FREE GAY LOVE SEEN FROM THE OTHER SIDE

Hi Project,

I’m 34 years old and for the first time I fell in love with a guy. I've been with several guys and had sex with them but I wasn't really in love with them, but a little over a year ago I fell in love with a guy and it's a completely different thing. Before my first and real falling in love I used to think about what I could have from those guys, while now I think about what I can do for the guy I’m in love with, I’m not looking for a reciprocation from him also because that reciprocation already exists, and is also superabundant, without my asking, at least for the moment, however I'm really happy that there is someone like him. He’s not a saint, he has his faults, sometimes he treats me roughly but with love, at least I think so. He doesn’t make calculations on feelings, he isn’t hypocritical, I found him close to me every time I needed him, he took me seriously right away, three things about him won me over, intelligence, respect for others and immediacy.

 

He’s a handsome guy, but that is not the note that characterizes him, there are many beautiful guys. He had a difficult life and has a singular ability to penetrate the human soul, to read the feelings of his interlocutor. He doesn’t judge, he doesn’t condemn, he needs to understand, he’s capable of loving in an adult way which for me means in a non-possessive way, he has always left me completely free, he has never forced me, not even in the most light od adulatory way. He doesn’t try to put into practice a code of behavior learned from pornography, but pays attention to his boyfriend, or rather to the guy he is with at that moment and tries to understand him, to go in his direction.

 

He knows that I’m in love with him and he isn’t afraid or seems not to be afraid that my love for him could be a brake for him. He knows that he is loved for who he is and not for what he does or could do, that there are no conditions of any kind. He knows that I only expect spontaneity from him, without obligations of any kind, and that is why we love each other, it is our choice from moment to moment. The choice of being together as a couple is always reversible, that of loving and respecting each other is absolutely irreversible. He’s the type of man I like, and I’m not just talking about the physical, a guy like him is a model to follow, yet he’s a person who has his frailties, his insecurities. He is not a model of courage or fortitude or even of consistency, but he is a model of balance, in him I find everything I need, or almost: the compliance and the ability to stop me and say no, the common sense in decisions, the patience but up to a certain point, and above all the sweetness, the total absence of aggression, which is something that I appreciate very much.

 

He told me that he wasn't like that before, that he used to snap, that he reacted very badly but then he changed when we started being together because he saw that I never got angry with him, and then he says that now he is not aggressive because he feels pacified inside. We have never actually quarreled, we have never raised our voices. He wanted me and I didn't even understand why, he really wanted me, or rather me too, not just me, but neither of us ever thought of abandoning the other, at least that's what I think.

There is an unwritten rule between us: neither of us asks the other about questions concerning his sex life beyond our relationship, this doesn't mean we don't talk about other relationships, if we can to call them so, that we have or have had, we talk about such things spontaneously if we like, but if we want to keep our private we can also keep it for ourselves and nothing will collapse. In reality we talk or rather we have talked a lot about such things and there have never been jealousies either on his part or on my part. I know that he has had and perhaps has other guys as well, he has never hidden it from me. The only problems (and they are not small problems) arise for the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases but on his honesty on this point I would put my hand on the fire. When he had some doubts he told me and we didn't see each other until he took the test, currently he doesn't talk about other guys anymore, I don't know if there are still other guys in his life, but I would be inclined to think that there are none. He knows that I've only had no other guys than him for four years now, and he's okay with that.

 

I had never desired the presence of a guy as I desire his, perhaps it's for sex, I don’t deny it, but more than anything it’s also for that form of wordless complicity that grows up on the sexual ground, for that immediate and reciprocal understanding, for that knowing each other thoroughly and trust each other. When we meet, which, after all, still happens  a single day a week now, we dedicate a lot of time to sex and the bare minimum to sleep and eat. Generally we are unable to talk seriously in those situations, it is as if sex was an automatic thing and talking to each other was much less so, when we separate it is the worst moment, but not in the sense that we are sorry to separate, because we got used to it, but in the sense that we never fix an appointment for the next time and not because it’s something obvious, but precisely because it is not at all. An appointment is a constraint, a point of reference, let's say a limit to freedom, and we must mutually guarantee our freedom, today we are together, but it is not taken for granted that we will be together again next weekend.

 

If there is one thing I lack in my contact with him, it is precisely the fact of speaking without fear, I mean fear of breaking the rule of freedom. If I told him "I love you!" somehow I would give the impression of wanting to tie him to the fact that I love him, demanding something in return. I miss his daily presence, the conversation about banalities. We hardly ever talk to each other during the week and we only see each other on Saturday nights. I would also like to do trivial things with him, I would like to share everyday life, but I don’t miss it for objective and external reasons, I miss it because I’m afraid that trying to share all aspects of everyday life could shift the axis of our relationship a little from sex, which now is the very center of it, and I don't know if he really wants such a thing.

