MANUAL OF HOMOSEXUALITY

Gay Project has just published in Italian a “Manual of homosexuality”:http://gayproject.altervista.org/manuale_di_omosessualita.pdf, that is a guide to know and understand the real problems of gay guys. The manual has 22 chapters. I present here the first chapter in English, in the coming weeks I will publish the next chapters.

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CHAPTER 1 – UNDERSTANDING TO BE GAY

Let’s start with a concrete example.

A boy 12 year old (seventh grade) experiences for the first time the spontaneous swelling up of his penis (erection) while he is in the locker room along with his mates and while concentrating his attention on one of them who is undressing. The experience is pleasant, the guy comes home, sits back to think about his mate, goes quickly erect, the feeling is newly nice, the guy starts a long manipulation of his penis (masturbation) at the end of which he feels a strong contraction of the testes (orgasm) that makes a white substance (semen) squirts up from his penis (ejaculation), immediately after the guy experiences a strong feeling of relaxation, as if all the tension caused by sexual arousal had been discharged (post-orgasmic phase). Throughout all this procedure, the imagination is concentrated on the image of the mate undressing in the locker room (masturbatory fantasy).

Let us now analyze this example. It is the discovery of masturbation, that is the first real sexual experience. In this experience, there are two different components linked together, the physical one (erection, masturbation, orgasm, ejaculation, post-orgasmic phase) and the imaginative one (masturbatory fantasy).

It is usual to call masturbation also the whole physical-imaginative process we have just described. During masturbation the guy brings to mind the images that had caused the erection spontaneously, because focusing on those images (masturbatory fantasies) he can easily get an erection (sexual arousal through masturbation fantasies) and the erection is more vigorous and all the process of masturbation is strongly addictive. If the masturbatory fantasies of a guy are directed towards other guys  we use to say that masturbation is gay oriented, if masturbatory fantasies are directed towards girls we use to say that masturbation is hetero oriented. When the masturbatory fantasies are really spontaneous, they represent the fundamental indicator of sexual orientation: a guy who masturbates in an exclusive and consistent way with gay fantasies is to be considered a gay guy.

Now we go further with exemplification.

The same guy that we talked about before, listening to his mates about masturbation becomes aware that they experience something similar to his own experience in the physical aspect but different with regard to the masturbatory fantasies, and realizes that his mates, during masturbation, don’t focus attention on other guys but on girls. Back home, the guy tries to masturbate focusing on a girl, that is, using the same masturbatory fantasies used by his mates, but those fantasies do not produce results and are on the contrary experienced as something alien and not really exciting. The guy then comes back to masturbation fantasies focused on his mates and the physical response is rapid and convincing.

Let’s analyze the example.

This is the first perception, by a gay guy, of the fact that his sexuality is not similar to that of other guys. The thing in itself would not cause any problem, but the guy, speaking with his mates, becomes aware, with a growing awareness, that his sexuality is considered by his mates as an object of ridicule and as something quite offensive to joke about and begins to connect to his sexual orientation words like gay, fag, queer, fagot and so on, that people use as an insult. This way the guy perceives for the first time the discomfort of being gay, which is not caused by the fact of having a sexuality different from that of the other guys but by the contempt shown by other guys.

But let us proceed with the examples.

The guy that we talked about in the previous examples starts to feel the presence of the guy who is the object of his masturbatory fantasies as something very pleasant, he is happy while being beside that guy, talks to him for as long as possible, appreciates his voice, his physical presence and smile and tends to create a relationship with him. At first that relationship seems to have the typical characteristics of friendship but really differs from friendship because that guy is also the subject of masturbatory fantasies.

All the process described above represents a typical gay love affair, in which there are two components: one affective, which consists in creating a relationship of proximity and affection with the other guy, and the other strictly sexual, which consists in being sexually involved by the other guy assuming him as object of masturbatory fantasies.

For the other guys, who leave similar experiences, but oriented towards girls, the natural outcome of being in love is the declaration of love to the girl they love, that statement is usually taken by the girls like something  however flattering. The gay guy understands on the contrary that, for him, declaring his love for another guy carries the risk of being identified as gay and thus being branded with offensive epithets by his mates and also by the guy he is in love with. In essence, the gay guy realizes that he’s a gay guy in a group of guys who have a different sexual orientation and concludes instinctively, that not to be labeled as gay by his mates, he has to pretend to be straight.

So far we have presented a very simple model of getting aware of being gay applied to a 12 year old gay. In reality, this scheme can be complicated by many disruptive factors. Let us therefore examine the most important factors that interfere with the awareness of homosexuality. Consider an example.

