BEING GAY IN MY COUNTRY

On October 10, 2012 Gay Project has opened its new forum in English. The philosophy of the Project is very simple:

1) No economic interest. The entire activity of Gay Project is totally free and non-profit.
2) No affiliation with other groups or organizations.
3) No dependence on political or religious ideologies.
4) Always tell the truth.
5) Publish only original material.

In order to promote the forum we consider the possibility of creating different sections related to single countries or areas. Each section (for example “Being gay in USA [if you like State by State]”, “Being gay in Canada”, “Being gay in England”, “Being gay in India”, “Being gay in Jamaica”, “Being gay in South Africa” etc.) is intended to discuss gay questions from a local specific point of view. This way the reader can better understand what gay people are dealing with everyday within single countries. We are searching for guys who can help us starting all this. That’s why a form has been created. Filling the form with adequate contents we can open in the same way the sections dedicated to the single countries.
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The life of an average gay guy in my country

My country: short description
How do gay guys feel their situation, how they deal with parents, friends, school or sport mates, for example about coming out.
Problems that gay guys have to face in everyday life: homophobia or discrimination at school, at university, at work. Problems with families, religion, social institutions.
Legal questions about civil rights, homophobia, marriage and legal unions.
Social reactions of acceptance, refusal, indifference in front of gay coming out.
Other specific aspects you think relevant.
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If you are interested in helping us to start this new service referring to your country, please fill the form above in English (about 3 or 4 pages or more if you like) and send it to gayprojact@ymail.com. A specific section of the Forum will be created as soon as possible for your country. You can post on the new section the filled form to start the discussion dedicated to your country.

Please read before the rules of the Forum: http://gayprojectforum.altervista.org/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=2

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If you like, you can join the discussion on this post on Gay Project Forum: http://gayprojectforum.altervista.org/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=68

DANGEROUS GAY DATING

This post is dedicated to dangerous gay dating and is aimed primarily at younger guys but also at older guys who have no real knowledge of environments and potentially dangerous situations.

Among gays, as among heterosexuals, there are people who are looking for easy sex taking advantage of all the opportunities that the network can offer that are very many, some classic and well known like sex chats and dating sites, whose declared aim, in a more or less explicit way, is to combine sexual encounters, others far more subtle, that capture young guys often completely unprepared.

I try to explain with an example. A gay guy has a blog or facebook profile in which people can find his personal data that enable the identification, that guy publishes on his blog or on his profile contents that allow an experienced eye to identify him as gay (it is not necessary that the content is explicit). With a quick search via google for the sex hunter it is easy to identify similar situations. Identified the target, typically through a photo, which allows to immediately discard uninteresting people, the sex hunter adds a “serious” comment on the Blog of the guy or in his profile in order to stimulate the interest of the victim. I emphasize that, in principle, the commentary added tends to respond to the expectations of the potential victim or to emphasize the similarity with the victim: same language, very similar age, very similar emotional attitudes. Following are three authentic messages left on blogs and profiles of guys identified as gay by sex hunters (people which later have been clearly identified as sex hunters):

“Hello, I read your post and I felt like crying, but why do we feel so bad? It’s not fair! You are a guy so sensitive and must stay that way. I have happened the same thing. Relationships with my parents were terrible, traumatic, relationships with friends nothing at all, now I’m alone and I do not know where to turn. If you want to talk a little, this is my contact [omitted]. “

“I do not know if it happens to you, but I really need physically to be near a guy and no one is near me, I never had a guy but I miss a guy so much. You’re right when you say that masturbation is not enough anymore. I also want a real guy near me! Please, contact me. “

“What a beautiful post! I’m tired, I always tell lies, I would like to be able to speak with a guy in my real life, I would like to understand how he lives, I would fall in love, I can’t stand no more to be alone! If you want to talk I’m here. “

Into these messages you can identify some subliminal contents which can be summarized as follows:
1) I’m a guy like you, more or less your age and with problems similar to yours
2) I have never had a boyfriend (encouraging message that tends to exorcise the risk of aids)

If the first message is followed by a response from the recipient, in the reply of the guy who is searching for sex appears immediately or very soon the question: “Where are you from?” (If the information is not deductible from the blog or from the profile of the victim) and the request for the exchange of pictures. Both the questions “where are you from?” and the exchange of photos are used to make a selection: if the victim doesn’t look pleasing to the sex hunter or lives in places far away the exchange of messages is designed to fade quickly, on the contrary in case the victim’s residence is in the same city of the sex hunter and the gay has a pleasing appearance starts a “short” period of contact in chat, a period that usually does not exceed a week. If the sex hunter sees the other guy showing very reserved attitudes he may decide to let him go in order not to waste too much time, if he sees instead a real interest (if he is called on the phone by the victim, if the conversation comes early to touch though moderately explicit sexual contents) you will arrive at the inevitable invitation to behold in person. Of course, the invitation is offered to “talk” to “drink”, to “know each other better.”

I emphasize that the sex hunter does not make references of a sexual nature, he puts things in terms of friendship, tends to create affectionate intimacy with the victim but also tends to “shorten the time of the contacts in chat” and goes as soon as possible to a face to face meeting. I reproduce below an excerpt from a chat between a 32 y. o. sex hunter and a 16 y. o. guy (names have been changed).

