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St. Seraphim of Sarov
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My Conversion Through Orthodoxy
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| The icon I bought in 1992. |
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| ...in 1999. “This world deceives even the wise with its appearance, for at times it appears desirable. It even offers benefits and treasures for loan, but in the day of death it will take them back and give in return torment incomparably greater than our sins. for a short while will it let us sin, but as a reward it will give us eternal darkness. Righteous art Thou, O Lord, and righteous is thy judgement that condemns the world and those who love it! therefore do I pray Thee that thy right hand which pulled Simon out of the sea might also pull me out of the waves and the tumult of this world that rise up against me. I have become mired in filth; the waters of the world are drowning me, they do not let me break loose to catch my breath. May Thy Cross, O Lord, be my staff and my support on the path along which I walk.” ~ A Spiritual Psalter from the works of our Holy Father Ephraim the Syrian In a sense, my conversion occurred through the lens of Orthodoxy – especially via a now controversial section of “The Catechism of the Catholic Church.” Of Orthodoxy, Blessed Fr. Seraphim Rose wrote: “… [it] does not follow the philosophy of the age, because it has its own philosophy based on revelation…Our philosophy is not of this world, and it is the answer to the vain speculations of modern man!” For this very reason, critics of the Catholic Church, including many from within, have loudly, and repeatedly, said: “It’s time we dropped the unhelpful, judgmental language of intrinsic and objective disorder when respectfully trying to determine appropriate laws and policies for all people who want to support and nurture each other and their children.” Then, neo-gay Catholics, who you think would take a different stance, have argued: “The Church has to be clear with respect to ‘what is the nature of homosexuality itself,’ but can’t make a pronouncement on whether it is a mental disorder, for example.”* This reluctance to comprehend, accept, or fully acknowledge this teaching reveals a deeper problem; again, from Fr. Seraphim: “Once you accept the revelation [of the Gospel], then of course you are much more responsible than anyone else. A person who accepts the revelation of God come in the flesh and then does not live according to it – he is much worse off than any pagan priest or the like.” And, this stubbornness has everything to do with the Truth; and, I understand that especially for the young – the spiritual journey can be an arduous and fraught-filled experience, only - Fr. Seraphim wrote in his book “God’s Revelation to the Human Heart” that: “…a person must be in the religious search not for the sake of religious experiences, which can deceive, but for the sake of Truth.” Now, for whatever reason, whether it’s political, social, or intensely personal – those who deny, speak against, or even equivocate the Truth are attempting to recreate the Church (God) in their own image. I get that mentality too. For some inexplicable reason, when I was in the very depths of the gay lifestyle and pornography – I bought an ancient Russian icon of Our Lady and the Christ Child; at the time, (around 1992) I was studying Medieval Art and strangely found icons fascinating – in an archaic sort of way. I kept it with me for many years, when I switched boyfriends on an almost weekly basis – I continued to drag it from place to place; when my life got really dark – I threw a bunch of things into a box: stuff I considered no longer important, and left it behind at my parent’s house. Only, I guess it was still important. When I thoroughly crashed and burned, I pulled it out of exile. It was a still incomprehensible image – yet it spoke to me; now, I could listen and understand. Before, I had done exactly what Fr. Seraphim had warned against: what he referred to as “chiliasm:” a warping of religion to suit the modern age in order to eventually bring about ultimate human contentment on Earth; in my own little word – I discovered my “Personal Jesus:” eventually, he turned into me, as, like Shirley MacLaine, I discovered that “I am God.” At that heady point – nothing was off limits, and I allied myself with other gods– specifically the devil. Then, I began to reform creation into my image – in 1999, the year of my conversion, through pornography - I pictured myself as a new icon. This penchant for over self-aggrandizement has been fully realized in the contemporary obsession with the selfie – hence the international celebrity of reality-star Kim Kardashian whose sole claim to fame firmly rests within an unshakable belief in her own greatness. This sort of cult around the me-god is expected in the purely material world – but sadly it has made major inroads in the spiritual; for instance, the young Catholic man who says: “…[the Church] can’t make a pronouncement.” When we start saying what the Church can and “can’t” do – we have inserted ourselves far too thoroughly into the equation. Therefore, we are making ourselves into a god. * From “The Compendium of the Traditional Catechism of the Catholic Church: Approved by His Excellency Bishop Fernando Areas Rifan from Campos Brazil:” “It is highly unlikely that homosexuality is acquired in an hereditary or genetic way. Homosexuality is likely a psychological disorder that very well might be accentuated with external influence and environmental factors…” The Catechism itself states: “Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained.” Make a special note: “psychological genesis.” |
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The Gay Question: A Problem with Fathers
One of the more compelling arguments made in favor of the faulty father-son relationship as a cause for homosexuality was made by famed gay novelist Andrew Holleran in his Forward to the book “The Man I Might Become: Gay Men Write About Their Fathers:”
“Many men, straight and gay, wish they’d been closer to their fathers. To this day when I see in public a man and his son talking, or holding hands as they walk down the street, I linger on the sight. Once, in a restaurant, I watched a boy sit down in the next booth with his father and a group of friends. Tired from an afternoon of fishing, the boy proceeded to rest his head against his father’s shoulder, and then the father rested his head on top of his son’s, so that the two of them were folded like chimpanzees that had just groomed each other. I could scarcely contain myself. The image of this father and son expressing their affection, their trust, their intimacy, in so unself-conscious a way, it was astounding to me – it seemed so what I was never able to do with my own.”
Holleran’s first novel “Dancer from the Dance” (1978) is now considered a classic in gay literature. Often dark, and not as celebratory of the gay lifestyle as would be expected by a homosexual author, Holleran’s books often deal with the isolation and desperation inherent in the lifestyle; and, like his near contemporary Randy Shilts, he is not an ideologue; in fact, what Holleran said in a 1996 interview, concerning the often shifting and transitory alliances within gay relationships –speaks directly to the major revision that took place in gay intellectual circles: away from a few lone voices who wanted to earnestly explore the often obvious dysfunction in modern homosexuality, especially after the horror of the AIDS epidemic, to a fascist dictatorship of marriage equality promotion that mercilessly put forward a single-voiced talking-point which ignored honest critiques, even within the ranks, from those who sometimes found the lifestyle wanting; Holleran commented: “…there's a large middle group with gay men sincerely looking for another person or mate. It works once or twice for a while and then doesn't work any longer and they end up aging with friends in the hope they fall in love again. Then there's a small fraction of gay men who seem to be serially monogamous who will probably always have a lover, but that group is far outnumbered by the second group. Two male egos together are very tough. Men are just not raised to cowtow to other men.”
What Holleran may be inadvertently describing is a repeated truism in gay culture; one that I found over and over again: a desire for camaraderie and love, with its roots in childhood and a still unsatisfied hunger for the father, in homosexuality – this becomes perverted into the purely sexual; thus starts a quest for a sustained sort of father-son bonding through sex that never seems to fully or lastingly materialize; everything becomes the substitute for the other, with the replacement never actually filling in the missing gaps; as Holleran points out – this inability to solve this dilemma solidly resides with the incompatibility of two men – resulting in the clash of too much testosterone and not any balance afforded by the feminine; well-known lesbian iconoclastic author Camille Paglia got it right: “Male sexuality is inherently manic-depressive. Estrogen tranquilizes, but androgen agitates.” In the heterosexual, a run-away male libertine, for instance Hugh Hefner, results in a manic playboy – switching partners in an ever more frantic desire to experience all possible sensual pleasures. While some men find this the ideal fantasy, Hefner once bragged: to being “involved with maybe eleven out of twelve months worth of Playmates” during some of these years; women, from Barbi Benton to Holly Madison across-the-board found it lacking and tiresome and rather quickly moved on to more stability. In the gay world, you find this phenomenon, because of the total absence of women, has gone berserk. When you combine that element with the fact that many gay men are pathologically looking for a father figure in their next lover – hence, the sexual drive becomes not only a physiological need, but a fundamental psychological one, the conditions are tragically primed for self-destruction. In my own life, I saw this habitually, with myself and friends who longed for masculine perfection in others, but were solely unable to attain anything near it on our own. They were always looking, and continually coming up short. It was heartbreaking to watch, and awful to be a part of. In my era, the young ones oftentimes died still searching for “daddy;” the lucky and the older, as Holleran pointed out, eventually semi-checked out and hoped for healing on the edges of gay life. Yet, there is always an emptiness left behind in the heart; something unresolved: Larry Kramer, the Gloria Steinem meets Ayatollah Khomeini of gay liberation, probably described the enduring hell, even in the purported safety and optimism of so-called monogamous relationships, of the broken-boy syndrome at its most hopeless, ugly and visceral form; from his book “Faggots” – “…every faggot couple I know is deep into friendship and deep into f**king with everyone else but each other and any minute any bump appears in their commitment to infinitesimally obstruct their view, out they zip like petulant kids to suck someone else’s lollipop…why do faggots have to f**k so f**king much?!...it’s as if we have nothing else to do…all we do it live in our Ghetto and dance and drug and f**k.”
Even Richard Isay, a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst and gay-rights advocate, whom “The New York Times” gave this headline to his obituary: “Dr. Richard Isay, Who Fought Illness Tag for Gays,” had to admit that “The majority of gay men, unlike heterosexual men who come for treatment, report that their fathers were distant during their childhood and that they lacked any attachment to them. Reports vary from ‘my father was never around, he was too busy with his job,’ to ‘he was victimized by my mother, who was always the boss in the family,’ to that of the abusive, unapproachable father.”*
*Taken from “Being Homosexual: Gay Men and Their Development.”
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Lesson #1: Porn Addicts, at night, stay off the computer!
“An analysis of Google data, conducted by the New York Times, shows that ‘porn’ is most commonly searched for between the hours of midnight and 2am - with a sudden, sharp increase from 8pm.”