 

When I'm with him a reflection comes to my mind, the statements made in words have a general value, they are like theorems, on the contrary sex is a physical, concrete thing, it is the application of some of those theorems to a particular case, this means that exceptions matter more than rules. Sex doesn’t obey general rules, it’s absolutely subjective, it concerns our relationship with a single person and in a precise moment, it’s not repeatable, it’s not generalizable, it’s not predictable. The variables are so numerous and so little known that in the end one has to put aside all projections and predictions.

 

Many consider sex as a way to understand another person, but in reality when you truly experience sex with another person, you realize the complexity of sexuality and its substantially incomprehensible dimension. In the end, I don't even know what pushes me to live my sexuality with him, how can I understand what pushes him to be with me? With me and not with another guy, at least at that moment. And even if I can say that there is real sharing and reciprocal transport, spontaneity is anyway held back. It is never possible to truly understand your partner's desires and limitations. Hence the uncertainty, the tendency to slow down not to rush too much, the sense of limit, and this could be one of the reasons that makes our relationship stable anyway.

 

It is beautiful when we meet on Saturday, they are moments of enthusiasm, sexual harmony is there, but it is very difficult to go further, and then when we separate, the days of waiting begin every time, days that are of real solitude, in practice long pauses between two days of life, empty days, in which a thousand thoughts come to the surface, days in which I think that what I want is something else, that I would like to see him happy to be with me every day, I wish I could wake up and find him next to me, I would like to prepare breakfast for him, I would like - it seems a paradox - even to argue with him in a strong and aggressive way and then make peace, and instead there is the fear of making mistakes, of exceeding our own rules, and so nothing is said, because there is always the doubt: would or wouldn’t he be willing to build a different relationship, more affective, I don't say less sexual, but just more affective?

 

I feel the detachment between the moments of sexual participation in which he is totally involved and the much colder after-sex moments, in which we never joke and talk very little, almost as if we thought "both of us" that we have done something that basically we shouldn't have done. I have observed over the months that there have been changes in our sexual relations. At the beginning the limits were very tight: no pampering that tastes too much like affectivity, but only sex and nothing else, he didn't want me to run my hands through his hair or touch his beard, then slowly he overcame these things, now he allows me to caress him, but he doesn't do the same with me, if the caresses are explicitly sexual then he accepts them, but if they are simple gestures of affection, I have to be careful not to insist too much because it might bother him.

 

It's not that we don't love each other, but I think he's not used to affectionate gestures, that those things somehow frighten him, that he feels them as something aggressive, too free, not codified, that he feels them as an attempt to create an obligation, a close bond, capable of taking away or restricting his freedom. The small changes I've noticed in the way we have sex make me think that something is really changing, but I don't deny, Project, that I'm not at all sure things will move forward in this direction. He can't bear to be told that he is a handsome guy, he is almost annoyed by it, he considers these speeches a parody of the speeches a guy uses to seduce a girl. When he talks about us he never uses the word love but only the word sex. But one thing I wonder, but if he is really just looking for sex, why did he choose me? He could have found so many guys better than me, who wouldn’t have created problems of any kind and would have easily adapted to his way of seeing things. And it's not even a problem of exclusive choice, he knows very well that he’s free to go with another guy too, but if he doesn't, as I believe, even if he claims the freedom to be able to do it, in the end he must have a serious motivation.

 

He tells me that I stimulate him a lot sexually, but in my opinion it's something that doesn't really have any foundation. In sex it’s me the one who follows him and not the opposite. I thought he might really like me because I hardly ever say no to him, and try to understand him. When I see him sad or distant I feel really bad and I think he has noticed it. When we have sex, he’s completely involved. I had never seen guys so involved in sex. In those situations he totally trusts me and seems absolutely and deeply participatory, but after sex he looks like another person, he gets dark, becomes more aggressive in his ways, more ironic, but with a bitter ironic, not towards me but towards himself.

 

I have a fundamental doubt, now things are like this and I think that the problem lies in the distance and in the fact that we see each other one day a week, the solution, in theory, would be to try to change jobs and to be able to really live with him. For him it is undoubtedly more difficult than for me, then I could also try to change jobs and move to his city, but I would have to sell my house, for which I still have to pay several years of mortgage, and move to his house, but he proposed it to me only in a very vague and probably unconvinced way, and I don't know if it is really what he would like, but I wonder if this living together, instead of making things improve by sharing everyday life, it cannot actually undermine that relationship that now exists and that maybe is based right on the fact that we are 150 km away and that we are both free anyway. Honestly, I don't know how to make a decision, going on as has happened up to now is an unsatisfactory option, but the other option, that is to bet everything on coexistence, I fear it could even be destructive. What do you think about?

______________________

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GAY COUPLES AND SEXUAL FANTASIES

Mau85 – Hi Project, how are you? It’s been a while since we talked

 

Project – Fortunately, everything is pretty good here, and you?

 

Mau85 – Here too, and I could say very well indeed today! Do you remember me?

