Sunday, August 24, 2008

HOW I UNDERSTOOD TO BE GAY

Understanding of being gay ... My real problem for at least three years was just that. Until 17 I felt straight, not very enthusiastic in chasing after girls, I had to stand them more than anything else, but there I was and I didn’t refuse girls, and girls sunned after me sometimes, I believe I’m a nice boy and some girl always wanted to be my friend.
At school all my classmates wanted badly to go to dance, especially on Saturday evenings to a disco. Sometimes I went too, between 17 and 18, but going to dance for me meant only going to dance and nothing else, for other guys things were different, they went there to be able to hide somewhere with girls, even without doing anything wrong, or perhaps no, who knows, perhaps I’m naive. I went there and didn’t dance, almost never. When I had to embrace some girl I tried also to keep her distant from “there”.
All these things could make me understand how things were, but nothing like that happened and I understood later why. A that time I went to Church a lot (and now I’m in crisis from this point of view but then everything was different), at that time I didn’t even think I was gay, that is, is not that I was thinking about the problem deducing I was straight, It wasn’t a problem at all for me. It was obvious that I was heterosexual. I didn’t feel gay temptations at all, I know that it seems absurd, but didn’t happen at all. I have read on this forum about getting hard and masturbating for a friend.
Today I know what it means but then such things never happened to me. That little amount of sexual fantasies that I was doing where only about girls, because everybody used to do such things about girls. So to say, then I sublimated everything, more or less, I masturbated but thinking about girls even if it wasn’t an exciting thing. But look. At that time, even showering with my friends in the pool was nothing at all for me. It was a pride for me having my sexuality reduced to a minimum.
When I went to confess, sometimes at least, I hadn’t even to tell that I masturbated because I wasn’t addicted to that and I felt very proud. You can say: "Then how did you live?" Practically all sports, school, volunteering ... In short I was a swimmer almost for national selections, not exactly but very close to it and for me those things were important, I spent entire afternoons in the pool and my coach considered realistic the idea of sending me to the Italian championships and this thing was very gratifying for me. .. Do you know what a training level for swimmers like me is? .... Then I added the study, because I was also very good at school and such things made me feel perfect. Teachers at school told me that I was great, the coach told me that I could go to national games, priests told me I was doing very well avoiding masturbation ... you understand, I could feel the perfect guy model.
Only my father, sometimes, I think, was a little perplexed, but not that I was gay, that I simply had set aside my sexuality to devote myself to other things. Dad tried to tell me that in life there are other things, certainly he meant girls, but not even nominated, I answered I had many other things to do and that I was thinking a lot about girls. And I was really convinced of thinking girls.
In short, things went on like this up to 19 y. o... Then I signed up for engineering and at engineering department I met Stephen and there our story began. After the first days of class I see that there is a serious guy, a little like me, always taking notes, who does not go out during the intervals and is always there studying his book, a guy who doesn’t use to get acquainted with other guys or to lose time ... I notice him, yes, but just notice... then something unpredictable happens, the analysis teacher explains Heine-Cantor theorem doing this premise: "I’ll explain it but you won’t understand anything at all!" For me, like I was at that time, such things ware like a glove challenge.
I had to understand the Heine-Cantor theorem. I work the utmost commitment; approximately, I can also understand the general meaning but did not understand precisely why it was something important and could have a practical utility. The day after, Stephen approaches me (blessed be the Heine-Cantor theorem!) And tells me: "But did you understand the theorem that the teacher explained yesterday?" Look, for me that question had not in any way flavor of a personal approach; it was only a request for explanations about a theorem of analysis. I have tried to master to him from what I understood but Stephen replied objections to which I did not know how to answer and I ended up smiling and enlarging my arms as to say: "Well ... perhaps I didn’t understand anything at all!”
When next lesson begins he remains seating next to me, but I don’t even notice. Then at the end of the lesson he tells me: "Do we try to understand how it works?” I say yes and we spend the whole afternoon on the Heine-Cantor theorem, slowly the issue clarifies and at the end we feel the thing pretty simple. In the evening when we say bye we tell each other that next day we were going to ask the teacher whether or not what we understood was right. In the evening, at home, I newly studied the theorem and next morning after class we asked the teacher and he told us that the meaning was exactly what we had understood. I felt radiant ... but only for the Heine-Cantor theorem.