The devil is the “prince of darkness;” Our Lord Jesus Christ was falsely arrested and taken away under the shroud of darkness; and the Apostle Paul said (Ephesians 6:12): “Our wrestling…is against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness.”
Not surprising, at night, most men will fall into the temptation of pornography and masturbation: the household is asleep, one is alone, and seemingly protected from discovery. As I also discovered in the gay lifestyle, the most perverse debaucheries were almost always scheduled to take place well into the evening: the darkness seemed to offer some measure of anonymity; you felt freer in your comings and goings – away from judgmental eyes; also, at the end of the day – you could sense a certain amount of charging-up: of feeling primed and ready; also, there was this rather contradictory and uncontrollable desire for peace – that an explosive sexual experience would finally create the ultimate narcotic. What normally happens in men is a temporary, but powerful, high – followed by an immediate and crushing low. The night promises much, but never delivers. Yet, the Lord can turn darkness into Light, and, if we are humbled, He will pull us away from the hopelessness of confusion – with the isolation and suffering of the night serving as the highest purgation: “…God takes you by the hand and guides you in darkness, as though you were blind, along a way and to a place you know not. You would never have succeeded in reaching this place no matter how good your eyes or your feet.”* Subsequently, in the hell of pornography and homosexuality, the Lord discovered my near lifeless body as I desperately tried to reorient myself in the darkness, only – things had gotten so bleak, that I never could have done it alone. Suddenly, He turned the most frightful day of my life into the most joyful.
Some tips for staying porn free at night:
-turn off the computer at an early hour – perhaps before dinner; then, leave it off.
-instead of watching television before bedtime – read a book; preferably something of a spiritual nature.
-schedule special prayers in the evening: the Rosary, the Prayer of St. Michael; the Ancient Prayer of St. Joseph.
-got to bed at a set time.
-right before sleep, perform an examination of conscious: thank the Lord for all you did right during the day; ask for forgiveness for the things you did wrong; and pray for a better day tomorrow.
*Taken from “The Dark Night” by St. John of the Cross.
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CDC Blows Apart Myth of Gay Male Health and Happiness
“We’re…seeing what we are calling pretty much an epidemic of syphilis among [MSM] men who have sex with men – that really started in the early – 2000, 2002, but we’ve seen a dramatic increase since 2008,” Dr. Gail Bolan, director of CDC’s Division of STD Prevention, said at a briefing by the National Coalition of STD Directors (NCSD). Bolan also spoke about the increasing threat of gonorrhea: in 2013, the CDC released the report, “Antibiotic Resistance Threats in the United States;” “We’re very concerned about the threat of untreatable gonorrhea,” Bolan said. “Gonorrhea has been determined by the threat report at CDC to be one of the top three urgent threats in this country. We are down to the last antibiotic – class of antibiotic -- available to treat this organism and this organism has traditionally outsmarted us with every drug we’ve put at it,” Bolan continued.
Bolan additionally said there is a rise in the spread of Shigella, a diarrhea that can be caused by “exposure to feces through sexual contact.” Both the CDC and its European counterpart have reported the spread of Shigella among MSM.*
*In 2013, the CDC declared antibiotic-resistant Shigella an urgent threat in the United States. Resistance to traditional first-line antibiotics like ampicillin and trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole is common among Shigella globally, and resistance to some other important antibiotics is increasing…—the two antibiotics most commonly used to treat shigellosis—have been reported recently within the United States and other industrialized countries. About 27,000 Shigella infections in the United States every year are resistant to one or both of these antibiotics. When pathogens are resistant to common antibiotic medications, patients may need to be treated with medications that may be less effective, but more toxic and expensive.
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Surviving the AIDS Massacre and a Warning to Catholics Who Somehow Find Good in Gay
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Illustration by Gustave Doré for Canto XXVIII from Dante’s “Divine Comedy.” |
Prologue: When I got to San Francisco in 1988, I expected an endless funeral procession to be moving down Castro Street – there wasn’t. Instead, I saw hundreds of boys, just like me: rather wide-eyed, somewhat stupid, and still too new on the scene to as of yet been touched by AIDS. I was scared, but I believed that I belonged in this place. Like all the other new guys, I suffered to get there – and I was taking a chance. For things had radically changed since we were kids: in the 1970s, for the first time – gay men proudly stepped out of the closet; in the world of pop-culture, homosexuality was no longer “queer;” The Village People, Studio 54, and “Three’s Company” reimagined gay men as masculine, fashionable, and even benignly humorous. Then, unexpectedly, everything shifted: with the advent of AIDS, it suddenly wasn’t okay to be gay; as gay men carried a deadly virus within their bodies; afterwards, no wanted to shake our hands.
Because of that – I wondered if there would be anyone left in the Castro when I arrived, but, the compulsion was strong within us all – that we were willing to gamble everything, even our lives. Yet, everyone that showed up, one summer after another, always landed with a sense of invulnerability that recklessly accompanies the vigor and foolishness of youth. Slowly, we changed - as our expectations hit the reality of what we sold our souls for; we wanted love from another man, but soon realized that receiving it always required sex in exchange; some didn’t make it beyond a few years; somehow – I survived. For ten years, I repeatedly put a gun to my head, always knowing that the chamber held a bullet with my name on it; I constantly sensed death, but soon grew comfortable with its inescapable presence. Again, the world tilted slightly on its axis, and Madonna made bisexuality cool in the 90s; science came to the rescue and afterwards HIV was no longer an immediate death sentence; by 1999, many gave up the pretense and they were partying as if it were 1979; by then, I had seen too much death – I gave up and was ready to join those I once loved and lost too soon.
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In 1993, as I briefly chatted with Michael Douglas on the location set of “Basic Instinct” in San Francisco, I thought I was close to the height of sophistication and glamour. Then, as a would-be gay porn star, I couldn’t have imagined myself in my 40s; the guys I sometimes dated were in their 40s: they were older “daddies,” good for treating me to a night on the town, or for a brief feeling of security and protection that time after time came and went as quickly as the sex act. Now, at age 46, I have become a bit of a curmudgeon: I rarely go out at night, I have a very small circle of friends, attending Church is the highlight of my week, I always have a rosary in my pocket, and about the only thing I regularly watch on television are reruns of “Little House on the Prairie” and “The Waltons.”
My sordid past, well – its Confessed and Forgiven; the memories of my dysfunctional childhood – I have dealt with those, and Christ healed them; I understand that so much pain built up inside me, that eventually it had nowhere to go – so I tried to push it down before everything came spilling out; by the time I was 18, I tried to forget and figured that the whole thing would make sense when I finally admitted that I was gay – it didn’t. Now, those motives and blind walking about with hands in front of me that found a naive kid stumbling into the gay capital of world have been revealed and resolved. My attractions to men have become minimal. I struggle less. Nevertheless, I am haunted. Not by any residual reverberations of something I did – I am haunted by the dead. Yet, these are not literal specters, but the unshakable impressions that long departed friends left upon me. Sometimes, I will hear a song that we both liked, or I will unintentionally drive by the place we met, or I’ll inadvertently come across on old photograph of us together – hating them all for leaving me, without thinking, I tear it up and throw the pieces in the trash; only, five minutes later, I am dumping everything out of the waste paper basket onto the floor and haplessly trying to find every last fragment. At these moments – I can’t stop crying.
Amid the tears, I can’t understand why I am acting like this; after all, I am no longer gay, those emotions brought on by the broken boy I once had inside me somewhat revolt in hindsight rather than bring forth any feelings of nostalgia; in addition, the sex and romance we shared now seems desperate and one-dimensional. Except I can’t forget your face, or that day I couldn’t wait to get out of class so I could be with you, and, then, how you smiled when you opened the door and saw it was me. I am 24 years old and you are 26 – Next, I hear that you died. At the near pinnacle of the AIDS crisis, I’ve grown cold: I feel sorry for a moment and move on. Over the next few years, the bodies start to pile up. I get older and realize that I am quickly destined for loneliness. Increasingly, everything and everyone I come across appears and disappears. I have sex with men, and I don’t know their first name. There’s a growing emptiness within me, and I want someone to fill it: I take a man inside me, never wanting him to pull out. For a few moments, I am fulfilled; minutes later, I am alone again – bloodied and bruised. Suddenly, everything is worse than before; but, I don’t know anything else. What the hell am I doing? It wasn’t supposed to be like this. After all, we were the young and courageous ones, hatred and torment drove all of us to San Francisco; together – we would create a new world, and, finally, the happiness we deserved and so long agonized for would be ours forever. Our gay new world never turned out the way we thought it would; instead, the dream was immediately replaced by a graveyard; and I had to accept the massacre of my friends, some who were innocent, others wholly wicked, as a new form of gay martyrdom – at the time, I could just barely do that; now, it’s an impossibility.
At the beginning, not long after arriving in San Francisco: I dated an incredibly handsome, but thoroughly shell-shocked Vietnam veteran; at first I was fascinated by his endless stories of the War, of his platoon, and the buddies he lost; in his house, proudly displayed almost everywhere: were photographs of soldiers, portraits of young men in their uniforms, and informal snapshots of shirtless guys in dirty fox-holes or next to a tin bunker. Initially, I was attracted to him because he was manly in a completely unforced sort of way – a rare occurrence in the world of gay masculinity that was always posed and caricatured. However, as with the rest of us – there was an inescapable and palpable countenance of extreme sadness about him. It was everywhere: soon, I realized that he couldn’t stop talking about it, twenty years later, he was still trying to make sense of it; and, being young and preoccupied with more important things like what Madonna was doing, I got bored. He also got angrier. Oftentimes at the government, at politicians, at the world – usually involving something not related to his continuing preoccupation with the military and war. He never acted like a victim, but he had suffered under cruel conditions where fate and history placed him in the worst possible circumstances. I can only compare him to one of William Styron’s “butchered and betrayed:” “…who were but a few of the beaten and butchered and betrayed and martyred children of the earth.” Up till then, I had been relatively untouched by the AIDS deaths happening everywhere around me – that would all end with the crucial year of 1994 when four friends (including him) would quickly vanish.