 

Project – yes, I remember the story with your ex, a story which wasn’t actually over because you and your ex kept hearing from each other

 

Mau85 – Yes, he himself, let’s call him Andrew, and do you remember anything else? I don’t want to test your memory, but I have to understand where to resume the story from

 

Project – I remember that Andrew also had other guys and this fact for you was not at all shocking for you

 

Mau85 – shocking certainly not, in short I would have liked to have him all for myself, but he is like this, he also needs something or better someone else, I think I was afraid that they could take him away from me, that is I was afraid that he would stop loving me because he was in love also with other guys, but I couldn’t ask him to leave those guys because he really loved them

 

Project – yes, I remember these things

 

Mau85 – he, however, felt only half satisfied with these guys, not so much from the emotional point of view because after all they respected and loved him, but precisely from the sexual point of view

 

Project – What do you mean? 

 

Mau85 – In the sense that he tried to involve them in his sexual fantasies, which are not really common, but they didn’t listen to him and in the end, for him, sex was a very mechanical thing, because it was he who had to adapt. Actually I don’t even know what he could have said about himself to those guys but I think he’s been quite explicit, as he had been with me, but I don’t know exactly. He tried a lot of times to involve me too in his fantasies, but it wasn’t so easy to me, in the end I pretended not to understand and tried to do what the other guys used to do, that is, I tried to bring him to my own ground, what in the end really happened every time, even if in the end he was only half satisfied. I have to tell you that seeing that after having sex with me he was not really satisfied put me on a lot of melancholy to the point that I tried to thin our meetings because I expected that he would be disappointed anyway. Project, I saw that you didn’t ask me questions to go more deeper and you did well. I just have to tell you that I love Andrew with all my soul, I respect him as a person, he likes sex, has sex with other guys, but I know some of those guys and they are guys who love him.

 

Project – from what you told me it was clear that your relationship with Andrew was serious. There are people who can see your story in a completely different way, it is obvious, for what it may be worth! The important thing is what you think of Andrew, because you know him very well, the rest doesn’t worth anything at all.

 

Mau85 – well, I’ve known him for years, you can’t make a traditional couple with him, it’s different, but it’s not a less serious thing. He needs other guys, I don’t, but we love each other anyway. But you already know this and that was not what I wanted to talk to you about, I called you to talk about what happened between me and Andrew on February 29, one Saturday, before this virus affair, when it was still possible to circulate. In short, he calls me and without any preamble he tells me that he is under my house and that he wants to go up. In our language it means that he wants to have sex with me. I have often said no to him, but at that moment I was happy that he had come to me, I had missed him a lot in the last few days. He comes up to my home, you know that I live alone, he tells me he doesn’t have condoms, when he comes to me he always has them, I make a puzzled face, as if to say: so what did you come for? He knows very well that for me the idea of having sex with him without a condom is absolutely inconceivable and so he replies: Ok, we don’t even touch each other, we’ll stay at a distance each in his place two meters away from each other, but you have to come in my fantasies, you have to make me do it for once, at least in fantasy, something that is good for me, ok? I look at him and say ok! Then he adds, but let’s get to the end, please, without changing the subject. I tell him it’s okay and we masturbated in front of each other while I tell him an erotic story of the kind he likes. At first all the situation sounded strange to me, but he seemed very involved and I went on with the story which in the end seemed quite engaging to me too. I make it short. We got to the end more or less together, we were both very tired. Well, it was the first time he wasn’t disappointed, and we hadn’t even touched each other. He told me that I was beginning to understand what he needed and that he appreciated very much the fact that I had not tried to escape the matter and do the usual things, then he told me that he hadn’t brought condoms on purpose. In general, after our sex meetings, as soon as it’s done, he leaves. But on February 29 instead we cooked and dined together and he stayed in my house to sleep. We talked a lot, I saw him calm, not at all frustrated, he joked, he said nonsense, in short it was an incredible evening, before going to sleep “in his room” he told me: “I love you!” and gave me a little kiss on the cheek. Then in the following days we had a lot of work to do and stayed apart for a while without staying in touch even by phone, but it’s not a rare thing between us. We had agreed that we would meet again on March 14 (our meetings are almost always on the weekend), but the government decrees intervened and we could not move from home, neither he nor I, but the experience of February 29 was somehow replicated a couple of times via the web, which is not quite the same, but I realized that I no longer had any resistance against his fantasies and that trying to share his fantasies seemed to me much more spontaneous, that is, we were practically on the same wavelength, there was no need of speeches or preambles of any kind. Once we arrived at the end, however, we continued to talk about a thousand other things, even very far from sex, I felt him loose, relaxed, without melancholy notes. He told me about when he was a child, about “lego” constructions, but also about the long afternoons he spent alone, practically abandoned by his parents, about how he had learned to draw (which he still does now and very well) and how he had learned to play the guitar, sometimes when some melancholy thoughts were about to invade him he chased them away by doing exercises with the guitar. We spent two evenings or rather two nights talking and we felt well in a profound sense, he felt accepted, not exploited, He said to me: you are not my type, but with you I’m fine, I feel really well and I want you too to feel well, I am not in love with you but I love you. This sentence may sound strange but I know it is absolutely true. Now I hope that the restrictions on circulation will be removed as soon as possible, clearly because it would mean that the epidemic is waning, but also because I’m looking forward to see Andrew again, because for me only he exists. These are the facts. What do you think about, Project?

