So now clean and sober, attending 12 step meetings, he began
to have to face these demons or angels or whatever metaphor we want to use to describe
the forces that shape us.
He had one short lived relationship in the early months of his recovery from addiction but he had acted just as dysfunctional here as he had in earlier partnerships and the woman was troubled too. It ended and he sought relationships with many more women who either rejected him or only slept with him once. He burned with shame whenever he remembered the homosexual things he had done, but other times was highly aroused by the notion of exploring that side of him again and he began to notice that the more ashamed he felt about the deeds, and the more inadequate he felt concerning being able to keep a woman in his life, the more the thoughts of homosexual acts came. Pornography also fueled it and he noticed the porn with men and women was the only kind that did so. Men with men porn just seemed odd, not gross, but weird, but the same body parts seen in acts with women became highly attractive to him. He resisted his fantasies because they would have involved prostitution or sex with strangers and those activities too closely resembled the addictive world he had just escaped from, but he also began, for the sake of argument so to speak, to imagine what it would be like to have a healthy experience with a man. He had been asked by his gay friend years earlier if he desired to kiss a man. When my friend said no his gay friend said "well you aren't gay."
This same gay friend, however, later said my friend was simply closeted and hadn't been able to come out enough yet to see it. My friend's sponsor, on the other hand, after several months of getting to know him and hearing his struggles with sexuality suggested he might need therapy to resolve the causation of these issues. What complicated things for my friend was that his sponsor was becoming a devout Christian, and though he never pushed this on my friend, there was a subtle implication in his suggestions that homosexuality was pathological.
My friend still wanted women, he knew that. He didn't have trouble performing with them, as he had heard truly gay men who try to live a straight life do and he couldn't see himself in a long term relationship with a man - the idea didn't horrify him it just seemed silly because he wanted to love and touch and share a life with a woman with her hair and soft skin and tough body that could endure childbirth (and tough spirit that was the metaphorical earth of our species it's fertile firmament giving life and often denying it's implantation however fickly or wisely depending).
He began to tell others about his trouble. He had told old friends right before he began recovery and they hadn't rejected him, though some privately were "weirded" out he heard from third parties. He shared at his meetings about it, but didn't give details. He had heard that many other recovering addicts had engaged in same sex relations but that they often did it for money to support intense heroin or crack habits. He hadn't done it for money. He also hadn't just did it because of drugs - it hadn't been just a wild orgy at a party he barely remembered because the urges remained after months of being substance free. So he still felt ashamed. Thoughts of suicide sporadically came. He felt like a fraud whenever he acted in a way that seemed to him as masculine, he felt like people were whispering about him behind his back. It didn't help that years before three out of the four long term girlfriends he had had all called him a "faggot" during fights.
He conflated his sexual struggles with his life struggles. He was working at a job well below his caliber that though it paid enough wasn't what he had gone into debt to go to college for and he still couldn't seem to find the discipline or inspiration to do his art.
He wasn't sure if he was a closeted gay or heterosexual survivor of abuse. He definitely felt he had a choice though, he felt he could embrace being a heterosexual though, but then suddenly would recall how many gays had tried to have their orientation "fixed" mostly by Conservative Christians or by a society that only 30 years earlier was still labeling homosexuality a psychological disorder. Yet his thoughts were part of a disorder. What had come first though? Was he gay but had piled layers of self hate upon that and more layers of drugs and allowed peers and society to pile on the mess further with their messaging?
The idea that therapy would help seemed appealing, but the more he wanted the thoughts and urges gone, the stronger they seemed to become. The Shame was a sexual accelerant. He wondered how even pursuing therapy would work because wouldn't the desire to seek it for this reason be part of a desire to eliminate these urges? And hadn't a desire to eliminate them made them stronger?
Over time he found here his answer.