A guy 11/12 year old is involved in sexual games with a girl slightly older than him, his first erections are not really spontaneous but are induced by the interplay of sexual manipulation by the girl, which is especially rewarding because allows the preadolescent to perceive himself like a man. The guy will repeat on his own the handling of the penis and will arrive at the discovery of masturbation and, at least apparently, his masturbatory fantasies will be oriented toward girls, but in this case during the masturbation the spontaneous sexuality cannot emerge just because the first erections are not spontaneous but are induced by a girl through explicit sexual advances (the manipulation of the penis or the intimate caresses). The sexual imprinting , that is the first real sexual or para-sexual experience, in this case, has been experienced by the guy “in a straight atmosphere” due to external elements (the girl) and thus was not the result of the sexual spontaneity of the guy, but nevertheless such sexual experiences are not superficial. The hetero imprinting can induce quite easily masturbation fantasies related to the imprinting, i.e. hetero fantasies, rather than to spontaneous sexuality. Following an hetero imprinting, even a guy who, if he could spontaneously develop his own sexuality, would manifest a gay sexuality, can present  a straight masturbation for years. Gay guys sooner or later come certainly out of the constraints that derive from the hetero imprinting because in the long time spontaneous sexuality comes always afloat.

Much more complicated and problematic is the situation of guys who have been subjected to violence or sexual abuse. I would simply point out that sexual abuse can leave on anyone who has suffered it very heavy consequences, particularly if it was committed with physical or psychological violence or by a close family member.

Let us consider now much more common disturbing elements that can interfere with the process of getting aware of being gay. We start here with an example.

An 8 year old guy is part of a larger group of friends and hears them speak with great interest about pornography on the Internet. For him, 8 years old, genital sexuality is still something to come, but he is induced by what he heard to go and see what it is. In this way, the guy discovers pornography, which means, in the vast majority of cases, heterosexual pornography, before having sexual maturity to understand the real meaning of sexuality. In this way, the guy gets a form of pre-orientation toward sexuality almost always towards heterosexuality, which tends to stabilize the guy because using pornography he feels integrated with the group of older guys. Over the years the tendency to imitate the sexuality of the older guys leads that guy to the discovery of masturbation that takes place in a straight atmosphere and therefore manifests a heterosexual orientation. This not spontaneous hetero orientation, precisely induced by the described mechanism, just because it is not spontaneous, may not coincide with the deep sexual orientation and therefore, also in this case a young guy with an exclusive hetero masturbation may be, with the passing of time, having to deal with the subsequent emergence of a spontaneous gay sexuality.

We come now to another important point, namely the education that a guy receives about sexuality, and as usual we consider a concrete case.

A guy has been accustomed from childhood to attend Catholic circles, typically the parish. In that environment he feels comfortable, the family has confidence in the priests and is happy that the child attends that environment because even the parents grew up in that environment and feel it as safe and suitable for the growth of the child. Gradually, from childhood on, that guy has assimilated the values ​​typical of a Catholic environment that are related to the idea of ​​family (father, mother and children), seen as the center of the life of an individual. This model does not create any problem to the guy before his first contact with sex life and indeed is regarded as quite natural because, before discovering sexuality, a guy identifies himself only in the role of child and not in a possible role of father. But there are also other things to take in account, a guy, before discovering sexuality considers as natural the idea that sexuality, which he still does not know concretely, is aimed exclusively to the procreation and that any other use of sexuality is wrong. When the guy discovers masturbation and the horizon of real sexuality, he is brought automatically to suppress the new feelings and to feel guilty about the fact of not being able to do without what he believes to be absolutely to avoid. Up to this point the conditioning of sexuality operated by the religion is practically the same for both gay and straight guys, but for gay guys there are also other problems. In religious circles in general people tend to take for granted that all the guys are heterosexual and the existence of homosexuality is considered as a manifestation of disease and sin. The priests who care for older kids only talk about relationships between guys and girls and these behaviors lead gay guys to stay as far as possible away from homosexuality, considered like a very serious sin but avoidable. Let us pause to reflect on the situation we have just described.

The Catholic Church considers heterosexuality as the only natural form of sexuality and considers homosexuality as a pathological tendency, something against nature, which must be repressed. The Church considers a grave sin every homosexual act, that is, all forms of sexuality shared with someone of the same sex and also considers masturbation a grave sin. The World Health Organization has recognized for several decades homosexuality as a “normal ” (i.e. non-pathological) variant of the human sexuality and homosexuals has been recognized in many states the right to join together to form a family, a family formed by same-sex partners,  in some states, it is also granted to homosexual couples the right to adopt children exactly as it is granted to heterosexual couples. The same World Health Organization has explicitly acknowledged the value of masturbation not only as a fundamental element for the formation of sexuality in adolescence but as a positive element that produces pleasure, accompanies the entire sexual life of an individual and also involves married man and women, who clearly have also a sexual life as a couple. The World Health Organization has included education to masturbation as part of sex therapy aimed at the well-being of the person as an individual and as part of a couple.

The teachings of the Catholic Church in matters related to sexuality and especially homosexuality and masturbation, are not only not universally shared but are completely incompatible with what the scientific community says about the same subjects.

Sexuality education in accordance with the dictates of the Catholic Church or other religious groups with similar attitudes, promotes feelings of guilt and leads to the repression of sexuality and especially homosexuality, which is seen only in the dimension of sin and not as a natural and spontaneous behavior.