 

Project – You have been happy and he too, this is the better proof that you and  Andrew love each other! There is a reciprocal trust, a very uncommon way to accept one another’s rules and then he didn’t feel rejected in his most intimate fantasies, you made him understand that you didn’t feel conditioned, in short, you have put him at ease. It would be very nice if it was like that even in all the monogamous couples both gay and hetero, if there was this level of sexual availability! But believe me it is very rare. Very often in sex there are real attempts to prevaricate, attempts to impose models without ever adapting to the other

 

Mau85 – But I felt happy and I said to myself that I was a fool when I tried to avoid to consider his need for what it really was without giving him the opportunity to express himself as he wished, when instead I did it I saw him happy, because he didn’t feel rejected. I think that when you make your partner understand what you need and he pretends not to understand and wants to bring you on his way the feeling of frustration must be tremendous, because you bitterly feel that between you and your partner there isn’t any real feeling, that you are considered no more than a body available to the fantasies of others. In short, Project, I’m slowly learning to understand the meaning of many things that a few years ago I would have refused and would have seemed completely absurd to me. I liked without any real reason the classic couple model and I thought that I would never adapt to anything different and instead when Andrew told me that he had fallen in love with another guy but he loved me anyway I accepted this thing and I have never regretted my choice and now I learn that in order to live sexuality well, one must try to leave room for the other, respecting and accepting him. I saw him smile and it was a beautiful thing. If I love him I don’t have to say no to him for more or less stupid reasons. And then the evenings spent talking together were wonderful. I feel that he really loves me.

 

Project – You have come to these conclusions but the vast majority of couples would never get there, simply because there is no real affection, or perhaps there is, but putting first the self-realization, first the selfish note. The things you say would scandalize many people, but anyway they are very true. I remember you saying that Andrew had never deceived you, well, saying this about a guy means rewarding him with the most beautiful compliment one can do. I’m not surprised that you fell in love with Andrew and even less that you never felt the need to find another guy because there is a relationship with Andrew and it is of deep ones, those which are not lost with the years.

 

Mau85 – I knew you would understand. I told a small summary of this story on another gay site and they asked me if I was out of my mind, in the end they left me alone because they thought I was making fun of them! I’m glad to talk to you, I feel encouraged. However, if you want to publish this chat, publish it, maybe it puts someone in crisis! Thank you, Project, Gay Project has given me so much!

Good night.

 

Project – Thanks to you! And a hug to you and Andrew!

___________

If you want, you can participate in the discussion on this post open on the Gay Project Forum:

http://gayprojectforum.altervista.org/T-gay-couples-and-sexual-fantasies

GAYS AND DYSFUNCTIONAL SEX

Ego-dystonic homosexuality

In the classification of mental and behavioral disorders contained in the 10th formulation of the World Health Organization (WHO) document for the classification of diseases (ICD-10), homosexuality is no longer considered an illness in itself and is recognized the existence of dystonic forms of all sexual orientations. Echo-dystonic homosexuality is a homosexuality recognized by the subject but not accepted. If a homosexual, fully conscious of being homosexual, comes into conflict with his sexual orientation for religious, moral or social reasons and wishes to change sexual orientation,  his homosexuality is called ego-dystonic homosexuality. This category is now outdated and ego-dystonic homosexuality is no longer classified as a mental disorder, but as a simple discomfort due to cultural or social reasons.

The ICD-10 was approved by the 43th WHO Assembly in May 1990 and has been in use in the WHO member States since 1994. The release date for ICD-11 is 2018, and any reference to homosexuality, even the ego-dystonic one, is expected to be completely eliminated.
Two points must be underlined:

1) the excess of psychiatrization has arrived to overcome the limits of the ridiculous (and really of the pathological) with the description, in the XIX century, of a presumed disease, the drapetomania, a "disorder of slaves who have the tendency to escape from their owner due to an innate propensity for the desire to travel". Psychiatry, starting from the assumption that slavery was a normal thing, has come to consider pathological the tendency of slaves to flee!

2) maintaining the category of "ego-dystonic homosexuality" has fueled the thriving market of conversion therapies aimed at bringing back homosexuals to heterosexuality, because these aberrant practices were officially considered forms of treatment for a "disease" and therefore were repayable by health insurances or national health services, if any.

Homosexuality had been deleted from the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association (APA)) since 1973, after a very tortuous path in which ideological resistance, political opportunism and economic interests were intertwined in various ways, in a border territory in which science (psychiatry) risked losing even the appearance of objectivity. In this regard, I refer to a fine article by Jack Drescher: Out of DSM: Depathologizing Homosexuality which illustrates the path that led to the de-pathologisation of homosexuality by the APA.

