PERSONAL STRUGGLES OF A GAY GUY

I encouraged Josh to share a post that he originally wrote for his blog. If you like what you read, feel free to check out his blog at http://gayeverday.wordpress.com/

Personal Struggles
There are many things that are pulling and tugging at me from within. I was reading a book and there was a story about a guy who felt God called him to be gay so he was in a relationship for six years. The relationship eventually fizzled out and God told him that that was the end of him being gay/not to be in any more relationships. Sort of as a way to just try it out. I am afraid God may do this to me. I would not want to break the guy’s heart. Brendon and I are going strong right now and I would hate to hurt him in any way. Ultimately, it is best for me to trust God but I get stuck in the unknown. I pursued Brendon and other guys because I wanted a relationship, I just wanted to be happy. Being with another man makes me happy. There is too much pain and turmoil that gay men go through and even more that gay Christians go through. I know what God wants for me is best but I am at a hard time in my life trying to figure it out as life goes on.

I wrestle with knowing that the way I act out my sexuality, the way God will show me how to act out my sexuality, will probably be in between denying myself of anything associated with being gay and fully accepting my sexuality and the gay culture around me. Logically, everything makes sense but emotionally I become a mess. I wrestle with if having sex with another man is morally right. Living with another man and devoting my life to him is acceptable in my mind. Loving another person is never wrong. I wonder if the sexual tension will be great living with him. It does not make any sense to me to limit showing love to another person. Sex shows the commitment between two people and God. Two people come together as one in sex and the commitment makes them one as well. This logic proves that having sex is not wrong. Is having anal sex what was intended for the body? Can the body hold up to anal sex? Is it only opening myself up more to disease and sickness? It is safe to have anal sex and the only reason I hold back is because I see statistics of gay men who have sex with multiple people and multiple men at one time? I am probably not a bottom in the least. I always had the idea that in sex, as in anything else, you have to be selfless so I would bottom for my husband if that is what he wanted me to do. An act of love and sacrifice. Even if I did not enjoy it, I would do it for him. I feel that in a relationship, each guy should be able to be versatile for the other though I know that is not always how things work out.

I wrestle with the fact of how I look to the gay community beginning a company that helps gay men. The gay community can be very judgmental and opinionated. I struggle with the fact of God calling me to reach out the the gay men that are hurting and in need but at the same time not being able to be like them. That my company and influence would be a struggle for me to stay away from. No matter what, I would love Brendon to be in my life and to be there for me as I start this company and continue to move forward. Anyone needs people who care and support them when times get hard and rough. I do not want the gay community criticizing me for not being like them.

To make things even more complicated, my mom asked me if Brendon and I were friends or more than friends and I told her both, being honest. What we are is complicated but it is life. She told me to “be careful.” I do not know what that means for her. I do. Her asking me that question caused tension. What are my parents going to do now? Are they not going to allow me to see Brendon? They have never supported my sexuality so I am nervous about everything. I have always said that I wanted to be close to my parents and my sexuality not be an issue but they need to earn my trust back that they are not going to hurt me or a guy that I am interested in. I would not let Brendon meets my parents before I knew where they stood. I see safety in distance. Part of me just wants to spend the holidays with my man and not see my family.

Brendon and I are doing well. We hung out at his apartment last weekend and will do it again this weekend. I am bringing over a movie to watch. We are going to make dinner together. I also made him a CD with some love songs and inspirational songs to get him through the day. When I look in his eyes, I just see the love he has for me. I do not deserve him and I do not know why he loves me so much. I am not that special. I am good at some things but I am mostly a mess. I am working on it though. When I saw him this week at work, my emotions just lit up. I am starting to fall for him. I could never have imagined that this would all happen the way it did but I am thankful to God that it did. Hopefully Brendon and I can one day have a relationship together and continue to share our love for one another.

