UNDERSTANDING GAY SEX

 Hi Project,

I often read your forum posts, there are good stories but it seems to me that sex remains somehow a marginal topic, I don’t say avoided but treated as much as possible in a neutral way. Instead, I would like to make it clear that it is a very important thing. Maybe you are laughing now because I’m saying something obvious, but for me it has become a very important thing. It wasn’t always a very important thing or rather I didn’t understand its meaning and trivialized it. But perhaps it is better that I tell you the facts, otherwise I will waste time.

I am 32 years old and I no longer feel like a boy from any point of view. I have had my experiences, I think more or less similar to those that all gays have, with the basic idea that sex was after all a marginal and also risky thing, so when I happened to have a concrete experience, I experienced it badly, a bit like I was doing it unwillingly just because my partner at the time wanted it.

Let’s say that I always took it a bit as an imposition, then I never loved anal sex, which for some of my partners was instead a fixed idea, even if not for all, I have been with two guys of very different age, who told me that they didn’t like anal sex at all, but the two other guys I have been with were really obsessed with it and I couldn’t stand them because they insisted we had to do it anyway, because it was the very important for them. Among other things I have never endured the condom that bothered me, but on the other hand I’m a phobic hypochondriac and the idea of doing something like that without a condom doesn’t even pass through the anteroom of my brain. You can understand well in what spirit I used to have sexual intercourse, let’s say that in the end I have adapted quite reluctantly. I just didn’t understand what others were finding in having anal sex. I looked at them in amazement, they seemed to me completely out of their mind.

With my fourth boyfriend it all ended because I couldn’t bear that everything was reduced to have sex and nothing more. That is, at the limit I can also adapt to do what you want, but how can you think that for me that is the maximum enjoyment? It means that you don’t really realize how I feel and that you only think about yourself. If I caressed him he replied that it bothered him, when we had finished he would get dressed and leave without even saying hello … you can understand what level we were at!

And these stories went on for up to my 30 years! Then I meet Matthew, a guy more or less the same age that I like immediately, that is, he is my ideal type of guy, let’s say that I have never seen one that interested me more than him, I mean that he attracted me precisely on a physical level and very. I was intrigued by Matthew, we started chatting and he intrigued me a lot, he too had had his stories and he had one that still went on, but he was not satisfied at all. He was in love with his boyfriend but did not feel reciprocated, somehow he felt exploited only for sexual reasons, but he could not detach himself from that guy.

Matthew was the first guy with whom I managed to build a relationship of serious friendship. We talked a lot, he didn’t compliment me, he didn’t try to seduce me, he talked to me about himself and above all about the discomfort he felt with his boyfriend and the fact that he loved him anyway and this made me uncomfortable, because I was in love about him and he kept talking to me about the other guy, even though the things he said to me were obvious signs of unease. I would have wanted some physical intimacy with him, but there was no such thing.

I trusted Matthew, he was very serious, always a little sad but he was a true, faithful friend, I too began to talk to him about me and my discomfort with my last boyfriend, that I had already archived for a few months. Slowly, with Matthew, we also came to talk about sex, but he used to speak about it in a different way from the other guys I had known, he was very direct he didn’t sublimate speeches  but it was evident that sex for him had a strong emotional value. However, I realized that he had a different sexuality from mine, he too considered anal sex a very important thing and this made me uncomfortable because I thought that assuming that there could be sex between us, it would never be something of truly shared on the same level.

But time passed, we chatted a couple of times a week and several times even once, he had his life and I mine, he was very busy with work and often had to go out of town for work, and I in certain periods in practice I had no working hours and I had to work in the office as long as there were people and many times even at home in the evening, and nevertheless sometimes I have been waiting until late for his call, I avoided to call him because I would have risked calling him at a time when he was busy for work or maybe while she was with her boyfriend, because he kept having a boyfriend and feeling bad about it.

When we talked on the phone they were very special moments, very engaging, very real, something that had never happened to me with anyone before. I realized that I shared everything with him except sex. We talked for hours, he was often melancholy, even bordering on depressed. Our bond was strange, asymmetrical, at least in a certain sense, because I also wanted him sexually while he seemed essentially disinterested, however, slowly our relationship had become a very important thing both for him and for me, we were not just friends, it was evident that there was something more, we instinctively trusted each other, we were a real couple without sex.

I do not hide that for me it was a pain. He was the object of all my sexual fantasies and just hearing his voice on the phone caused me an erection and of course this lasted the entire time of the phone call long and afterwards I masturbated but with a background of melancholy, as for a wish that would never come true. And then I had never told him these things, I was afraid of influencing him or maybe letting him run away. We had talked a lot about sex, but about sex with others, while about sex between us, possible or not, we had never been talking and this made me very embarrassed, as if I were tricking him by trying to give him the idea that for me the fact that our relationship was without sex was somehow a quietly accepted fact. He treated me like a friend but to me he wasn’t just a friend.

Then came a time when he was very grumpy, I mean that anyway he was always respectful, he treated me as best he could but he was sad and spoke little. There were moments of embarrassment between us when I didn’t know what to say and once he gave me a caress and left without saying a word. I felt helpless, I loved him but obviously I couldn’t change his life, I couldn’t give him the serenity he needed.

Then he disappeared for 32 days, and disconnected his cell phone. I called his office and they told me he was on vacation and they didn’t know anything else. But on vacation he would have carried his cell phone. I did not know where his parents lived and I did not have their telephone number, because Matthew lived on his own and so, day after day, I became terribly anxious, I tried to call him, I left him messages on the answering machine but I was very scared.

On the 32nd day at half past midnight he called me on the phone and just said, “Would you like to have sex with me?” I told him: “Sure! Where are you?” At that moment my intercom rang. It was him and he went up to my house. When he entered the house he hugged me, something he had never done! But it was a hug that had nothing sexual at al. Then he said to me: “I’ll stay with you tonight … ok?” I told him that I had been very worried about him, and he said to me:

“I’m done with Silvio, I felt like a complete fool, he was only interested in having sex with me, but he didn’t care about me …”

We went into the kitchen, he sat on a low stool and I made him a cup of tea with some biscuits and then we went back to the living room to talk. In reality we talked very little, he only told me that the next afternoon he had to go back to work, not a single word about sex. He lay down on the sofa and fell asleep. I stayed close to him and slept in the armchair.

I say I slept, but I actually wondered why he asked me if I wanted to have sex with him. That was the first time he had ever mentioned such a hypothesis. I had all night to think about it, but then I started thinking about something else, about the fact that he was next to me and that sex or not sex, somehow he loved me and that I had passed from the deep anguish of a few hours before to such a love feeling in that so incredible but true way.

