Something About a Woman
I talked to my mom tonight and told her all about the wedding this past weekend — how wonderful it was, how lavish, how enjoyable, and so on. There was a tone in her voice — she seemed troubled, or perturbed, or cynical, or something. You can tell when something’s wrong with one of your parents.
“I could say something nasty, but I won’t,” she said.
I knew what she wanted to say.
“I know,” I said.
“It’s just that it would be nice if it were my own child,” she said, having changed her mind about saying something.
So my mom, who’s seemed really accepting of, and pretty cool with, my being gay for almost two years now… isn’t. At least not as much as I thought she was.
But that’s okay, because I’ve felt the same way lately.
A confluence of events: boredom with random sex. Lack of luck in the relationship department. A weekend-long celebration of heterosexual happiness. Feeling emotionally close to my lesbian friend CanadaGirl.
You know, I can’t see myself marrying a guy. Sometimes it seems like it would be really nice to find a woman and settle down. And I’ve never had intercourse with a woman, and sometimes I think I’d like to try it. A woman’s hands are so soft when they touch you — soft in a way that a man’s hands aren’t. They’re sensual. Why not have some variety in life?
Not that I’ve lost my attraction to men. And I’m not going to become one of those people who says, “I’m not gay — I think about men only when I masturbate.” Men still rock, and I know it.
But women kind of rock, too. Not as much as men, but they still rock.
No, no, no. I’m not going to do this. This is why I stayed in the closet from 19 to 24, an asexual being. I was so confused. I didn’t know whether I was gay or bi or a straight guy who was scared of women, and I didn’t want to come out until I could give myself a proper label. I didn’t want people to know I liked men unless I was willing to commit to it — and for a long time, I wasn’t.
And even after I came out, it resurfaced. I got mono during my last year of law school, and my mom came down to take care of me for five days. I was dating a guy at the time, which she didn’t know about, and I didn’t call him once during that time. When my mom left five days later, he and I broke up, because he was mad that I never called him, and because I felt guilty about dating guys after my mom had taken care of me and bought me clothes.
I’m not sure where this is going, and there’s no need to analyze it. It’ll probably pass in a few days, and I’ll get over my cold, and I’ll get a full night’s sleep (fat chance of that ever happening) and I’ll want to have sex again. But as for settling down with a guy, and creating a life together… I don’t know if I want that or not. I don’t know if I can envision that.
Sometimes I really wish I were more into women.
Maybe I am, and I’m just repressing it.
Okay, there I go again. Stop that, self. I don’t want to regress again.
I thought I’d nailed this all down three years ago.
Well, I guess things are never as cut and dried as you want them to be.
Eh, this will probably pass.
Hello there. I can’t help but identify with what you said. I’m not totally out yet, only a few of my friends know but I’m still struggling to know if I’m into women or not. In July, I totally fell in love with a guy for the first time. It freaked me out, and I brushed it aside as a one-off thing. Now, I think I’m falling in love with another and I’m really panicking. I really wish I was more into women too sometimes. It would make things so much easier.
Wow. Cool. Good for you for wondering aloud.
The uncertainty’s a bitch, isn’t it? I know. I’d like to say “been there, done that,” but the truth is, I’m still “there,” in the present tense.
I think most people would agree that there are more self-identified gay and bi people today, and that their increased number is a product of our society becoming both more diverse and more tolerant. But I also think that some of those people who identify themselves as such aren’t necessarily gay or bi, but are instead, although they may not yet realize it themselves, merely in the midst of exploring alternative lifestyles — an exploration they feel more free than previous generations to engage in, again, because of the increasingly pluralistic society we enjoy today.
Anyhow, there you have another one of my little pet theories. I’m not saying it describes you. I guess what I am saying is, hackneyed as it may sound, follow your heart — and know that the friendships you form with people who are serious about being your friends will be there to sustain you whatever your choices in life.
(Who do I think I am, Dr. Phil? If I’m coming across as sanctimonious or self-important, that’s not my intent. Just wanting to encourage you to be you, that’s all. :-)
Wow! I thought I was the only one who’d ever had these “I know I’m gay, but wouldn’t it be easier if I were just straight?” feelings.