One of my dearest and most troubled recollections are those that have persisted due to a friendship with an extremely lovable guy that I met in 1989; less than a year after coming to San Francisco. At first, I though this incredibly outgoing and completely fearless man from the South was nothing but a gay hick, except I quickly grasped that his own personal quest for satisfaction did not get in the way of a truly giving heart; for we all arrived at the same point of gay –self-realization with a mental list of expectations: after years of denial, we would fully express who we are; that we would no longer fear that gay sexual side of ourselves – finally throwing off the religious tendency to perceive those feelings as dirty; and, in the process, to hopefully find love. Without exception, what we found was that – you inevitably got stuck in the first two. And, for the time being, my new found friend and I were thoroughly enjoying that ability to freely and openly revel in what we thought we were – and what we thought we needed. Interestingly, most entered the scene with an initial mighty thrust, and I was very much in this group, trying to taste and see everything in a few years – inevitably leaving you disappointed and bitter. As far I could fathom: he never did that.
Having been in San Francisco for a while longer than I, my Southern friend felt it necessary to serve as my benefactor; although I was already highly sexually experienced, he must have seen a slight and fading naiveté in me that caused him some concern; subsequently, he served as my Virgil while deliberately guiding me downwards into deeper levels of homosexual experience. Willing to experiment, but cautious – we spent numerous evenings endlessly discussing the intricacies of condom use and the benefits and drawbacks of various spermicidal jellies and lubricants. Although we had much in common, our backgrounds could not have been more different: he was self-admittedly red-neck, Dixie-land Baptist, and blue-color, while I was Italian Catholic and Nouveau riche. Despite that, we often talked about growing up alienated: with him in the Deep South and me in the more liberal bastion of the Bay Area; he vividly remembered high school terrorists who ridiculed daily his slight-wispiness and femininely pink-skinned complexion made worse by a shock of red hair; his father thought him a rather hopeless misfit when compared with a beefier sporty brother. Part of his story, I got – part I didn’t: I too was an insecure kid, but only underwent intermittent verbal harassment that never had violent connotations; this left us both wanting for a masculinity that subconsciously we sought for ourselves, but could only fleetingly grasp through others who seemed to have already attained it. We knew what we wanted and proudly thought we understood the dangers. He saw men die of AIDS – and was committed not to join them. Abruptly, we stopped hanging around each other so much after he met someone. One day I saw him again: we talked – he was HIV+. Things didn’t last with the so-called man of his dreams; as a kind of recovery and recompense through sex, he spent a few months getting wasted every weekend and going semi-inebriated to the clubs. One morning he woke up covered in dried semen.
Over the next few years, I watched as he slowly threw what was left of his life away: feeling destined to an early death, he became involved with a group of positive men who regularly formed a sort of bareback sex cult; this early phenomena would later lead directly to the condomless craze in gay porn films, beginning in 1999 – the year I left; and the practice of serosorting whereby positive gay men have unprotected sex with other positive men of a similar viral load; recently, this strategy has proved an abysmal failure with epidemic rates if hepatitis, drug-resistant gonorrhea, and the return of syphilis popping up specifically in HIV+ men. From a distance, I noticed his already slim frame getting even bonier. More startling though was his overall change in personality: what I loved about him was his fun-loving-nature and incomprehensible ability to see the good in nearly everything and everyone. Frequently I thought this annoying, but his cheerfulness often eased my fears. One day, that person was gone: first, he started wearing a large bull nose ring through a freshly pierced hole in his nasal septum; he shaved his head down to the skin; and I stopped seeing him at the dance clubs; instead, a mutual friend told me he was usually at one of the bathhouses or leather bars. Even though my own life was rapidly descending into a string of meaningless anonymous sexual encounters – at least I presumed, albeit falsely, that I was in a controlled descent – while he seemed to be crashing out of control. The last I time I saw him was in 1993 at the notorious Folsom Street Fair: he was practically naked and wearing a dog collar; a masked man held the leash and led him about. I couldn’t look anymore; almost exactly 5 years later, I would be doing much the same thing. He died the following year.
Deep inside, I think I always knew it wasn’t working, but I couldn’t leave. For me, the Castro became Jonestown. Fear replaced hope, and the promise of utopia turned into a living hell. When help arrived, and the fleeting chance to escape – only a handful of us left; the majority chose to remain behind and die. I was one of those. After they threw my body on the overloaded pyre, like the story of survival recounted by the reportedly alive Grand Duchess Anastasia, someone noticed that I moved and dragged my lifeless body away. Slowly, the physical injuries began to mend; the psychological ones: they took much longer. Afterwards, I try to make sense of it all. Did any of it have meaning? Where are my friends? And, why did they have to die?
Over twenty years later, I am becoming more like my long dead PTSD friend: haunted by memories that stick, unable to make sense out of senseless death, getting angry – especially at those I perceive as capitulators and collaborators. What transpired in those twenty-odd years? AIDS happened; for a while, it was like acting in a bad horror film, only everything was real: almost overnight, beautiful young men started to decompose while still alive. To this day, I have not been able to fully comprehend what happened. For instance, I will never forget visiting a friend dying of AIDS. I kept putting it off, I couldn’t face him; I couldn’t face death, or that, somehow, gay had gone wrong. A mutual friend finally got annoyed with me and said bluntly: “He doesn’t have long to live.” I walked into his apartment and the place smelled like the used dirty adult diapers his care-giver hadn’t taken out to the trash yet; he sat in a wheelchair, cheeks sunk in and unbelievably thin; a lot of that gorgeous blonde hair was gone; I couldn’t believe it; for he had been the solar system’s most radiant beautiful boy: lightly and eternally tanned, blue eyes that made the bright summer sky look cloudy, and a body that Michelangelo would have set in the most massive piece of marble he could find. Amidst his stunning physical magnificence, he never became conceited. That day I walked in, he looked at me and smiled as if a heavenly angel condescended to visit him. He stared at me with these big bulging eyes – and I couldn’t get past it. Where was the Adonis? Looking back, I was probably curt and distracted. I had no solace to give and I said good-bye. That was it.
Standing and doing absolutely nothing as so many died in front of me has left a good amount of guilt; but, it also is what motivates my almost every waking breath. I want their deaths to mean something; I want them to mean something to me; in a sense, my continued sanity depends on it. Author Randy Shilts once wrote:
“I don't think that civil liberties are the most important thing. The gay political leadership is misguiding us by always talking about civil liberties. The most important thing for most gay men...is going to be just keeping sane in the face of all this suffering, because what I do know is going to happen is that we are going to be facing an incredible amount of untimely death...We need to begin gearing ourselves for it psychologically as human beings.”
That never happened. Many just treaded water and waited for the blood wave to pass over their heads; some got lucky and lasted long enough for science to invent new ways to keep us alive; some, especially the older ones, took shelter in little conclaves and attempted to pair up out of necessity – these are the ones who would later demand gay marriage. Except for a few who loved and lost – the dead are almost forgotten.
Today, I grapple with the larger meaning of it all; and, as a result: I am often sad. My memories often center upon how swiftly I abandoned friends who I sensed as a drag: in every case, they were guys at least a couple of years older than me; therefore, they had seen more than and I and had come closer to the eventual realization that the whole gay experiment was a big disaster. Generally, they were in the process of checking-out; strangely, I sensed this as a weakness on their parts; or, at least signaling defeat and an ignominious return to the outside world. I couldn’t admit to what they had already half-recognized; I guess, at that time especially, a positive HIV status rendered an instant clarity of vision. Before he passed away, one friend revealed a story of horrendous abuse from his childhood – I didn’t believe him; shortly after that – he tried to crawl away from the scene, never quite making it, but ended up dying alone and disregarded. Looking back, there was so much buried inside myself that I never could have acknowledged the courage in someone else as they battled to deal with demons of the past. Anyway, even in the midst of all the crashing about me: I rather unwittingly understood that the perpetuation of the gay fantasy relied heavily on the shared ability for all those involved to remain in a perpetual dream state; occasionally, one of us would be shocked from sleep. But staying catatonic was infinitely preferable to facing the reality of my own still unresolved uncertainties, the deaths of so many, and that I was headed in the same direction; yet, I fool-heartedly believed that things would turn out differently for me. I didn’t have time to mourn for a few causalities. In a way, I thought some small losses were ultimately worth it –after all I was alive and free. So, I partied on, and, literally, almost danced on their graves.
Despite my experiences, I frequently return to the scenes of disaster – not to mourn, but to help shine the light of Truth on those still celebrating as if AIDS never happened; as if my friends never existed. For instance, at the San Francisco Gay Pride Parade, the highest ritualized spectacle in all of gaydom, with a bag of free Bibles, I shout out something like “Jesus Loves You!;” only my voice barely raises above the throbbing beat from an over-amplified remixed version of Sylvester’s “You Make Me Feel.” Suddenly, I stop and watch as a tacky float, decorated with cheap tinsel, carrying a cadre of gyrating harnessed bears, somewhat unimpressively chugs by; my friends died for this? Scattered throughout the crowds are beaming couples holding pink cut-out hearts emblazoned with the words” “Just Married.” For the most part, they are my age or much older. I can’t feel happy for them: were my friends any less deserving of this happiness; did they love any less; or, is this all a complete illusion?