In the following days, Stephen thought that we could study together because we were serious guys who don’t like waste time and we began to study together. I would like to underline that we only studied, not even a word about other subjects, we were too taken with the idea of passing all examinations at the first session, and for us that was the first goal. In practice we have only studied until the end of examinations and we passed all exams and all with 30/30 and it wasn’t easy at all. We felt in ecstasy, but next day I missed a lot the study with Stephen ... and I think the same happened to him.
He called and told me ... what do you do today? My answer: nothing! so we met in the early afternoon but we had nothing to do, we talked all the afternoon, I fully Catholic, he just the opposite but respectful, political ideas were not very different, then we talked about books, cinema, songs, teachers, high school and many other subjects, but never about girls or sex. I then didn’t notice at all such things but later I understood ... When we are going to say bye I ask him about his plans for the next day, he offers me an exhibition on Impressionists and I agree.
Next morning, after the exhibition, about which he knew everything more than an art history teacher, we go to eat something at fast food restaurant and then we walk around the city. Together we are good. We are two friends walking in a beautiful July afternoon. In short, things went so for about half a summer.
My parents in August go to the mountains for three weeks; I use to go with them. I ask Stephen what he’s going to do in August, he asks me: "And you?" I say, instinctively: "I’ll stay here ..." and he tells me: "I too!" I feel happy. When I go back home I say to my parents that I have to stay at home. My father tells me only: "But don’t’ be mad with books!" At that moment for the first time I realize that I have skipped three weeks in the mountains to stay with Stephen. Several days after he told me he did exactly the same to stay with me.
When my parent were away, Stephen used to come to my house, sex was miles from us, either to him or to me, we were happy to be together, talking, cooking, relaxing and telling each other prudently about our lives. In those afternoons we began to talk about sex: two heterosexual friends who talk about sex, he tells me at the beginning of his two girls and I tell him of my adventures, so to say.
Then our confidence became slowly more and more and he told me that, however, he was not enthusiastic about sex, I told him that for me was just the same and then we discussed with a greater freedom. For me, but I think even for him, it was an incredible sense of liberation talking freely about sex, although in fact we spoke nevertheless much more trough allusions than directly, but substantially our talking was serious. Neither he nor thought to be gay, we were two straight not enthusiastic guys, that was all.
Then Stephen was entirely blocked, the fluency of the previous days seemed to disappear, he came to my house but didn’t like to stay at home but wanted to leave the house to go around the city, not talking about us but just about books and exhibitions. ... I had had enough of it ... but I did not say anything.
One evening, when he left, he tried not to give me an appointment for the following day; he was formal, and never happened before. I put him on the spot, I saw that he was embarrassed and he told me: "Come on, I'm not going to talk about it ... don’t worry, I’m not down on you ... "and he left. I was there in all my discomfort, I didn’t know what to think, I called him on the phone, he replied very short messages, then closed the phone but I didn’t let him go, at the end he told me: "Okay, I’ll come tomorrow, you’re right you have to know ... "
The next day came, he was stressed, asked me not to interrupt and in very few words told me that he thought he was in love with me but the situation seemed absurd to him because he never fell in love with a boy, what instead was happening . I then still thought I was heterosexual and I replied as I thought a good heterosexual boy should reply to a gay friend of his in such a situation: "I am sorry but I cannot agree because I am heterosexual ... I like you but... "He didn’t even let me end my phrase and he left saying that he was tired and didn’t even bear to stay there ...
When he left I felt a violent feeling of emptiness, I was a few minutes shocked ... then I went racing at the bus stop where he had to take his bus, I saw him get in but didn’t join him in time ... I felt death ... I said to myself: "But I love this boy ... I don’t know about sex factor, but I can’t live without him ... "I sent a text message:" I love you ... now I understand!"He called me and told me: "Is it true?”I said:" I went racing to reach the stop I saw you get in and leave but I was not able to reach you in time and I was going to break down and cry ... I can’t do without you, without you I die ... don’t put me down this way ... I love you, Stephen ... I love you ...", and he said, stay there at the bus stop I’ll arrive in minutes. And he closed the phone ...
Ten minutes later I saw him arrive racing and panting ... We embraced crying in the middle of the road. Do not think that we went home to have sex, to get there; it took more than a month. He wanted us, both, to do test for AIDS and then our relationship was characterized by a form of mutual shyness, hesitation, a little as Project says.
