Nature vs Nurture

What kind of self-respecting, gay, Mormon blogger waits this long to pontificate about the age-old question:  Why do I like penises despite having one of my own when I am supposed to be drawn to their counterparts?  Wow, that sounded really gay.  Well, if you haven't figured it out by now, I am that kind of gay.

Was I born this way? Maybe.  Did I make a conscious decision to be attracted to men?  Hell No.  Did I experience some things that well-meaning-but-oh-so-presumptuous mental health professionals might point a finger at? Yes.

I did some pretty "gay" extra-curricular activities growing up (not always of my own choosing), so that's probably why I am gay, right? :)

• I was in a singing group called Kids Konnection, or something like that, at a young age.  The girls wore pink and the boys wore purple tie-died shirts with sparkly letters and I think there was a show choir aspect to it.  If that's not enough to make someone gay I don't know what is!  I sang a lot growing up and still love to sing to the radio.
• I was fascinated by the piano, ended up taking lessons, really hated my first teacher (who made me cry on multiple occasions), eventually got a new teacher, did not practice very much, but continued to take lessons for years, and would love to compose my own music some day.
• I played the gayest "real sport" that you can play in America: soccer.  I started at a pretty young age and my mom did not want me playing other sports.

I was involved in some early male-male sexualization.  I was 6 or 7 at the time when a neighbor boy (probably only a year or two older than me) introduced me to my genitals in new ways:

• He taught me and a couple other boys how to stimulate ourselves and measure our erections.  He created a sort of competition:  You guessed it - who has the longest penis?
• He later taught us to put our dangling participles in each others mouths as a way to derive pleasure.  We were not sexually mature but I remember the practice creating an urgency to urinate.
• This all happened in our backyard, behind an old wooden gate that had been leaned against the block fence that surrounded our yard.  I know that at least two of the other boys involved have since had some uncommon sexual manifestations: one seeking early heterosexual encounters and one with homosexual orientation.

I reached puberty pretty early, and was fascinated by the male body from then on.

• There was a guy in 6th grade that I really wanted to be close to.  We talked and were friendly and joked together from time to time.  But there was something different about him, something I wanted to have or to be.  He was athletic, handsome, and funny.
• I am not sure how old I was when it started, but I remember keeping the cardboard inserts of the boy models from the new packages of underwear I got periodically.  I must have had some sense that this was not normal because I would hide them at the bottom of my drawer.  I really liked those perfect bodies - I wanted mine to look like that and I wanted to be close to boys like that.
• In junior high school there was a guy in my gym class who had the most chiseled body I had ever seen.  Our lockers were at opposite corners of the aisle that was assigned to our class, but at least once per class I would try to catch a glimpse of his perfect body.  I envied it, wanted to touch it, I wished it was closer so I could get a better look.
• My parents had a very rudimentary home medical book.  It had the most simplistic outline sketch of a male body that was so scandalously interesting to me that I would often take a peak telling myself that I was researching some symptoms that I had.

My family relations were not ideal.  Don't get me wrong.  I definitely had the things that I needed and for the most part we seemed like a functional family, but we were all affected in ways that have only become recognizable in recent years.

• I had an overbearing mother (she definitely wore the pants in the family).  I am torn, looking back, as to whether I was emotionally close to her or not.  She had a temper.  She only seemed to point out the things we did wrong.  She also did a lot for me and cared for me and my siblings, but we all grew up in an atmosphere of guilt.  It seemed there was nothing I could do right and having fun was a necessary evil.  Somehow every day was cleaning day, yet the house was never clean and we were consequently rarely allowed to play.  When we did go on vacation or enjoy other types of entertainment we were constantly reminded about how expensive everything was, how late we were to the planned event, how we should be home saving our money, etc, etc, etc.  I love her, but she is a very difficult woman.  She definitely got her worst traits from her mother and is almost completely blind to how these traits affect others.
• My dad was/is not a weak man, but I gather that he just kind of gave up after a few years of marriage.  My mom is great at manipulating everything in to be his fault.  He has told me in recent years that he regrets not standing up for us when my mom was being unreasonably harsh for very minor offenses.  He says that the following example illustrates a frequent theme in our home:  He was working out of town, I had loaded the dishwasher and included the can opener, my mom was irate that I had put it in there because doing so would cause it to rust, I called my dad sobbing, he tried to get the Relief Society President to just stop by, she did not understand what for and did not end up going, and life went on like always.  I would always say I felt closer to my dad because I was not afraid of being yelled at by him.  But I am not especially close to him either.  I feel this complete emotional neutrality when it comes to my relationship with him.  I found out that when I was like four I always wanted to hold his hand and do what he was doing, but he would push my hand away because he did not want me to grow up to be gay. . . go figure!  I have no conscious memory of this but the thought of it makes me ache inside.