32 y. o. writes – Hello Mark, are you okay?
16 y. o. writes – I was waiting for your call!
32 y. o. writes – Well, I enjoy very much chatting with you, in fact just as much …
16 y. o. writes – I’m happy! In practice last night I was up all night … and I don’t tell you why
32 y. o. writes – Come on, why?
16 y. o. writes – Well I thought about everything you said to me yesterday, about your story and the fact that, really that guy did not deserved you, basically he just deluded you
32 y. o. writes – And yes in a way it is just that, but I do not care so much about sex, however, I felt betrayed, mocked, for me to fall in love is a serious thing, I don’t like at all the guys who take sex as a game.
16 y. o. writes – But, you know, people are not all like you and there are also guys who only think about sex and a little I can understand them, because in the end a guy thinks a lot about sex, not only that, but certainly he does.
32 y. o. writes – Well, yes, ok, but in the end taking care of yourself is another thing, maybe you think I’m too traditional but if you fall in love with a guy you have to do it seriously
16 y. o. writes – I agree, but in the end there is also sex
32 y. o. writes – But where are you from? Because we talked about everything but this, I’m in Milan
16 y. o. writes – Really? Me too! And where exactly?
32 y. o. writes – San Siro and you?
16 y. o. writes – I Niguarda. At the end we live very close!
32 y. o. writes – What do you think if we were to see in person, for a drink or something
16 y. o. writes – Actually, I’d like to but I’m not used to go to the gay clubs
32 y. o. writes – No gay clubs at all! I don’t like such things. No, I’m talking about a coffee shop with a tea room. I would never go to a gay bar.
16 y. o. writes – Ah, ok, that’s fine by me
32 y. o. writes – This evening?
16 y. o. writes – Yes, but not so late because my parents expect me to be home before eleven
32 y. o. writes – At eleven o’clock you’ll get back home safe, I’ll take you back
16 y. o. writes – Then what time and where?
32 y. o. writes – If you tell me where, I I’ll pick you home
16 y. o. writes – I am at [omissis]
32 y. o. writes – Well I’ll be there at six, right?
16 y. o. writes – Perfect!
32 y. o. writes – My phone is [omitted], if you give me yours, in case of need I can call
16 y. o. writes – Ok here [omissis], then I’ll wait for you at six THANK YOU!
32 y. o. writer – Thank you! See you at six. Bye!
16 y. o. writes – Bye!

This way the 32 y. o. came to know where the 16 y. o. lives and even his phone number [always pay attention before giving other people addresses or phone numbers, including cell phone, allowing your identification!]. Up to this point theoretically nothing would suggest that the 32 y. o. is a sex hunter. It should be emphasized that when a sex hunter realizes that he has to do with a guy who has already had a lot of experiences in general is more cautious because the other knows how things grow and also because the fear of AIDS sometimes holds the sex hunters back, especially when they feel that you are in potentially dangerous situations.

I emphasize that the chat which I quoted above does not end with an invitation to the 16 y. o. by 32 y.o. to meet at the home of 32 y. o. because it would sound strange and the invitation would be refused, but with an invitation that apparently has nothing to do with a meeting for sex.

The 32 y. o. of the chat above shows affectively at 18.00 o’clock to the meeting place with a nice car cleaned and polished for the occasion, and elegantly dressed, but without excess. The bar chosen is an average but the table is quite separate and apart. The real conversation develops more or less like this (the text was reconstructed from the 16 y. o. after about two weeks):

32 y. o. writes – You know you’re a really a nice guy?
16 y. o. writes – Come on!
32 y. o. writes – You have two beautiful eyes!
At this time, taking advantage of the embarrassment of the 16 y. o., the 32 y. o. starts the first physical contact, rests his leg on the boy’s leg, as if it were random, the guy responds with a sheepish grin.
32 y. o. writes – If it bothers you I’ll take it off …
16 y. o. writes – No, come on, no problem …
32 y. o. writes – What a beautiful smile you have! You have a very sweet face of a male, a rare thing …
16 y. o. writes – Come on…
32 y. o. writer – You are high, just to look good, you look older than your age and you have also beautiful hands
16 y. o. writes – Come on … you’re embarrassing me …
32 y. o. writes – You have beautiful lips … look into my eyes, you know that you can see the soul in the eyes and yours is beautiful … Can I hold your hand? Come on please … under the table, so no one can see us … here … how nice! … sit down here next to me, well … I feel your heat … I wanna kiss, I miss your lips, … it will be beautiful

The 32 y. o. brings the hand of the guy to rest on his hard penis, the guy does not move the hand from there, what authorizes the 32 y. o. to feel the penis of the 16 y. o. which of course is totally rigid. Now the sexual contact is established, and the 16 year old has expressed clearly his consent. The 32 y. o. does not dare the proposal to go to his house, but proposes to go in the car to feel more confident and comfortable.

32 y. o. writes – I’d eat you with kisses, hug you tight to hurt you! By now we have to stay a little quiet so we calm down and we can go a little in the car. You are not only beautiful you are also sexy! Eh eh! Oh, if you feel uncomfortable I’ll take you home, you just have to say …
16 y. o. writes – Come on, no problem, a little embarrassment because it is my first time, however, it is nice, I feel very strong sex drive, when you touched me I was about to come.
32 y. o. writes – now I think I’m in condition to go out …
16 y. o. writes – I’m not! wait a bit, now I just cannot.
32 y. o. writes – But you’re really beautiful!
16 y. o. writes – Look, if you go on this way we’ll have to wait until tomorrow …, wait … I’ll use the jacket, I don’t think people will notice …
32 y. o. writes – No, not at all … these are the keys, go in the car, I pay the bill and join you
16 y. o. writes – Ok …

When they are in the car sexual contact becomes more explicit. The sex hunter does not exaggerate to consolidate slowly the consent of the 16 y. o., they arrive at mutual masturbation, and do not go any further, but the sexual involvement of the 16 y. o. is now complete and the 16 y. o. suggests oral sex, the 32 y. o. seems reluctant “I do not know if it’s right … but probably it’s too much…” but then, of course, he accepts and the 16 y. o. has the impression that he had leaded the game.

At this point appear the assurances of the absence of the AIDS risk:

32 y. o. writes – Don’t worry! No problem for the AIDS, I am a blood donor and I’m very careful and then I never had a boyfriend and I’ve never had sex with anyone, so you can feel comfortable.

Obviously he is NOT a blood donor, because a 32 y. o. guy who has sex on the first encounter with a 16 y. o. is not at his first sexual experience and it is extremely unlikely that a guy who has a promiscuous sex life is a blood donor, because on this point transfusion centers are very careful to avoid as much as possible to release some pockets of infected blood. Therefore or the 32 y. o. lies at the interview by blood transfusion center, what really is criminal not only stupid, or he cannot become a donor . The only serious reassurance about AIDS you can get is get tested for AIDS together with the gay and repeat the test after the window period (6 months or less with the latest and more sensitive tests). Only this way you can be sure that the test has been actually done and that the results prove the absence of risk. Trust the claims of a 32 y. o. who when he first meets a 16 y. o. guy has sex with him is get heavily at risk. The “LOW aids risk” on certain sexual practices considered less dangerous does not mean that instead of AIDS, since the risk is low, you get a cold, but that is less likely to become infected, but if you become infected you’ll become certainly HIV positive with all that this entails. USE YOUR BRAIN BEFORE ANY SEXUAL CONTACT. IT’IS TO SAVE YOU LIVE!