In the morning we woke up before seven, went down to the bar to have breakfast and then went home. I was supposed to be at work at 9.00 and we had to say goodbye. I wanted to ask him what that request to have sex with me meant but I pretended to  have forgotten it, he said to me: “We have to talk, I’ll come to you tonight around nine, if you like, make a little dinner to me , if you like.” I said yes to him and he greeted me by giving me a very light kiss on the mouth, something he had never done before. My working day literally flew in a whirlwind of thoughts that you can well imagine. After work, I ran to the supermarket and then immediately home to prepare some dinner. He arrives on time, finds dinner ready and the table set. We have a quick dinner then we start talking. I’ll quote here the speech on the basis of what I wrote down the next day in my diary:

“It’s over with Silvio. I told you. I was in love with him but he always said that there was only sex between us. I mean, I felt treated like shit and finally got rid of it. With him I had deluded myself that it could work and instead it ended exactly as had ended all my previous stories. I felt like a total moron. You must have wondered why when I called you I asked you if you wanted to have sex with me and there is a reason for this question: it was what I told Silvio when I needed him. It was always me who called him and always when I knew he was free, and he didn’t say no, but then I when we were together, we did what we had to do, and then it was automatic that I left immediately. When I last went there I asked him the same question, just as it had always happened, that is if he wanted to have sex with me, and he told me to go up but I didn’t want to have sex with him at all, I needed him to listen to me but he didn’t even try, he told me that if I ask him if he wants to have sex, then I can’t start with “pathological bullshit” (his words) and that if I don’t want to have sex I don’t have to break his balls (always his words) so I left and came to your house and I asked you to if you would like to have sex with me. You let me in and it was all very different and I expected it would all be very different. I know you love me and I too love you in a sense, but I’m not in love with you, you are not physically my type, but I think I could be fine with you anyway. I think I’m not indifferent to you. In conclusion, if you think we can be together, we can also try. I do not know how I will react, it may be that then I will feel uncomfortable, but if it happens I will tell you immediately, it could be an experiment … it seems absurd, I know, but we could try, however I do not promise anything, but now I think we might as well try … “.

“Matthew, I’m only interested in that you are fine, what hurts me is to see you sad, discouraged, unmotivated. If you are better off without sex, we can be very well even without it, you don’t have to feel forced into anything … “

” But you are saying this because it is fine for you as we have done so far and only this way? “

“No, certainly not! It’s fine for me if we try, but I wouldn’t want that if it doesn’t work, this was another reason for disappointment and frustration … “

“No, I don’t think there would be a risk of disappointment, I never felt exploited by you, but listen, first of all there is a very important fact to take account of, we need to get tested for HIV because with Silvio we also had risky behaviors and the idea of being able to infect you with a bad disease would destroy me … and I would also like you to do the test too, it would be a way to start from scratch together. It was precisely out of the fear of infecting you something that I kept away from you when I was with Silvio … “

” Well, I’m very attracted by you, sexually I mean, I masturbated dozens of times thinking about you but I didn’t tell you never because you were thinking of Silvio and I should not interfere … “

“Well, physically you are not my type but it just happened to me two days ago that I masturbated thinking about you and that’s exactly why I told you we can try. I used to think I could not have sexual desires on you but now I think it is possible, in practice it happened. But understand me, for me it is all new and everything in reverse compared to what I have always lived, in short, what will happen I do not know … but we can try. “

Dear Project, as you can understand, it was a very unusual start for a love story, but there was already a strong bond between us before and we didn’t get scared. We went together to take the test, he was a little anxious but only a little because with Silvio they “almost” always used a condom, but luckily the test was negative for both of us. In theory, the first major obstacle was over. We still had to go from words to deeds and here the embarrassment was enormous, not because of the sex itself, but because neither he nor I wanted to put in crisis our relationship due to inexperience, or due to too much haste or unavailability. I had also mentally accepted the idea of having anal intercourse with him, because for him they were important and after all they practiced them in a reciprocal way with Silvio and perhaps it would have been so with me too. The problem anyway did not arise precisely because knowing that those things were never in my fantasies, he had accepted the idea of doing without them. Basically each of us had accepted the idea of having to adapt to the other. But problems occurred much earlier. The very idea of attempting a physical contact was also a problem. Luckily it was he who made the first move.

One night in my house, he undressed completely and lay down on the bed. I too undressed and he said to me:
“You are such a beautiful guy!” and he said it with conviction, almost as if it were something he did not expect, a spontaneous smile came to me and he replied in the same way, then he gestured for me to approach … the rest you can imagine it. He was not at all clumsy and we understood each other on the fly. It didn’t even seem real to me that I was in such a situation, because I had dreamed of it for so long. We hugged naked, very tight and he kissed me tenderly. It was the height of summer and it was very hot, we went to the kitchen, naked as we were, and had two cold drinks. We looked like two Adams in the earthly Paradise. I didn’t know what would happen next, but we went back to making love in a very playful way and then we went to sleep hugging. I woke up long before him in the morning and went to prepare some breakfast, when I brought it to him, he stretched like a cat and smiled as he hardly ever did.

Then several days later we also got to anal sex, I didn’t tell him no, I put on a condom and then we went on, you could see that it was important for him, in the end he didn’t ask me to change roles and said that after all it is not what you do that counts but with whom you do it and added that now he knew that if he had asked me I would not have said no. In the following months we did it a few more times but in the end it was not a fixed idea even for him, it was not a taboo but it was not even an obligatory step and slowly the matter became less important for him and less problematic for me, now it is done every now and then but mostly as a demonstration that I do not say no.

What I like most about Matteo’s sexuality and that for him sex doesn’t have a precise beginning and end, is a bit of a general atmosphere of warmth and intimacy. We now also know each other well sexually, for example 

I know that he really likes that after sex I don’t get dressed and stay naked with him on the bed to chat and joke. The post-sex phase for him is fundamental because it gives him the feeling of being considered like a man and not like a sex toy, in practice that post-sex phase, with Silvio, did not exist at all and he felt uncomfortable. He likes to have sex with the light on because he tells me he wants to see me in all my splendor and I know this means that he begins to appreciate me also from a sexual point of view, and he repeats to me that I am beautiful because he knows that I like very much to hear such things from him.

In a sense, our being a couple should be fragile but when we are together we see that it is not so, now he is much less melancholy than before, sometimes he jokes and above all sends me very tender text messages. To be honest, I have fulfilled my deepest wishes. When you hold the one guy you truly loved in your arms and feel that he is happy to be with you, I don’t think you could want anything more.

I had Matthew read this email before sending it to you, since it also concerns him and he told me that I mythologized him, because he is not like that, but much worse! Publish the email, if you like, it’s fine with us!

A warm greeting.
Mark

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

http://gayprojectforum.altervista.org/T-understanding-gay-sex

PASTRY AND GAY LOVE

 Anyone can be able to prepare good biscuits even by instinctively mixing flour, sugar and eggs, adding flavorings to their liking and then baking everything, but pastry is a difficult art, which is learned gradually, proceeding by trial and error: not all flours work the same way, the methods of dough and leavening have great importance on the final result, not all ovens are the same and not all cooking methods produce the same result. The rules of cooking and pastry come from experience and cooking books and videos are so common precisely because through those books and videos it is also possible to treasure the experience of others. In sexuality things work in a similar way but it is much more difficult to treasure the experience of others because there are no tools similar to cookbooks and taking advantage of the experience of others is practically impossible, at least because sex is a topic that is rarely addressed seriously.

I intend to proceed in this post with the same criteria that are followed in a cooking books. 

THE MOST COMMON ERRORS 

1) Believing that the life of a couple coincides with putting one's fantasies into practice and that it will be very easy to build something shared on this basis. Let us remember that being appreciated as a good pastry chef is a very different thing from knowing how to make good desserts at home. 

