It is common knowledge that what we don’t understand (about ourselves, etc.) will subconsciously dictate much of our thinking. Usually, this phenomenon is manifested through fears. Some of these fears can be designed to protect us, but others can inhibit us. These fears can be processed (by dreams, therapy, etc) and result in a newfound freedom from the chains that used to hold us back.
What we fear and why usually stems from some experience in which pain was derived, or it is an imposed belief to keep us from experiencing pain again.
Some past experiences are valid; others may be worse in our heads than in reality.
Some imposed beliefs are valid; others can be false in order to justify certain private and public interests.
A fear is usually a conclusion we have about something we don’t know. A good acid test to ask is what is the purpose of the fear. There are sound reasons to be afraid of certain things – such as touching a hot stove – but I would argue that many of our fears are based on false ideas from a lack of experience and knowledge – they are conclusions without a purpose that benefits yourself or others – such as having a mustache to stop masturbating.
This past week, I decided to write for myself to see if I was too focused on my audience rather than the ideas I was trying to uncover for myself. The answer is yes. I care about an audience – but it is to my own benefit. The experiment (albeit a short one) showed that I can still write for myself, but it helps me to have a general reader in mind. It was a fear with a purpose, which I found a better understanding of, and now, it has less power over me.
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My whole life I have been afraid of being gay. One reason is that I have put so much emphasis on the heteronormative relationship that I would think less of myself if I were unable to actualize this imaginary conception of holy matrimony in my head (personal). Another reason is that people would think less of me if I were a homosexual (social). And thirdly, God would disapprove (cultural/religious).
First off, my conception of what it means to be gay is warped, just as my conception of what it means to be a heterosexual male is warped.
The gay perspective, or my notion of “being gay” is warped because my father came out of the closet when I was born, and my mother villainized him his whole life for this. Therefore, Gay=abandonment of family and responsibilities=bad. It is also less culturally accepted.
The heteronormative relationship is skewed because
1. I have never known of many successful, or rather positive, heterosexual relationship in my life, much less had a successful one myself.
2. There are a lot of preconceptions about what it means to be a straight man in my head, rooted in cultural norms and media – many of which are toxic or overembellished with the notion of “happily ever after” romance.
Being that I don’t know what either of these two things look like in reality, I can jump to conclusions without evidence to support flawed beliefs of what they are or supposed to be.
“Being gay” to me is some conclusion of what it means to be gay rather than some mindset or genuine physiological response. Oh, I think he’s attractive? I must be gay. I love him more than a friend. Gay. Makes me wonder about how women are so nonchalant about this topic while men are so defensive.
It is not even that I am gay – whatever that means – it is that I have a fear about what being gay is and being that. And whatever it is, I am, because whatever we fear is found in ourselves.
I guess I am a straight man who is gay. In the sense that I am attracted to women, but who can have emotional relationships with men and be attracted to them occasionally? I don’t want to pursue men – but I feel much more accepted and understood by them.
This leads to my bigger point, and why I have invented this ludacris explanation about myself. The real problem is that I have a much, much more flawed notion of what it means to be a straight man. I am so debilitated by some phantasmagoric idea of what a man is, and what a woman wants, that I want to withdraw from the whole thing and just pronounce myself as gay.
I want to be myself, whatever that is. I don’t want to live in fear of myself and others. And what has happened is that when I talk with most women, I am so subconsciously dominated by this cultural expectation of what I am supposed to be that it ENTIRELY inhibits me from having a genuine conversation with a woman – it is all very postmodern. With guys, it’s not like that.
Therefore, I just want to say “I’m gay” to a girl so I can be real with her. So I can drop all of whatever I’m pretending to be because of imposed beliefs and value systems I happen to be a byproduct of in our society, and I can have a real conversation with her as I am – not as who I think I’m supposed to be. My education, my job, my art – anything that makes me “valuable” or “desirable.”
We become so afraid of rejection that we can’t accept ourselves – so we will defer to those we think will accept us – usually people lower on the patriarchal hierarchy – and we wonder why so many people are becoming trans.
So, am I a little flamboyant? Did I once love a man? Sure, am I gay. Yes. I am a gay man. But I don’t want to be with a man, and maybe I’m not really gay. It is just an explanation that I am coming to because I don’t have the knowledge or words to express what it means to be myself. David Bowie pronounced himself gay because of this very reason. He married a woman years later. But if I continue to fear it, it will continue to have power over me, ridiculous and negligible as it really is.
I’m not going to get on a high horse about why we should accept gay people because it isn’t so much that as we should accept the weak, emotional, feminine straight men. We should normalize gay friendships – they don’t want to fuck each other; they just love each other. And women have expectations just as afflicting to their inner psyche as men, I imagine.
And finally, the God question. I will say this. There is a lot of “spiritual masturbation” that goes on with these religious types. I am very guilty of it myself. And just as much as I have some skewed idea of what I should be as a man, people, like myself, have some very irrational ideas of what God is.
So many men I know think masturbation is bad. Sex is wrong outside of marriage. And being gay is wrong. At the end of the day, to me, those sound like fears rooted in someone else’s ideas. I feel as though we are inventing spiritual reasons to not connect with others rooted in fear. I’m not saying those are all right or wrong; I’m saying you need to figure it out for yourself. And be open to new ideas. A lot of people will tell you who you are, what you’re supposed to be, and what to do before you understand why you have those fears.
Ben Bonkoske 