What are the consequences of all this for a homosexual guy? The guy tries to force himself toward heterosexuality and considers homosexuality as a vice to be eradicated, seeks to create a relationship with a girl that can reassure him by giving him the illusion that his homosexuality will disappear if he will be able to resist temptation particularly avoiding masturbation, so in fact the feeling towards a girl will grow “pure” that is not tainted by sex. In repressing masturbation, which would inevitably be gay oriented, and in building a relationship with a girl chastely, that is, without any trace of sexuality, the guy sees a merit, a victory over himself and the sign that his “heterosexuality” is true love and not vice because it is not contaminated by masturbation. In fact the apparent “pure” falling in love with a girl is not really falling in love because is missing entirely any sexual involvement. That apparent falling in love allows the guy to pretend to be straight, relegating homosexuality to the rank of marginal vice that will pass easily, over the years, when he will go to the wedding. It is in essence a problem of removal of homosexuality that is denied and minimized. In some cases, starting with these concepts, when the first attempts to couple sexuality with a girl are successful, the guy can get easily even at the wedding.

The expression “sexual imprinting”, in the strict sense, is used to denote the first sexual or para-sexual experience (nudity, physical contact) that induces, through sexual arousal, the initial orientation of masturbation towards guys or girls. It is quite common to speak of sexual imprinting also about the discovery of pornography and even about the educational pressures. While the discovery of pornography, particularly if very early, can effectively determine the initial orientation of masturbation, and therefore can constitute a real sexual imprinting, the educational pressures act mainly through deterrence. In general, the removal of homosexuality as a result of education does not lead a gay guy to hetero masturbation but to abstinence from masturbation, in this case we can speak of sexual imprinting only in very general terms.

Here it should be clarified that as a guy who lives a straight imprinting can masturbate, for a period of time at least, with heterosexual fantasies, even if he is not straight, so a gay guy, in situations of particular emotional involvement, can have a sexual intercourse with a woman. It should be borne in mind that the true sexual orientation is the “spontaneous” sexual orientation of a person, therefore a guy is gay if, without any conditioning, his sexuality is focused on guys, and similarly a guy is straight if, without any conditioning, his sexuality is focused on girls, but that does not mean that a gay guy, that is a guy who, without any conditioning, focuses his sexuality on guys , cannot, under specific conditions, i.e. with strong constraints, respond to heterosexual stimulation. Similarly, a straight guy, who is spontaneously led to a hetero sexuality, in some particular situations, may also respond to homosexual stimulation. It is precisely for this reason that, in the presence of strong environmental constraints, when the orientation of masturbation does not coincide with that of couple sexuality, the true sexual orientation is what emerges from masturbation because during masturbation the weight of the constraints is enormously less and there  is no expectation to satisfy on the part of the partner. The fantasies that accompany masturbation are, for these very reasons, the fundamental index of sexual orientation.

It should be noted that, given that 92% of the population is composed of heterosexuals, environmental pressures that push toward heterosexuality are very strong, while those that push towards homosexuality are virtually nil. That’s why there are many gays who have problems, even for long periods, about their being gay, while it is very rare to find a straight guy who has problems about is being hetero.

About 30% of the guys who end up recognizing themselves exclusively gay have had before periods in which they considered themselves to be heterosexuals and some of them, and not a few, also had sex with a girl and also with more than just one. Those guys are not heterosexuals who have become homosexuals but they are homosexuals who have been induced to pretend to be heterosexuals by environmental pressures or by an education for nothing respectful of sexual spontaneity and typically have lived long and troubled periods of uncertainty about their sexual orientation. It is significant that most of these guys, even when they have a girlfriend and have sex with girls, continues to practice masturbation with gay fantasies.

Let us now deal with elements that can appear but are not indicators of sexual orientation. Let’s consider an example.

A 11 year old guy goes for swimming and compares his penis with that of his peers. In this case it is true that there is an interest in the penis of other guys but it should be clear that for the guy this is only an element of comparison for assessing his own sexual maturation in relation to that of other guys, the same is true when considering physical development, height or strength in relation to the similar characteristics of other guys. All this has nothing to do with homosexuality.

Let’s move on to another situation which is incorrectly related to sexual orientation or gender identity, that is the feeling of being a man or woman. A child about 5 or 6 year old sometimes puts on mum’s shoes, plays with dolls with girls and not at soldiers with his male mates, is at ease with the girls better than with his male mates, does not like to play football and so on.

Such situations are not indicators of sexual orientation or gender identity (feeling of being male or female) but can sometimes express forms of discomfort to integrate into the peer group, often caused by a very rigid education or simply by shyness. Adults should avoid to negatively emphasize these behaviors with attitudes amazed or worried that can really cause insecurities that are likely to remain unexpressed and unresolved.