He had to love that part of him. He had to accept that he was able to be attracted to men as well as women despite that desire perhaps being formed from abuse, despite it “not having been meant to be". He had to reject the self hate that accompanied a desire to rid himself of the urges. He would never assume all or even many homosexuals had their orientations formed out of negative experiences. He suspected from people he knew and stories he heard that this might be the case but whether something was created out of the bad doesn't mean it can't become of the good. In other words, just because some homosexuality might could have been avoided if the person hadn't been victimized (and this is likely only a small percentage of cases as most it seems highly likely is something someone is born with) that doesn't mean that the person's homosexuality was thus always destined to be an acting out of an abusive script to use therapeutic jargon. My friend came to believe that he likely was always inclined to be more open towards every role he might play in life. This was an openness nurtured by his choices and value systems that were all about exploring and discovering truth and knowledge about life and the world. But a series of collisions between his developing and unarmored self over time had him create a sexual side to himself that became highly negative and self hating. He discovered that as he developed better relationships with his self, his peers and women his urges to use homosexual fantasy as a way of hurting himself diminished. He began to be a healthy "man" a hard worker, a leader, a survivor and a helper. This all repaired his idea of masculinity in himself and in general and the tormenting kind of sexual desires waned. He still would have fantasies here and there, have a private sexual life, but he no longer hated himself for it and in fact thought it was just something natural about him that sometimes still alarmed him when it emerged but something that overall was harmless and even endearing as it was part of him.
My friend says he needs to thank all those who helped him, looking back over what I wrote, realizing that in an already pretty long piece he didn't have time to mention all the people on his path, past and present, who helped him come to his current place of peace about his sexuality. He definitely didn't do it all himself he wants to emphasize as he reads what we just wrote, a lot of the action occurred internally but a giant world of souls surrounded and informed it all.
A couple days later my friend approached me again. I had told him I would be editing this piece as I could and so he knew he could still add or alter it. We met up and I took out my notebook.
He told me he wasn't sure he wanted this published anymore. He had had nights of fitful sleep, he had gotten easily angered and wanted to fight people who were rude to him at work - which was one way his shame about both being bisexual and having been physically abused seemed to manifest in his life pretty regularly though less frequently as he got better over time - he had had a fantasy sexual episode and when it was over he felt disgusted with himself again.
I asked him if perhaps what we had written hadn't done enough justice to the struggle this was for him, that we tried to package it too neatly too happily as may be an implicit tendency of art, we are restrained by form, by an attempt to make our picture of reality prettier and more symmetrical and the same tendency may even extend to our other attempts to describe reality, when we talk about self, about sexual categories, about anything of significance that we must label using language or logic or categories.
He said yes. He paused for a long while. "You know this isn't fun. If I could go back and not have been molested, not been in so many fights, had different, healthier messages about what being a man is all about, even if I couldn't go that far back if I could have just not fooled around with my one gay friend those few times I did and not had sex with that prostitute I would. Does that mean I hate gayness? That I think it's wrong? No. But it would just be Easier for me in my life now and I have that right to choose going forward I have a right to refuse to ever do bisexual things with another human even if I will forever be bisexual and may forever have fantasies that are . I can't and won't hate that part of me but I can prefer other things. I can work on not hating that part of me while still work on focusing my sexual energy toward my future wife. I feel trapped between two extremes of views here. I feel like the Christians I know would suggest naively that God can just remove these desires and that continuing to have a private fantasy life I am not working on focusing my energy toward sexual union with my future wife that I am sinning. On the other hand I feel the gay people I know will say I am denying who I am by attempting to never act out on those feelings with another person - because even if I were to no longer be with my future wife - I would not pursue sexual activity with another male not only because I don't want to have sex outside of a relationship that will eventually lead to marriage but because even if I were to have casual sex I don't want to have future guilt which I know would have if I ever had sex with a man again. They, my gay friends may say that this is still repressing myself, that the guilt is the problem not the act. I disagree and I feel I have a right to my sexual boundaries."
I respond: "you do have a right to those boundaries and most loving people and most professionals would take that as a given. What is most important is that you are bringing this issue out into the light and I know so many survivors of sexual abuse have had similar addiction and sexual preference issues and they may be helped by you. This piece isn't the end it's the beginning and you’re already healing but with hope this can continue that healing. I won't lie and say it will all be easy, you will get bad responses from some and even if they aren't bad some might disagree and cause you to doubt yourself, but ultimately coming out is the best, the truth is liberating though you will need help and nurturing and support along the way. I believe in you and will help you. "
I reach out to hug my friend and tell him I love him and now I must confess, as some of you might already have suspected, that my friend is me.