-Josh

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Thanks Josh! And I put below the comment I added to your post on your blog.
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Hello Josh,
Your post has many points on which I have to say my opinion. I start immediately.
The meaning of God in human life should inspire safety rather than uncertainty. I mean that the choices that a guy makes and that he considers inherently moral can only be confirmed by the idea of God. Thinking that whatever my conscience honestly inspires me could be contrary to what God wants me to realize in my life means that the law of God is experienced as a compulsion and not as a form of freedom. But about this there would be many things to say.

Thinking that living sexuality instead of repressing it is against the will of God is like thinking that God has given us through sexuality a tool of repression and suffering, something that does not agree at all with the idea of God.

The real problem of sexuality (and not only of gay sexuality) is the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases and AIDS in the first place, but doing the HIV test along with your boyfriend and repeating it without having had sex with anyone after 110 days, in case of a double negative, resolves any doubt in this regard, although the use of condoms during sexual intercourse is always advisable. However, putting aside, after checking, the fear of AIDS, I do not see what can keep gay guys from sharing even sexual intimacy. One thing is morally unacceptable and that is saying what is false to your boyfriend and deliberately deceive him, but otherwise, between adults and aware, I do not see what problems there may be.

And about anal intercourse and what says the so-called gay community, I can respond on the basis of what I see here in Italy. Gays are like an iceberg, people openly gay are the visible part of the iceberg, but below the level of the sea is more than 90% of the mass of the iceberg. What is out of the water can be seen and everybody thinks that the iceberg is that but in reality the vast majority of the iceberg is not visible. Speaking of gay people identifying gays with people openly gay is equivalent to completely ignore over 90% of the gay world, which consists almost exclusively of undeclared gays. I talk in chat 10 hours a day with gay guys, almost all undeclared and almost always about issues related to sex, and I noticed that the vast majority of gay people (counting also the share of over 90% which cannot be seen) do not think at all that gay associations represent them and even less the so-called gay community.

Although it may seem paradoxical, the vast majority of gay people never go to a gay pride parade or in gay locals or in associations labeled gay, but even those guys are 100% gay! Well, talking to undeclared guys I see a gay reality that has nothing in common with what people (and sometimes gays themselves) consider to be typically gay. In particular, according to the most accredited model, anal penetration is a sexual practice typically gay, but to what I see every day it is exactly the contrary and this is apparent from hundreds of feedbacks. In practice among gay young people (I’m talking about undeclared gay people, which are still more than 90% of gay men), approximately 60% do not practice at all anal penetration that for many young people has never constituted the object of masturbatory fantasies, in about a 20% of cases the anal penetration is practiced with fixed roles but in the sense that is required by one of the partners and tolerated by the other, with all the tensions that such a thing entails. About 20% of gay men reported regularly practice anal penetration mostly without fixed roles, in the case of anal penetration with fixed roles it is not uncommon that the active partner is bisexual. Therefore anal sex is not an obligation, indeed, if you look at the gay people, including the undeclared gays, this sexual practice is widely minority.

I would add that saying “gay” does not mean too much, because among the gays, as among all abstract categories of people, you can find anything. Saying that there is a solidarity among gays because they are gay is a pure hypothesis to be proved and that the maximum has found occasional feedbacks. Saying gay solidarity is generic almost as much as saying human solidarity.

Last point: the relationship with parents. Many guys think that coming out is a moral duty and that after coming out things can only change for the better but the experience teaches just the opposite and I see situations where after coming out for the guys in the family life becomes intolerable. In fact, the coming out is a big risk that should be evaluated very carefully before making a move without return. I add that coming out thinking that it will help the gay cause is unrealistic because homophobia has deep cultural roots in the widespread substrate of ignorance and prejudice. Colliding with the prejudice doesn’t mean to win it, on the contrary means risking to be crushed. I’ve seen guys that have been driven out of their home without any livelihood as a result of a family coming out, guys who were not invited to the brothers wedding, guys who have had to live as guests of seven days in seven days at home of friends because their parents did not want them at home. You cannot expect your parents overcome their prejudices because you’re gay. They are grown with their prejudices that for them are indisputable and, however, you are to them the strange and the drifter, even if they say it only indirectly.

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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=11&t=60