Let's leave aside, with all the reservations of the case, the category of ego-dystonic homosexuality,  and let’s come to the specific object of this article, that is the dysfunctional gay sexuality which is something profoundly different.

Gays and dysfunctional sex 

The cultural tradition has accustomed us to the association of sex and pleasure, endorsing the identification of sexuality with the gratification that can derive from it, but the experience teaches that in some cases sexuality, far from being associated with pleasure and gratification, becomes an expression and sometimes a non-secondary cause of depressive states that are inconspicuous but subtle and even dangerous.

 

The association of sexuality and sense of gratification is not a necessary constant but is induced by sexual imprinting and the first approaches to adult sexuality that act in a varied and complex way on the components of the personality in formation and mold it. You can get to experience sexuality as a real obsession, that is, as an invasive and pervasive dependence that deeply affects the whole personality, you can get to experience sexuality as self-punishment, as a self-imposed form of moral degradation or as constantly accompanied by feelings of guilt associated with an unstoppable impulse to repeat. In other words, sexuality can be a dysfunctional response to the discomfort that not only does not relieve it but can weigh it down in a conditioning way.

 

When there is a spasmodic exercise of sexuality, particularly when sexuality is divorced from the affective component, the legitimate suspicion arises that this is a dysfunctional sexuality.

 

I give a very simple but very meaningful example: when a guy lives a very active sexuality but accompanied by a sense of satisfaction and gratification, there is no reason to suspect any form of discomfort, if instead the overactive sexuality is accompanied by depressive feelings, a drop in self-esteem or the perception of a sense of dependence, it is legitimate to ask oneself if there is or not a form of unease behind it.

 

Sexuality as a manifestation and component of discomfort is more easily encountered in homosexuals and in particular in those homosexuals who, for reasons of social conformity or for facts linked to individual history, live in conditions of repression or present forms of sexuality that are not easily accepted, not even in contexts otherwise welcoming, such as intergenerational relationships.

 

As it’s obvious and as I have been able to find on several occasions that having suffered in childhood or even in early adolescence forms of sexual abuse predisposes to dysfunctional sexuality but does not determine it in a necessary way.

 

At the base of dysfunctional sexuality we often find the idea of transgression and of involving others in transgressive behaviors, which often means trying to get out of isolation and share an intimate and at the same time anxiogenic aspect of one's personality.

 

I would like to point out that dysfunctional sexuality often has its roots in areas of individual experience that have nothing to do with sexuality but which have strong effects on self-esteem and are often linked to the context of the family the individual comes from.

 

The patrimony of sexual intimacy represents one of the most important and at the same time most fragile dimensions of the personality, an invisible but present dimension on which each person measures the social integration at the deepest level. Of course sexual intimacy can be related to many feelings of guilt, linked to the tendency to invade the sexual intimacy of others or to dispel one's own with abnormal or excessive behaviors.

 

From what I have been able to see the dichotomy between affectivity and sexuality, which many times seems original, is often strongly accentuated by experiences of rejection, that is, stories with an emotional-sexual background begun with enthusiasm and ended by manifest incompatibility.

 

The repeated experience of affective incompatibility leads to the shift of emotional investment towards non-affective sexuality. The archetypes emerged from sexual imprinting thus become models to be repeated continuously and progressively less gratifying. The idea of transgression begins to weigh more than that of sharing, behaviors become ritual and stereotyped and a sort of script is formed that must be recited more or less identical regardless of the personality of the partner.

 

This mechanism, which in fact creates an obsessive dependence, is initially experienced as a mere unease but tends gradually to become compulsive. The emotional components are withdrawn from sexuality but don’t disappear at all from the individual horizon, they remain only in a dimension separate from sexuality. Guys who live in conditions of sexual dysfunctionality have a very deep affectivity that can manifest as such in all its potential, which can be enormous, I mean that those guys can live important friendships, can have, on aspects that don’t touch sexuality, a very rigid moral code, but when it comes to sexuality they will end up feeling dominated by the compulsion to repeat the same behaviors and to try to involve others in behaviors that they consider transgressive and in any case to dissociate affectivity and sexuality.

 

I must observe that many of the behaviors considered by those guys to be transgressive, are in reality quite common variants of sexual behavior that, when they are not accompanied by a sense of dependence and compulsion to repeat or by the tendency to focus only on them, don’t express and don’t create discomfort at all.