Although far fewer are currently dying of AIDS, in the gay community – the virus is everywhere. “In 2012, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released startling new data that showed HIV was still plaguing the gay community. While new HIV infections had remained steady in the general public between 2008 and 2010, infections had risen by an incredible 22 percent in young gay men. Gay men represented two-thirds of new infections. And nearly 6,000 gay men were dying of AIDS every year...According to the CDC, if HIV continues to spread at its current rates, more than half of college-aged gay men will have HIV by the age of 50.” In comparison, the estimated number of deaths in the US among gay men with AIDS rose steadily in the 1980s and early 90s, and then leveled at approximately 25,000 deaths in 1994; in 1992, AIDS became the number one cause of death for U.S. men ages 25 to 44. Since the epidemic began, an estimated 311,087 gay men with an AIDS diagnosis have died in the US. Many have forgotten, or simply don’t know; it’s no longer fashionable to cover the story – landmark made-for-TV movies like “An Early Frost” have become a distant memory. After all, no body dies of AIDS anymore.
We are now several generations removed from that hellish year of 1994. I cannot fault many of those, who were not even alive then, for not honoring the dead. Because, like me, they were raised drunk in a culture than cyclically sold gay poison as pabulum: I sang “Express Yourself” while they picked up the same tune twenty years later with “I Kissed a Girl.” However, I have become less patient with those who should supposedly know better: my fellow Christian exiles from the gay world. Some oddly make pronouncements such as this: “…[Christian] teaching certainly isn’t condemning all the things about ‘gay culture’ that give us those weepy chills when we see them at their best.” First, what “gay culture” are they referring to? Is it the first gay magazines and films of the 70s and 80s – that were always pornographic; those same images which served as propaganda – luring hordes of naive boys to seek out fantasy as reality in being gay– coaxing them directly into the bars and bathhouses that held only death. Or, perhaps it’s the way the gay community pulled together, especially during the first terrifying years when the plague was almost completely unexplained and hitting everyone with a remarkably quick and excruciatingly painful demise. But that had nothing to do with being gay – and everything to do with being human. During those days, I often saw the reemergence of a friend’s once dissociated relatives: a sister or cousin who suddenly returned to their lives – offering whatever compassion they could muster in the midst of extreme grief; were they any more or less empathetic because of their orientation?
Another too young to remember neo-gay Catholic said: “My friends and I joke that there’s a gay Catholic renaissance on, or actually a gay Christian renaissance on, and we’re proud to be at the forefront of it.” To begin with, there has never been a gay “renaissance” of any kind; like the waning Roman Empire, which took an excruciatingly long time to finally collapse, so called gay culture started to fall as soon as it arose: with the first case of AIDS appearing in 1981 – directly after the enormous initial social and political gains made by homosexuals during the upheaval of the 1960s; this inevitably took place as the sexual revolution morphed into the extreme hedonism of the late-70s; although, it’s widely done, the height of historical redaction is to incessantly praise Stonewall while entirely ignoring Fire Island. But, this goes part and parcel with contemporary gay mythology that selectively over-emphasizes the few moments of sanity in the gay experience while disregarding the pathological self-destruction.
Sometimes this sort of gay revisionism comes about because there is a personal inexperience with regards to the more heinous incidences and violent fetishes in the gay lifestyle, or simply because admitting that there is a great sickness within the heart of homosexuality, that perhaps, there is something sick inside of me as well; that the “disorder” of homosexuality speaks to my own disorder. In this vain, a rarity in the homosexual word, a gay male virgin, wrote this about me: “Joseph’s experience not only seems quite alien from that of the men and women who support same-sex marriage, it is quite alien from their experience. For that reason, he is an extremely unreliable source of information.” But who is a reliable source? From years of actually living it, I found that so called “mongamish” gay couples, especially with regards to men, are often middle-aged homosexuals who, like myself, eventually burned-out of the main-stream – usually due to over-sex and the resulting consequences of depression and disease, and then partnered out of necessity with other like-minded men. For the most part, these relationships, born out of desperation, are self-serving and co-dependent. The idea of homosexual monogamy is fleeting; in a study of 500 gay male couples in San Francisco: 45% had monogamous agreements, 47% had open agreements, and 8% reported discrepant agreements; the average age of participants was 41 years. In a more recent study of partnered gay men: 64% described agreements that, to varying degrees, allowed sex with outside partners.
This inability to see homosexuality and being “gay” for all its ugliness, points to an overall stubbornness of pride and a failure to comprehend a horror, that for even those who lived through it, is still somewhat a mystery; therefore, I try to always remain within the context of charity; because, many young gay men, including a few who have found their way back to the Church, are like those Imperial Roman citizens of the Eternal City: so far removed from the nasty bloodiness of the front lines, that the Emperors took it upon themselves to reenact the atrocity of war in the Coliseum; yet, it lost its danger, and the violence and death became distantly mythological. Then, it becomes about polemics; hence, the bizarre adherence of some to the gay label; and, even the stranger dislike for those who criticize this attachment: “This is frustrating and comes across as very patronizing because these are people who don’t have any insight into the experience of what it is to be gay telling you what it is or is not ok to talk about, and what it is and is not ok to call yourself.” Having some “insight” into what it is to be gay: it’s not something you want to join yourself to - even slightly. For, it meant destruction and death to those I loved. After all, you would not celebrate the thing that slaughtered someone special in your life; it’s similar to the consternation felt by the families of victims murdered by serial killers – while the psychopathic predators often gain cult celebrity status and their dead relatives are all but forgotten. Therefore, stating that one is gay gives glory to something which should be left to the ignominious dustbin of history. As for me, I once believed that because a few lost their life – that certainly didn’t mean that the gay dream was a lie – in a sense, it proved its validity: that they were willing to die for something. Now, I am working through a purgatory of regret: if I could take it all back, and that meant my friends would return to life, I would do it a thousand times; but, it doesn’t matter anymore – for they are gone; and thus, herein lies my punishment: when I realize they are really gone.
References:
“Relationship Characteristics and Motivations behind Agreements among Gay Male Couples: Differences by Agreement Type and Couple Serostatus”
Colleen C. Hoff, PhD,1 Sean C. Beougher, M.A.,1 Deepalika Chakravarty, M.S.,1,2 Lynae A. Darbes, PhD,2 and Torsten B. Neilands, PhD2
Published in final edited form as: AIDS Care. 2010 Jul; 22(7): 827–835. doi: 10.1080/09540120903443384
“Sexual Agreements among Gay Male Couples”
Colleen H. Hoff, PhD1,2 and Sean C. Beougher, MA1
Published in final edited form as: Arch Sex Behav. 2010 Jun; 39(3): 774–787. Published online 2008 Aug 7. doi: 10.1007/s10508-008-9393-2
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Gay People Aren’t That Happy After all…Mental Outlook Comparable with the Disabled
A brand new analysis of more than 100 studies and academic journals, combined with feedback from thousands of homosexuals across the country, is presenting a clearer picture than ever before of the U.S. LGBT community.One telling statistic shows only 18% of the LGBT community describe themselves as “very happy” compared to 30% of the general public. Doug Hattaway, President of Hattaway Communications and survey organizer, and himself an out and proud member of the gay community, told The Advocate: “We were surprised to see this happiness gap.” “Given all the positive conversation over victories with marriage, it was sobering to see people don’t see their lives positively.”
In Australia, findings contained in the annual Household, Income and Labor Dynamics survey reveal a stark divide in people’s experiences based on their sexual identity even though homosexuals are more highly educated and “equivalised incomes were highest for gay people.” “The difference in average life satisfaction between gay, lesbian and bisexual people compared with heterosexual people is comparable in magnitude to the difference you see between people with a moderate disability and people who are not disabled,” said Professor Roger Wilkins, of Melbourne's Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research. Straight people scored higher on general health and significantly higher on mental health. “It's really striking that (the health and wellbeing of gay people) is markedly lower than heterosexual people,” Professor Wilkins added. “You wouldn't have expected that in the sense that there's nothing inherent about sexual identity that should have direct implications for health and wellbeing.” The report observed gay people were less likely to live with a partner and when they did were not as happy as straight people. They reported noticeably lower levels of satisfaction, and were slightly more likely to wish they had never entered the relationship and admit their unions failed to live up to expectations.
Author’s note: In 1973, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) removed homosexuality as a mental disorder from the APA’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual Of Mental Disorders (DSM-II). This change in was not based on any new scientific studies or data.
A recent study found that 32.3% to 51.5% of the HIV-negative or unknown status homosexual men engaged in unprotected anal intercourse.* This all points to a mental illness, no longer regarded as a mental illness, that is still acting like a mental illness. In fact: “The majority of the literature in this area suggests that in comparison with individuals without BPD [Borderline Personality Disorder], those with BPD evidence greater sexual impulsivity as indicated by higher levels of sexual preoccupation, earlier sexual exposure, more casual sexual relationships, a greater number of different sexual partners, promiscuity, and homosexual experiences.”
Related findings:
Comparison of MSM [men who have sex with men] with those of men who reported only female partners (non-MSM). MSM were more likely than non-MSM to have had first sex at age <15 years (31.9% vs. 17.3%). MSM were also more likely to have had 10 or more lifetime sex partners (73.6% vs. 40.8%), and to have 2 or more sex partners in the past 12 months (41.0% vs. 18.4%). The median number of lifetime sex partners was 19.1 for MSM and 6.3 for Non-MSM.
-Taken from: “Men Who Have Sex With Men in the United States: Demographic and Behavioral Characteristics and Prevalence of HIV and HSV-2 Infection: Results from National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2001–2006”
Xu, Fujie MD, PHD; Sternberg, Maya R. PHD; Markowitz, Lauri E. MD
Sexually Transmitted Diseases: June 2010 - Volume 37 - Issue 6 - pp 399-405
*“Unprotected Anal Intercourse With Casual Male Partners in Urban Gay, Bisexual, and Other Men Who Have Sex With Men”
David W. Pantalone, PhD, Julia C. Tomassilli, PhD, Tyrel J. Starks, PhD, Sarit A. Golub, PhD, MPH, and Jeffrey T. Parsons, PhD
American Journal of Public Health: January 2015, Vol. 105, No. 1, pp. 103-110.