2) Believing that sexual intercourse is the essential purpose of a homosexual relationship, that is, the element that gives meaning to the relationship and without which the relationship loses meaning. Let us remember that there are excellent cookies without sugar or without eggs or even without flour. Sexual intercourse is one of the ingredients of a homosexual relationship, it can also sometimes be a very important ingredient, but just as you can't make biscuits out of flour only or out of butter only, so you can't even create a relationship starting from sex only. 

3) Believing that the partner's sexuality is identical to ours, that is, that his sexual fantasies are identical to ours. Remember that aniseed biscuits are delicious for some and not at all for others. 

4) Believing that sexuality can only be monothematic, repetitive and devoid of fantasy and variants. Let us remember that a good pack of chocolates has a vast assortment to satisfy the most diverse needs. 

5) Believing that sexual intercourse is satisfying in itself and does not need anything else, in particular that it does not need words, affection, pauses, smiles, distractions. Let us remember that many desserts, such as trifle, are delicious precisely because they are soaked in liqueur. 

6) Believing that in a relationship the more sex the better. Let's remember that in every recipe there are optimal doses and that if a pinch of cinnamon gives perfume, an excess of cinnamon makes the biscuit inedible. Even in sex, as in the use of cinnamon, excess means compromising the final outcome. 

7) Believing that in a homosexual relationship sex must be the premise or that in any case we must get there immediately, that is, being in a hurry to get to sexual intercourse. Let us remember that there are biscuits that do not need leavening and can be baked immediately, there are others that need a short leavening and also others that need many hours of leavening. Baking long leavening biscuits before the necessary time means trying to force things but this way only a mediocre result can be obtained. The first virtue of a pastry chef is patience. 

8) Believing that one's way of living affectivity and sexuality is always the best or the only legitimate one and that everything that goes in other directions is wrong and deleterious. Let us remember that pastry chefs are not born pastry chefs but they become refined pastry chefs  after a long period of training and that affectivity, like pastry, is learned through experience and the willingness to listen and learn. 

EQUIPMENT AND HYGIENE 

1) Today there is only one absolutely indispensable tool for dealing responsibly with sexuality and that is the condom. I remember that the condom was not born as a tool for preventing the contagion of sexually transmitted diseases, but as a tool for birth control, clearly this original function has no meaning for gays but for them the condom is and must remain an object they always have to take with them when they can get involved in situations that can even potentially lead to any kind of sexual intercourse. I must stress  that neglecting condom use means putting yourself at risk of AIDS (and other terrible diseases) and putting your partner at risk too. The use of condoms should not be considered a possible option but the only possible option. We never forget that in the kitchen, as in the pastry shop, it is essential to have a life-saving electric switch, an earth socket and a sensor for gas leaks, these are appliances which, in theory, can also be dispensed with, but in case of current leakage or gas leaks, our life depends on these devices. 

INGREDIENTS 

1) To build a truly satisfying homosexual relationship, three fundamental ingredients are needed: human availability, deep emotional involvement, non-ephemeral sexual interest and these ingredients must be genuine and not contaminated by other non-emotional interests such as economic interests and above all individualistic drives. In pastry, if you want to get a top quality product, you have to start with top quality ingredients, preserved from any possible pollution. 

2) What makes a homosexual relationship grow is reciprocity, which is the true leaven of affective relationships. In the absence of reciprocity, a story is born unilateral, it is not even a relationship between two people but it is only a relationship of an individual with his fantasy. Without any type of yeast, only very hard biscuits are created which, when eaten, can break teeth. 

3) To build a homosexual relationship, sweetness is very important, which is not weakness but affective intelligence. Sugar-free cookies can also be made, but they will have very little flavor. 

4) In emotional relationships we often resort to exchanges of small gifts, to affectionate messages, to small rituals that serve to highlight the affection. These things can have their function when there is a true emotional relationship at the base, but they cannot replace it if the true emotional relationship is missing, nor can they correct it if it is deeply defective. In pastry, aromas are used that make good desserts even tastier but which cannot transform biscuits made with poor quality or contaminated ingredients into good biscuits. 

THE PACKAGING 

1) In love relationships, it is not words but feelings that count. The abuse of the rhetoric of love often hides the emotional emptiness. It is by no means certain that the best chocolates are contained in the most beautiful boxes of chocolates. Good chocolates don't need flashy and deceptive wrapping. 

2) In love relationships, clarity towards the partner is essential. The presence of gray areas makes the relationship suspicious. The composition must be indicated on the packages of sweets, if the declared composition does not correspond to reality and above all if the expiry date on the package is missing or illegible, it is legitimate to suspect fraud. 

THE PRICE 

1) Love relationships require commitment, seriousness and availability of time. Those who are not willing to dedicate their time and commitment to their partner are unlikely to build satisfying relationships. Good chocolates are expensive, often double quantities of poor chocolates can be bought at the same price. 

PRESERVATION OF THE PRODUCT 

1) The gestures of affective life do not have an infinite duration. The affective gestures made in the past retain their effect for a while, then they must be renewed. The best desserts are freshly made ones. Desserts do not keep for long and a pastry shop must sell only the freshest products to be appreciated and must therefore work every day. The best creams turn sour after a day and the cookies lose their friability.

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

http://gayprojectforum.altervista.org/T-pastry-and-gay-love

STORY OF A GAY BULLY

 Hi Project, 

I’m a guy 25 year old who already feels worn out by life and I’m writing to you on a leaden and slightly cold day. It’s all wet on the ground, the leaves on the sidewalks are reduced to mush, it’s after nine in the evening and I’ve just come home from work, in my little house where the total confusion reigns. 

I’m the rebellious only child, or rather the strange only child, of an ordinary family. My parents, like me, are nothing exceptional, they are not bad, but they are not good, they have no feelings of their own, they do what they have learned to do and they don’t care about anything else. With me as a child they were obsessive, overprotective, then from 15-16 years onwards, I began to not stand them anymore, to face them with a bad face and they let themselves be put under by me, I got completely free and loose and I began to do everything I wanted: to screw up the school, because they promoted everyone and tolerated everything; I used to stay away from home until late in the evening and my parents didn’t say anything to me, they were almost afraid of me, I was a brawler, rude not only to them but to everyone and nobody dared to stop me, they feared me. I had no friends, because they didn’t tolerate me, I raised my voice, I threatened them screaming and they didn’t show up anymore and I felt strong this way. I started bullying a classmate of mine, I enjoyed terrifying him and he put up with everything. I felt strong, dominant. Instead of sex I liked better being the boss, the one that keeps others under. The guy I used to terrify was called Jake, known as Redhead, and I got to slap him in public just for fun. Now I realize that only a moron behaves like this, but at that time I felt strong, the one who can do anything. I scared Redhead so much that he thought it was better for him to change schools to feel comfortable and so he went away before Christmas. 

Those days, if you had asked me whether I was straight or gay I would have answered I was straight, do you realize it, Project? In the fourth year I had sex with three girls, who were fascinated by me, at least until they knew me, but once they realized what type of guy I was they all left, they just disappeared. Every time, I concluded that they were stupid like chickens and started looking for another girl, not to fall in love but just to have sex, to have a harem to show and feel like the sultan, I didn’t give a damn about them. 