 

I report a significant example: intergenerational relationships created on an emotional basis are not expressions of discomfort but those relationships, lived without affection and almost self-imposed, manifest an unease that can be profound, the same is true for example for anal penetration that has nothing to do with discomfort, when it is experienced as rewarding and spontaneous, but instead is a sign of a discomfort that can be profound when it is experienced as self-imposed by people who in their sexual fantasies have never considered that particular sexual practice. The same could be said for the use of a particularly provocative, vulgar or aggressive language in sexual encounters and so on. It happens in these cases a little what happens in the OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder), a behavior that in itself would not have anything transgressive, if lived in an emotional, playful and otherwise collaborative dimension and without fixed roles, i.e. with criteria of parity and in a light way, is instead considered transgressive and is experienced as compulsive, but the reason is not in the objective transgressive character of that behavior or in its intrinsic compulsiveness but only in the mind of the subject that associates those behaviors with a situation of discomfort.

 

Some criteria tend to prevent dysfunctional sexuality as far as possible:

 

1) Absolute respect for the privacy of the child or adolescent in matters related to sexuality

 

2) To try to prevent sexual abuse of minors, which have a profound effect on adult life

 

3) To create an environment that tends to promote self-esteem and develop an affective climate, in particular by providing examples of the association between affectivity and sexuality.

 

Let us now analyze synthetically each of these points.

 

I understand very well that in the age of the internet, where children and adolescents have easy access to the network and all its contents, parents may be worried about the child's access to pornography, which in some ways is inevitable; it is however opportune that this access takes place at an age in which there is already a substantially adult sexuality (14-15 years), so that models of behavior are not exclusively imitative, because a model of exclusively imitative sexuality is substantially devoid of affectivity.

 

Parents are often afraid more than of pornography, of special friendships of their children, that instead have the undeniable merit of encouraging the growth of affectivity and the integration of affectivity and sexuality. Parents can and must talk about sexuality with their child but only avoiding calling him directly into question. Attitudes of an inquisitorial type or of real espionage, like looking through the child's private cards or tampering with his computer are perceived as invasive and violent and break the trust relationship between parents and children.

 

The prevention of child abuse is a very delicate subject because the overwhelming majority of abuses are perpetrated precisely by the persons to whom the child is entrusted or in any case by family members or by those who habitually frequent the child's home. It is obvious that under these conditions the repressive intervention of the penal law risks being completely circumvented. The golden rule to reduce the possibility of abuse is to never "entrust" the child to others and, if necessary, to entrust him to grandparents or to other family members whose behavior can be certain, and never in a systematic way or for long periods.

 

Creating an environment that tends to promote self-esteem and the development of an affective climate means in practice creating a family life in the full sense of the term, spending a lot of time with children, playing with them from an early age, gratifying them in comparison with adults and showing them concrete examples of affection between adults. There is nothing that can promote self-esteem and the development of the child's affectivity, such as seeing parents experiencing an emotional and collaborative atmosphere among them. I mean that the child's discomfort is very often the expression of a family hardship.

 

I have often asked myself about what can be done when a form of dysfunctional sexuality has been rooted for years and here I can only expose my thoughts that are far from indicating a concrete way of proceeding. Naturally I didn't ask myself what a psychologist can do, because a psychologist takes on a determined role that has its own rules, but just of what a friend can do. The variables involved are many and it is very difficult to arrive at a synthesis, I will limit myself to explain the most recurring problems. I will indicate with the letter "A" the guy who experiences a condition of sexual dysfunction and with the letter "B" his friend.

 

A typical situation: A has a fairly frank dialogue with B and slowly gets to talk with B about his sexuality, manifesting also the aspects that he considers transgressive. In this way A intends to evaluate above all the fidelity of B and his reactions. If B will be annoyed by those speeches or if he will go away not to be seen again, A will live the thing as another refusal towards him and this will confirm him in the idea of marginality and social isolation. If B will listen to A’s speeches in a patient way without reactions of amazement and will try to underline that the transgressive aspects are actually minimal, admitted and not granted that they exist, A will go on to a later phase, he will try to involve B beyond the level of dialogue, he will try to provoke him, to convince him to try some sexual contact, even very superficial, even by telephone, but it will be a sexual contact with those characteristics of transgression that B had considered little or no transgressive at all and here B will have the problem of accepting or not to take this step forward, because if B will accept, almost certainly A will try to take another step forward to involve B more and more, but if B refuses, A will take the opportunity to further depress and to further decrease his self-esteem. At the end of this process, which may take months, B will ask himself whether it is appropriate to give in to the insistence of A and here the answer is not at all obvious, B would not however have the prospect of starting a romance with A, since A is interested in B only on a sexual level, while B could prove a deep emotional involvement for A. B, however, is now aware that the relationship with A is played at another level and that, even if A is not involved at an affective level, or better in terms of couple relationships, B's answer can be very important precisely for A's personal balance, or better for his self-esteem and for overcoming depressive attitudes. B, on the other hand, knows very well that yielding to A once means inducing A to repeat that sexual experience an infinite number of times but always without couple affectivity.

 

Among the one-way answers: always accept the proposals of A, or say no clearly even if in the least aggressive way, there is a third way, that of an agreement limited especially to periods of maximum stress of A. The purpose of B cannot consist in trying to create a relationship with A, but must be identified in allowing A to achieve greater serenity and greater self-esteem and therefore to live, even towards B an emotional dimension "without couple relationship" but anyway strongly stabilizing. As it’s obvious in this path there are many possible variations and decisions don’t belong to B but are taken together by A and B not with agreements made of words but through significant behavior, as it happens in every important interpersonal relationship.