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Sexually Transmitted Demons: Are Gay Men Possessed?
Fr. Gary Thomas is the mandated exorcist for the Diocese of San Jose, California; in an interview he said “When a person comes to me, I may say, let’s pray for a while, I want to learn more about you. I’m always listening for doorways, so, you know, if there’s any pattern of practice with the occult or history of sexual abuse. Eighty percent of the people who come to me have been sexual abuse victims, usually as a child. But I’m asking questions about pornography and drug use, habits of their growing-up years, experiences in their family. Any kinds of traumas—the suicide of a person—I wouldn’t rule out any traumas as presenting an opening [to demons].”
“…46% of homosexual men and 22% of homosexual women reported having been molested by a person of the same gender. This contrasts to only 7% of heterosexual men and 1% of heterosexual women reporting having been molested by a person of the same gender.” 1.
“more than one third of the men in our sample reported a history of being sexually abused as children. These men were twice as likely to have engaged in unprotected receptive anal intercourse during the past 6 months.” 2.
“Childhood sexual abuse was reported by 47% of participants; 32% reported frequency as often or sometimes…Among those who were abused, more frequent abuse was associated with more sexual contacts and unsafe anal intercourse compared with men who were not abused.” 3.
Dissociative Identity Disorder [DID] or Multiple Personality Disorder is oftentimes connected with the survivors of childhood sexual abuse; DID is a psychological coping mechanism in which the child dissociates from the full awareness of the traumatic experience. Those with DID often exhibit at least two or more distinct identity or personality states. In terms of demonic possession, those with DID will frequently exhibit behaviors similar to possession; and vice versa. Consequently, in 1999, the Vatican issued guidelines which urged that: “the person who claims to be possessed must be evaluated by doctors to rule out a mental or physical illness.”
An expert on the topic of demonic possession, Fr. Jose Antonio Fortea wrote: “Demons can tempt us, and they sometimes do so in a continuous way with great intensity. As such, a demon could provoke an obsession, phobia, depression, or another type of mental illness in a person.” From my own experience, after I suffered abuse – I began to alienate myself: becoming overly distrustful, and incredibly sensitive; I was highly open to suggestion. A private world of inner fantasy became my reality. In boys who later grow up to be gay or gender-identity confused men, this phenomena is not unusual; at first discounted as a benign fixation with play-acting and imaginary friends, a preoccupation with female pop-stars, and or dressing up in girls’ clothing; yet, more devastatingly evidenced in the current predicament of transgender children who insist they are the opposite sex. Because the abuse was of a sexual nature – I became obsessed with pornographic images of degradation and violence. In pornography, I was able to find a seemingly endless supply of horrific depictions. As an adult, this fixation transferred over to my sexual activity in which I oftentimes reenacted the abuse in a vain attempt to normalize it.
This particular form of self-help sex therapy I saw over and over again in the gay world; sometimes, it seemed rather innocuous – whereas younger guys would willing enter into, actually seek-out, role-playing daddy/son relationships with an older man; in other instances, things got darker – for example, even within my own mind, I sensed a strange overpowering compulsion which drove otherwise seemingly well-adjusted and rational men to take part in a succession of ugly and perverse sexual practices. In both cases, the sexual experience is an attempt to work-through the childhood trauma: boys who never felt love from their fathers are driven to seek out that affection with other men; those who were abused aggregate into co-dependent collectives in which cruelty is sexualized thus creating a false sense that the abuse was neither harmful nor unique.
“…from the beginning, and he stood not in the truth; because truth is not in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father thereof.” And, from our beginning, every gay man and woman arrived at homosexuality through a lie: that our feelings were healthy and natural; that we were born this way; that there was nothing wrong with us. We took solace in this - finding comfort, not in ourselves, not in the Truth, and not in God, but in something else. In the beginning, it promised everything – giving a little, then, always leaving you hungry for more. Only, your appetite grows; suddenly, nothing seems to satisfy; later, like a vampire deprived of blood: you become a soulless shell always pursuing the next warm body to fill you up. When I left that little foreshadowing of hell – I lost almost everyone I cared about: I watched as something evil took over – turning them overnight into monsters; the demon was called AIDS. Today, 24% of gay men in my old hometown of San Francisco are HIV+.
1. “Comparative Data of Childhood and Adolescence Molestation in Heterosexual and Homosexual Persons”
Marie, E. Tomeo, et al.
Archives of Sexual Behavior 30 (2001): 539.
2. “Childhood Sexual Abuse Among Homosexual Men Prevalence and Association with Unsafe Sex”
William R. Lenderking, PhD, Cheryl Wold, MPH, Kenneth H. Mayer, MD, Robert Goldstein, MPH, Elena Losina, MS, George R. Seage, III, MPH, DSc
Journal of General Internal Medicine Volume 12, Issue 4, Article first published online: 28 Feb 2002
3. “History of Childhood Sexual Abuse and Unsafe Anal Intercourse in a 6-City Study of HIV-Positive Men Who Have Sex With Men”
Seth L. Welles, ScD, PhD, corresponding author A. Cornelius Baker, BA, Michael H. Miner, PhD, David J. Brennan, PhD, Scott Jacoby, MA, and B. R. Simon Rosser, PhD, MPH
Am J Public Health. 2009 June; 99(6): 1079–1086.
doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2007.133280
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Gay Male Couples Are Far From Monogamous
A study that analyzed data from the first MSM cycle of the National HIV Behavioral Surveillance system, conducted from 2003 to 2005 estimated relationships between number of casual male sex partners within the previous year and demographic information, self-reported HIV status, and risk behaviors: “Among respondents, 76% reported having had a casual male partner; 32% had only male casual partners and 44% had main and casual partners; 24% had main male partners exclusively.”1. This confirms much the same results found in a study conducted at about the same time, which revealed that among gay male couples in San Francisco: “Ninety nine percent of couples reported having an agreement…Specifically, 45% had monogamous agreements, 47% had open agreements, and 8% reported discrepant agreements.”2. In comparison, at most: “approximately 4-5% of North American adults, when given the option to describe their relationship, indicate that they are engaged in consensual non-monogamy.”3.
1. Number of casual male sexual partners and associated factors among men who have sex with men: Results from the National HIV Behavioral Surveillance system
Eli S Rosenberg, Patrick S Sullivan1, Elizabeth A DiNenno, Laura F Salazar and Travis H Sanchez
BMC Public Health 2011, 11:189 doi:10.1186/1471-2458-11-189
2. Relationship Characteristics and Motivations behind Agreements among Gay Male Couples: Differences by Agreement Type and Couple Serostatus
Colleen C. Hoff, PhD, Sean C. Beougher, M.A., Deepalika Chakravarty, M.S., Lynae A. Darbes, PhD, and Torsten B. Neilands, PhD
AIDS Care. 2010 Jul; 22(7): 827–835. doi: 10.1080/09540120903443384
3. Love and sex: polyamorous relationships are perceived more favorably than swinging and open relationships
Jes L. Matsick, Terri D. Conley, Ali Ziegler, Amy C. Moors and Jennifer D. Rubin
Departments of Psychology and Women’s Studies, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA
(Received 31 July 2013; accepted 6 August 2013)
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If You Will Not Be a Father to Your Son – There Are Plenty of Gay Men Who Will
 |
| From the CDC webpage: http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/group/age/youth/index.html |
“My first sex-club venture inadvertently exposed a dirty, but far from secret, reality within the gay community: the constant need for young new recruits. Since the gay population cannot naturally reproduce itself, they rely on those entering the lifestyle to renew their always aging and dwindling numbers. My first lover in the bathhouse was a man from another generation. As it goes, older and experienced gay men will almost always initiate the young and naive into the world of gay sex. The cerebral orderliness by which many of these older men go about their task tends to take on a strange ritualistic aspect. This storyline narrative is a mainstay in gay porn.
For the young, having their first experience done with, the broken- in neophytes then enter the gay community to mingle with others of their own age. The cycle plays over again, when everyone gets older. Then, those, who are no longer a beloved boy, must seek out fresh meat; and now the sought becomes the seeker. The procedure is sickeningly vampiristic. The young draw some imagined male power from their partners during an inaugural sexual encounter, while the older males feed off the youthful innocence and vigor of the new converts…”
From me own experiences (see excerpt from my book above), a rather solid factual truism in gay culture is the phenomena of younger men, especially those new on the scene, to immediately pair up with older lovers. A lot of this has to do with a “daddy complex” or father wound found in many homosexual men; Richard P. Fitzgibbons, M.D. expertly summarized the psychology at work here: “Many men will engage in extremely promiscuous homosexual behavior in a frustrating unconscious attempt to fill the childhood and adolescent craving for father love.” Although clearly irrational, the rush of acceptance instantaneously received by any boy going into the gay world, at least, temporarily, seems to feel the void. And, to a kid who grew up alienated and always seeking masculine affirmations – suddenly, memories of being the wimp no one wanted around; of being called a sissy and a fag seem like a bad distant dream. Finally, we discover that there are men willing to hold us; most of the time – they are older; a Swiss study found that: “The median age at FAI [first anal intercourse] fell from 24.5 years among men born before 1965 to 20.0 years among those born between 1975 and 1984. In each birth cohort, between 20 and 30% reported a partner 10 years older or more.”1 Yet this sense of superficial healing all comes at a price: “…the risk of infection doubled if the participant had sex with men who were older than 30 years and with men who were (approximately) their same age.”2 For those who have long suffered and grown desperate, like every demonic invention, homosexuality at first appears as the ultimate answer; later, the payback is enormous.
