The issue of people wondering if I were gay has been with me for a while. When I was nineteen the older brother of a friend of mine floated a rumor that I was gay. I was mad, called him up and gave him a piece of my mind. Within a few years of my being mad about such insinuation I began to wonder myself if I might be gay or bi. In spite of being a very sexual person, I had never fantasized about guys before. But maybe other people were seeing something that I didn't.
When I was a senior in high school there was that football coach I've spoken of in previous posts who was attracted to me and made passes at me. I have since realized that I was extremely eager for the attention and care of a man (father figure) and he was masquerading as a healthy version of that, when in fact he was more interested in having me as a sexual partner. Because I was so wounded and needy I was a pretty easy mark.
My mom was really hoping that her husband would be like a father to me but that didn't work out. A month after they were married she became psychotic, spent two weeks in a mental hospital, received her diagnosis, and started taking lithium. Pretty bumpy start to the marriage. And it stayed bumpy all the way through the eight years they were married. They yelled at each other so frequently that I would just expect it to be happening if they were both in the house. And even if it hadn't been so bumpy I seriously doubt he and I would have been close. We are very different people and have very different values.
By the time I was in my third year of college I had several friends who were were either gay or lesbian and being around them felt comfortable to me. I didn't like other men making passes at me, but I was perfectly happy to be friends with a number of gay men. At the time I considered myself something of a "SNAG" (sensitive new age guy) and so hanging out with other guys like that seemed just normal. Not that all gay men are SNAGS (by any means!). I really liked hanging out with lesbians because I felt like I could be purely friends with them, and not have any sexual tension between us.
When I was a senior in college I kissed a man and soon after even went on a few dates with another man. I didn't really think I was particularly attracted to either of them (way less compared to how I respond to women) but I wanted to "just see, dammit!" What I learned from those two experiences, and just thinking about whether I were gay or straight or bi, (and any of the three options was going to be OK), is that I really like women. A lot. In fact, since that time in college it's not something that has even crossed my mind in twenty years. Except that occasionally people still ask me, "Are you sure you're not gay?"
So why is that? Am I deluded? Have all these years of happy hetero life been a smokescreen? As I have pondered this reaction other people have to me and have come to some insights about why they are wondering.
In my previous post I talked about how there was a fair amount of sexuality in my life early on, much of it either damaging to me (being molested) or at least not healthy (regularly watching porno flicks with my friends from age 13). My mom's bipolar has a symptom of hyper-sexuality, which she did display. We also had a close family friend who thought nothing of undressing in front of a group of pubescent boys. I had my first post-puberty sexual experience with an inebriated teenage girl I had met on a city bus when I was thirteen years old. I never knew her name or saw her again after we had had sex. In high school I fairly regularly had sex with girls in my own house for the simple reason that my mom and her husband weren't around.
By age sixteen I was a bit of a loose cannon as far as sexuality was concerned. That was when I was treated for an STD. I consider myself very, very lucky that I didn't get a girl pregnant. Or that I had caught something that you can't clear up with a visit to the free clinic.
Going back to the initial question of the post, why DO I come across to some people as perhaps being gay?
I think a lot of it goes back to three things: being molested, my mom's lack of boundaries in regards to her own sexuality, and the simple fact of being raised by a woman.
I need to make very clear here that my mom never molested me or did anything overtly inappropriate towards me in a sexual way. Nevertheless, her own boundaries, both generally and in relation to sexuality, have been quite permeable.
I also need to make very clear that I do not believe that being gay is due to some kind of damage to a person in childhood. I was damaged as a child in the area of sexuality. And I'm not gay. But seeming gay to some people is, I believe, due in part to my childhood traumas.
I believe the molestation opened me up to others' sexual advances in an unhealthy way. It made my "field" of sexuality confused and permeable, and set me up in somewhat of a victim's stance. I have been very fortunate that I have not been victimized sexually by others since the time I was molested (though the situation with the football coach was pretty close). Nor have I become a perpetrator. I think it's really good to acknowledge these things because they are places where I can express gratitude and pat myself on the back. Things could have been a lot worse.