 

I would like to end my discussion on dysfunctional sexuality with a clarification: dysfunctional sexuality is often found in people in other respects realized despite their low self-esteem and, I would add, in people who are forced to live lives very different from what they wished, even if they have achieved, in these unwished lives, notable social and economic successes.

 

With these people it is certainly possible to build affective relationships sometimes very important, that their characteristic non-aggressiveness and their tendency to maintain stable relationships, even if not close, make in fact often very pleasant and gratifying.

 

If there is one thing from which in any case, it is necessary to refrain it is from judging, because this would further decrease self-esteem and lead these people to more clearly depressive states. 

Speaking both with people with dysfunctional sexuality and with their friends, I noticed that respect and affection subsist between them. I have also noted that some problematic situations tend to resolve when, on a general and not specifically sexual level, self-esteem rises and with it the substantial level of socialization. The real danger is the state of abandonment in which the individual is absolutely alone with his depression because then the incentives to reevaluate oneself and to understand that one is really important at least for someone are completely lacking.

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GAY GUYS, HOMOPHOBIA AND DATING SITES

This post will highlight the consequences on gay people of the social non-integration of homosexuality and of the widespread environmental homophobia in terms of loss of the affective dimension of sexuality, of increasing transgressive meaning of sexuality and of spread of AIDS risk.

In front of many suicides of gay teens  around the world who came to the headlines of the newspapers (many are deliberately hidden because of a choice of families), in front of those who lost their lives because of homophobic hatred, in the front of the frequent and marked incitement to discrimination and hatred operated by religious circles, people who have a sense of morality cannot remain indifferent. The homophobic and discriminatory attitudes receive daily incredible legitimations. Fortunately, in many states the civilization of the law is an obstacle to homophobic hatred and a boost to the integration of homosexuals, but it is undeniable that even in the twenty-first century, even in countries where homosexuality is not considered a crime, and even where the rights have been extended to gay marriage and adoption policies, there is, however, at the social level, a form of silent but powerful discrimination that acts on gay people from an early age and accustoms them to the exclusion, as if the exclusion was their inevitable destiny.

What are the consequences of all this?

When a teenager realizes that his affection and sexuality are deeply and often violently discriminated by both the family and the social environment, many reactions are possible: the tendency to self-repression and depression, the attitudes of rebellion and challenge to the family and society. In any case, beyond the external reactions, a search activity for discussion and dialogue is set in motion that cannot find a serious answer either in families or in schools or in the religious, social or recreational activities. And it is precisely at this point that are involved other tools available today that have changed the prospects of gay guys from ten years now, I talk about the internet and what guys can find on the internet, not only in terms of comparison and dialog but also the terms of easy sexual offer, that is, dating sites and video-chats.

There are sites on the net dedicated to an extremely serious information and comparison among gay people but it must be said that these sites are a little minority among services offered by the web and the audience of these sites is definitely very little. The vast majority of sites labeled gay consists of pornography, dating sites and video-chats.

Whatever for a straight guy belongs to a normal emotional and sexual life, that may be experienced under the eyes of everyone, including family, like falling in love, exchanging tenderness with his partner, speaking openly about his feelings, for a gay guy is on the contrary either impossible or extremely complicated. A gay guy has serious difficulties in declaring his love to another guy, he cannot talk to friends or family and if he gets to have a guy, with very few exceptions, keeps him far away from the family.

If a gay guy is not allowed to be realized in his family and social environment, inevitably tends to achieve his realization through different ways, and here the easy way is also the most dangerous, I’m talking about dating sites and sex chats.

The huge number of users of the erotic chats and dating sites should make us reflect. These sites are the answer, and often the only answer, even if dysfunctional, to the real affective and sexual needs that can neither be ignored nor suppressed. If for a guy it becomes impossible to live a normal sexual and emotional life openly, with the knowledge and acceptance of family and society, it is inevitable that the guy looks elsewhere for the realization of his expectations, which are anyway the normal expectations of any guy but that appear deviant and pathological because are related to another guy instead to a girl. Trying to curb and suppress a real need and prevent its development according to the normal channels automatically means encourage the development of alternative channels through which the need could find an answer. It happens a bit as in the “prohibition”: banning the use of alcohol in the common places of sale and consumption means promoting other distribution channels.

DATING SITES

The dating sites have been created to provide easy sex encounters to users, this applies to heterosexual and is even more true for gays: “if in everyday life it is almost impossible to find a gay guy, or better, to choose one, taking for granted that he is also sexually available without any complications, the dating site solves the problem for you”, you can see the profiles of the guys, more or less explicit photos that they have entered, you can upload your photos on the site and above all, in practice, you are sure to find many and quick answers from which to choose your ideal partner. A gay man is led to believe that nothing is possible in everyday life instead everything becomes real through the dating site. In practice, the dating site is seen as the unique and irreplaceable tool for the creation not only of a sexual contact but for the realization of all emotional life. The dating site looks like the response to a deep emotional need that does not find any answers elsewhere and is loaded, because of this, with a lot of fundamental affective expectations.