Now we are together for a year, we passed all examinations also of the second year ... I think that without Stephen I would never have understood to be gay. Now we have our whole sexuality but it’s too private and I’ll keep it private. I just wanted to say that there are many ways to feel gay and perhaps there are so many ways of being gay that it is difficult to understand them completely. Thanks to all and to Project in particular.
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Sunday, August 10, 2008

GAY GUYS AND GAY SEX

As usual the analysis of access keys to my websites gives me concrete arguments for reflection. I have chose some fairly typical. Among the access keys used by parents probably some are worthy of attention, alongside the classics "Parents of gay children" "Accept gay children" I find also: "Discover the child who masturbates" "My son masturbates what do I do?" The use of these keys for access, far from awaken a smile, should be taken very seriously. In this case a parent worries not about the homosexuality of his son but that the boy masturbates. The use of the verb "discover" is indicative of the sense of surprise of the writer, but beyond the discovery one wonders how to behave. Speaking about boys (son), a key access like those mentioned, used by a father, would seem absolutely incredible, because I do not think that an adult man might wonder about the idea that his son masturbates. If, as I think, these access keys are used from mothers, I can only infer that these ladies have not the slightest knowledge of male sexuality. In this sense, their attitude may be entirely ruling and not informed and can produce not small trauma for children. Let me note that the wonder of the parent who is surprised that his son masturbates is exactly symmetrical to that of the son who discovers that parents have a sex life, but while everybody can understand the dismay of a very young boy we cannot justify the puzzled attitude of the parent. The sexuality of a guy, especially if young, finds the most obvious achievements in masturbation. The privacy of a guy who masturbates must never be disturbed for any reason, much less by a parent. For a boy, being surprised in the act of masturbating is a terrible, traumatic experience, especially if the discovery by the parent is accompanied by signs of concern. A guy, now adult, told me that he was surprised by his father while masturbating and that wasn’t particularly traumatic for him, but the scene was designed more or less like this: the father comes in the room while the child is masturbating, apologizes, closes the door and leaves and, later, makes no reference to the fact, when the father sees his son embarrassed tells him: "look everybody does masturbate!" and the story ends there. No parent can seriously expect to meddle in these things that are absolutely private affairs of children. Very different, and much more delicate is the question of the relationship of parents with gay children, especially when it gay children made their coming out outside the family. I must underline that a group, usually fed, of readers comes to my sites with keys like this: "Tell parents to be gay" "Tell parents to be homosexual" "Coming out homosexuality parents" or even "Gay boys worked over by parents" Yesterday evening it happened to me to chat with a guy 21 y. o ., a serious guy, not chasing easy sex but friendship through chat (which is certainly not the best place to find gay friends). He said that friends know nothing about his sexual orientation, if they knew they would drop him immediately. He hasn’t the courage to tell his parents that he’s gay, because his father would react violently, and every time you talk about gay he manifests a terrible aggressive attitude. Even at 21 y. o., therefore, gay guys are afraid to come out with their parents. This is not exceptional ... it’s the rule. But a boy becomes aware of being gay much earlier than 21 y. o.. A group of access keys, probably coming from very young boys, indicates the uncertainty about being gay and understanding exactly what being gay means. " What age boys discover to be gay? " "How can I understand if I’m gay" "How understand if a guy is gay" Another group still indicates the need to find a comparison on the first gay experiences and the possibility of a heterosexual love. "I discovered to be gay" "Stories of boys who discover to be gay" "Stories of first gay experiences" "Friend's love of the same sex" "Homosexuality in schools" "Why am I in love with a heterosexual?" "Love between a boy and a heterosexual guy" "I gay, he heterosexual" Another group of access keys is about finding "not dangerous" contacts with other gay guys. "Chat for gay boys" "How to trust gay sex meetings in chat" Very often the loneliness of younger gay children takes them to the gay chats and here the speech is very delicate, not only because the soliciting of non legal boys through chat is criminally sanctioned, but even apart from this aspect, chats are a very special world . In the chats I found even very young boys (if they were really) so immediate with obscene proposals that I think very clearly that it was prostitution. As you do, this things will remain anyway. I would rather consider the guys (almost all legal) who seek sex on the net. Some of them have certainly nothing to do with prostitution but clearly aim to sexual activity usually without a direct meeting, but via webcam, in a way that is very risky, because movies can be recorded, and I think that they really are in many cases. Consequences can range from the publication on porn sites to real forms of blackmailing, when you meet people so naive to be recognizable. So I advise in the most absolute anyone sailing in the chats not to use webcam ... that are dangerous especially with unknown people. In chat you usually receive a call that begins with the question "got a webcam ?"