The last year of school things changed, Mario arrived in class, and as for girls he wanted to be the rooster in the hen house and he wanted to do what I had always done, that is, he wanted to impose his law, and obviously I couldn’t allow him. But Mario was worse than me: he used to give orders and everyone obeyed him, he asked everyone for money and they gave money to him, he asked someone to go and get him a snack at the internal store, obviously also paying out of his own pocket, and if the guy made a fuss he used to hit him in the face until his teeth broke or so and once he went so far as to reduce a boy’s face to a mask of blood. 

Of course no one ever said anything. The teachers pretended not to see and the thing was officially non-existent. My classmates were afraid and so was I, but between Mario, who was a real criminal and me, they preferred me and it didn’t take long for my role to change, I was no longer the boss of the class but became the protector of my classmates, or at least they saw me that way. Mario came from a family known in the neighborhood for bad stories and I was really scared. He wasn’t a stupid bully like me, but he was inside an organization that was really criminal. 

One day there was a training session at school and one of my classmates had brought his computer from home in agreement with the teacher. Mario made it disappear, that is, he stole it from him, and I saw that he had stolen it but he said that I had stolen it. We started arguing and we ended up in the principal’s office, who, if he could, he would have pretended nothing happened, but he couldn’t. The principal said that if the computer had come out the matter would have ended there, but otherwise he would have informed the Police. The next day the computer didn’t come out and we ended up in the Police barracks. The complaint was against unknown thieves, but I stated that I had seen Mario stealing the computer and Mario declared that he had seen me, obviously one of us was lying. The day after, Mario stopped coming to school and we haven’t heard from him anymore. A week later I was called to the barracks and they told me that I had been completely cleared. I went to the principal to ask what had happened, he just told me that he was very happy that I was cleared but he didn’t add a single word about Mario. I didn’t insist and went back to class and told my classmates that they had completely cleared me. They welcomed me like a hero because I had freed them from Mario. I didn’t expect anything like this. By now the relationships with my mates had changed, they joked with me, they were no longer afraid of me, or maybe I had changed at least a little, they smiled at me, invited me to their house and we spent Sundays together. 

At this point the second part of my story begins. The first part had been about my changing from bully to patron saint and the second you will immediately understand what is about. One of my prettiest classmates (Mary) starts to lose her mind for me, but the music here is totally different from the stories with the three girls I had before, she had really lost her mind, she was in love and she really suffered from it, but I wasn’t in love with her and I felt terribly embarrassed to say no to a girl who was really in love with me, I didn’t know how to behave, I didn’t want to disappoint her but I couldn’t delude her. 

One day she asks me to go out with her and I accept, we take a long walk and she confesses that she fell in love with me. I tell her that I have noticed it but that I have not encouraged her because I’m not in love with her. She starts to cry, but then she wipes her eyes and tells me: “But I will love you anyway! You are a very good guy! ” and gives me a very light kiss on the mouth. In the evening we talk for a long time on the phone, but we don’t talk about us as a couple. Basically we left each other like this without rancor. 

Before Easter we go on a school trip and I happen to be in the room with Steven, a taciturn guy who doesn’t like to show up too much of sight. You know how it happens, we talk a bit and at one point he asks me how things are going with Mary. I’m amazed that Steven noticed that there was something between me and Mary, because I thought I was the only one who noticed it. I explain to him how things went and he tells me: “Too bad! Because Mary is a very good girl!” but he says it in a tone that makes me suspect that Steven is in love with Mary, anyway I don’t tell him anything because I don’t want to put him in embarrassment. Then he asks me: “But have you had other girls?” and I tell him about the three previous girls and I see that he remains frozen and tries to change the subject and then I block him and ask him: “And you? Stories with girls?” He opens his arms and smiles as if to say zero! Then we change the subject. But after that evening I begin to wonder why Steven asked me those questions and gave me those answers and I begin to observe him. 

One day, just before the end of school, I see a group of thugs, the worst thugs in my school, who have put Steven in the middle and who make fun of him with homophobic jokes, I didn’t even think about it and I threw myself on those guys, four or five guys at least, and I beat them badly, and I also broke the glasses on the nose of one of them. We ended up with to the principal’s office. The guy with the broken glasses said I had nothing to do with his broken glasses, that had fell off his face because he had made a sudden move. Those guys weren’t suspended from lessons because this would have weighed heavily on the admission to the exams, and the matter ended like this, but the principal looked at me straight in the eyes as if to say: “You did well!” 

When I returned to class they applauded me but Steven wasn’t there. I asked the teacher for permission and went to look for him. He was alone in a corner of the courtyard, under a tree. I sat next to him and he didn’t say a word, I had prepared my speech but then it seemed stupid and I too remained silent, then I said to him: “Let’s go to class, come on!” And since he didn’t get up I gave him my hand to help him get up, he held it for a few more seconds almost caressing itand I did the same. This was our coming out, let’s say, but I still had very rough ideas about these things at the time. At the exit I accompanied Steven to the bus, but then I too took that bus, instead of taking mine, we got off together and I accompanied him to the door of his house. Before letting him go I told him: “I’ll be waiting for you at my house this afternoon. Don’t worry, we will be alone!” Thinking about it now, this message might imply who knows what sexual meanings, but for me such things were still to come. 

In the afternoon, he arrived at my house, he was really upset, I don’t know how he had interpreted the fact that in the morning we had held hands for a few seconds, but at that time I gave that fact a very generic weight, it certainly had an emotional value, of course, and also vaguely sexual, but I wasn’t still fully aware of all this. He was probably expecting something explicitly sexual, but I didn’t understand it, in the end he confessed to me that he was gay and that he fell in love with me and asked me if I was gay. I remember exactly what I told him, because then I wrote it down in a kind of diary in which I write about the most important events. I told him: “I’m not 100% sure but I think it could be” He asked me: “But is it the truth?” I replied: “It’s probably less than the truth!” Then I told him a little about me but without embarrassment, as if I wastalking to myself, he was very impressed that I trusted him up to that level, but I felt totally at ease. 

With Mary I understood that it wouldn’t work, with Steven I had the certainty of the opposite but for this very reason I didn’t want any misunderstanding to arise for any reason. We had an ice cream, then we went out. Before leaving there was just a very tight hug and I said: “Now I have no more doubts!” He was happy! I told him: “Let’s not let Mary see us!” and he replied: “This morning when Mary saw you throw yourself at those morons she told me: it’s you the one he wants, you’re lucky, because he’s a good guy!” I didn’t believe those words! 