He had one short lived relationship in the early months of his recovery from addiction but he had acted just as dysfunctional here as he had in earlier partnerships and the woman was troubled too. It ended and he sought relationships with many more women who either rejected him or only slept with him once. He burned with shame whenever he remembered the homosexual things he had done, but other times was highly aroused by the notion of exploring that side of him again and he began to notice that the more ashamed he felt about the deeds, and the more inadequate he felt concerning being able to keep a woman in his life, the more the thoughts of homosexual acts came. Pornography also fueled it and he noticed the porn with men and women was the only kind that did so. Men with men porn just seemed odd, not gross, but weird, but the same body parts seen in acts with women became highly attractive to him. He resisted his fantasies because they would have involved prostitution or sex with strangers and those activities too closely resembled the addictive world he had just escaped from, but he also began, for the sake of argument so to speak, to imagine what it would be like to have a healthy experience with a man. He had been asked by his gay friend years earlier if he desired to kiss a man. When my friend said no his gay friend said "well you aren't gay."
This same gay friend, however, later said my friend was simply closeted and hadn't been able to come out enough yet to see it. My friend's sponsor, on the other hand, after several months of getting to know him and hearing his struggles with sexuality suggested he might need therapy to resolve the causation of these issues. What complicated things for my friend was that his sponsor was becoming a devout Christian, and though he never pushed this on my friend, there was a subtle implication in his suggestions that homosexuality was pathological.
My friend still wanted women, he knew that. He didn't have trouble performing with them, as he had heard truly gay men who try to live a straight life do and he couldn't see himself in a long term relationship with a man - the idea didn't horrify him it just seemed silly because he wanted to love and touch and share a life with a woman with her hair and soft skin and tough body that could endure childbirth (and tough spirit that was the metaphorical earth of our species it's fertile firmament giving life and often denying it's implantation however fickly or wisely depending).
He began to tell others about his trouble. He had told old friends right before he began recovery and they hadn't rejected him, though some privately were "weirded" out he heard from third parties. He shared at his meetings about it, but didn't give details. He had heard that many other recovering addicts had engaged in same sex relations but that they often did it for money to support intense heroin or crack habits. He hadn't done it for money. He also hadn't just did it because of drugs - it hadn't been just a wild orgy at a party he barely remembered because the urges remained after months of being substance free. So he still felt ashamed. Thoughts of suicide sporadically came. He felt like a fraud whenever he acted in a way that seemed to him as masculine, he felt like people were whispering about him behind his back. It didn't help that years before three out of the four long term girlfriends he had had all called him a "faggot" during fights.
He conflated his sexual struggles with his life struggles. He was working at a job well below his caliber that though it paid enough wasn't what he had gone into debt to go to college for and he still couldn't seem to find the discipline or inspiration to do his art.
He wasn't sure if he was a closeted gay or heterosexual survivor of abuse. He definitely felt he had a choice though, he felt he could embrace being a heterosexual though, but then suddenly would recall how many gays had tried to have their orientation "fixed" mostly by Conservative Christians or by a society that only 30 years earlier was still labeling homosexuality a psychological disorder. Yet his thoughts were part of a disorder. What had come first though? Was he gay but had piled layers of self hate upon that and more layers of drugs and allowed peers and society to pile on the mess further with their messaging?
The idea that therapy would help seemed appealing, but the more he wanted the thoughts and urges gone, the stronger they seemed to become. The Shame was a sexual accelerant. He wondered how even pursuing therapy would work because wouldn't the desire to seek it for this reason be part of a desire to eliminate these urges? And hadn't a desire to eliminate them made them stronger?
Over time he found here his answer.