The 16 y. o., at the end of his first experience with the 32 y. o. does not feel depressed or victim, but feels great, has the impression of being able to have a power over an older guy, to be free to do whatever he wants and is also pleased with himself, he considers what he did as an experience of love and passion and sees the older gay as his 32 y. o. boyfriend, would become the center of the life of that guy, knowing everything about his life, in practice, would like to build a partnership with him, but this is where dreams break down. The 32 y. o. has his life in which the 16 y. o. cannot and must not enter, the 32 y. o. is not available when the 16 y. o. wants him to be there but the 16 y. o. must to be always available when the 32 y. o. calls him . It’s impossible to talk about the test for AIDS because the answer is always the same: “I told you that there is no risk!” Least of all you can see the blood donor card, you can instead see the results of an HIV not recent test, according to which the 32 y. o. is HIV-negative. But this means only one thing and that is that the 32 y. o. had in other situations, the fear of being HIV positive and for this reason took the test, what is not reassuring at all. The guys who have never had sexual intercourses have obviously never been tested for HIV, on the contrary who has been tested must have had some concern related to sex most likely at risk.

I add one more consideration, after an unprotected intercourse and even after a low risk behavior (low risk does not mean no risk) generally occurs the fear of AIDS, fear that UNFORTUNATELY OCCURS ALWAYS AFTER AND NOT BEFORE, and the guys takes the test that must be repeated after a few months. All this, however, deprives them quiet for a long time, even though, fortunately, are not so frequent the cases where you end up HIV-positive because of an intercourse with a person you do not know with certainty whether or not is HIV-negative.

The relationship between the 16 y. o. and 32 y. o. ends when the 16 y. o. becomes aware of being just a sexual diversion and nothing more, then occurs the sense of frustration and confusion and he has the impression of having thrown away his sexuality with a person who was nothing but a sex hunter, and if it was his first sexual experience, an experience like this will affect for a while the sexuality of the 16 y. o.. But one thing must be said: EVEN IF IT ‘S BETTER TO USE YOUR BRAIN BEFORE THAN AFTER, IT’S ALWAYS GOOD TO START USING IT!

CONCLUSIONS
Stories like the one shown in this article HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH GAY LOVE, are squalid stories of unscrupulous boarding and ingenuity, two ingredients that when put together become very dangerous. The gay love is a serious matter and needs to grow on a true affective base, it is not an experience but it’s a way to love a person.

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If you like, you can join the discussion on this post on Gay Project Forum: http://gayprojectforum.altervista.org/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=67

MAYBE I’M NOT GAY

I receive the following email, which I public adding also my answer.
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Hello Project,
my name is [omissis] and I’m writing to tell you about a few things that happened in a quite transitional period of my life.

I’m warning you right now that these are rather personal considerations that should be taken with the proper detachment and lucidity because probably they are not very common. I begin by telling you that I’m 24 years old and around 15 I started to think about being gay. I was a boy rather lonely and insecure, full of fears and phobias that prevented me from living so carefree as everyone else.

The answer to all these discomforts seemed to be only one, homosexuality, a feature with which I tried to justify my diversity and, at the same time, to meet needs that I could not satisfy in any other way. With the awareness of being gay, having a huge need to give and receive affection, I have been for years looking for a human contact. From the beginning I realized that the majority of gays were different from me, both for the sex-centrism and some effeminacy of their features, so through sex-chats and dating-sites I was moving in search of another guy, gay in a different way.

What is really amazing is that with perseverance and intuition I really met people like that, but in live meetings almost always something was missing. Although I often felt psychologically satisfied by acquaintances and friendships (what in my normal living environment had not happened yet) nevertheless a real transport always was always missing to allow me to physically love another man.

I arrived to do something anyway, but I never felt really satisfied and was always looking for excuses about it, I would blame the circumstances of the moment, or it was something about my partner that did not convinced me, or even I thought I might have some sexual physical problems, but the reality was probably quite different. Over the years, I felt that something important was not working because I had not a physical response such as to justify a certain kind of inclination, and so, while in the life of every day I was gaining more and more security overcoming many of my problems, in the same time emotionally and sexually I continued to have huge doubts.

Only recently I’m increasingly realizing that, most likely, the search for another man was nothing more than a desperate attempt to get me to be accepted by someone else in a period already perceived as problematic as adolescence. It’s hard to admit these things, and it is even harder to have understood that I was moving in the wrong direction until a short time ago, but I have identified a number of issues that led me on a path rather than another.

Let me be clear, I do not regret anything in my past, I did what I felt to do so and I am convinced that there are no boundaries so clear in terms of sexual orientation, but I’m realizing that putting apart my old doubts I’m not as gay as I had taken for granted. The thing is obviously destabilizing and it is not easy now to make the final step towards this new awareness.

I have some good friends to whom I confided something before and even now and no one but them knows about me nevertheless no one of them would think that I have had pseudo gay experiences, perhaps gay feelings, yes, but never gay real sexual experiences. Among other things, usually girls fall in love with me and, even if I never had sex with girls, I admit that in this period, beyond my wondering why and how so many things happened, I start to feel a certain interest toward girls that somehow attract me and at the same time scare me …

I do not know why I tell you all this, I realize that it’s also quite difficult to condense years of life and feelings in a few lines, to tell the truth I fear it is difficult to understand my story trough a single email, but I feel the need to express my experience and maybe hear your opinion. If you decide to publish this email please omit my name. I wish you a Merry Christmas, a greeting and thanks for reading.
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Dear [omissis],

I begin by thanking you for wanting to contribute to the discussion of issues concerning homosexuality with your own personal testimony. I will try to answer on the basis of the experience gained in Gay Project.

First of all you’re certainly not the only one to feel moments of sexual disorientation. Based on what you say there are two fundamentally different interpretative hypotheses. Let’s start with the first.

You could not really be gay and your pseudo-gay orientation may have been caused by the need to identify a specific and well defined reason for many uncomfortable situations that maybe had nothing to do with being gay. You used to consider yourself as a quite different gay guy because your life was not polarized around sex and because you are not effeminate (note that the equation “effeminate=gay” is wrong in almost all cases). You searched among gays for someone like you and you have not found, this led you to think that maybe you were not really gay, also because in a homosexual intercourse you always felt a substantial dissatisfaction.