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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=210

GAY GUYS AND MORAL

Hello Project,
I’m twenty-one y. o. and live in a big city in northern Italy, until very recently, I considered myself straight in the deepest sense of the term, in practice I had never had any kind of gay thoughts, I have a girlfriend for three years now and I’m fine with her, without sex because I am a practicing Catholic and I consider wrong the idea of sex before marriage.

Let’s say that until two months ago I was what I thought to be, but now I’m beginning to think that in fact the idea of not having sex with my girlfriend for moral issues is just a kind of screen that hides other reasons (do not run to conclusions please). But there’s another thing I have to tell you. I begin to think that also in different situations comes to my mind the idea that I had or wanted to have a screen behind which to hide, I’m talking of auto-eroticism.

I try to explicate better. The Church condemns it and I eventually managed to do without it and, at the end, this is no more a big problem for me, I have always considered this thing a great achievement as the fact that I do not make use of pornography. I have several friends, I think all straight, I’m fine with them and I’ve never had fantasies about my friends and that’s it.

Let’s say that until two months ago everything was fine, then one night, between April 3 and April 4, just the Easter night, I had an erotic dream (what almost never happens to me) and it was a dream themed clearly gay, but it was beautiful, full of sweetness and at the same time of sexual involvement. In practice, in the dream, I think I’ve lived a beautiful love story and I felt deeply involved to the point that I had a wet dream.

The next morning I woke up horrified, I did not know what to think, I felt guilty. It was Easter and I went to confession. The priest was not at all upset and just said that to sin it takes the will to do it and I could not exercise any act of will in my sleep, but in fact I didn’t tell the priest that the dream was a gay themed dream. The speech of the priest reassured me about my possible sin, but in fact it did not solve the underlying problem: why a gay themed dream? And why was it so sweet? I kept inside me these questions and on the other hand I could not talk to anyone.

The images of the dream came back to my mind, I had also some very strong fantasy to let me go to masturbation thinking of those things but I endured and immediately banished such thoughts to avoid falling into dependence on those things. I just tried to avoid the feelings. I went out with my girlfriend but I started thinking that with her I had never had sexual contact not on moral grounds but because I wasn’t interested in her at all from that point of view.

This made me upset. I tried some minimal physical contact with her, as take her hand and caress it, but I did not feel anything, while in the dream making the same gestures with a guy had taken me to strong excitation. Then I also thought of another thing, my friends play sports and they invited me many times to go swimming with them but I’ve never gone for the most diverse reasons, now I’m beginning to think that I do not want to go there because I mut avoid the fear of being in exciting situations. Apparently I told myself that I was straight and that I did not go because I had no time, but basically maybe I did not go just to avoid any possible confirmation about my being gay, what seems far from being evident, but at least it is a hypothesis that I don’t have put aside completely, or perhaps I see it even likely.

Now the problem is big, if it was that I was gay, it would not even be a big deal, but I do not want to give up what I’m, in the sense that yes, I may be gay being also Catholic and I have understand how to put the two things together. This is the big problem.

At the limit, even if it may seem paradoxical I would also be willing to put aside the idea of living sexually a story with a guy, I think it would not be so complicated, all I need is an affectionate friendship. Perhaps what I say may be completely contradicted by the facts, but I think I could live according to the rules of religion. I have read what you have published on “Gays and the Church”, but, excuse me for saying so, maybe you lack the ability to understand things from inside.

I try to follow the rules and so far I have not regretted it and would like to go on living even my gay feelings, if they are really gay, according to those rules. I do not want to sacrifice my values, things that are really important to me that give me certainty and I do not want to live with a foot in both camps, in the sense of playing with the sacraments, to me is a serious matter.

I tell you sincerely that the idea of being gay upsets me a bit, I understand who I am and what I want but I want to keep my principles intact as I have done so far, as far as possible. I often wonder if there may be other guys like me who would also be willing a form of friendship without sex with another guy or if it’s just my imagination. Do what you want of this message, that is, if you think it may be published, publish it, or answer in private.
Bye and thank you for everything.
A. B.
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Hello,
I read your mail. I do not run to conclusions because you’ve come to the conclusions yourself. You are stating assumptions about how to reconcile being gay with your essential moral choices and you seem to have actually rejected the idea of being gay for what the word means in practice, and to transpose everything on a level of a close friendship.

Frankly, even if it was (as you say) that you found a guy willing to sacrifice his sexuality to its moral principles (very theoretical hypothesis) or better to the moral principles of his boyfriend (a hypothesis which I think frankly fiction), it’s very likely that later this kind of relationship will degenerate into a very different thing and so gay sexuality would end up to be mixed with a deep guilt very difficult to remove. You told me you don’t like to keep a foot in both camps, but the hypothesis of a close friendship with a gay guy seems very much like a bridge idea that should let you go towards acceptance of gay sexuality, even if you think that it’s a credible hypothesis. Loving friendship without sex with a guy, for a gay guy, is only possible, if it really is, with a straight guy and frankly

I would ask how your intentions to remain faithful to your principles could stand in front of a real (not hypothetical) affectionate and loving friendship with another gay guy. Seen from outside your behaviors suggest a form of self-repression of gay sexuality that is, for a gay guy, just the sexuality. I can’t asses you motivations because I see them from outside, but I’m very perplexed.