1. First anal intercourse and condom use among men who have sex with men in Switzerland.
Balthasar H1, Jeannin A, Dubois-Arber F.
Arch Sex Behav. 2009 Dec;38(6):1000-8. doi: 10.1007/s10508-008-9382-5. Epub 2008 Jun 17.
2. A Major HIV Risk Factor for Young Men Who Have Sex With Men Is Sex With Older Partners
Brian J. Coburn, PhD and Sally Blower, PhD
(J Acquir Immune Defic Syndr 2010; 54:113–114)
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Catholic and Gay - Something Must Change: My Message to Most Holy Redeemer Parish in San Francisco
From a recent article which appeared in “Catholic San Francisco” about Most Holy Redeemer Catholic Parish in the Castro:
“We didn’t come here to change anybody,” said Father McClure who sat with Father Link near the parish’s memorial fountain where the founders of the parish’s 30-year-old AIDS Support Group ministry are honored, including ninth pastor Father Anthony McGuire. Behind them on a stone wall are the words of Corinthians 1: 13:13: “But now faith, hope, and love remain – of these three, the greatest of these is love.”
Yet, as someone who lived through the horror of the AIDS epidemics of the 1980s and 90s, things are clearly not well in the Castro; and, to you Fr. McClure, they clearly need to change. A bit about myself: I dropped into San Francisco as a rather naive and impressionable young man in 1988; death was literally everywhere, but I had grown up tortured, teased, and alienated and I knew that I belonged in the gay community; there – I thought I would find comfort and understanding. What I did find were hundreds of older gay men willing to be a surrogate father, willing to take me home and have sex with me, but not very willing to offer anything else. At first, that was enough, and I thought I was happy. Suddenly, all of my friends, who were essentially doing the same things as I, began to die. A few were buried out of Most Holy Redeemer. But, despite the pointless suffering and agonizing deaths of those I loved, I never once wavered in my allegiance to the gay experiment; after all, I had nowhere else to go. As many of us who made the trek to San Francisco, oftentimes from other parts of the country and the world, we had given up much: said goodbye to our often disapproving families, left our childhood homes behind, and made our way to the West Coast in the hope of discovering comradery and peace. Even with the threat of AIDS constantly lurking as an everyday reality; we were prepared to give everything up. It was a leap of faith, but also an act of desperation. Growing up Catholic, I never once, during the 12 years I spent in parochial school heard the word gay or homosexual – though, on the playground, I often heard the word “fag” shouted right at me. For the most part, the silence from Catholicism I took, not as a condemnation, but that the Church didn’t really care about me; that I wasn’t important enough to even mention; that I didn’t belong.
In San Francisco, we came searching for a new family and a new home. For myself, it seemed to work for a while; then, I could no longer tolerate the endless and meaningless hook-ups, the sense of emptiness that never went away, and the mindless plague that was all around me. I started to think that something needed to change. Then, for some strange reason, I went to talk to a Catholic priest; I knew little about him, but I quickly surmised that he found nothing that was objectionable in the gay lifestyle. He told me to me to stay put, that I was who I was, and to try to settle down with one guy. In hindsight, he could have been sending me back to my death, but I never contracted HIV and I survived. For a while, I earnestly tried to avoid the one-sided relationships I had been repeatedly trapped in, but I found it difficult as the first question from everyone I met was usually: “…are you a top or a bottom?” Sex was compulsory; I think immediately think of something said by one of the characters in Larry Kramer’s groundbreaking novel “Faggots” when he stated it crudely, but perfectly: “…why do faggots have to f**k so f**king much?!...it’s as if we have nothing else to do.” That was the nightmare I couldn’t get out of. The more I reached out, the more self-centered and desperate I became; those I met could do little to help as they were similarly stuck in a cycle of co-dependency and eventual loneliness. At one point, I needed someone so badly, someone who I perceived as stable, that I entered into a relationship with caring, but HIV+ older man. I was still willing to risk it all.
Eventually, I burned out from my repeated attempts at happiness; with many of my friends dead – my family scooped up my body and brought me home. Instinctively, I knew that everything from that point onward would be different. Figuring that I had nothing to lose, I went back to the Church: I received absolution and reassurance that I was making the right decision from a kindly and humble priest. Yet, right away, I wondered what future there was for me – after all, I am gay; Aren’t I? Where am I to go? What am I to do? I felt lost, as I belonged nowhere. Then, one night, while looking for any ray of hope – I scanned the internet and found out about Courage. I attended my first meeting in San Francisco, a city that I didn’t want to return to, but again I needed friends and male companionship. For a time, it was an oasis: everyone there shared my new found realization that homosexuality was a literal dead-end and that we needed something else- namely God. At the same time, I read: books by Fr. John Harvey and Dr. Joseph Nicolosi. Surprisingly, I wasn’t alone – there were thousands of men who similarly found the gay lifestyle shallow, empty, and ultimately self-destructive. I learned that: “Males who are homosexuals tend to be neglected emotionally by their fathers and receive less affection than their heterosexual counterparts.” I began to wonder: what if I had known? Would I have stayed so long? Did my friends have to die? I remembered that priest: did he even attempt get to know me? Why didn’t he ask if I had been molested? Or if I had been abused or neglected? But, he sent a damaged boy back to a life that was clearly out of control. Didn’t I deserve to know the Truth? That I did have choice.
When Fr. McClure first arrived at Most Holy Redeemer, I contacted both him and Fr. Link; I had a proposal: a short presentation about my experiences and about Courage; I assured them, I was not there to judge or to tell anyone that their lifestyle was wrong or evil; that’s their decision to make – not mine. I simply wanted to present an alternative; that they did not have to live this way. I was turned down.
Dear Fr. McClure: you state that you didn’t come to Most Holy Redeemer to “change” anyone, but things need to change. According to the San Francisco AIDS Foundation: “Almost one in four gay or bisexual men in San Francisco is living with HIV and 86% of new HIV diagnoses are among gay and bisexual men…In 2013, there were 359 newly diagnosed HIV cases…Of those newly diagnosed with HIV in 2013, nine in 10 (91%) identified as male, 86 percent were men who have sex with other men, a majority (54%) were between 30-49 years old.” How many have to become infected? And how many have to die before you realize that the status-quo is no longer sustainable? You rightly heralded the history of charity and Christian generosity at Most Holy Redeemer, as I stated some of my friends were given funerals at MHR when no one else would do it, but when are we going to stop burying people? When is enough enough? It needs to change and it needs to change now. Unlike what happened to me, these men should be given the choice: allow Courage at Most Holy Redeemer.
Your friend in Christ: Joseph Sciambra
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The Rise of Gay Catholics and the Persistence of Homosexual Revisionism
According to St. Isaiah the Solitary: “When a man severs himself from evil, he gains an exact understanding of all the sins he has committed against God; for he does not see his sins unless he severs himself from them with a feeling of revulsion. Those who have reached this level pray to God with tears, and are filled with shame when they recall their evil love of the passions.”
One of the oddest social phenomena of recent years is the so-called “renaissance” of gay Catholicism: seemingly well-adjusted and faithful Catholics who insist they are gay and “feeling fine.” Now I understand that there are as many varieties of faith journeys as there are men on earth, but any that include a particular attachment to the sin, such as self-identifying as gay while claiming to be free of the lifestyle, is a journey that is not even partially complete. For instance, when the Lord rescued me from being gay, I spent months in an extremely painful condition of tremendous remorse; because I had been subject to a pervasive form of narcolepsy that takes over everyone once they “come-out,” I spent so many pointless days numb to everything going on around me: the needless deaths; the hardening of my heart due to an over-availability of sex and a general lack of compassion; and a growing discontent within me as after ten years – happiness always alluded me. When I was enmeshed in that life, I could feel practically nothing. Afterwards, it all rushed upon me; I became overwhelmed: for days, I would cry unceasingly, vomit every few hours, and tremble uncontrollably. Yet, later, when the pain dissipated, there was always this sense of pervasive sadness (revulsion) which stayed with me. I kept going back to this one incomprehensible moment in my mind – when I thought: “My God, they are all dead!” My heart would break a hundred times a day. The sorrow I felt was indescribable; and, I realized it was all for nothing – it had been a lie. For, somehow, someway, each of us had been convinced we were gay – and that was how we were to live the rest of our lives; but, we didn’t know that some of us would be around for only a few years. Therefore, today, I could never imagine attaching myself in anyway with that word; because, it’s cursed – death is upon it.
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"...the foolish things of the world hath God chosen."
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Dore Alley 2015 Outreach
“I will seek that which was lost: and that which was driven away, I will bring again: and I will bind up that which was broken, and I will strengthen that which was weak…” (Ezk 34:16)
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Homosexuality Causes Cancer
In a recent study, the majority of HIV– Negative gay men, who were sexually active, tested positive for HPV:
“HPV DNA was found in the anal canal of 57% of study participants. The prevalence of anal HPV infection did not change with age or geographic location. Anal HPV infection was independently associated with receptive anal intercourse…”1.
The chances of contracting HPV, which causes anal cancer, increased once becoming HIV+ Positive:
“Ninety-two percent of HIV-positive MSM had at least 1 anal HPV type, 80% had at least 1 oncogenic HPV type, and 42% had HPV 16.”2.
Yet, even those gay men who are in a “registered” relationships were also at an increased risk of contracting anal cancer; according to a Danish study:
“Women in homosexual partnerships had cancer risks similar to those of Danish women in general…Overall, men in homosexual partnerships were at elevated cancer risk…Anal squamous carcinoma also occurred in excess.”3.