This is a possible hypothesis, of course, but to support this hypothesis, we would need more evidence. If next to your search for another guy like you in a gay chat room, feeling a sense of sexual dissatisfaction, I don’t say you tried to woo a girl, but you just masturbated thinking about a girl and in this case with a real sexual satisfaction, well in this case the hypothesis would have been more concrete.

Sexual orientation is demonstrated not through the couple’s behaviors but through the sexual desires and through the sexual fantasies that accompany masturbation. I should add that the very fact of searching insistently in chat for gay guys who could feel like you, putting aside for years the hypothesis of heterosexuality, suggests that you have not a really straight sexual orientation.

You could tell me that there’s bisexuality, but the true bisexuality in some cases alternates long periods of exclusively gay sexuality with long periods of exclusively heterosexual sexuality or in other cases leads the live together in a satisfactory manner both heterosexual sexuality and gay sexuality, if not in the couple’s relationship at least through masturbation, which is not oriented in a single direction and is rewarding in both directions.

Frankly, reading your e-mail, that anyway offers little evidence to get a concrete idea of the situation, the interpretative hypothesis that came to my mind is another.

I often see gay guys who are looking for easy answers to their emotional needs, denying that they are really true emotional needs and transposing everything in terms of sexuality. In this way, these guys convince themselves that they “must” find as soon as possible the solution to their problem, which is essentially the fact that they do not have a boyfriend to live a sexual experience with, then they start a frantic search for that boyfriend to finally break the ice and try. For them the guy is not a guy to love but a way to solve their own problem.

On this basis, through sex chats so many guys start a series of sexual experiences, almost always unsatisfactory, but in fact they neglect the only thing that matters, i. e. the building of a deep emotional bond. I’m not surprised at all that those who have lived the experience of being gay through a sex chat, at the end, do not feel at all satisfied, but those things have very little to do with homosexuality “as it should be”, that is lived at deep emotional level. I often say that being gay does not mean have sex with a guy but fall in love with a guy.

When we fall in love there is obviously a physical and sexual basis but it is far from exhausting the full meaning of being in love. If gay sexuality is lived with a guy who you love and who loves you, then it has really a deep communicative value because it has a strong affective valence, that is not a way to solve your problems through an experience in which the other, after all, is not the essential element, on the contrary is a way to love, to understand and realize the needs of the other, in respect even of his fears of his timing and of his reluctance.

Maybe it’s true that the your way to see life is not centered on sexuality, nevertheless your mail ends up to focus only on sexuality “as a problem”, the true problem is that misses the essential element, the emotional one, what lacks is the true falling in love, both for a guy or for a girl.

The real world is not that of gay dating sites but that of the real and reciprocal affective relationships that grow over time and it is the experience of the gay “emotional” world that you’re missing, it’s living with a guy a real emotional falling in love. Keeping account of the sexual dissatisfaction you have experienced in your gay intercourses and of the lack of gay deep affective relationships, it is obvious that you are looking for “solving the problem” in the straight field.

But I have to tell you something else, I have spoken often recently with a guy who had lived gay experiences and then ended up returning to exclusive heterosexuality. Well, when that guy was talking about his girlfriend did it with enthusiasm and emotional involvement that left no doubt that, despite the gay experiences, that guy was straight: being straight does not mean having sex with a girl but falling in love with a girl and that guy was really in love.

Of course, in making my second hypothesis, according to which you would primarily be a gay disappointed in his expectations of affective reciprocal involvement, which has known only places where it is extremely unlikely to create personal relationships on a real affective base, and is now escaping towards heterosexuality, I rely primarily on analogies with apparently similar situations I met in Gay Project, but of course I miss the concrete elements in order to understand something more. But I would not take for granted now that you’re discovering your true straight sexuality because it would seem rather that you’re running away from a series of negative experiences in the gay field. If you found a guy who truly loved you and whom you loved, do you think that living with that guy, sharing with him all aspects of life, including sexuality, not only as an experience but as a form of love, would still be unsatisfactory? I think not.

A hug. Happy holidays!
Project

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If you like, you can join the discussion on this post on Gay Project Forum: http://gayprojectforum.altervista.org/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=66

UNDECIDED GAY GUYS

According to the experience, both personal one and that of many gay guys I know, I’m inclined to think that for a gay guy meeting other gay guys of different ages and even gay mature age is a key thing. Why do I say this? The answer comes also from experience itself: the lives of gay men maintained over time, generation after generation, something constant arising from being gay itself and if the common contacts of everyday life can lead gay guys the “ordinary” adult life, the contacts with gay adults or older gay guys may facilitate the transmission of a wealth of experience typically gay. A gay guy can only learn from other gays what are the specific problems of being gay.

That said, what is the Forum of Gay Project? I can answer that it’s useful to promote dialogue and discussion, but what does that mean “in practice”? The answer is simple, It’s useful to pool the heritage of experience and knowledge developed by other gay guys in the past. The transmission of this heritage is the real purpose of Gay Project that aims to be a collection of first-hand material on the true life experiences of gay guys. Browsing through the various threads, but particularly those in the section “Gay orientation” you may have noticed that I have tried to outline in a summary the most typical problems that a gay man can face, those related to accepting their being gay, those about coming out, those about relationships with parents, to that more specifically sexual. Knowing these arguments can be a remarkable help when there is the real need to address them because we can rely on each other and we can avoid losing years to develop responses which are in fact always the same, generation after generation.

One of the most typical problems that a gay guy is certainly to live is that of his sexual orientation. For many it is not a problem if not social, for many it is a psychological problem significant in terms of recognition of their own orientation or acceptance of it, or both, for some uncertainties remain for many years and even for life. It is this last case that I intend to discuss here.

The experience made me notice that the discomfort associated sexual orientation is inversely proportional to freedom in which the individual lives. In a “free world” the problems of sexual orientation are absent because sexual orientation is not seen as a problem. In societies where homosexuality is forced to an underground life and is subject to radical censorship homosexual orientation has a strong negative connotation that ends up being internalized even by gay guys. In these environments, the indecision about sexual orientation is common for the simple fact that being gay is experienced as something evil by the gays themselves.