Now, Project, you can tell me: “So where does all the melancholy you talk about at the beginning come from?” Well, it comes from the fact that I’m a moron and I don’t understand the value of what I have. I got to distress Steven to the point that we broke up and he had tears in his eyes and I was so stupid that I wanted to be right at all costs. He told me he couldn’t take it anymore and that he wanted to be alone, I haven’t heard from him for a week now. This morning I sent him this diary page and I hope he will reply:

“I continually think back to when I tried to look you in the eyes for the last time and you looked away, it was clear that you couldn’t take it anymore, that you would have preferred to be alone rather than be with me. It all started when we were in bed making love and I asked you to do that thing and you told me you didn’t want to. You had never said no to me, and there the spring of my stupidity trigged and the bully I was and had remained inside came out despite everything. If I had been able to really love you I should have said, okay, no problem. But I had to feel like the boss and I couldn’t tolerate you saying no, and I started to insist and I screwed it up. You understood that inside I have not really changed and the balance between us broke up. Then you tried to put the pieces back together, to pass over it, as if nothing had happened, but I began to harass and scold you, reminding you of many little disrespectful behavior towards me because I really thought you had behaved disrespectfully towards me, but you seemed more and more stunned. The next day, you made another attempt at conciliation because evidently you cared a lot, but above all I wanted you to agree with me, that you yield to my will, that you submit. I wanted you to give in without reservation, to admit your faults, the ones I had imagined, and to beg me on your knees, only under those conditions I would have been willing to go back, but in no case I would allowed you to tell me no, and that had to be clear. In my brain I considered you weak while I was strong, I thought you would tolerate everything and you would never leave, and instead you left. Right after that I thought that I would see you come back after a few minutes, or that you would text me or call me on the phone crying, but none of this happened. I told myself that if it hadn’t happened that same evening, it would certainly happen the next day and instead it didn’t. And now I’m terrified of having destroyed everything with my stupidity. I know very well that you are right, and I’m not telling you so to try to get you back. After all, you couldn’t accept becoming the victim of an imbecile like me. I just ask you not to hate me if the bully’s soul I still carry it inside me. Over time I will regain some serenity and I will never forget you because you have given me a life lesson that will be fundamental for me too. Forgive me for all the harm I have done to you by destroying your happiness along with as mine.” 

That’s how I feel, Project, I feel like a moron who has not been able to grow and then I feel alone, I miss Steven, I miss him damn but now he’s gone and I know he won’t come back. I feel awful. 

p.s. Use this e-mail as you like better but please change the names.

______________

If you want, you can participate in the discussion on this post open on the Gay Project Forum: http://gayprojectforum.altervista.org/T-story-of-a-gay-bully

GAYS AND SEXUAL MORAL

 Hello Project!Come on, I don’t tell you the usual things, if I send this email to you it means that I expect an answer and I think there will be. I’m 33 years old, I like Project, but I feel very, or at least quite different from the Project guys, in the sense that I’m much freer, I think at least, then I don’t know, but in practice, let’s say from the age of twenty onwards, I have had so many experiences, of all kinds, that you cannot even imagine, but never with girls who don’t exist for me at all, but let’s say that in the gay field I have passed all possible experience, from those with peers to those with men much older than me, I have been very often on the most famous gay sex chats and I have played a lot with those famous aps. I got so many depressing experiences, frustrations, sometimes moments of real desperation seeing guys I was in love with who weren’t involved with me. At the beginning sometimes I behaved in a risky way almost to make a Russian roulette with death, then I happened to know that one of those with whom I had had unprotected sex was positive and I experienced moments of deep anguish and so I understood how a defiant behavior like mine was an idiot behavior and so I started having sex always in a safe way. Fear makes you more cautious than speeches and sermons I’ve never endured. In addition to ALWAYS having safe sex, I also learned other things: first of all, that you can only evaluate people by behavior and not by words. Those who talk too much from the first meeting and who use big words and excessive praise are the most devious and the most false, because they lie knowing they are lying, they tell you that they are in love with you and, after having sex with you, they disappear and you don’t hear them anymore. I looked for guys everywhere, especially when I was worse off, I like sex, but I also see something else in having sex, that is my affectivity, however frustrated and in a sense pathological, exists, and that’s why I felt bad when things didn’t work out. But I have often found, especially among those over 40 and even worse over 50, a total lack of affectivity. For them, hunting for guys was a kind of zero affectivity collecting, and they were also married men. But it is not a matter of age or categories because I also found sixty-year-olds who had sex with me but in another way, not as a boss but as a But it is not a matter of age or categories because I also found sixty-year-olds who had sex with me but in another way, not as a boss but as a friend of common sense, willing to step aside, without disappearing, when I fell in love with a peer. There is more competition between peers and with them I have experienced the worst disappointments, because they often see sex not as something that is done in two in private, but as something to flaunt with friends, a bit like what happens to heterosexual guys who brag about having seduced a nice pussy, it’s the same with gays. I look for a guy in order to be with him, certainly not to spend the evenings with his friends in clubs of various kinds. I have few friends and among my friends there are basically all my ex-boyfriends who have not disappeared. I no longer go to bed with these guys, or maybe just sometimes but very rarely, but I have a relationship with them, that is, we are friends, every now and then we meet, that is, in my life they are a real presence. Now slowly I’m starting to realize that sex, for me, is a way of expressing an emotional need, if there is not at least a little respect and a minimum of emotional contact I kick guys out, it has happened several times. I once went with a guy I liked to a motel, but he started behaving like a moron in such an irritating way that I got dressed and left, but he was convinced that I was in love with him and he wanted to be the boss! I generally like men, but not those who like me, this sentence I think I have read it somewhere in the forum, but I would say that it clarifies well what happens to me. By now I’m so used to the classic script of the gay seducer that as I see one who starts on those tones I send him soundly to the hell. On a human level, I only like those who speak clearly. If you just wanna have some sex just say it first, then if I like it and if there is no better I can also accept but without deluding myself, that is, just to do something. I can’t stand braggarts, those who show up with a nice car borrowed from someone else, those who think in terms of their wallet and want to feel like masters. Then there is a good percentage of obsessed people, of people who can only swear and blaspheme and are unable to put three words of common sense one after the other. You can understand what it means to sleep with someone like that, and it happened to me, you don’t send him to the hell just because you feel sorry for him. In short, Project, I made all kinds of experiences. I have even had sex with a guy in a wheelchair. I didn’t think I would succeed, I told him first that I was not in love with him but he said that he knew it and he wanted to do it anyway and we did it, he was a very smart guy, then he told me that for him it had been a very important thing, a way to feel truly accepted. Three years later we have remained friends. What I don’t tolerate is being treated like the whore on duty. If you want to have sex with me, if that’s okay with me, no problem, otherwise you go away, and moreover some married men want to have sex without a condom and I tell him: Look, I love your wife more than you! And they look at me weird and I tell them: Because I don’t put your wife at risk and I don’t even put myself at risk, of course, I’m not stupid and without a condom there is nothing to do. I can’t stand married men who look for gays as if to confess to cheating on their wives, because they need someone to encourage them to continue cheating on their wives and keeping a single foot in both shoes. I really put one of them in crisis, I told him: If you don’t feel like being with your wife, you must separate! But don’t cheat her, because that’s exactly what you’re doing! He was very bad and started to cry, probably it was his first betrayal, and I took him back to his house. Then there are the hypocrites who “after” having had sex with you, tell you that they didn’t want to but you in a way brought them to it in a slippery and insinuating way. I say: But, beautiful guy, no one forced you! People don’t want couple relationships, long-lasting things with the inevitable coexistence, no! Nobody likes long-term commitments. Sex, but without other things, without “other complications” as they say. I met one who considered himself a master of sex! Yes, you got it right, he thought he could teach others what sex is, but it was a laughing matter, It happened that I asked him questions about a lot of some absurd topics, pretending that I was in love with a girl, and he answered me that he had immediately understood that I was bisexual (I BISEXUAL? NEVER !!), I kept going on with such questions and he kept answering with big words and speeches, all in the language of a refined psychologist; but he didn’t even realize that I was making fun of him. Then I told him to show me something sexual “in concrete” and he immediately changed the subject and started saying that it was late and that he had to go. Another story even better, I broke the face of a man, we were in a motel and he wanted me to do something that I didn’t like at all. I told him: No! This no! And he first began to threaten me and I was already about to lose my self-control, then he tried to force me, because he was bigger than me. I kicked him in the testicles not too much violently but anyhow this must have hurt him quite badly and I would have beaten him badly but I didn’t because my phone rang, so I left him there. Perhaps the most slippery of all was a man who approached in a devious way, I suspect he was a priest, but objectively I don’t know, certainly he was not a gay at his first experience on dating sites. We did what we had to do and he behaved like a friend and I trusted him and introduced him to my friends. He told me that he was in love with me, then one of my ex asks me: But who is that man? Because, look, he’s hitting on everyone and says you’re a poor asshole who doesn’t understand shit. So the first night we went out with friends I confronted him directly in front of everyone and I said: Is it true that you are hitting on everyone? He thought it was a joke, but the others cornered him and made him feel like a piece ofshit! And they repeated in face of him all the slander he had said about me. In the end he said that we were a pack of dogs that jump at the first one who comes by, but afterwards he disappeared and never showed up again. In these situations, you understand that you have real friends. And now I come to the point, I think that one of my friends, an ex-boyfriend of mine, is really falling in love with me. He never jokes, he’s always on his own, he listens to me, smiles and doesn’t chat too much, sometimes I talk to him even an hour long and I feel at ease. He knows very well what kind of life I live and he doesn’t come forward with me, but anyway he respects me. In reality when we were together he had somehow a double role for me, a bit he was my boyfriend and a bit he was the brother I never had, there was complicity between us, then we broke up because I thought he wasn’t in love with me, but I probably wasn’t able to really understand such things at the time. I would get back with him but I don’t know if he would like to be with someone like me. What should I do, Project? I think I’ll speak clearly to it tonight. I talked to him! He wasn’t expecting it but he was visibly happy, he just said to me: I’d be very happy, but let’s see how it goes, but anyhow I will love you forever.