1. "Age-Specific Prevalence of Anal Human Papillomavirus Infection in HIV-Negative Sexually Active Men Who Have Sex with Men: The EXPLORE Study"
Peter V. Chin-Hong, Eric Vittinghoff, Ross D. Cranston, Susan Buchbinder, Daniel Cohen, Grant Colfax, Maria Da Costa, Teresa Darragh, Eileen Hess, Franklyn Judson, Beryl Koblin, Maria Madison and Joel M. Palefsky
Presented in part: Human Papillomavirus 21st International Conference, Mexico City, Mexico, 20–26 February 2004 (abstract 538).
2. "Risk factors for anal human papillomavirus infection type 16 among HIV-positive men who have sex with men in San Francisco."
Hernandez AL1, Efird JT, Holly EA, Berry JM, Jay N, Palefsky JM.
J Acquir Immune Defic Syndr. 2013 Aug 1;63(4):532-9. doi: 10.1097/QAI.0b013e3182968f87.
3. "Cancer in a Population-based Cohort of Men and Women in Registered Homosexual Partnerships"
Morten Frisch1, Else Smith2, Andrew Grulich3 and Christoffer Johansen
Oxford Journals Medicine & Health American Journal of Epidemiology Volume 157, Issue 11Pp. 966-972.
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Why Homosexuality is Non-Sustainable: and Same-Sex Marriage Will Not Help
According to a study of sexually active gay men in Ontario Canada, of all new reported HIV infections: “51% were through anal sex with a condom, 33% anal sex without a condom and 16% oral sex.”1. The same report found that “Condom failure is often due to breakage and slippage, sometimes, but not necessarily, due to non-optimal use.” This is sadly the case, because condoms are always more prone to failure when used for anal sex as opposed to vaginal sex; in fact, the FDA has never “cleared or approved any condoms specifically for anal sex;” from the FDA web-site: “Condoms may be more likely to break during anal intercourse than during other types of sex because of the greater amount of friction and other stresses involved.”2. Furthermore, because of the often aggressive and even violent nature of gay male sex, anal trauma is sometimes likely let alone condom breakage; in a similar study to the Canadian one, Swiss researchers found that 28% of gay men reported “passive traumatic sex.”3.
In spite of that, a critical argument in favor of same-sex marriage has often been that the stability of legally recognized monogamous couplings among gay men will have the effect of lowing disease rates within the male homosexual population. Yet, another study turns that argument on its head - in a survey of male same-sex couples; researchers found that: “A majority of couples allowed sex with outside partners. Overall, 65% of the sample engaged in UAI [unprotected anal intercourse] with primary partner…Meanwhile, 22% of the sample engaged in at least one episode of UAI with an outside partner, half of whom were discordant or unknown HIV status outside partners.”4. Therefore, the gay male psyche, which is predisposed towards promiscuity, will reduce or nullify any perceived benefits of same-sex marriage.
But, why is this the case? From my own life experience: especially during those early initial days in the gay lifestyle, I was always attracted to those men who represented, or seemed to project, a quality or characteristic that I believed I lacked. Most of the time - I usually sensed this as a rather indefinable force of confidence, stability and masculinity. One man in particle – I thought encapsulated all three. Yet, merely being with him, even having sex with him, didn’t change my own self-perception. Because my feeling of inadequacy that led to my inordinate need for male affirmation had nothing to do with him; he could not make me into the man I thought I wasn’t. I guess the lost little boy inside wanted a daddy, but as someone trying to be a man – I didn’t want a father. Perhaps, if this had been an opposite-sex relationship it would have worked – as the complementary between the male and female realizes and fulfills the two halves of human biology and experience. But, we were drawn towards each other in a false pull of magnetism, only to realize that like poles always repel. Celebrated gay novelist Andrew Holleran probably put this tragic dynamic best when he wrote: “Two male egos together are very tough. Men are just not raised to cowtow to other men.”
In conclusion, male homosexuality is completely unsustainable, even within the context of prophylactic “safe-sex.” For the unnatural forces at work create a physical situation in which injury, even minor ones, are always a distinct possibility therefore leaving one or both partners open to infection and disease. And, the drive to act these scenarios out, even while knowing the physical risks, is sometimes significantly beyond the control of the participants. Because gay male sexuality in inherently impulsive, rising and falling as quickly as an erection; however, it is also deep-seated and pathological: motivated by childhood desires going so far back that many gay men never remember feeling another way; hence they often steadfastly belief that they were born that way. Two studies have shown that personality traits, associated with confused childhood gender roles, often determines participation in certain homosexual acts when adults: “…the FGI [the Freund Feminine Gender Identity Scale] (and many of its factors and items) are significantly associated with preferences for receptive anal intercourse;”5 In other words, boys who grew up exhibiting feminine characteristics often become adult gay males who prefer receptive anal sex. In another similar study: “MIPs [male insertive partners] desired sex where they were dominant and in control whereas MRPs [male receptive partners] desired sex where they were overpowered or ‘taken.’ The desired power differential was evidenced in the type of sexual behavior and the type of partners participants wanted. These findings underscore the importance of power as a sexual motive.”6 Consequently, gay men are constantly re-enacting these dominant-submissive story lines, a perverted father-son relationship, in an attempt to deal with painful memories. Then, when you inevitably get older – there is this bizarre sort of reversal which takes place: the boy becomes the daddy and now you have to take on the opposite role; only, you never became a man; but, you try to prove your tenuous grasp on masculinity by dominating the young and the inexperienced; it’s a horrendous inescapable cycle. From a physiological standpoint, gay men cannot continue along this path; the only hope for true health, healing and peace is program for life which first embraces chastity, then spiritual and psychological counseling followed by reparative therapy.
1. “HIV Transmission among Men Who Have Sex with Men due to Condom Failure”
Robert S. Remis, Michel Alary, Juan Liu, Rupert Kaul, Robert W. H. Palmer
Published: September 11, 2014DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0107540
3. “Over Half of MSM in Swiss Study Group Don't Know About HCV Infection”
ICAAC 2014 54th Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy
September 5-9, 2014, Washington, DC
4. “Relationship characteristics associated with sexual risk behavior among MSM in committed relationships.”
Hoff CC1, Chakravarty D, Beougher SC, Neilands TB, Darbes LA.
AIDS Patient Care STDS. 2012 Dec;26(12):738-45. doi: 10.1089/apc.2012.0198.
5. “Effects of recalled childhood gender nonconformity on adult genitoerotic role and AIDS exposure. HNRC Group.”
Weinrich JD1, Grant I, Jacobson DL, Robinson SR, McCutchan JA.
Arch Sex Behav. 1992 Dec;21(6):559-85.
6. Damon, Will (2001). “The relations of power and intimacy motives to genitoerotic role preferences in gay men: A pilot study.” Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality. 2000 Vol 9(1) 15-30.
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First 2015 Bible Giveaway in San Francisco's Castro District
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The Continuing Catholic/Gay Debate - A Discussion that Should Have Ended with AIDS
“Critics blast Courage as damaging to individuals, but Zywan said the goal of Courage is not to ‘fix’ or convert gays.”
-from an article titled: “Roman Catholic Church in midst of culture clash over gays,” published at TribLive News (see: http://triblive.com/news/allegheny/8697693-74/gay-catholic-church#axzz3hdNfq2oB)
This statement is remarkably similar to one given by Fr. Jack McClure, pastor at the notoriously pro-gay Catholic parish of The Most Holy Redeemer in San Francisco’s Castro District, who said: “We didn’t come here to change anybody…” (see: http://www.catholic-sf.org/ns.php?newsid=22&id=63692)
Sadly, these two priests are either confused or have been seriously deceived; because what they say points to a rather serious misunderstanding concerning the reality of the homosexual condition and of sin itself: if homosexuality is an inherent trait, if its something that a person is born with, than why “fix“ it; this idea reminds me of the theories put forth by discredited sexologist John Money* who stated: “Homosexuality, like heterosexuality, is not a matter of preference, choice or voluntary decision. It is like a status, like being tall, dwarfed or left handed, and it is not changed by desire, incentive, will power, prayer, punishment, or other motivation to change.” Following this mind-set, then - there is no need for healing, no need for “change,” or no need to “fix” it; yet, this rational will ultimately also led one to surmise that there is also no need for Christ. On this point, Fr. Emmerich Vogt wrote: “Because of our wounded nature, we are in the need of grace, which restores us to the beauty in which man was created before the fall of Adam. In the sense that we are all wounded and in need of redemption, we are not whole, nor fully normal…Normal was what human nature was created to be. Because Jesus did not inherit Adam’s wounded nature, he is the perfect exemplar of man’s natural being and manifests the nature of normal.”
Yet, part and parcel along with this unwillingness to fix or change homosexuality is a strict adherence by some to the gay identity; most unequivocally put forward by author Eve Tushnet who wrote: “I’m in no sense ex-gay. In fact, I seem to become more lesbian with time—college was my big fling with bisexuality, my passing phase…” Here, the late Fr. John Harvey was clear: “Those who refer to themselves as ‘gay’ or ‘lesbian’ regard sexual attraction as the most important part of their identity.” Proving Fr. Harvey’s contention, blogger Joseph Prever, who also often identifies as gay, said in an interview: “Since sexuality itself is so deeply tied to so many aspects of our personality, and our experience as human beings, then homosexuality has very wide-reaching effects into almost every aspect of our lives…” Therefore, not surprisingly, when asked about why he continues to self-identify as gay, Prever said: “…it’s offensive to be told what you ought to be allowed to call yourself. And in fact, I rarely feel strongly about whether I should use the word gay or not, but the one time I do feel strongly about it is when somebody starts upbraiding me for it. Because it feels incredibly intrusive.” (Both Tushnet and Prever will speak at a forthcoming Courage conference.)