... Caution! Obviously the same goes for the exchange of photos. But let’s come to the only written chats, which are those that I care about most. Many proposals for sexual contacts, that can be obtained on these chats, are not aggressive, are colloquials, there is a little dialogue and even not so stupid sometimes. Indeed I meet in chat guys in search of sex that aren’t surely typical good guys. Usually they aren’t very young boys, but between 20 and 24 y. o. ... they are polite, educated, before closing a brief conversation with me, that declare my age immediately, they feel obliged to chat a little with formulas such as "hello, was a pleasure to meet you." With some of these guys I was able to make a serious conversation even a quarter of an hour. I wonder why these guys go to seek sex on a chat. In theory it could be more adequate to seek emotional contacts with guys known in real life .... but evidently it is so difficult that the option of chatting is the only practicable. All this dismays me. Essentially all good things these guys could find in real life, in fact, are utopia, while a little chatting or a little sex online are concrete realities. Generally guys seeking gay sex in a moderate chatting hare no more than 25/26 y. o., when you meet older guys (few, but there are) the conversation becomes more serious, more personal and adult contact, you may experience a true dialogue also not very short and you can also find a real will of not superficial comparison. Typically, around 25 y. o. a gay guy has found his balance, more or less precarious but it has found it, and the search for sex chatting becomes marginal. The image of the gay planet that comes out of the chats is quite varied and, in any case, refers to very young age groups, accustomed to the use of Internet and to a more uninhibited interpersonal contact. For now I will stop here.
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GAY LOVE AND COMING OUT

Hello Project,
I wanted to tell you my story and I would like to know what you think, bellow there's my contact, if you like chatting with me just a little.
Call me Mark, it’s not my real name, but everybody calls me this way, because I don’t like my real name, I’m 21 y. o., live in a big city, and study physical education sciences, I study subjects related to sports because I practice sports and I’m an athlete at competitive level and also with excellent results. That is, even though I know that the career of a player and in particular specialties that I practice ends very soon, I’d like to remain in the world of sports because it is my real world and because I really feel at ease there. I sport since I was a young boy; the gym is my second home or even the first, because I spend more time in the gym than at home.
But I come to the point. Until last year I have not thought much about sex. I had to attend school, then university and had mainly competitions that for me were very important. In practice until last year, but I would say all last year if not beyond, even in January, February 2008, for me sport was only sporting activity. I never felt embarrassment in the locker room or showering with other guys and I did also some sexual joke and sometimes I was also the victim of such jokes but absolutely no problem, indeed I always liked a lot the free locker room environment because we play a little there and I like well such things, but from the beginning of March, that is from a very short time, things have really changed. Do not ask me why and if there is a good reason, I thought so but I have not been able to discover one. You have understood! I started to realize that in the locker room there were other naked guys and I began to worry about. I had never noticed that my mates where naked in the locker room or in the shower for me all that was always absolutely normal, but, let's say, by March I started to notice them. For them nothing had changed at all but for me it was very different, I was aware of that, I was interested, in short, I was studying my mates and beginning to think how would have been nice if those guys were in love with me. Outside, I continued to behave more or less as before even if I was beginning to have problems controlling the erection, which in the locker room and showers is not a little taboo, so that it’s the hallmark that you are gay. You do everything to avoid erection and you are worried because you don’t understand how other guys could take such things. The result of all this: I spend in the locker room just a minute and I try to be dressed as much as possible, but then the moment of truth arrives and then anxiety comes. Virtually I’m at ease with my being gay, I had virtually no problem, and although I had never had a girl in the truest sense of the word, but just little stories, that I have never taken seriously, in practice I have only taken note of what I knew already. But when you're gay and live in places like those where I live, that is in the midst of athletes that are not all beautiful how people think even if among them there are really those very sexy, well, inside you feel a certain agitation. I read that many young men seek meeting sites or gay chats, I never did such things, for