I understand to a certain extent the reasons related to the idea of fidelity to the moral thought of the church, and I wonder to what extent your moral judgment really comes to condemn gay sexuality. Frankly, it seems very unlikely that a guy, maybe gay as you are, can really think that “his” sexuality is a form of pathological deviance. In practice beyond the moral given from outside there’s the internal morality and this internal morality can’t at all condemn being gay as depravity.
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=19&t=89

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

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

I WAS STRAIGHT AND I HAVE TO LEARN TO BE GAY

Hello Project,

I discovered Gay Project recently and I was really amazed, in practice there is nothing like this on the internet. I spent long nights reading. It is a treasure trove of things that I have never found anywhere else and are just the same as I am to live now. I admit that for the first time I did not feel alone. I’m 24, almost 25, until very recently, I never imagined being able to write an email like this, that is, an email to a gay site. I saw a lot of things marked as  gay but I really didn’t like such things. I thought I’d be the one to be strange, then I came here and I told myself that gay people like me exist and that they are not so strange. In practice, up to 24 y. o. I did everything to convince myself to be straight. Up to 19/20 I didn’t even realize the significance of certain things. I had a girlfriend but I masturbated thinking about guys, I had a girlfriend and we used to have sex too, not really exciting but not disappointing. So I just had to say: I’m straight. I had a friend, Mark (false name), we were always together, I was with my girlfriend when I could not stay with Mark. Mark is 100% straight and this made almost impossible to approach him anyway, nevertheless we were good together, but without any reference to sex, even if I masturbated thinking about him and I did it quite naturally as a thing that in loving friendship can be great. Gay men I saw on TV or on the internet were very different from me, and so the idea of ​​being gay didn’t even cross my mind. Then Mark found a girl and I lost most of his company and then I poured on my girlfriend, sex with her was not that bad after all and I’ve never taken het as a last resort, at least up to a year ago, let’s say we looked like the typical engaged couple, even her parents had taken it well, but I was always thinking about guys, every time I saw one I liked, I took heart sank, but I couldn’t even tell her anything, things went on like this for months but I slowly lost interest in sex with my girlfriend, technically everything worked, but I just was thinking about something else. Her parents and my parents started talking about marriage and there I started to feel really very uncomfortable. At this point, what should I do? I should have said what was going on, that is, the first, to admit to be gay in front of myself and then in front of my girl, and perhaps it would have been the obvious thing to do, but I did a crazy thing, I told myself that if I had a son I would come to accept the idea of ​​marriage. My girlfriend now assumed that we would get married, the families also took it for granted, and so, when I said I wanted a son she was happy, but there I just started to have erection problems and I got lots of psychological problems. I didn’t think at all that the fact of having gay fantasies could be important, things had always gone well with my girlfriend and at some point no longer worked but this problem began to emerge  gradually and in fact my girlfriend got pregnant, she was still happy and a little me too, but I realized I did not lust after her and my own sexuality was oriented towards a different direction and I began to realize it in a very obvious way, with her I did not have an erection but at the gym I just had to see a nice guy and could not contain my erection. From there I got it. I went completely in crisis. Meanwhile, my girlfriend had a miscarriage, I do not know if it was better or not, it was terrible, because the idea of ​​a child had put me right in a different mood and because I thought it would be my only chance to have a straight life, but on the other hand I felt freer. I should tell my girlfriend what was going on but I did not have the courage. She wanted us to try newly but I was not willing to repeat the experience,  I began to have the idea that my life would be, however, different, I did not know what to identify with, but I was no longer straight and I realized that clearly . When I got to the breaking point I talked to my girlfriend and things got weird and I was completely bemused. Basically she told me that she knew from the beginning and that she had talked about  with Mark, who then had understood everything, long before me. Mark had warned her from getting in love with me because he thought I was gay, but please note that I then didn’t even suspect. My girlfriend, despite all, fell in love with me and started to mind that she could get me a good life as a straight man. In fact for a while she was successful and it seemed likely that there wasn’t any  problem at all or it was completely exceeded. She told Mark that he was wrong and that nobody was much heterosexual than me, but then things have changed . We broke off the engagement by mutual agreement and without resentment, our families were shocked but we did not say anything to anyone neither I nor she. We were supposed to be friends but in practice after we broke up we saw no more than two or three times. So my straight life was over and from a few months ago I’m trying to understand what being gay means in practice, because when you say that it means to fall in love with guys instead of girls, you don’t say anything concrete. I did not come out to my family and only my ex-girlfriend and Mark know the truth but I am aware that they didn’t talk about to anyone. Among other things, Mark is getting married soon and I think I’ll be for him only a memory lost in the past.