As I grew up and became an adult someone could show me sexual attention and I would be essentially unable to resist mirroring it back. Just as the babysitter forced me to her deviant will, I would be compelled to return sexual attention whether I wanted to or not. Someone who was not hurt in the way that I was could more easily have friends who were "just friends". With me, the wiring is a bit off and I can easily send messages that I do not wish to send. This miscommunication has gotten better over time but is still active to some degree.
The babysitter surrounded me with her energy and then assaulted me. I have read about the difference between the male abuse pattern versus the female abuse pattern. Due to the nature of the biology and soul differences between males and females, there are real differences in what the victim experiences, physically, emotionally and mentally. The male pattern is more about being invaded by a foreign body, which punches through one's boundaries. The way to heal this after the fact can be using anger to repel the feeling of the attack. One can, in one's imagination, fight back against the assault and beat the shit out of him.
When it's by a female perpetrator, the abuse pattern can be more of being encircled, surrounded by a soft and enveloping presence. Sounds nice, right? Except that you're being raped. Being assaulted by a female can, in some ways, be more difficult to heal from, because the abuse pattern is less clear and more diffuse. "Didn't I kinda like it?" "She was nice, some of the time." The violation of being raped by a man is likely to be much clearer than it is when being raped by a woman.
And so it is pretty challenging for me to sort out what is my natural behavior and what is a pathology based on being molested. A lot of times it feels much easier to isolate myself than to feel the jumble of issues under the surface of my consciousness when I am interacting with a friend. If I keep people at a distance then I don't have to feel like I'm on that wobbly ground. If I am more distant I feel like I am stronger. But I also know that the feeling of strength is an illusion. What will actually make me stronger is to deal with the issues and have friends I become close to.
So, friendships in general are pretty challenging for me. And beyond the issues of sexual abuse, there is also the issue of my dad abandoning me just a few months after the molestation had ceased. So, the sexual abuse plays in, as does the lack of boundaries which comes from my mom. And then the icing on the cake is that I have a deep and intense fear of being abandoned and so I will distance myself from another person rather than risk having that person "abandon" me. Whoohoo--the lonely guy trifecta!
I don't really have many friends I spend much time with. I am a likable person but I clearly have major roadblocks to anyone getting closer to me. My wife is a very notable exception. Having friends I am close to is something that I'll just have to work at over time.
Now, if I had had family members who carried clear boundaries themselves I might have gotten a head-start on healing the boundary issues that came with the molestation.. But my mom, apparently as do many people with mental illness, has poor boundaries. When I was a kid I did not have any kind of direct model of a person who could hold their own sexual "field" back based on their intention. Now that I am in my forties, I've been working on creating a healthy boundary between mom and I. This has been extremely helpful for me, and for her as well. It has also been very slow-going. I believe that a part of my mom would very much like to feel as if she and I were one person. Fortunately, that part of her has been steadily decreasing its hold over her.
The other reason that sometimes people wonder if I'm gay is pretty simple, really. I was, for the most part, raised by my mom. Dad was out of the picture pretty early and even though mom remarried, it was when I was fifteen and I didn't really think much of her husband. So basically my model of adult behavior was a woman. And so, some of my mannerisms are more feminine at times. So sue me.
When you put that and the sexual boundary issues together it is pretty easy to see how someone might wonder about my sexual orientation. When it comes to gay men telling me they think I'm gay, I also, at times, have to take it with a grain of salt. I've had men (when I was in college) tell me they thought I was gay and also tell me that they'd be happy to have sex with me to help me figure everything out. Uh, yeah. Thanks.
I think that I am really the most objective person to make this determination, even though my thoughts are by definition, subjective. And I am really quite clear on the matter. But it's helpful to go over the issue and sort out the various pieces.
Life is not simple. But it is interesting. No doubt.
Your comments are welcome.
Warmly, Ben
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