me the gym is everything also from this point of view, I would have practically no need to seek sex photos on the net because I am among guys when and how I like. My real problem is another, that is to understand if among the guys I like there are gay guys because I’d never fall in love with a straight guy making a poor showing and being teased. I'm also having problems about sport performances, my trainer says it often and asks me why, but I can’t tell him how things really are. Another thing. Do not laugh: I never had any gay experience; I never made sex with anyone. Now I think I’m not really in love, because as Project says: to fall in love it’s necessary to be two, and then I’m not missing sex in the true meaning of the word, when It happens I do what everybody does, but I don’t like to get involved in troubles to make sex with a guy that I don’t know and don’t even know if he’s healthy, for such stuff count me out. Now, I can say, I’m alone just in the sense that I don’t have a boyfriend. I premise I don’t even have gay friends, I found the Project’s gay blog on Google and I was amazed by the monstrous amount of material that it contains. I built my little knowledge on gay issues on that blog but not only by reading the posts (I can read Italian) but also the comments, then I discovered the forum, first I didn’t notice it, but it’s also a mine. And I read a lot of very interesting posts, but I have not had the courage to enroll. Now, speaking honest, I think that sooner or later I will make some big poppycock in the gym, to tell the truth there is a guy who attracts me very much there. I’m now his coach, he is in a group entrusted to me, 19 y. o., he’s younger than me, but I’m 21, not 50. He’s really beautiful and then we shower together every day, in short, you understand, I like everything of him. With him I behave in a casual and friendly manner, as I do with the other guys, but with others I am spontaneous, with him no, we talk so much, both before and after the shower, he trusts me completely and considers me just like a brother. He has to graduate in days, just a couple of weeks ago he was very sad, we waited to talk and he told me that the mathematics teacher called him unexpectedly and graded him badly and said that he could never pass the examination. He had studied a lot but that the teacher was just a piece of shit that would have done everything to put him in trouble, because he had it in for him, at some point his eyes became red and he was going to cry. I wanted to embrace him, I wanted to keep close to tell him that I loved him but I felt frozen and I didn’t move at all, I saw in his eyes just two tears that torn my soul, he was ashamed and dried tears with hands. I told him that last year I lost a very important medal for two hundredths of a second and later, when no one saw me, I started crying like a fountain. Then there has been training and I cuddled him a lot and he was happy for all this attention, then in the shower I had the impression that he almost tried my eyes, that is he was trying to understand if I observed him and I think he understood, when we left he waited to speak with me but in another way, at least I had the impression that it was in another way, he looked into my eyes more directly and smiled, I thought that he wanted an encouragement but I didn’t anything. It is true that with me he has talked about girls but this does not mean anything. My anxiety is now only about is being gay or not? To tell the truth it’s as if I had the premonition to be on the verge of being involved in some ugly mess and that’s why I try to treat him well, but without going beyond and indeed I take care also of other guys, but I should say rather I pretend to take care of those guys trying to get reed of his image that is always in front of me. I study all the ways to stay with him as long as possible, without looking too much interested and when it’s possible, I do whatever I can, to avoid to meet him, in practice now we talk only when it is he that calls me but I never take the initiative. But when he asks me, I show me very excited. Today in the shower I looked and noticed he had an erection, but most likely one sees what he wants to see. Shit! I can’t stand that no more! But why should I fall in love with a guy and not have the courage to speak openly! What could happen? I don’t know. In practice I think that he never got the suspicion that I’m gay, or perhaps yes, I don’t know what to think, but it is an unbearable stress. Want to laugh? Well I think he is heterosexual and that is fine with me because for him there are no complications of any kind about sex and he thinks that this is the case even for me. So I am condemned to this eternal torment of not knowing how to behave. If things go on like that and he doesn’t freeze me with something extraordinary, like seeing him kissing a girl or joking stupidly on gays, well, I believe that I will make the madness, I tried many times to prepare the speech but I think that at the end I would be trivial and very direct, such as: "I am gay and you?" And at this point he jabs me in the face or I looks upset. Sometimes in the locker room I feel like I’m sex maniac and sometimes I even feel guilty over the guy who I like best because in fact I am cheating him and I hate to cheat him, and that could well be one of the fundamental reasons for making the big step and tell him how things really are.
A hug,
Marc
P. S. if you publish this mail, we’ll see what guys think.
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