Here begins my confusion. I don’t know gay guys, not even one, I went on the internet looking only for porn then also dating sites but out of curiosity, I’ve never had a profile and even less would encounter people that way because I’m too afraid of AIDS and I want to live in peace. Project, we can say that in so many things that you have written I can find myself quite well. I think I’m a serious guy and from Gay Project I really understood many things, first of all, that a gay man who lived a straight life like mine is not the white fly, I might have gone very far but there are a lot of gay men who have had a girl and I think maybe we could understand each other better, maybe I’m wrong, but they somehow had an experience more similar to mine. The curiosity I have is so big, let us be clear, I do not know what it means to have a relationship with a guy, what has to do with sex and what to do to come to have sex, and the concept of “gay guy” to me is a bit between myth and mystery, I dream about a beautiful boyfriend, just like many hot guys I see on the street, but I have a little fear, fear of being naive, not to really understand what could cross the brain of a gay guy. From what I read on Gay Project it should be interesting but I think about a lot of things that put me very embarrassed and probably I have in mind, as you say, a lot of things deduced from pornography that gay guys have nothing to do with. The fear is not essentially  about sexual things but about emotional feeling, I do not know how it works between two guys, I’m used to understand the reactions of a girl but I cannot imagine those of a guy. To tell you the truth it’s not even so much the strictly sexual things that interest me, I wish above all a relationship of pampering, I’d like to fall asleep next to him, looking him right in the eyes and say I love you. Sometimes I felt stupid to want such things, but now I’m starting to think that there are a lot of guys like me. I would like to add one more thing and that is that I found very interesting the interviews on gay sexuality, I’ve read some with great curiosity and made me feel less alone.

Project, this is my msn (- omissis -), perhaps I’ll start by talking to you if you’re okay, then maybe … who knows … Answer me if you can, I’d love to chat.

See you soon. G. G.

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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=10

I REALIZAD I WAS GAY AT THE AGE OF 40

Hello Project,

Gladly send you the post that you asked me, basically I just changed previous mails a bit, but the essence is still the same. If you think it’s ok you can publish. I’d be delighted if it could help someone.