The dating sites are becoming, year after year, accepted as “normal” in the life of a gay guy and this is due precisely to the social rejection of homosexuality just because the “prohibition” facilitates the creation of alternative channels to live however the emotional and sexual life.

APPROACH PHASE

Before registering on a dating site a guy lives contributing moments of uncertainty and fluctuation between the temptation and the resizing of the emotional expectations. In front of people who have strong concerns over the use of these sites, classical answers are indicative: “You are biased!” “I know that many clever guys have registered.” “But they are not all mad for sex.” “I have nothing against these sites but I didn’t register and I think I will not,” In general, a sentence like this last comes shortly before the registration.

NARCISSISM

When a guy walks into a dating site he is usually very favorably impressed by the fact that he can find a lot young people in the site, many of which are also in his area and then are actually contactable. To publish your photos on a dating site, especially if it is a site for gays, involves a certain risk of being labeled, but this risk is easily put aside due to a narcissistic impulse. In general gay guys, even if they are objectively very beautiful, are convinced that they didn’t find a boyfriend because they are physically not up to the task, the dating site offers an answer to these guys. The publication of personal photos followed by a rain of contacts, is something that rewards appropriately the narcissistic dimension: “If there are so many guys who are looking for me I am not so bad!”

SEXUAL PROMISCUITY

Usually when a guy gets a lot of contacts on a dating site, he is brought to consider them as he considered an affective request received in ordinary life. The high number of contacts received induces to overlook the fact that guys who have left us their contact did exactly the same with many other guys and that contacts are just in order to get easy sexual exchanges without commitment. The most serious risk of the dating sites is the HIV risk, i.e. the risk of being infected with the AIDS virus but there is a risk of sexual transmission for many serious diseases such as viral hepatitis, herpes virus and the human papilloma virus. Sexual promiscuity is the first risk factor in sexually transmitted diseases. It’s amazing how guys who have about other topics, a highly efficient rationality end up putting everything aside coming to talk about “risk acceptance” or to underestimate the risk based on the assumption that the condom is a sufficient guarantee. Often the level of superficiality is such that they are content with general statements of the other in relation to his health: “He said that he’s fine and that he gets tested for HIV every six months.” I note in passing that a guy who frequents dating sites and gets tested for HIV every six months is probably concerned that he’s likely to be HIV positive. As a result of the decrease in anti-AIDS campaigns it is also common to see the underestimation of AIDS itself and the belief that “now it is a disease that can be overcome with the right treatment.”

DEPRESSIVE PHASE AND DEPENDENCE

After the first sexual encounters, the guys begin to notice that their first partners disappear and that no loving relationship can be created. All this is sometimes seen as an “experiment” waiting finally for the guy with whom you can build a real relationship, and sometimes and more frequently as an inescapable reality that proves that it’s impossible for a gay man to build long-term relationship with another man as a couple. Month after month, the feeling that it is just a sexual game that distracts from the necessary commitments such as study and work prevails, and this feeling triggers a mechanism of addiction, quite similar to the one that creates the drug dependency, i. e. alternating phases in which guys intend to unsubscribe from the dating sites and delete all the contacts of the people they had met in that environment and phases in which the depressive response to the emptiness, due to the abandonment of dating sites, quickly takes over and leads back to the sites to look for new contacts. Generally, we can say that addiction has already been established when the intention to abandon the site is not followed by the actual deletion of the contacts.

CONSOLIDATION OF DEPENDENCE

When the dependency is consolidated over the years, you end up accepting it as irreversible and to assume that “it had to go this way.” In reality, these guys, now grown men, were deprived of their emotions and they threw it away themselves to look for a simple solution to their problems. In this way, homosexuality, which in itself is a way of loving, becomes a degraded exercise of sexuality without emotions and inevitably leads to a sense of deep solitude, which doesn’t depend at all on being gay, because there are many gay guys who realized their dreams, but depends on having spent many years in a sort of true addiction. The drug dependency does not bring happiness but only the momentary illusion of being happy at the cost of becoming dependent; in the same way dating sites do not fulfill and cannot fulfill at all the dreams of love of a gay guy because they have been created for another purpose and also lead to addictions. The responsibility of this belongs to the guys who are looking for a chance to be themselves in a hostile world? Belongs to those who take advantage of the naivety and the problems of others in order to obtain an economic profit managing dating sites? Or belongs to those who allow all this fueling homophobia and the marginalization of gay guys and in fact helping, with their discriminatory self-righteousness, the growth of dating sites and the expansion of sexually transmitted diseases, which are inevitably associated with these new social uses? To you the answer.

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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=87