He had to love that part of him. He had to accept that he was able to be attracted to men as well as women despite that desire perhaps being formed from abuse, despite it “not having been meant to be". He had to reject the self hate that accompanied a desire to rid himself of the urges. He would never assume all or even many homosexuals had their orientations formed out of negative experiences. He suspected from people he knew and stories he heard that this might be the case but whether something was created out of the bad doesn't mean it can't become of the good. In other words, just because some homosexuality might could have been avoided if the person hadn't been victimized (and this is likely only a small percentage of cases as most it seems highly likely is something someone is born with) that doesn't mean that the person's homosexuality was thus always destined to be an acting out of an abusive script to use therapeutic jargon. My friend came to believe that he likely was always inclined to be more open towards every role he might play in life. This was an openness nurtured by his choices and value systems that were all about exploring and discovering truth and knowledge about life and the world. But a series of collisions between his developing and unarmored self over time had him create a sexual side to himself that became highly negative and self hating. He discovered that as he developed better relationships with his self, his peers and women his urges to use homosexual fantasy as a way of hurting himself diminished. He began to be a healthy "man" a hard worker, a leader, a survivor and a helper. This all repaired his idea of masculinity in himself and in general and the tormenting kind of sexual desires waned. He still would have fantasies here and there, have a private sexual life, but he no longer hated himself for it and in fact thought it was just something natural about him that sometimes still alarmed him when it emerged but something that overall was harmless and even endearing as it was part of him.
My friend says he needs to thank all those who helped him, looking back over what I wrote, realizing that in an already pretty long piece he didn't have time to mention all the people on his path, past and present, who helped him come to his current place of peace about his sexuality. He definitely didn't do it all himself he wants to emphasize as he reads what we just wrote, a lot of the action occurred internally but a giant world of souls surrounded and informed it all.
A couple days later my friend approached me again. I had told him I would be editing this piece as I could and so he knew he could still add or alter it. We met up and I took out my notebook.
He told me he wasn't sure he wanted this published anymore. He had had nights of fitful sleep, he had gotten easily angered and wanted to fight people who were rude to him at work - which was one way his shame about both being bisexual and having been physically abused seemed to manifest in his life pretty regularly though less frequently as he got better over time - he had had a fantasy sexual episode and when it was over he felt disgusted with himself again.
I asked him if perhaps what we had written hadn't done enough justice to the struggle this was for him, that we tried to package it too neatly too happily as may be an implicit tendency of art, we are restrained by form, by an attempt to make our picture of reality prettier and more symmetrical and the same tendency may even extend to our other attempts to describe reality, when we talk about self, about sexual categories, about anything of significance that we must label using language or logic or categories.
He said yes. He paused for a long while. "You know this isn't fun. If I could go back and not have been molested, not been in so many fights, had different, healthier messages about what being a man is all about, even if I couldn't go that far back if I could have just not fooled around with my one gay friend those few times I did and not had sex with that prostitute I would. Does that mean I hate gayness? That I think it's wrong? No. But it would just be Easier for me in my life now and I have that right to choose going forward I have a right to refuse to ever do bisexual things with another human even if I will forever be bisexual and may forever have fantasies that are . I can't and won't hate that part of me but I can prefer other things. I can work on not hating that part of me while still work on focusing my sexual energy toward my future wife. I feel trapped between two extremes of views here. I feel like the Christians I know would suggest naively that God can just remove these desires and that continuing to have a private fantasy life I am not working on focusing my energy toward sexual union with my future wife that I am sinning. On the other hand I feel the gay people I know will say I am denying who I am by attempting to never act out on those feelings with another person - because even if I were to no longer be with my future wife - I would not pursue sexual activity with another male not only because I don't want to have sex outside of a relationship that will eventually lead to marriage but because even if I were to have casual sex I don't want to have future guilt which I know would have if I ever had sex with a man again. They, my gay friends may say that this is still repressing myself, that the guilt is the problem not the act. I disagree and I feel I have a right to my sexual boundaries."
I respond: "you do have a right to those boundaries and most loving people and most professionals would take that as a given. What is most important is that you are bringing this issue out into the light and I know so many survivors of sexual abuse have had similar addiction and sexual preference issues and they may be helped by you. This piece isn't the end it's the beginning and you’re already healing but with hope this can continue that healing. I won't lie and say it will all be easy, you will get bad responses from some and even if they aren't bad some might disagree and cause you to doubt yourself, but ultimately coming out is the best, the truth is liberating though you will need help and nurturing and support along the way. I believe in you and will help you. "
I reach out to hug my friend and tell him I love him and now I must confess, as some of you might already have suspected, that my friend is me.
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