Mario

________________________

Hello Project,

you cannot imagine how I feel embarrassed to write this mail, even though I know I owe you this mail, I’ve already tried several times to write but at the end I deleted everything, I could not absolutely send it to you, but this time I take my courage in both my hands and I do. My name is Mario and I turned 40 a few months ago. People who know me envy me. I have a great job that takes me up almost completely. I used to think that to have little time to think of myself was a fortune but now I’ve changed my mind. I am single and until recently I thought that I would be single for the rest of my life. I have a home that I began to pay more than 10 years ago. In theory, what you see, I should be happy. I try to look sure of myself because with the work I do it’s important but until recently, when I was alone were moments of total depression. But I try to explain why. I always thought to be straight or better to be nothing. Between 18 and 20 years old I had my first and only girlfriend. It seems superfluous and obvious to say that between us there has never been sex, but there has never been even love and now these things are far away. I’m always very gallant with the girls but I avoid any involvement in any way, and so happened before, at least from 30 years onwards. I had never thought of being gay and I haven’t even raised the issue. My erotic fantasies where always on the girls, but things were forced, at a conscious level at least, nevertheless I never felt gay repressed. For the guys I did not feel anything. I read your article on masturbation as a problem http://gayproject2.wordpress.com/2012/09/12/if-gay-masturbation-becomes-a-problem/ and there I found myself perfectly (I feel embarrassed to talk about these things). In practice for me masturbation was often a frustrating self-constraint and then I preferred to do it without thinking about anything as a kind of strictly physiological need my desire had nothing to do with. A few months ago I started to surf the internet to understand why masturbation was just a problem for me (Project, please understand that, 40 y. o., I’m in a titanic effort to go ahead and write these things) and I found that your article, but in the headline you were talking about “gay” masturbation, I was tempted to read it but then I thought: “But I’m not gay!” And I have not read. It may seem absurd, but I systematically avoided gay sites, all, of any kind. I was holding pretty much just working, I was in the office all day and sometimes even at night but I was starting to feel really badly, I was always nervous even if I had to be highly controlled. You can imagine how depressing it was for me to try to masturbate. It was then that I ended up back on your post about masturbation as a problem, I plucked up courage and I read it even though it was written for gay people. The more I read the more was the heartbeat, I was anxious to get to the end, and then I started surfing a little your gay project forum that is enormous (but how did you gather all the documentation?) I was reading and never getting tired of reading, reading those things even from the outside, but I continued to read and the fact that were gay things not rejected me. I was reading I was amazed as but positive. I wondered how could be falling in love with a boy? But I did not think it as a taboo. I have read a lot from blogs and forum, then I started to do some research about masturbation and I discovered that you mention it many times, and then I read the gay love stories and seemed fine. Then I thought I was reading an explicitly gay site but I kept reading and reading was extremely interesting, in practice I have been there all night, the more I went on the more I was intrigued. I had never read any site with the same interest. The next evening I continued. I thought “But how do these people talk about so intimate things with such ease? Then I read the posts of those who find themselves gay late and there my brain is set in motion at a different pace and I thought: what if it was? I was puzzled, I will not deny it, but it was still possible. Meanwhile, as the brain was on this hypothesis, I continued to read the blog but much less from the outside. I read the post about gay sexuality, about gay soft sexuality, and I explicitly said: “Well, should be nice!” I said to myself that making love with a guy like that would be nice! Before I never would have imagined, but I began to fantasize about those things and I did not feel fear or disgust, I figured just get a guy to my house, to hug him, then take him to the kitchen, cooking together, talking about everything, but knowing that we’re both gay, and then to see him smiling. I smiled at the thought of seeing a gay smiling while in my house. My world seemed upside down, I imagined stroking his hand slightly during dinner. Then I would sit on the couch and he would lay resting head on my lap and I could stroke his face. There is only one thing of which I am a bit ashamed, the boy I imagined was 20, maximum 25 y. o.. Who knows why, but I do not think I could fall in love with a man my age. Well, beautiful thoughts of great tenderness, I thought that if I had had an erection it would be a good thing but nothing happened, my sexuality would not be miraculously resurrected non even by my blessed gay fantasies I had just discovered I liked, because seemed so sweet to me. I thought, perhaps foolishly, that I would even accepted to be gay if my sexuality had awakened. But it did not happen and I thought it would still be another frustration. I came back very disappointed to read the site but it was already late and I went to bed and, contrary to all expectations, for the first time in my life I had an erotic dream, and a gay erotic dream. I dreamed I was in the war, perhaps Vietnam War, I do not know, I was alone and I was returning to the camp on foot from a dangerous mission. There are dead everywhere, I hear a moan, I approach, it’s a soldier who I don’t know, he cannot make it to speak but he is alive, I cannot leave him there, I must take him with me but I’m dead tired, at the end I take him in my arms and start to go toward our camp, but I’m really tired and I’m afraid that my heart bursts. I go along with the energy of despair, at some point I feel him inert, as if he was dead, just breathes, he has lost a lot of blood I’m in a terrible desperation, I start to cry and scream, a van to transport injured passes close to me, we climb up then we arrive at the camp. I begged that he would not die, a young guy, a little more than 20 y. o., the doctor sees him and says he is dead. I am sure that he’s not and I take the doctor by his neck and threaten him badly. The doctor is convinced and they try to revive him but do not allow me to follow them. I wait with anxiety. Half an hour later the doctor comes out and says “The guy has a thick skin; we’ll see how he will react in the coming hours.” The dream that, at the beginning, had all the appearance of the nightmare left me a glimmer of hope. Then everything changes, that guy is in the hospital, but he is conscious, I shake his hand to comfort him, he opens his eyes and says: “I’m afraid!” I shook his hand, then it is evening and the memory is very confused. Finally, he’s with me at my house, sitting on the couch, he’s fine, smiles, then I feel excited but I dare not say anything, just look at him for a moment in his eyes, he lights up and opens his arms. At that point I woke up with my heart beating and I was erect, but just as it should be, something quite unusual for me. You can imagine what I did; they were many years that I felt things that intensity, in fact I think I had never felt before. It seemed incredible. I was about to ask the doctor for viagra. I said: “My sexuality is not dead! I’m gay! And I realized that at 40! Luckily for me, my fears prevented me from making choices with no return as marriage.” I was totally shocked but happy. “Gay! Yes! No problem!” I repeated amazed because I didn’t even think it was a problem. I think I did the first huge step forward, at least I know who I am. Project, I have read far and wide the forum but it is just me having to understand many things. I have no illusions about anything … and I know that I woke up very late at 40 but at least I woke up. It seems paradoxical, but in recent days I have spent much less time at work and more time to do something that I could not do before. I am not ashamed, I’m sorry to be just arrived so late because I missed some important occasions. Now, reading the stories of the guys in the forum I realize I’m reading just like a man who knows exactly what it is. I’ve never been in love with a guy or should I say not yet, on the other hand three weeks are not yet elapsed since I realized who I am.

Project, a thank you, I had to.

____________________________

Hello Project,

You do not know how I had been waiting for a reply to my first email, I thought it would not come, but then it came and I loved the idea of sexuality as something normal (“the pathological is the taboo!” It’s true!). The chat last night was beautiful. Only a month ago I would never have imagined being able to speak freely about my sexuality at this point, in the end it is as you say, I realized that I lived imprisoned for 25 years because of the fear of ghosts. I feel an incredible sense of lightness and freedom. The project, as you call it, is unique and is a very important thing, for me has been really crucial. Do not give up! Got it! Sometimes, perhaps, you will get tired, but you can give a little peace of mind to many people, with me it happened.