I was going to write more but my mind is turning to mush.  I guess I did not do much analyzing.  But these are the types of things that shrinks like to find out about.  There are probably more that I am forgetting.  If I was not born this way it certainly developed at an early age.  I have no recollection of being attracted to a female, despite having many female friends.  In fact, as a boy scout I remember helping with a service project to clean up trash that had blown away from the local garbage dump.  I found a page from a porno magazine and it totally grossed me out.  I can recognize a beautiful woman, but that is a far cry from being attracted to her.

. . . until I met HER

• I did not know that my actions could cause another person so much pain . . . until I met her.
• I did not know that kissing someone of the less-preferred gender could be enjoyable . . .
• I did not know how much fun cuddling is . . .
• I did not know that someone could be so concerned about my well-being . . .
• I did not know how really trying circumstances can bring two people so much closer . . .
• I did not know that someone could be so faithful to me . . .
• I did not know how vulnerable having sex for the first time can make you feel . . .
• I did not know how much time needs to be invested in a marriage relationship . . .
• I did not know that I am not nearly as chivalrous or selfless toward my spouse as I always imagined I would be . . .
• I did not know that I could be so torn between loving someone I have made covenants with and doing something that would destroy life as I currently know it . . .

Yes, I am talking about my wife.  I have largely gotten over the self-loathing that I previously associated with my attractions toward other males.  I am okay with it.  I have come to appreciate the fact that I see beauty in other males.  On many levels I am okay with the realization that I will probably always find males attractive.  But there is one motivating factor that makes me wish it would all go away - not for my sake, but for my wife's.

I know that she is very often weighed down by feelings of being unattractive, unwanted, or ugly when that is simply not the case.  She is a beautiful woman, inside and out.  Her already-fragile self esteem has been battered and trampled by my unfortunate blunders and her inner mind of self doubt.  I try to tell her that she is beautiful, but it is never enough.  I try to comment on her good qualities, but it is never enough.  I try to love her the way a straight man would but it is never enough.

I have not decided to give up on our marriage, but I often wonder if that would be better for her.  She says that if we were to get a divorce she would never be able to love or trust another man again.  She says that she would never be able to date or marry again.  But doesn't she deserve someone better than me?  Doesn't she deserve to be loved in every way for the beautiful woman that she is?

I love her so much and I really wish that I could love her in every sense as a man is supposed to love a woman.  I wish I wasn't broken and that she did not have to be broken down along with me.

. . . until I met HIM

• I never knew what it was like to want to kiss someone . . . until I met HIM.
• I never knew what it was like to want to spend every second with one person . . .
• I never knew how fascinated I could be by someone's simple features like fingers and toes . . .
• I never knew that a tight embrace could produce such a rush of endorphins . . .
• I never knew how disappointed I could be about an expected phone call that did not come . . .
• I never had such an urge to go out and find a scalped ticket to a college football game just so he could help me learn a little more about the game . . .
• I never felt so much pain from unrequited affection . . .
• I never knew that the hole inside that I did not know existed could be filled . . .
• I never understood what being in love meant . . .
• I never knew how much joy a simple text message (regardless of its actual content) could bring me . . .