Unfortunately, it isn’t easier. But I think you know that.
Maybe one of the reasons that you can’t imagine yourself settled down with a man is because you really don’t know a lot of male couples. Believe me, I’ve been there, and was hard to imagine myself settling down with someone when I didn’t know of a single gay man who had done such a thing. It was a lot like when I was younger and thought “I can’t be gay! All gay men are thin and effeminate or leering old perverts!”
I’ve been “partnered” now for just under three years, and it feels as natural as any marriage or heterosexual relationship. My mother is even happy for us. It’s hard to believe that just four years ago, I could have never imagined something like this could happen, or that I ever wished I were straight.
Well if this entry doesn’t meet Choire’s birthday demand for something “special” then nothing does!
I think one of the problems unique to being gay is that one’s orientation becomes the de facto object of most, if not all, of one’s discontents. Even in our relatively tolerant culture, it’s all too easy to turn on our sexual preference as the source of all of our discomfort when in fact (I believe, anyway) it has little or nothing to do with it. In the same way that, say, class issues often masquerade as issues of race, I think that profoundly complex questions of identity and personal growth show up looking like questions of sexual orientation. I’m particularly interested in your having avoided calling your BF during your sickness because your mom had taken care of you. My sense is that you’d have been reluctant to contact any lover — male or female — after an episode like that. A mother’s unique ability to infantalize us (even in a good way) can set even the most evolved of back a good twenty years, rendering us paralyzed and unable to reach out to those who we believe want us to act like men…once again, regardless of their gender.
My point is this. While I don’t discount the enormous burden that being gay can place on the process “growing up”, I strongly believe that more often than not our feelings about that gayness are the symptom, not the cause of unhappiness. All men — straight, gay or otherwise — struggle to become themselves, to become Men; laboring to evolve even as a world of forces conspire to beat us back. Naturally, gay men face a unique set of circumstances, but no less so than do straight men or women, if you think about it. The challenge is to worry less about whether our body chemistry is in proper balance — an all-too convenient red herring — and more about how we relate to the world as a whole. We are who we are. How we are, though, is an altogether more complicated matter.
By the way, Tinman, you rock
Judging from my own feeling and what I hear from other gay men, most (gay) men have these thoughts from time to time. Society is geared towards heterosexual coupledom and that leaves us with a social pressure.
To my surprise one of my maaried straight friends once told me he had the same doubts … the other way around. He did not question his heteresexuality or his emotioneel need for a female partner, but somewhere was this remote doubt that he never would know how it is to live with a man and live a masculine empowered life, without clasing into the female life he experiences everyday.
I was amazed, and amused, but whenever I feel/think the same things you described in your blog entry, I think of that story.
Little over 50 years ago if you had asked the average Jew (or goy) whether the average male Jew was good at sports, they would have readily replied “No.”
Society, especially European society, held close to the concept that a “good” Jew, or just a Jew in general, was a studious Jew, one that didn’t embrace the physique and flesh. At a more base/racist level, others theorized it just wasn’t in our genes.
Today, although remnants remain, Israel and it’s Uber-Army Ts’HaL refute that whole concept pretty well.
We’re all pavlovian dogs…
And, when our behaivor isn’t obedient to those norms and conditioning, we feel guilty. Why? Because we’re conditioned to do so.
.rob
I believe that anyone who is really truthful with themselves can to a certain extent emphasise with your present state of mind. We are from birth conditioned into labelling ourselves, and this of course trangresses into our sexuality. We are either one thing or the other, we either like members of the opposite or members of the same sex.
But are humans not more complex than that?. I believe so. Attraction can vary. I’d call myself “straight” if I were to label myself. I like men. BUT occasionally I meet a girl who makes me sit back and think.
Pardon my spelling or lack of eloquence I am unfortunately dyslexic and writing isn’t my strongest skill. Your eloquence & frankness is something I have always admired, and continue to do so.