Here are some examples (while recognizing that the real situations may be very different). The problems related to sexual orientation emerge in particular:

1) in closed environments in which the community is small and the private is public domain and often becomes the subject of gossip (small countries closed-minded)

2) in communities linked to the religious culture that condemns homosexuality (for example: the tragedy of a priest or seminarian who recognize themselves as gay)

3) under conditions of economic dependence on the family home beyond the physiological limit of 25/26 years

4) when there is an educational dimension intolerant of homosexuality or homophobic attitudes are shown off in the family.

In such situations, the contact with serious gay people and the exchange of experiences is useful to raise awareness and to reduce the fear of homosexuality. It is not uncommon that I happen to talk to guys who experienced uncertainty about their sexual orientation. In these cases, in general, I perceive anxiety basically linked to the idea of ​​clarity. I often say: “If you are straight, no problem, if you’re gay is no problem, if you do not know what you are you don’t have any obligation to past a label on yourself, you do not have to answer to anyone and in any case there is no problem “. Most of the problems of orientation are false problems that will be resolved over time if the anxiety related to the fact of not being straight decreases. It seems incredible how false problems may affect the lives of guys, but the emphasis is constantly placed on sexuality. Family expectations and environmental homophobia contribute to dramatize a situation which in itself has nothing dramatic.

In general, the anxiety associated with doubts about sexual orientation leads guys to non-spontaneous behavior. A guy who does not feel fully nor gay nor straight tries to define his sexual orientation through sexual behaviors that are straight or gay in order to get proofs of his sexual orientation. It so happens that several guys embark on real challenging sexual gay or straight experiences, without any basic conviction, with the unique (wrong) idea  that if a guy has sex with a girl he’s straight and if has sex with another guy he’s gay. The relationships  that are created on this basis often have a specific feature: i. e. they are essentially sexual and emotional values ​​properly fade into the background. When an undecided guy enters a relationship only to accredit the idea of ​​being straight or gay, in general, usually driven by anxiety of clarity, he’s not even aware that on the other side there is a real girl or a real guy who, unaware of the true motivations of the guy who in their eyes behaves like a lover, can invest in that relationship the whole of their affection.

I had the chance to talk to girls who have contacted me because they had come to realize that their boyfriends were gay even though they clearly stated the opposite. It is not at all certain that a girl refuse a priori a relationship with a gay guy and more than once I have known women deeply in love with gay men, in the full knowledge that they were gay, these relationships can stand very well and can be extremely solid if, even in the absence sex, between the two persons there is a deep emotional relationship. There are women in love with gay men that help them to be what they really are, that is gay. A woman feels perfectly when the man, with whom she also has sex, doesn’t really love her. In such situations a woman often feels used and cannot be able to understand the suffering of his companion. In these cases, in the absence of a genuine dialogue, relationships are going on wearily for years with mutual recriminations but generally the man will not admit being  gay not even at the level of hypothesis.

When an undecided guy enters a relationship with another man, he does with the mental reservation of being able to leave at will, that relationship is clearly for him just an experiment. Sometimes and not only in situations of couple crisis, that will inevitably occur, emerges the idea of ​​wanting to “try it with a woman”. Such a speech, that the undecided guy is unconsciously using as a weapon of psychological blackmail motivated by a greater demand for affection, warns his partner, creates insecurity and further destabilizes the couple. If the hypothesis of “try with a woman” comes only after years of cohabitation and without apparent justification, and especially if that hypotesis really occurs, it is to believe that we are facing a true swinging bisexuality (a form of bisexuality that alternates gay and hetero periods). In some cases, however rare, can also occur situations of intermediate bisexuality (not swinging). When this happens, generally, the undecided guy speaks openly to his partner searching for his understanding that he often really finds at least at theoretical level or as simple human understanding. Even in this case, however, the other guy experiences great difficulty.

The situations of indecision are never clarified through experiments to confirm an uncertain sexual orientation but only through dialogue and with the comparison in a climate of freedom and respect.

I should add that when an undecided guy sees the collapse of a relationship lasting years, at a personal level he experiences situations of extreme insecurity. Expect a final decision by an undecided guy, even after years of living together, is unrealistic and, on the other hand, save the coexistence despite its inherent instability not necessarily is the best solution.

I would warn many guys on one point: when a guy shows himself available to a sexual contact with you, but has some mental reservations, tells you not to feel gay or not to fell totally gay or not love you but just want to have sex with you, do not consider his sexual availability as a clear sign of his being gay, often, in fact, the opposite is true. Often undecided guys take the sexual initiative and involve their partners in order to make them enter the relationship, but these same undecided guys, when instead of having sex, you try to talk to them, show clearly their strong indecision. Before having sexual contacts with a guy you have to talk to him a lot, try to figure out whom you have in front of you and if you have the feeling that this guy is undecided, and you really love him, forget the sex and try seriously to build a friendship. Keep in mind that sexual involvements are often deeply wanted by an undecided guy but are  lived in a negative form, as if his partner took advantage of him.

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UNDERSTAND A GAY SON

Hallo Project,
I am writing after many uncertainties. I am a 55 year old man and my son a few days ago told me that he is gay, or should I say he made me realize that he is gay, because he did not say it so explicitly, but the meaning of the speech was clear. I’m still very puzzled by what my son wanted me to understand, I do not know anything about these things but I’m trying to understand and not to remain on the surface and your Project was like a flash of inspiration for me.

I hope you can understand that I felt really blown away. My son is 21 years old and I have asked myself a thousand questions, I asked myself what I did wrong. I understand that this speech may sound crazy, but I had so many ideas in my head, perhaps mistaken, that sexuality depends on the family education and somehow I thought (and unfortunately I cannot get rid completely of my prejudice) that homosexuality is something wrong but I think you can understand me. I never thought that my son had problems or was in any difficult situation, I always saw him as a normal guy for a while he also had a girlfriend and seemed happy.

He never had any conflicts with me or my wife, or at least nothing visible. So I cannot understand why he is gay and I’m not even sure he really is gay. I have been very uncertain about the idea of sending him to a psychologist, then it happened that he mentioned the subject in a way that left no doubt about the fact that he would not accept help from anyone and then, after hearing my wife, we decided not to make any such proposal.

