First, I am a Christian, though, my 'spiritual duties' I have neglected in the past few months, which, to my pain, has caused a lot of problems in my life. How I came from being one who read his Bible every day and actually found meaning and wisdom in so much of it, and went to being someone who completely dropped everything.
Anyway, I've been reading Job. What a crazy book. I have been needing to get up early for my job, and I've also been pushing myself to read the Bible again. So I decided that I wanted to read something that I relate to, desperation, rejection and upsettness at God. I've been reading the passages aloud to myself before bed A) so that I stay awake B) because it's the way that it all went down in the first place. What crazy things Job says! He is my hero! He loved God and yet he calls God to account for the crap in Job's life that is just unexplainable! What a crazy concept.
I relate to this because I am a man who struggles with a sexual desire for other men. There are a number of reasons why this is troubling for me in a society where I could certainly find people who would be accepting of me if I choose to live out this lifestyle (no I'm not 'out'). First, I have a few reservations regarding the modern concept of a gay man. Especially in the United States. Even if I don't necessarily swing my wrists around and talk like I'm one of the gap girls, I feel like the assumptions of gay men are NOT who I am or want to be. Examples:
1. I want to be just regular friends with guys. With regular guys. I don't want people wondering if I'm checking them out. Usually I'm not. Whatever attraction I have to most men usually involves a mixture of their personalities and their faces. AND, I would NEVER EVER want to hurt another person sexually or any way else. It is the opposite of my being.
2. I want to retain my dangerousness. I feel, many times, that my one friend who knows that I'm gay, a girl, has seen me as one who is completely docile. Incapable of saying sexual things about women without meaning it. I'm not a book that can be read, and I have the right to be a mystery to some extent. That's definitely part of my personality. Not that I would want to betray some one in the future, but rather that I like to feel that I'm in control of my own story.
3. I don't want to be defined by my sexuality. I HATE thinking that my interest in art, furniture and interior design and my love for flowers, sappy songs and other 'feminine' things can just be explained away because of my sexual orientation. I am not a bitch! I am not a woman! I am male! I am a man, XY.
So that's probably enough for now. If people read this and have comments, I'm interested in them! Post them please. My hope is to make this a discussion. But please let me live my own life, that's all I ask.