I briefly mentioned HIM in a previous post.  In this blog he will be know as Greg.  I was once asked by a friend (this was after I had been married many months), "If you could do anything in the world with Greg right now what would it be."  I later got the sense that he was expecting me to say "have sex with him" or something similar.  But my response was that I simply wanted to be near him . . . doing anything . . . I just wanted to know once again that I was worthy of his time and attention.  And that was the honest truth.  I just wanted to know that a male that I cared about more than any other person in the world cared about me.

SAPPY . . . I know!  I plan on posting a lot more about Greg in coming weeks, but let me give a brief overview:  I met Greg in college.  He was my roommate for about two years.  I do not think he is gay, but part of me holds on to this fantasy that he might be.  I never had any sort of sexual encounter with him, but we did have a very close friendship.  Had I not met him when I did it very well could have been another decade or two before I would have realized why things with girls just never seemed to click.  Maybe I am judging incorrectly, but it seems like a lot of MoHos whose blogs I have read are very shallow when it comes to the looks of object of their affection.  Greg is in no way ugly.  He is actually very attractive, but it was not his looks that brought me in hook, line, and sinker, but his irresistible, fun personality.  He is the only man I have ever truly fallen in love with and I still cannot get over him despite his very direct distancing of himself from me.  I am a hopeless wreck.

Why Do You Hate Women?

Yes, I am talking to you, you male-loving, chauvinist, homosexual man.  Why do you hate women?

This is a question my wife asked me during one of our many heated exchanges about my attractions towards members of the male gender.  Before I go any further, let me say that I love my wife.  She really is the best woman I have ever met.  This situation is probably at least as difficult for her as it is for me and probably much more so in some ways.  We had discussed, prior to getting married, that I had such attractions.  I told her about the therapy I had been through and how I was working through my "issues."  I directed her to the Evergreen website to help her process my initial confession (partially because I believed at the time that it was a good source of accurate information and partially because I could not handle all of the questions that I knew would ensue).  More on this in later posts . . . but to make a long story short, neither of us could have guessed what this would entail for us in the days, weeks, and months following our wedding.

Do I hate women?  I don't think so . . . most of my friends growing up were female . . . big shocker, right?  There were lots of girls that wanted to date me.  I don't mean to toot my own horn, but I was generally pretty popular among the lady folk both at school and at church.  Maybe I just "hate" motherly figures?

Let me clarify:  I do NOT hate my mother.  But throughout most of high school and ever since then I have not exactly seen eye to eye with her.  I really dislike getting advice from her.  This is likely due to the fact that most of her advice is unsolicited, blatantly obvious, sounds an awful lot like nagging, and generally misses the point altogether because she is so eager to give advice that she does not even listen to what is being said before climbing aboard her oversized soapbox.  WHEW!  That's been building up a while!  In her defense, I think it's genetic.  I think she inherited the worthless advice gene from her mother and I have likely inherited it too.  My poor children . . . (that is, if my seed ever does sprout - no attempts just yet).

Also, I really DO NOT see eye to eye with my mother-in-law. . . likely MUCH more about that to follow in future posts.  She also likes to give advice.  It usually comes by way of her daughter (my wife), but boy do I hear about it!

What is wrong with me?  Aren't gay guys supposed to have especially close relationships with their mothers?  My siblings often teased me about being her favorite (although that has definitely changed since coming out to my parents), but I do not think that I was ever so close to her that she squeezed my love for women right out of me (is that how the close-mom-relationship=gay-son argument goes?).

In summary, I do not like being told what to do (but I am oh so humble about it :) and it seems like it is the women in my life that like to tell me what to do.  BUT, I also don't like making decisions.  Go figure!  What's a guy to do?  In conclusion, if telling other people what to do is the essence of being a woman then I am guilty as charged!  But I know there is much more to being a woman and many men also like to tell people what to do.  I am grateful for good women in my life.  I do not hate them.  I just happen to have a broken sexual-attraction-for-females gear.  Wow!  I did not anticipate this post going this way.  Hope in makes sense should anyone actually read my ramblings!