I just read the latest installment of “Drew’s Next Step.” In it he talks about whether or not he would change to be straight, if he could. I responded to it and I was fairly shocked by how I responded.
My men’s group used to ask a set of icebreaker questions every time we would meet. Here are some of them:
• How many of you identify as gay, bi, or straight?
• How many of you have felt depressed as a result of your same-sex attractions?
• How many of you have told your wives?
• How many of you have told your kids?
• How many of you are married? Separated? Divorced?
• How many of you would take a little pill to make your self straight?
Not many hands go up for the last question.
To be honest, I guess I wouldn’t want to take the pill to become straight…simply because I have worked so hard to become happy with the person I currently am…namely gay!
I love male bonding….and the closeness. I love the camraderie. I love the intensity.
I think when we’re dealing with the issue of our gayness….there comes a stage where we feel it would be so much easier to make it go all away. To move with the current as opposed to going against it.
To play along with what society says is normal.
But…if we look at it objectively….what IS the big deal about being gay? Oh yeah, we’ve wrecked others’ lives in the process. We’ve taken times from our wives and at least in my case, made them live like hell, as she likes to say.
So, one must ask in the process….why did we marry in the first place?
In my case, I married out of love…but also out of societal pressure to conform and be like everyone else: get married, buy a house, have children….the American Dream!
For me it has been more of a nightmare really.
Had I really had the nerve to be the person I was made to be, who knows? Perhaps I would have been happier. Perhaps I would not. Perhaps I would not have had children. Perhaps I would have. Perhaps I would have gotten AIDS and died by now. Perhaps not.
I guess we’ll never know.
Only a few things about my life are certain:
I’ve got my 3 wonderful children.
I’m gay.
I’m beginning to enjoy my life.
I would not take the pill.
1 comment:
Frank-
A double comment but all connected. My first wife had rules - little ones that added up. When I told my therapist I felt petty he told me a tapestry is made up of threads (even did a post on this).
We were divorced because of many things, TGT not being among them. Reading your posts, you may have also been divorced even if not for TGT.
Which brings me to the pill - I think the reason why the pill sounds good to people like Drew and me is that we conceive of ourselves as being happily married and the only thing that stands in the way of that happiness lasting forever is the gay/bi aspects of ourselves.
Not really sure if I want the pill or not. I sort of like the aspects of being happy, sad, everything that makes us humans.
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