I was a big-time oversensitive momma's boy and a sheltered late bloomer in many senses. I grew up being teased for running like a girl. I played with girls and dolls. I even wore dresses. I sucked at sports and was picked last every time. I was terribly insecure, always got red in the face, wet my pants and the bed, and cried to my mother about how much I was teased and nobody liked me. I was afraid and lonely.
I grew up with caring Christians parents who tried their best. My dad was very strict and so I clung to my mother.
I had had a few gay experiences in childhood and one as a teenager and was deeply afraid of being gay. I masturbated to the men's underwear section of the Sears catalogue throughout high school. I definitely liked masculine adult male bodies and hated my own.
Part of me also felt that I would never be liked romantically by a girl so when it happened, it really helped my sense of self worth. After that first kiss on the lips with my first real girl friend at age 19, I had so much going through my head. She was much more experienced than me and I felt like such a child still. It only lasted a month and I was devastated when she dumped me and began dating another guy the next week.
I moved out onto my own at 19 within a few months after that breakup. Even though I had been raised in the church with Christian parents, my faith was extremely weak. It was quickly torn to shreds upon moving to the big city. But the city and the boys in the city were very alluring to me.
I always tried to be straight acting and straight looking although certain people had their suspicions. I had a series of very brief relationships with girls my age that I had met in dance clubs although suspicions about my sexuality were never far off. I lost my virginity to a woman when I was in my early 20s and then lived with another woman for a year, much to my parents' dismay.
I knew premarital sex was wrong but felt that it was even worse to be gay. I also discovered that I was able to enjoy sex with a woman and fell deeply in love with her. That really gave me some hope that I could fix myself from homosexual feelings. I even wanted to go to church again since I had stopped going for years. I brought her to church with me once and she was moved to tears during worship.
I wanted to be whole and healed and happy and married. But God had another plan. When that relationship ended, I hit the lowest point of my life... a deep depression that lasted for over a year including being suicidal. We had made a commitment and now that commitment had been broken. I felt so betrayed. I really believed that we would be together forever.
I started going to church again regularly praying so hard that she would come back to me but I also found myself craving sexual intimacy more than ever before.
During the year I had lived with her, I had abandoned pretty much all of my friends so for the first time I was completely alone in this wild world.
Solitude has its advantages... anonymity.
I soon found myself going to gay bars by myself on Fridays and Saturdays but kept going to church on Sundays for a few years. I never thought a good looking gay guy would find me attractive but one did. And so began my gay experiences with countless men. I even dated a few other women again but never had sex with them. I also never had anal sex with the guys I was with, other than a few drunken failed attempts that were really unpleasant.
I remained ambiguous about my sexuality to my friends and colleagues even though I had a casual boyfriend for 3 years. My platonic girlfriends and I would party at gay raves and "mixed" clubs every weekend and I was also becoming a permanent fixture in the gay bars and knew many of the regulars. Sadly, we only knew each other in the bar, but not out of the bar. The bar was my life but I increasingly felt trapped in it as well.
It didn't take me long to realize that the gay world had a pecking order just like the straight world. The A-Club, the B-Club and the C-Club. What also struck me odd was that I had always thought that gay guys had cool hair, cool clothes and danced really well. I was surprised when I learned that tacky guys who can't dress well or dance could also be gay. The whole top and bottom thing really bothered me because I was neither. I also wasn't a twink, bear, or cub. It just felt like there were so many rules in the gay world and I soon realized how intolerant gays were of heterosexuals and bisexuals. In fact, I once claimed to be bisexual and I was told that I just wasn't fully out yet. I tried so hard to fit in. I even spent $90 on a pair of Versace underwear just to gain acceptance from the A-Club. I soon found that I would get complimented on new clothes and so I felt compelled to buy new clothes but I was also broke. It was a vicious circle of getting affirmed only by wearing the latest clothes or having a new haircut.
So here I was living these two lives. The club life was a cycle of drinking, dancing, casual sex, trying to fit in, and doing drugs to numb the pain. The drugs started off with pot and hash, then acid, mushrooms, ecstasy, cocaine, crystal meth and I even smoked crack a few times. I felt torn inside and often cried the day after a one night stand. I get really emotional if I don't have enough sleep and so lack of sleep after heavy drinking only added to my guilt and pain.
I also learned quickly that in the one night stand world, you have to try to separate sex from emotions or you'll only end up hurt. And I don't think it's any different in the straight world of one night stands either. Men, all men, who sleep around casually with men or women learn to disassociate the act from their emotions. Some better than others. I don't think it's anything to brag about though and some days I think it's sad that casual sex for many people is pretty much like sharing a Pepsi. And today more than ever, we live in a hypersexual environment where porn is mainstream and even Snoop Dog apparently has made guest appearances in pornos (albeit not in action scenes).
So many people I knew from the bar scene were seeing shrinks or on anti-depressants yet they drank heavily and did lots of drugs. I don't know how they did it. It was making me miserable, sick, broke and empty. I don't know how I escaped cocaine addiction, but thankfully I did. While I guess I have a bit of a self-destructive nature and can be very stubborn, common sense ultimately kicked in. I guess I wish it would kick in earlier, but my dad even said once that while I was bright in school, I've always been slow to learn some of life's basic lessons.
In the middle of my storm and unexpectedly, another woman came into my life... she was the calm in my storm and the timing couldn't have been better. She was kind, gentle, pretty and sweet. She modeled to me something that I so desperately needed to see. I told her all about my struggles with my sexuality and my faith and even cheated on her with guys. I was also so afraid of falling in love again with a non-Christian woman. I was pretty messed up. I ended the physical romance but we remained very close friends for years. She got me out of my self-destructive lifestyle and gave me hope in people again. Together we both made some good strides in developing and expanding our circle of productive, entrepreneurial and creative friends.
This is also when I began looking for online Christian groups dealing with sexuality and learned about the ex-gay movement and new terms like "same sex attraction". I started my own online group a bit naively and stopped going to gay bars. But in this strange online world of deeply religious and deeply closeted men, I soon learned that they were just as fucked up as everybody else and nobody was "progressing" out of their homosexuality nor were they becoming more Christ like.
I am increasingly grateful to be approaching the age of 40. I've learned many things and have much more to learn. In the last year or two, I've begun to slip back into some self-destructive behavior as my circle of close good friends has virtually dissolved again.
This is a glimpse of where I have been and what I have seen so far. I hope to share more thoughts and stories on gays, bisexuality, ex-gays, ex-ex-gays, and what it means to me to follow Jesus.
Sometimes I feel like I increasingly live in my own little world as I get older. I used to follow pop culture very closely but am not nearly as plugged in as I was in my teens and early 20s.