Together, the contention by some that homosexuality is not wanting of any “change,” and the insistence by others to incessantly identify as gay, even after leaving the active lifestyle, reveals a larger social effort to “normalize” homosexuality as a natural variant; and, among some Catholics, to critique homosexuality as “banal” and unfulfilling, as Tushnet describes it, but as otherwise morally negligible: to this effect, Tushnet wrote: “My sense is that people who have had very little experience with gay communities, or whose experiences have been largely negative, are a lot more likely to identify as ‘same-sex attracted’ and resist identifying as gay. My own relationship to queer communities has been important to me, largely positive, and characterized by belonging, and that's what I mean when I say I'm gay.”
As someone who found the gay lifestyle “largely negative,” I find her attitude rather stupefying; I find this manner similar to Prever, who is both grossly uninformed and at the same time oddly flippant; Prever wrote: “…‘gay’ is a useful sort of shorthand, and I’ll use it from time to time until a better word comes along…And — let’s be honest — ‘gay’ is much better for SEO purposes.” Unfortunately, I do not have the luxury of being so relaxed and semi-humorous: for, I spent my mid-to late 20s watching almost each and every one of my friends die of AIDS, of various drug overdoses, and by their own hand. I was oblivious to pretty much everyone’s pain: I thought - it was just the way things were; a risk we all took. I never thought that life could have been different. Because, I had bought into the lie; I truly believed that I was gay; that coming-out, that being gay, that everyone else who was gay - that that meant something. It was an illusion.
I will never forget visiting a dear friend for the last time; he lived in a second floor apartment and I had to climb this steep flight of stairs to his front door; it was an old converted Victorian and I loved him and his place; he was everything I thought of as the epitome of the epicurean urban gay: an art collector, gay historian and general bon vivant. But, now, he was dying. I was supposed to stay with him through the night, but I couldn’t. I didn’t want to face it: that behind all the beautiful pencil drawings by gay artists, that behind the bronze statues of nude men, that he meticulously collected over the years, hid death. The next day, while going about my business, I learned that he died during the night.
Somehow, while everyone around me crashed, I survived. I barely crawled away; the Lord took pity on me - and He healed me; he changed everything about me; and yes - fixed me; the first thing He did - he offered me freedom; freedom from that horrible word. The greatest event in my life was the day I realized that I was no longer gay; I didn’t need that identity any more; I didn’t need that word; nor, everything it represented. More importantly, I suddenly saw gay for what it was: a refuge for the neglected, the tormented, and the abused; a fantasy of love sold to broken boys; a quick escape from loneliness that left everyone to die alone.
Today, I have little time for same-sex attraction as I spend probably too many hours in the day trying to make sense of it all: Why my friends had to die? Do their deaths have any meaning? Was it all just a colossal waste? The conclusion I have reached: the slaughter of so many young men only takes on lasting significance if somehow we learn something from it. For instance, in the aftermath of the Holocaust, through Auschwitz, the theories of Social Darwinism, so prevalent in much of early-20th Century thought, were once and for all proven horrendously false; strangely enough, the last bastion of that failed philosophy still exists most significantly in Planned Parenthood. In my mind, similarly, the whole idea of gay: of being gay, of calling oneself gay, of finding something of worth in the gay lifestyle, should have been buried along with the over 300,000 American gay men who died of AIDS; but, it wasn’t. There are those who try to remake the gay model - into gay marriage; or, even by Christians who reimagine homosexuality as a new form of “spiritual friendship” that is somehow in line with the teachings of Christ. Now, in middle age, I have become like an old Holocaust survivor - lashing out at the deniers; those who claim that homosexuals are fine as they are, or, those who should know better, but still align themselves with an erroneous belief system - I get particularly impatient. But, gay men are hurting and they are dying - telling them that nothing is wrong, or that you can somehow maneuver your way through the gay world and keep your soul intact is like saying that its okay to be gay.
* In 1966, Money convinced the parents of boy who was surgically mutilated during a botched circumcision to allow a sex change operation on the child and to raise their son as a girl; extensive therapy, performed by Money, failed to convince the boy that he was female; later, he committed suicide at age 38.
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The Chaplet of Divine Mercy for Those Trapped in the Gay Lifestyle
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Somebody That I Used to Know: Why I Was Once Gay
Every person that I knew in the gay world, arrived at the point of “coming-out” with a story. Not just any story, but a personal tale of tragedy, heartache, loneliness, inner-struggle and eventual self-affirmation. A few, became rather adept at retelling them: remembering almost everything about a schoolyard bully; of the emotions felt when, after everybody else is picked, and you are suddenly the last person standing in front of your classmates and no one wants you on their team; or the way your dad hollered at you because you were thoughtlessly dancing about and, in his words, acting like a fairy. More often than not, these narratives circled about the father: who was either missing, detached, overly judgmental, violent, or abusive. Concurrently, there was also an unusually close relationship with the mother; especially those, whose mothers often came to San Francisco for a visit, never accompanied by their fathers, often suspiciously spoke glowingly of their dads while giving little to no details. At the time, I didn’t think much of it - for I had a good number of my own memories from the past. Some of mine were similar to those of my friends, some were not, but we all shared a common determination to forge ahead and overcome those early difficulties by living by our own rules; by taking control of our own destines. Only, we didn’t realize that this false sense of empowerment would be forever stripped away by despair, disease, and death.
When I was a little boy - I didn’t want to be gay. Gay was that strange alter-ego of Jack Tripper on “Three’s Company;” it was the overly-feminine cousin in the movie “Zorro - The Gay Blade,” and it was what the other boys called me when I endlessly dropped the ball during P.E. classes. I didn’t want to be that. But, out of my control - when I was too innocent to know any better: an older girl took advantage of me. Right away, I became fearful, but I also became fascinated. Probably within the same year, at around age 8, I was exposed to pornography. Those static women in the magazines were objects of desire, and avoidance. Just looking at them made me excited, but something inside me didn’t like that feeling. Then, an already circumspect and shy boy became even more reclusive. I could remember going almost through a whole day at school without saying a word; I had a few friends, but over and over again believed that I was merely tolerated by a similar group of either overweight or hyper-active misfits. When I was separated from them, vulnerable and alone, I occasionally heard the word fag shouted my way.
For the most part, girls scared me, but when I grew into my teens I sometimes felt more comfortable around them than I did around other boys. This was because between my first frightening sexual experience and puberty, I started growing increasingly uncertain of women: the lifeless models in Playboy were rather otherworldly in their beauty, but also distant and iconic - almost reaching god-like proportions, they were somehow superior beings; the feminine in warm flesh and bone was terrifying: like pornographic images come to life - they were controlling and I felt as if I would collapse into femininity - that I would become devoured by it. On the other hand, boys offered something. First of all, they were not women: they seemed more familiar and less threatening. But, they also became strange and somehow apart from myself and from my perception of who I was. For, they were masculine, and that was something I admired and needed. I wanted to be like them, but didn’t know how. Along the way, things got confused, and, I thought, manhood was something they could give me; later, I believed that that could only happen through gay sex.
Over the years, I have come to believe that homosexuality occurs in boys because there is a fear of men and an adulation of them: symbolized by the desire to be loved by the absent or rejecting father; but, it is also very much about a fear of women. Back to those stories from gay men: one friend, who died of a drug overdose, told me, a few years before his death, that his father had repeatedly molested him when he was a child - he said his mother often sat by completely oblivious and spent much of the day praying; another, a guy who was always battling his weight, talked about a smothering mother who overfed him as if he were the full grown husband that dumped her and her kids; and, a gay rebel punker, who got thrown out of the house the day he came home with a mohawk and a nose ring, but, only after years of being disparagingly compared to his collegically athletic macho brother; this last friend would eventually die of AIDS. Because of our equally difficult backgrounds, each of us arrived at a point of gay self-acceptance with different and also strikingly similar experiences of male rejection and the inevitable longing for masculine affection; all our fathers failed to varying degrees, but out mothers either stood by motionless and watched or they over-protected us, and, as a result, made us into perpetual boys or fearful of an assumed female hegemony. So, as a group, we were so caught up in our attraction to the same sex, in an attempt to secure our own masculinity, that we could not give it. I found this even when I got older and became more aggressive and dominant with my male partners; by putting on a hyper-masculine persona, I was prized by other males, but by sexually overpowering them I was merely trying to prove my own twisted sense of missing manhood.
Gay men, with our masculinity never entirely realized, we instinctively huddle together into packs: either submitting to those we perceive as exhibiting more manly qualities or by raising the stakes and forcefully trying to prove our superiority by taking other men. In this endless cycle of always reaching out for manhood, then, just missing it, there is no room for the feminine; in general, gay men relate best with the female when she is partially masculinized in the form of drag queens or through the worship of aggressive and highly determined women, especially easily caricatured entertainers - from Joan Crawford to Beyonce. In this vain, gay men often foster unusually close relationships with women, many times their female relatives, while remaining rather aloof from males in the family. At a recent Folsom Street Fair, I met a young man, wearing only a jock-strap, who was attending for the first time - strangely accompanied by his mother and sister. Yet, this is not unusual as women with gay male relatives or friends often treat them, not as men, but as a new girlfriend. Conversely, gay men find this incredibly comfortable, as I did when as a teen and I often hung around girls, because these women became non-threatening like female impersonators; in high school, although I hadn’t wholly accepted it, all my female friends thought I was gay. Then, the gayness of the male turns into a shield from the feminine; because, gay men fear women: for the reason that heterosexual men are able to give their masculinity to the women and vice-versa; yet, gay men know they have no masculinity to offer; for, the quest for maleness is always a work in progress; it’s the Holy Grail that is never fully attained; and, therefore - never given. In the end, all gay men can do - is hold tight to their stories: it’s all they have; and, its what unavoidably defines them. As a result, gay men can’t move outside of themselves; they can’t go beyond their own sex as everything is always pointed inwards - trying to sooth the hidden wounded child.
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