I do not hide you the fact that after this speech our relationship has changed, is something that makes me sick and I think the same for my son, but it is very difficult to change course, in practice, if first we talked just a little, now we do not talk at all. What can I do for my son? I do not know how to behave, I feel uncomfortable, I cannot pretend that he is not gay.

I read what you wrote in the forum section for parents, and I noticed that in practice the Project is popular only among guys and parents send their posts there in very few cases. Honestly, reading the texts published on the Project, I had the impression to understand my son as I had never understood, I guess I understand what he may have in mind.

I’d like my son frequented an environment such as the Project but I fear that he may enter different roads. Project, let’s face it, there are many other ways of living homosexuality that make me tremble just thinking about. At the limit, if my son came with his boyfriend (if and when he will have one), I think I would accept the situation knowing that he’s fine with his boyfriend, but I’m terrified that he can find a way and a wrong way without telling me anything.

I realized I did not know anything about my son, and it was a discovery difficult to accept. What can I do to keep in touch with him? I feel deeply inadequate. I hope my son does not end up in trouble for no reason. Before I knew his friends, at least by sight and name, now he has other friends of whom I know nothing. I know that a 21 year old guy needs privacy and maybe he also has a thousand problems, but I do not know what to do.

Project, there are several other things that I need to tell you if you will have the goodness to listen to me. I send you my msn contact (omitted) and I hope to hear from you soon because I’m going through a time of great uncertainty. If you consider it is possible, feel free to publish this email, I would like very much to know what guys think about.

Sincerely. M. A

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ABSENT FATHER AND GAY SON

Hello Project,
I read a few pages of your blog, those dedicated to parents of gay guys and opened my eyes to many things, but I wish I had a chance to talk a bit with you because I think it can help me to find the right path. I confine myself here only to mention my situation, then if you want, we can deepen privately.

I am 46 years old and have been married for 21, my wife is 44. We have only one son, I’ll call him Luke, he is now 18 and will make exams to enter university the year that is about to begin. I can state that my family life was never quiet. At first the relationship with my wife was good, Luke was born and everything seemed to go the right way. I’ve never been too expansive, it is true, but I thought I had a serious relationship with my wife, then my in-laws started to interfere between me and my wife, they come from a level socially and economically upper than mine, they put in mind of my wife that the relationship he had with me was not the best and that she deserved much more. etc.. Misunderstandings begun to appear, always amplified by the in-laws (I already had lost my parents). My wife started dating with an old friend of hers who was not married, I couldn’t accept such a behavior but she was not interested in my reactions.

When Luke was 4 years old, my wife asked for a separation. I did not want to because of my son. The apartment where we lived belonged to my in-laws. I told her that I would not have allowed a consensual separation because she wanted to be with his friend and it was just that the reason for the separation. Actually, I think the real reason was that she felt frustrated for having married a man like me, who was clearly not up to it. We were still living together but it was just unbearable.

We ended up in court, she and her parents had a lot of money to prevail against me, I had had not the slightest thought to procure evidence of her relationship with her friend because I hate such things, she denied everything and the lawyers described me to the judge as a shamelessy husband and a psychopath father who had made it all up just to take away his son to his wife.

Result: she obtained the custody of Luke, I had to leave my home and I had to also ensure the maintenance of my son. I went to live in a small apartment far from the center and from where I was working and I had to spend hours and hours on trams, because I did not even have a car. I saw my son occasionally and only for short periods, only a few hours at most for an afternoon, I thought that I was going to loose my son and he was acquiring the mentality of my wife and of my father in law, he would always ask me too much expensive things, I thought that while he was with me he felt in exile out of its golden paradise.

This act of plagiarism has been going on until Luke was about to turn 16 years, then at a certain point I realized that something was changing. When he turned 16 years I gave him an old style leather soccer ball, it was the best I could do. He was happy and told me something that I never would have imagined, he asked me to take him to my house.

Because when we spent the afternoon together, we were not ever in my house, a terrible mess reigned everywhere, as can be the home of a man who never has a free moment to keep the house clean. Luke, with my great embarrassment, saw that his pictures were everywhere, then said, “Dad, here we do need a little cleaning!” It was the first time he called me dad! We did twice our laundry and then we hung out, he wanted us to go to a soccer field in clay that is near my house to try the ball, he had to kick penalty kicks and I had to save; and he kicked strongly. It was the first time I really felt the presence of my son. Playing football he became all dusty and ruined his shoes but he said with a smile: “Well! Better so!”

Then I took him back by his mother but I didn’t get upstairs home with him as I used to do, we hugged each other (for the first time) near the door of the house of my wife. Over time things went better, the fact that I did not have money not only was not a problem but somehow he saw it as a merit.

About a year ago he began to make a speech that I wouldn’t have expected, he told me that after the age of majority he would not stay with his mother because there were always misunderstandings that he thought would never heal, then, speaking in general, he told me that according to his mother he was a bit neurotic and she would make him to go, almost by force, by a psychologist, a friend of hers, but he added, “No one will ever do me a brainwash!”

On the same day that he turned 18 he called me and told me he would come home at 16:00. I have been waiting, I did not know exactly what would happen, but he came with a bag and in practice remained by me. The night he said: “I need to talk seriously” and he told me he was gay, that his mother had discovered it and had done everything to change his mind, starting with the economic blackmail up to the social marginalization.

I asked if he had a boyfriend and he told me that he currently was not in love with anyone, but he had taken a “serious crush” for a mate probably heterosexual. I said to my son that I was so happy that he trusted me up to that point. I was about to cry and I could not say a single word. He was the one who hugged me strongly this time, then took my head in his hands and said, “I guess I’m very lucky!”

The next day we went to Ikea and bought a sofa bed to be put in the hall , so that he could have a little privacy. In my project, the room would be for him and I would remain in the hall, but he was irremovable about the room and I had to stay there.

My wife has started divorce proceedings and this for me is liberating. When we were together by the lawyer, the lawyer himself insinuated that I had taken away my son to his mother playing on the fact that he is gay because I had promised to let him have sex freely in my house with his friends.

I swear on my head that my son told me that is gay only after he turned 18, and that things such as those spoken by the lawyer never crossed my mind, however my wife didn’t refrain at all from telling the lawyer the private affairs of her son, completely deforming them, in order to win the case, what I consider shameful and odious.