A hug, Project! (I’ll call you next Friday, because I go out for work)

Mario

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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=13

EXPLORE GAY SEXUALITY AT THE AGE OF 25

Hallo Project,

I’m a 25 y. o. guy. I came to U.S. few months ago in order to reach my goal and get specialized in high energy physics. I came from Eastern Europe and I was used to speak English during my university training. I think my English could sound very strange to native English speakers. I’m sorry, I don’t speak Italian al all. I got in touch with Gay Project only reading the English blog “Not only gay”. I got there by chance searching for “Maurice” the novel by Forster on Google. At that time I was searching for novels to read in English in order to improve my reading and my vocabulary. Well, that’s why I got in touch with your blog. Clearly I like better improve my English reading gay novels because I’m gay. On “Not only gay” I got your novel “Only seven days”, something that troubled me deeply. In my home country I had an excellent education at all but I missed the very essential thing. Basically I was forced to deal alone with my homosexuality, because I've never had anyone to talk seriously about these things. Up to 24 y. o., I simply removed the problem and I pretended that there wasn’t any problem. I was always studying, I had to think of anything else and so I walked away from the idea of being gay, or rather I was trying to convince myself more and more to be straight. In my country I had a girlfriend and I told her again and again that we could not get married because I would have gone abroad to study and she would not have been able to follow.

I now begin to understand that in fact my desire to go to study abroad was largely due to the idea to get away from her. She is a girl that I admire but I don’t love. I think if I get the chance, I'll stay to live in the U.S.. For the moment I still have much to study and study hard. But I'm starting to open my eyes about myself and about life that I have done until now. I do not like pornography, I'd really like to talk about homosexuality in a serious way. As I told you I do not speak Italian but I tried to read the English translation of your posts through Google translator, it’s not the best but at least I could follow your arguments.AscoltaTrascrizione fonetica

Well, now you understand how I came up with "gay project”. I have many things to ask, but first I must tell you a little about me. Basically my sexuality was just straight up to 23. I tell you “basically”, because I had a girl and had normal sexual intercourse with her but also, despite everything, I was still attracted to guys, I did not want to accept it, but it was so. I have come to deny even the most obvious things, even my sexual desire, I have completely removed the masturbation because my fantasies ran toward the boys and I could not accept such a thing. I was taught that sex was a bad thing, dirty, ugly, and I could not think otherwise. I read that many guys have lived similar things and I found myself in some of your posts.

Now I'm slowly discovering my sexuality but everything remains at the level of masturbation, I do not think in any case I could have sexual intercourse with a boy, it's as if his physical contact disgusts me. And then there's the other big problem, I have never been in love with a guy, with the girls I am comfortable with the guys I feel deeply uncomfortable and I cannot see a boy as a love object but only as an object of sexual interest. I do not know if this situation may change over time, but now I'm 25 and I fear that things will not change. I have few friends here in the U.S., I have colleagues who are very serious people, but they are all straight, or so it seems, and I don’t think I could talk freely with them of my things. What can I expect from the future? just study and never affective and sexual life? Now I'm working hard to specialize and to find work as soon as possible but I also want to start living my life from other points of view. I see that others live their lives peacefully, but I think I have only to study because I cannot live things I still dream. When I go to bed I dream of hugging a guy, a guy who was my boyfriend, but I have no boyfriend and dreams remain dreams. I don’t want to start looking for a guy here, don’t even know the language well and outside the university I still feel like a foreigner.

I think you understood my problem well enough, if you can, answer me in private. If you want, publish this email as well, but if you can, try to answer me by mail.

A hug.

B. K.

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If you like, you can comment this post in the Gay Project Forum:

http://progettogayforum.altervista.org/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=975&start=0

SELF VALUATION OF THE SEXUAL ORIENTATION

Nowadays, more than 330 people took the test of  proposed by GayProject.
I'm publishing today for the first time the stats self-upgrading of this test. I invite you to consult them by using attention because the elements contained are valuable.

QUIZ CONTENTS: My age / sexual orientation felt / family pressures / social expectations / effective sexuality inside a couple / have or not done coming out / value of my relationships with people of the same age within my sexual education / value of my relationships with parents within my sexual education / value of religion within my sexual education / value of pornography within my sexual education / affective
orientation felt / polarization of the sexual interest / difficulty of accepting of my sexuality in the present time / sexual orientation of masturbation / value
of masturbation inside couple life / level of satisfaction in couple life, actual or hypothetical (for those who didn't have sex yet) / level of affective satisfaction in my couple every day, actual or hypothetical / level of sexual satisfaction when masturbating / level of affective satisfaction when masturbating

TO PARTICIPATE you have to compile anonymously the following module:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?hl=it&formkey=dENVQXBaS0ZfU0RydlVKLTMzODRjZUE6MA

As soon as you send the  compiled test you can read the page regarding your answers followed by a commentwhich is written automatically by the software/script and based on the experience developed within GayProject:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=tCUApZKF_SDrvUJ-3384ceA&single=true&gid=2&output=html

You can also read the entire database containing the answers of others:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=tCUApZKF_SDrvUJ-3384ceA&single=true&gid=0&output=html

The self-upgrading statistics analysis about the principal elements of the test can be found at the following link:

http://progettogaysito.altervista.org/orientamento_sessuale_test_stat.htm

The presented elements are extremely interesting.