If you want, you can participate in the discussion on this post open on the Gay Project Forum: http://gayprojectforum.altervista.org/T-gays-and-sexual-moral–589

EXHAUSTED GAY RELATIONSHIPS AND FREE UNIONS

This post is divided into two distinct sections:

 

1) the first is dedicated to the distinction between the behaviors that that are indicator lights of exhausted gay relationships (that is, of the gay relationships that have lost the original momentum and the motivational drive of the early days but, despite everything, continue out of habit or out of reluctance to change perspectives) and the affective requests that can hide behind those behaviors;

 

2) and the second dedicated to the trend towards free relationships, that is, towards relationships without any legal constraint (without Marriage or Civil Union at the Municipalities' Registry Offices).

 

The two arguments may seem somewhat heterogeneous but are actually deeply connected.

 

 

SYMPTOMS OF EXHAUSTED GAY RELATIONSHIPS AND AFFECTIVE REQUESTS

 

 

Interpersonal relationships, even the most lasting ones, over the years, inevitably face wear and tear. Many times these relationships were from the beginning without solid foundations, that is, they were relationships upstream of which there was no instinctive and conscious and above all mutual choice, sometimes they are stories that began, then interrupted, then started again, that for both partners are not an instinctive, at least potentially definitive choice, but one of the possible hypotheses on which a perpetual indecision remains. But even when a story initially has all the necessary requirements to last, daily life, or rather the transcription of the story from the lyrical level of falling in love (assuming that there was a real falling in love at least at the beginning) to that of everyday life brings out weaknesses and critical issues.

 

Symptoms of attrition are generally small episodes in which each of the two partners manifests forms of intolerance towards the weaknesses of the other or shows judgmental attitudes systematically avoiding any effort of understanding, classic are the behaviors related to the idea that the partner is not quick enough to understand, he cannot do elementary things, he always falls back into the same mistakes. Often the request to have time for oneself is an indicator of the wear and tear of a relationship. Behaviors become standardized, everyone knows exactly what to expect, the speeches are always the same, the mutual reproaches, more or less veiled, are repeated in substantially similar situations, it is as if a script was repeated, the partner person is considered to be lackluster and unattractive, not up to the situation, the talks that could stray from the routine are stopped in the bud and there is room for unexpected reactions, which then can be followed by an internal repentance which, however, is not manifested to the partner for reasons of pride, the insistence on keeping the point, not giving in, not leaving room for the partner is quite evident.

 

Even sexual behaviors become more and more standardized, partners no longer try to find a balance that can be satisfactory for both and begin to think that there can certainly be better alternatives than the story that is being lived, even if, in practice, those alternatives do not exist at all. Sex becomes a hurried affair in which everyone relates only to himself, and it is no longer accompanied by an emotional atmosphere full of desire as in the times of falling in love. The interest in the sexuality of the partner gives way to sexual selfishness that reduces the other to an instrument, an object rather than a subject.

 

This description of the characteristic signals of a worn-out relationship is however only theoretical because it is objectively very difficult to distinguish between such signals and the requests for greater emotional involvement addressed to the partner, and the risk that a wrong interpretation of those behaviors could undermine an important relationship, conditioned only by a communication defect, it is quite concrete. Formal detachment is often not a detachment at all but an affective request. The difference between the two situations lies in the absence of final declarations, that is, in always leaving a door open to the partner, in the case of an emotional request. I give a typical example. Two partners can also go so far as to say big words and indulge in forms of intemperance, but if after the reproaches, for example contained in an email, the email ends with a ILY (I love you) it is evident that the dominant dimension is the emotional one. If after the sprint of pride and the request for autonomy there is an attempt to go back, it is clear that the sprint of pride and the request for autonomy were actually affective requests, they were ways to elicit a response from the partner.

 

Even in the context of strictly sexual behaviors it is possible and often easy to confuse the characteristic behaviors of a worn down relationship with the requests for greater involvement by the partner. A very typical behavior characteristic of worn out relationships is the sexual unavailability of one of the partners, declaring himself tired, little interested in sex, stressed, etc. etc., or even simply the reduction of the frequency of sexual intercourse. Stress and fatigue can be real and not being episodically available to sexual contact can certainly have objective reasons. Obviously, if saying no becomes systematic it is a sign of rejection, if instead the sexual contact, when it is realized , is truly experienced as a form of deep communication, then saying sometimes no it is not an indication of a worn relationship. In general, it is not a sign of wear and tear of the relationship to try to correct the partner's attitudes by demanding less artificial forms of communication from him. There are people who experience sexuality by mediating it with many words that can sound unnecessary and rhetorical to the partner, in cases of this kind, the request to avoid excessive words is not a refusal of the partner but an attempt to correct him.

 

Given these clarifications on the difficulty of discerning the signs of wear and tear of a relationship from emotional requests, we take another step forward. What do you do when you realize that the relationship "probably" is about to end? do you stop it immediately? Do you expect the other to do it? Or do you let the passage of time decide the end of the relationship? In any case, you have to think very well before taking action, because often creaking buildings, if properly renovated, withstand time and earthquakes, while new buildings poorly designed collapse at the slightest failure.