However, from now on there will be very little contacts with my wife. As for my son, now I know him better, I know he’s a good guy who has not been corrupted by money. Project, I need to understand what it means to be seriously gay because I have a gay son, and now I want to be a father as it should, because my son loves me and this is for me the best time of my life.

Sincerely [signed letter]

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GAY GUYS AND UNCONSCIOUS CONDITIONING

This post aims to identify the weight of unconscious influences on the lives of gay guys. I refer in particular to Italian environment.

I often talk with gay guys and many times I recognize in their attitudes, as well as in mine, the result of an unconscious environmental conditioning strongly internalized.

I start with a seemingly trivial observation. Education, from an early age, is strictly differentiated by sex and is totally oriented toward heterosexuality.

Couples who appear among the Disney characters are all heterosexual. In the school textbooks references to homosexuality are minimal if not completely omitted, at best are formal but usually the context pushes to consider homosexuality in terms of defect or disease.

Despite repeated calls by the Council of Europe to put aside any form of sex discrimination and ensure equality of homosexual unions to marriage, there are still strong resistances in these areas because these resistances, more or less instrumental, are important elements to search for consensus.

The Supreme Court considered, in many respects dutifully, that calling someone “gay” is injury to a person, this judgment confirms that homosexuality is considered a negative value.

The very invisibility of the vast majority of gay people is another obvious sign of the fact that those people feel at risk or at least marginalized by the social context.

For a straight guy who begins to feel the first growing sexual feelings and the first forms of falling in love, sexuality is a reality to talk about freely in the peer group. For a gay guy the same age his sexuality is not only an absolute taboo, in the sense that it is understood as something about which you must be very wary of talking about with others, but also in the sense that it is something that must be suppressed to try to achieve a heterosexual orientation that is seen as the only legitimate one.

The Catholic Church and also many other religious groups condemn homosexuality as “grave depravity”, “sad consequence of rejecting God”, “lack of normal sexual development”, “pathological constitution”, “intrinsically evil behavior from moral point of view”. These expressions are the sign of a dogmatic assumption on homosexuality and then the sign of a rejection of any serious debate on this subject. I emphasize that a comparison to be serious, must also include the ability to change positions.

I would add that the media, practically all, with rare exceptions, show radically false images of homosexuality that are used to do the show and gratify the majority of the public in confirming their prejudices.

There are also serious films on the subject of homosexuality, but unfortunately they are in fact seen only by homosexual people and by the heterosexual world are considered just oddities and no one takes them seriously.

In such a climate, a guy who grows up and faces his own homosexuality is left to mature in a hurry and build his own morality, since the common morality is not compatible with his homosexuality. Among gays it is easy to find guys who have a strong independence of judgment and who cannot be influenced easily, but the journey that brought these guys to build their own world of values is often twisted and very tiring.

Homosexuality is not a choice but something to accept. The verb in this sentence does not mean accepting suffering as a condemnation, nor simply endure, accept means considering homosexuality as an essential part of one’s person, which is essential in the sense that you cannot put it aside, which means that “I” if I was not “gay” I would not be me.

It happens often enough to meet guys who feel wrong, who live their homosexuality as a part of themselves to repress, to delete, guys who to preserve the affection of their parents say they are willing even to deny their sexuality, guys that being aware of the condemnation of homosexuality by their religion say they are willing to deny themselves in the name of the accession to conceptions which consider them as deniers of God just because they are gay, and therefore also without normal sexual development, pathological cases, people that can be realized in faith only radically denying their sexuality

In some cases, these guys end up opening their eyes, but frequently deep conditioning remain. It is almost unbelievable how the idea of doing something intrinsically evil and not sharable can poison sexuality with feelings of guilt and can destabilize the life of a guy.

What, in the end, leads many guys to Gay Project? The answer is simple: it is the fact that they can deal with other guys in a non-ruling, in a non-ideological climate, in a comparison not of ideas but of experiences.

It is difficult to escape from the unconscious constraints following reasoning to which we are accustomed to respond with other arguments in an infinite series.

There are not theoretical arguments that allow us to overcome the constraints and prejudices, I learned from experience, that you need to see how others live, what choices they do in practice.

To understand that a gay guy is not a green Martian but a guy like everyone else there’s only one way and it is to get in touch with gay guys, first in chat and then, why not, even in person. But to know a gay guy with which to compare seriously you cannot go looking for him in a sex chat or a dating site.

What people in general associate with the word gay has nothing to do with the reality of the vast majority of gay guys.

For a gay guy two things are essential:
1) find a way to put aside his prejudices and conditioning.
2) maintain a dimension of strong realism, which hold firmly down to earth, in other words: caution!

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GAYS AND RELATIONAL MODELS

This post aims to clarify the meaning of the relational models in gay relationships.

Each of us has a personal history characterized by a specific cultural and socio-affective context and by a series of events that beginning from the childhood progressively build specific relational models, this happens, of course, also in the sexual-affective field. Each of us thus comes to interact with other people on the sexual-affective field following models different from those of the other people because of the relational models that they tend to adopt more or less spontaneously. Often we are not even aware of the strictly individual meaning of those models and tend to extrapolate them and to consider them as necessary rules of behavior to apply to everyone.

The weight of the relational models is perceived very strongly in relationships with people who come from very different socio-cultural contexts, in these situations people realize how can be difficult to find a common ground, but even when two people come from the same socio-cultural environment, there are often incompatibilities that can derive from the diversity of relational models.

Well, now let’s restrict the field to the sexual-affective relationships. It must be said that strong differences in relational models are found, even among people of the same sexual orientation, in relation to age groups. A straight guy in his twenties and an old straight man in his sixties follow very different relational models and the so-called generation gap is largely a consequence of this fact. We can ask if differences in the relational models among straight and gay people are objectively important.

Socialization and approval are two different concepts but with significant areas of overlap. The integration into a social group is certainly facilitated by the approval and in turn eases approval. In this sense, relational models should, even on the sexual-affective plan, be very homogeneous within social groups strongly integrated, but this applies only to well defined groups that actually share a specific culture and a specific set of values ​​but neither heterosexuals nor gays as a group have these characteristics and, indeed, relational models tend to be cross-sectional and spread well beyond classifications based on sexual orientation. Despite this it remains that some relational models have special characteristics that make those models more suitable for a heterosexual relationship than for a gay one or vice versa.

