awful things happen when religion is used as a sword. That’s why we left England in the first place.
Their reaction belies a fundamental misunderstanding of human sexuality, an adherence to rigid cultural and societal norms, and aversion to anything that threatens their comfortable notions of what American life is supposed to be. It’s the common impression that all gay men are lisping, promiscuous, flamboyant queens. In fact, many “gay” couples don’t even practice “gay” sex, and some are even celibate. Terms like “gay sex” or “gay love” imply that it’s different from any other kind of love or sexual activity—even aberrant (not that any and all activity that goes on between homosexual males is healthy—things like fisting, BDSM and fetishism can be dangerous and harmful to the body).
It also belies a fundamental misconception of sexuality in scripture. According to traditional arguments, the primary function of sex is procreation, and on those grounds many infertile couples shouldn’t be married either. And if you were to ask, I suspect that many Christians wouldn’t even be able to tell you why they believe homosexuality is wrong—only that “the Bible says so.” Mny blindly accept and parrot the views of their leaders without studying the issue for themselves, and yet these are the ones speaking with their votes.
Instead of “working against” same-sex marriage, why don’t Christians try to find out what it is that homosexuals really want? Yes, this would involve actually getting to know a few, and perhaps that’s what this is about. It’s easy to work to block someone’s rights when they’re a statistic or a scary figure on television, and you are a happily married, secluded family that enjoys society’s approval and privilege; but that often changes when it becomes about people.It’s about simple things, like enjoying the same rights and privileges as heterosexual couples, without dirty looks or the danger of—at the very least—being savagely beaten; being able to publicly marry without fundamentalists protesting or children holding signs declaring eternal damnation for gays; and legal rights, such as hospital visitation and tax credits. It’s about the symbolic declaration of commitment that separates “living together” from “marriage.”

It’s not about upturning the apple cart. We just want fair treatment.

004. twisted

Been listening to a lot of Chopin lately. No particular reason, I’ve just been in the mood. It’s one of the few gay things I do. Not that listening to classical piano makes anyone gay, but it just feels so stereotypical, right up there with listening to bel canto opera (Puccini, Verdi, Bellini, etc) and Judy Garland. It would be one thing if I weren’t Classically trained, but life’s been chaotic so it’s nice to go to a quiet, cathartic musical place and just unwind.

I played a lot of Chopin in high school and college and am just now coming back to it. It’s stuff I pull out for weddings and other events (his music is technically considered “easy listening”), but I always played it on days when I was feeling particularly stressed or upset because his music said everything my words couldn’t.

As if my mind weren’t spinning enough, in addition to the general busyness of my life, there’s also the fact of dealing with the divide between Christianity and homosexuality. The awful thing is that the minute I start feeling resolution in either direction, something comes along to upset all of that. For example, this whole week I’ve been talking with some new friends on the Gay Christian Network about some of these issues, getting other perspectives and experiences.

Then on Sunday I went to church with a friend of mine and all the old doubts started coming back—that maybe this isn’t the way that I was created to be. That maybe homosexuality is a sin after all. That everything I’d been resolving in the past week was little more than smoke and mirrors.

But then again, how can so many people on both sides of the aisle be right or wrong? Why couldn’t Paul have been talking about male prostitutes and pederasty when he wrote about homosexuals in Corinthians? What if the Church really has been wrong all these centuries as a result of the influence of Saint Augustine’s sexual hang-ups?

At the same time, just because two men or women are attracted to each other and are willing to commit for life, does that make their union right in the eyes of G-d? Could this all be part of the “futility of creation”?

The Church assumes that gays choose their orientation; that they “gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another” (Romans 1:27). That’s assuming that we were attracted to women in the first place and “turned to the dark side.” I have never been sexually aroused by a women. I may notice that a woman is attractive, but I do not desire her. This will come in the next post, but I have always been into guys, as long as I can remember. When I hit puberty it became more apparent that this was the case, but I don’t recall ever being turned on by girls.

There was another revelation on Sunday: I don’t feel accepted by G-d. This probably stems back to my parents, but deep down, past all the bravado and self-confidence is layers of self-loathing and self-hatred, and this sense that I will never be loved for who I am. That I am unworthy of love. Unlovable.

The Bible says that G-d loves me, but I have a hard time accepting that love; that He could love a broken and mangled gay guy like me.

—Muirnín