 

There are rare situations in which there are very few doubts and these situations are those in which we must move away from a violent partner or prone to emotional blackmail, or from a partner who identifies sex as a domain and as a reality completely detached from affectivity. But in all other cases, haste is often a bad adviser. It happens that, after instinctive and uncontrolled moments of reaction that lead to decisions that are as quick as they are little thought about, there are second thoughts and attempts to recover situations that are no longer recoverable. The one-minute outburst can lead to the immediate gratification due to the refusal of the other considered not up to situation but in the long run can trigger late and useless regrets. We should never forget that destroying is always much easier than building and that giving your partner one more chance is not a gesture of weakness but often exactly the opposite.

 

 

COUPLE PROBLEMS AND TREND TO FREE UNIONS

 

 

The following analysis refers to the Italian situation and the reported data come from ISTAT, the Italian Institute of Statistics, but the discussion has a much more general validity and certainly applies to all Western European countries and also to North American countries.

 

In the heterosexual world, when couples are stabilized by the bond of marriage, especially when there are children, the problems related to the crisis of the couple can be truly enormous even from a legal point of view, for the custody of the children and for the economic aspects related to communion of goods, when the marriage took place under the communion of goods regime, or when family relationships overlap with legal relationships related to the ownership of the family business or professional studies. For gays, complications of this type are absolutely exceptional. These problems that could have arisen even for gay couples united by a Civil Union pact, in reality did not arise, because Civil Unions have a much weaker bond regime than that of marriage, because the Civil Union can be dissolved at the simple request of only one of the two contracting parties, which, it was believed, would have made the Civil Union a reality very appreciated by the population. In reality, Civil Unions, despite the very light bond regime, have been and still are a very little widespread reality and this not so much for the fact that homosexual couples do not yet have the social approval that characterizes marriage, but because, both in the heterosexual context and in the gay sphere the model of free relationships is increasingly gaining ground, that is, of unions absolutely without legal sanctions.

 

I quote here below a ISTAT Report of November, 20, 2019.

 

"In 2018, 2,808 civil unions (between same-sex couples) were established at the registrars of Italian municipalities. These must be added to those already established during the second half of 2016 (2,336), the year of entry into force of the Law May,20, 2016, no. 76, and during the year 2017 (4,376). As expected, after the peak immediately following the entry into force of the new law, the phenomenon is now stabilizing. The prevalence of couples of men is also confirmed in 2018 (1,802 unions, 64.2% of the total), albeit gradually decreasing (73.6% in 2016, 67.7% in 2017). 37.2% of civil unions were established in the Northwest, followed by the Center (27.2%). Lombardy is in the lead with 25%, followed by Lazio (15.1%), Emilia-Romagna (10.0%) and Tuscany (9.4%).The civil unions established in Italy in 2018 are 4.6 per 100 thousand inhabitants: ranging from 7 in Lazio, Lombardy and Tuscany to about 0.5 per 100 thousand in Calabria, Basilicata and Molise. The attractive role of some metropolises emerges with particular evidence. In 2018, in fact, 32.7% of the civil unions occurred in Italy were concentrated in the big cities: at the top of the ranking are Rome (290 unions, 10.3%) and Milan (257 unions, 9.2%) ; the share of civil unions of couples of men is particularly high in Milan (equal to 75.5%) compared to Rome (66.9%). Considering the incidence of civil unions on the total resident population, in 2018 18.7 civil unions per 100 thousand inhabitants were established in Milan, in Rome 10.1. Among the cities of the South, only Naples and Palermo show values above 1 per 100 thousand inhabitants."

 

I would add that civilly united homosexual couples have an average age of 49.5 years if male and 45.9 years if female, that is, homosexual couples are non-young couples. If we consider that in 2018 there were 195,778 marriages celebrated in Italy and 2,808 civil unions, we immediately notice that the same-sex civil unions were just over 1,4% compared to marriages, even if in recent years the number of marriages has drastically decreased in favor of free unions, a phenomenon on which we must stop to reflect.

 

Also from ISTAT we know that:

 

"The comparison between the data from the 1991 population census and those from 2018 shows the profound changes that have taken place. Among individuals aged 15-64, in the face of a slight drop in the population (-309 thousand), married people decrease (3 million and 843 thousand less), especially for the benefit of single and unmarried people (+3 million and 90 thousand) and, to a much lesser extent, of the divorced (over 972 thousand more).

 

The decrease and postponement of marriage, in place for over forty years, partially offset by the growth of free partnerships, led between 1991 and 2018 to a sharp decline in married couples, especially in the 25-34 age group (from 51.5% to 19.1% men, from 69.5% to 34.3% women). Single people go from 48.1% to 80.6% and single girls from 29.2% to 64.9%. In the 45-54 age group, almost one in four men never married while almost 18% of women are unmarried. "

 

From the above data, it is clear that the model of the Free Union, that is, of the couple's union, straight or homosexual, without any legal sanction, is spreading very decisively among the Italian population. Marriage, as far as hetero people are concerned, and civil unions, as far as gays are concerned, are seen more as a useless or even harmful bond, than as a protection of the couple's relationship, whose existence can neither be protected nor favored by legal constraints of any kind.

 

_______________________

 

If you want, you can participate in the discussion on this post open on the Gay Project Forum: http://gayprojectforum.altervista.org/T-exhausted-gay-relationships-and-free-unions

GAY SEXUAL CONDITIONING AND COUPLE DIALOGUE

I often hear people speaking about gay sexuality, I myself have used and still use this concept and I do it by adapting to a widespread and radical simplification of the concept of sexuality. Descartes begins his “Discourse on the method” by stating that, as for “common sense”, “everyone thinks they are so well endowed with it, that even those who are more difficult to satisfy with regard to any other good do not want or desire more common sense than they have. ” The same could be said for the “knowledge of sexuality”, to whoever I ask for an answer I find people who are convinced that they have a very clear concept of sexuality. However, gathering these answers I do not find that variety that one would be legitimate to expect given the plurality of individual and social conditions, I’m instead faced with rather homogeneous answers, far from individual experience and inspired above all by mass media, television, cinema, readings and, to a large extent, by the use of internet pornography. In essence, the common concept of sexuality represents an abstraction, radically simplifying and trivializing, capable, precisely because of its generality, of being acceptable to the great majority of people.

 

Individual sexuality, which is not an abstract concept but a reality that permeates the whole individual, is linked to many factors, first of all to personal experience, which is absolutely unique and unrepeatable even if it can be studied with standard sociological categories based on age and social conditions. Among the fundamental factors that condition personal experience, family education and sometimes even religion must be placed at the top. The intertwining of the various lines of development of the individual experience is extremely complex and, beyond the abstract or theoretical concepts, leads the individual people to “live sexuality” in very different ways.

 

Here then appears a first substantial distinction: the concept of sexuality of an individual is not what is stated in response to a specific question, but what is embodied in that individual’s behavior. Sexuality is not an abstract concept but a reality that lives in individual experience. Which means that knowing and understanding the sexuality of another person is an objectively very difficult thing, because to share these contents you need an atmosphere of deep intimacy and mutual trust that allows you to overcome the blocks that normally make it impossible a serious dialogue on these topics. Why is it so difficult to speak seriously not of sexuality in general but of one’s own sexuality? The fear of being judged, of being classified, marginalized and rejected, is the basis of any resistance to true dialogue on these issues and is generally a well-motivated fear.