MATRIMONIAL MODEL

From the historical point of view the regulation of sexual-affective relationships identifies with the marriage (which is not even always and only monogamous) and with a whole set of values ​​associated with marriage: marital fidelity, the certainty of paternity, the indissolubility, the virginity before marriage, etc. .. This relational model starts with the idea that the married couple must be heterosexual and able to have children. In other situations the matrimonial model loses its essential meaning even if it retains a different meaning, linked to the social recognition of the couple itself, but in this case it would be a marriage only in a very particular way and away from the original meaning. It is in this sense that we talk about gay marriage when we do not take into account the possibility of adoption or other forms of fatherhood. If gay marriage foresaw the adoption or different forms of fatherhood it would clearly be quite similar to heterosexual marriage and could follow the rules that apply to heterosexual marriage itself.

But beyond the legal regulation of gay marriage, the matrimonial relational model tends to be the “first” relational model also for the gay people. Saying “first” I do not mean the first in order of importance or the most common, but the first in chronological order for the majority of gay people, the model from which starts a process of progressive creation of alternative models more suited to specific situations. A gay young man dreams of a couple’s life, with an absolute fidelity to each other, with a full social recognition and an absolute stability. The movement that seeks to extend marriage to gays is based on these models. The fact that gay marriage becomes an object of the struggle for civil rights tends to give a stronger value to its relational model, but it is clear that, beyond the formalism of the law and beyond the myth of gay marriage, a straight married couple and a gay married couple have to face very different social reactions, even today and in most social contexts, that’s why the extension of marriage to gays at legal level would in any case be something very far from gaining the equality between gay and straight people.

WEAKNESSES OF THE MATRIMONIAI MODEL

The matrimonial model, like all strict models, ends up clashing with reality and to highlight its weaknesses in this clash. The first and inherent weakness of the matrimonial model is its being almost absolutely irreversible. You can also promise fidelity for life, if the fidelity is not having sex with other people, but the promise of love for life means looking at love not as a feeling but as a voluntary behavior, which is not realistic. The matrimonial model, however, is justified by the presence of the children, despite this inherent weakness.

The real weakness of the matrimonial model occurs instead in its extrapolations to unions between gays in the absence of children. It is completely unreasonable to think that the legal recognition of gay unions should establish a system of legal guarantees exactly the same as those of heterosexual marriage (with children). In this case there are no children to be protected and to impose as a legal rule the indissolubility of the marriage or procedures for the separation and divorce with requirements similar to those required by the legal regulation of heterosexual marriage does not make sense.

But let us leave aside the legal issues, and return to the relational model. For a young gay guy in almost all cases, the export of the matrimonial relational model to the relationships between gays is almost automatic, this is the dream of gay guys, or at least the first dream of gay guys.

In fact, about 50% of heterosexual marriages ends in separation or divorce, and in many cases, even if the marriage formally continues it becomes hardly tolerated for a quiet life.

Legal models, as well as relational models, have an inevitable social evolution. Between the traditional indissoluble marriage and the marriage after the introduction of divorce, the difference is substantial and beyond the law, social development can no longer tolerate, at least in many countries, that criminal penalties are applicable to marital infidelity. We continue to talk about marriage, but the concept is perceived in a different way. I mean that gay marriage, to be realistic, should not be a theoretical myth, but should be perceived with the same fragilities of the heterosexual one, if not with still further fragilities (in case of absence of children). Gay marriage will also result in gay separation, in gay divorce, and even in civil cases for crimes related to gay marriage, just as it is between straight people, unless you give to gay marriage a meaning and rules other than those of heterosexual marriage.

But of course, for a young gay guy, the idea of ​​gay divorce is not even to be considered as such because it distorts the matrimonial relational model, that as long as it remains theoretical, does not show any weakness.

WEAK RELATIONAL MODELS

From the matrimonial model, often starting from experience, gay guys develop other models that incorporate the weaknesses of the matrimonial model itself, excluding from the beginning those obligations whose violation undermines matrimonial model. I’m referring first to the indissolubility of the relationship and then to the obligations of absolute fidelity. A weak relational model is based on the idea that a relationship does not necessarily have to be everlasting and that the violated fidelity not necessarily must be considered as a crime that leads inevitably to the end of the relationship itself.

It is obvious that a weak relational model gives less security but is much more flexible and less fragile, and although it may seem paradoxical, weak relationships are often more stable than those strongly constrained. Calling the law to compensate a lack of love forcing the partners to respect their obligations is in fact an absurdity that doesn’t find especially in the case of gays, any justification because of the absence of children.

COUPLE’S INCOMPATIBILITY AND RELATIONAL MODELS

The tendency to marry tends to decrease even among heterosexual people in favor of free relationships, non-legally structured, and among gay people, in the countries where there is a gay legal marriage, the number of gay couples who are getting married is still very limited and, even beyond legal aspects, there are a lot of gays who remain single, even if they can have a couple’s live. These are not people who do not have a love life but people who do not identify with matrimonial relational models. All this deserves a careful thought.

When a couple’s relationship is in crisis, it’s almost automatic to apply the matrimonial relational model and question of who is to “blame”. In fact, the concept of blame derives from the matrimonial relational model and from seeing marriage as a contract, which overshadows its emotional aspects. If you stop loving a person, or if you fall in love with a different person, you do not commit a crime but according to the matrimonial model you commit a violation of a contractual obligation. The couple’s incompatibility derives from the fact that very often both partners have deeply assimilated their relational models and that these models affect them by creating a set of expectations that are often disappointed because the relational model of the other partner is different. The same behavior is for a partner very insignificant and sounds seriously offensive to the other. What makes us truly perplexed is the fact that the rigidity of relational models makes sometimes impossible relationships between people that while experiencing feelings of mutual respect have nevertheless the impression of living in different worlds and being not able to understand each other.

A tangible example. Many people assuming the universality of their own relational models, will not agree with me reading what I wrote about the weakness of the matrimonial model and about the value of weak relational models. I would draw your attention to the fact that I have tried to refer to what I see every day and I have to point out that I have had to repeatedly change my views on these issues, and I’ll probably have to do it again.

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