 

There are two prerequisites for any serious dialogue not about sexuality in general but about one’s own individual sexuality. The first prerequisite is the radical elimination of any judgmental attitude, that is, of any preconception, but this prerequisite is still formal and almost professional, in the sense that any psychologist assumes or should assume a non-judgmental attitude. The second assumption is substantive and completely different and consists in accepting reciprocity as a fundamental rule of dialogue on individual sexuality. Accepting reciprocity means understanding that at these levels there can be no roles, there cannot be a professional detachment but an equal dialogue must be accepted. If the dialogue is not perceived as equal, it will never reach the deepest contents of consciousness and their manifestations in sexuality. A level of communication such as that described can be reached sometimes, but not as a rule, between lovers who are now well beyond the phase of sexual experimentation and who have a very strong mutual affection, but can also be reached sometimes in the context of very close friendly relationships (without involvement of sexuality).

 

It should be noted that the depth of a relationship is measured by the quantity and quality of information about ourselves that we are available to provide to the other. In a relationship of superficial friendship we never talk about affective life or we talk about it with very general and, so to speak, common sense categories, in a relationship of close friendship, emotional and even sexual confidences become frequent, in long friendships supported by concrete evidence of mutual reliability, emotional and sexual confidence can become total, that is, it can lead two friends to have no secrets from each other. Obviously all this happens very rarely but sometimes it happens.

 

What does it emerge from the comparison of individual sexualities? What emerges is essentially the category of complexity. What we consider simple and spontaneous manifestation of the sexual instinct, in reality is not at all simple or spontaneous, but is the result of the interaction of an extremely specific genetic-epigenetic substrate with the experience of the person as a whole, that is, with a plot of infinite correlations, for which it is difficult to identify even very general taxonomic categories.

 

I will try to limit the discussion to the gay area only. If there is truly something common in the experience of all homosexuals, this common element is nothing else than becoming and then being aware that the ways of living the affectivity and sexuality of two gay people can be radically different. More or less all gays identify being gay with falling in love with guys rather than girls, or more generally with having sex with guys rather than girls. At this level, in reality extremely general if not generic, it is easy to find consensus, when however we try to understand what it means for every single person to fall in love and have sex with a guy, that is when we move from abstract to concrete, abstract categories lose their meaning and individual stories come into play, stories strictly individual although often similar to those of other gays who find themselves in similar personal and social situations. Thus the importance of the only true instrument of knowledge of the other emerges, which is his individual story, I’m speaking exactly of the individual story, that is, of a real experience, just as it is perceived by the individual who has lived that story and  brings deep traces of it in his memory, I’m non speaking of the story told to other people and more or less unconsciously reinterpreted by the one who lived it. 

 

One of the intrinsic limitations of any psychotherapy consists in the fact that in a professional relationship, if the therapist can guarantee non-judgmental attitudes or, better, behaviors, he certainly cannot in any case open up to a substantial reciprocity, which, alone, could lead to the emergence of the profound contents of consciousness. The therapist, therefore, starts not from the knowledge of the individual story of his patient just as the patient experiences it, but from the representation that the patient gives of that story to the outside, in a communication in which the guarantee of professional secrecy can in no way to make up for the absence of reciprocity. In a sense, we offer a deeper knowledge of ourselves to our lover or our dearest friend than to the psychotherapist because with the lover or dearest friend the condition of reciprocity can really exist.

 

In the early 1900s, Havelock Ellis was already fully aware of the complexity of the homosexual reality and of the substantial impossibility of building a theory of homosexuality that could have a minimum of concrete utility, therefore he preferred to abandon traditional attitudes and organize his book as a collection of 39 real cases, told in the words of the protagonists themselves. The 39 stories, which make up about half of the book, allow the reader to understand the complexity of the homosexual world and then to acquire, even if through a book, a little real experience not of what “homosexuality” is at the theoretical level but of what can be the life of 39 homosexual people with different personalities and experiences. In this sense, more than a book or a scientific article, a novel or a story can help to understand the reality of the life of gays as individuals, which is what matters, and not as a category.

 

In the 21st century, the role of novels and short stories is largely taken on by films, short films and videos, which use a different  language but convey similar contents. In recent years, more or less for ten years now, there has been a noticeable flowering of gay videos, which generally deal with the major issues of gay life in a substantially serious and correct way. Obviously you cannot ask a video of an average length of twenty minutes what you can ask a novel or a feature film, but some of these videos, even if short, are small masterpieces. Generally these videos are quite well made, one feels the hand of expert directors and one understands that the production is not of a reductive amateurish type.

 

These videos can constitute and sometimes really constitute a true form of affective-sexual education, capable of counteracting the models spread by pornography, because in gay themed videos the emotional and psychological dimension is present in a serious way. Unfortunately, gay-themed videos are still produced, at a substantially professional level, providing very particular gay reality models that risk favoring deviant associations in the mind of the viewer, such as the association homosexuality-drug or homosexuality-violence or homosexuality-depression or worse homosexuality-mental pathology or homosexuality-crime. These associations are the result of preconceptions and suggest that the authors of the stories, the producers and directors are not themselves homosexuals and limit themselves to making videos following common prejudices.

 

Gay themed videos written and made by homosexuals are generally short glimpses of homosexual life and are extremely varied, they are therefore a very powerful educational tool, easy to access and capable of highlighting the most classic themes of gay affectivity and sexuality and the gay point of view, in its most complex and varied articulation, on many issues that affect family relationships, homophobia, dialogue among gays and couple life.

 

Let’s go back, however, to the complexity of gay sexuality. A deep emotional relationship with your partner allows not only verbally, but also through the sharing of sexuality, a fair comparison of experiences and the emergence of all the contents of individual memory, even the most hidden. This means that a good gay couple relationship can be more useful than psychotherapy because it allows, in a context of reciprocity, to speak freely about one’s own sexuality and above all to live it without taboos.

 

We need to clarify a concept, as simple as it is forgotten: sexuality can be lived and is often lived in a completely mechanical way, without deep affective involvement, and the sincerity between the partners may become something optional. The lack of sincerity reaches the point of legitimizing the betrayal and to hide from the partner some elements that would radically change his opinion on us. Even in situations where there is no betrayal and it is not a question of hiding “behaviors” that could change the judgment of the partner on us, there are other elements that can be and are often kept silent, these are the non-standard sexual fantasies that may not be accepted or understood by the partner, this is the case of pedophile fantasies even if they have never been put in practice, but it is also the case of incestuous sexual fantasies, or intergenerational, but the listing could also extend to other sexual fantasies, less alarming but quite uncommon.

Another category of experiences is almost always kept silent, even if it is facts that should in no case undermine the relationship with the partner, I refer to having suffered sexual violence or harassment in childhood or in early adolescence. The episodes of violence or sexual abuse of minors, almost always in the family environment or by regular visitors of the family environment, are unfortunately much more common than you can imagine. All these elements and many others can have a profound influence on an individual’s sexual behavior and on many other aspects of his personality. The couple relationship, if it is really a love relationship, can be the best way to achieve a substantial serenity of life.

 

Sharing sexuality, sexual freedom in intimacy with your partner, feeling accepted for what you are, after showing yourself for what you are, is a unique opportunity for gratification and emotional exchange, which is truly able to change the life of an individual, provided that couple sexuality is truly an exchange of love and not a substantially selfish rite to exorcise solitude.

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