Antinous
Member
- Sep 26, 2018
- 54
During the summer of 1956, at age 11, I was struck by the realization that all my erotic fantasies were gay.
Because an attractive man made my heart skip a beat,
• doctors said that I was mentally ill;
• policemen said that I was a criminal;
• priests said that I was intrinsically evil.
"If you are gay, your early learning branded your erotic and affectionate feelings as wrong and bad. This, in turn, generated a natural anger because you were being told that it was wrong to be you. This violation of your nature, along with the myriad of insults that accumulate during the years of growing up invisibly gay, create an enormous reservoir of anger." Don Clark, Loving Someone Gay, p. 257
Growing up Catholic I discovered, way too late, that religions divide us with walls of ignorance and hate. They use "absolute truth" and "intrinsic evil" to divide us within ourselves, filling us with shame over who we are.
As an adolescent and young adult, I wish that I had known about and had access to the thoughts of men like Alfred Kinsey: "The history of medicine proves that insofar as man seeks to know himself and face his whole nature, he has become free from bewildered fear, despondent shame, or arrant hypocrisy." Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948)
Instead of Kinsey's healthy approach, this describes my experience: "Gay kids can carry around an internal bully that makes them feel miserable whether or not someone is picking on them personally. A kid who is a little more Velcro than Teflon, a kid who takes things to heart, is going to hear people talk about gays as if they're wicked and have an agenda. The pervasive anti-gay hate and bigotry in our culture attaches to a vulnerable kid and that internal bully becomes a powerful force in the kid's life." John Schwartz, Oddly Normal, New York Times, Nov 9, 2012
Brian Kinney (in Queer As Folk, Season 5, Episode 13) described my life: "And what would be practical Theodore? To get married? And move to the suburbs? And become a home-lovin', child raisin', god-fearin' imitation heterosexual? And for what? So that I can become another dead soul?"
Because an attractive man made my heart skip a beat,
• doctors said that I was mentally ill;
• policemen said that I was a criminal;
• priests said that I was intrinsically evil.
"If you are gay, your early learning branded your erotic and affectionate feelings as wrong and bad. This, in turn, generated a natural anger because you were being told that it was wrong to be you. This violation of your nature, along with the myriad of insults that accumulate during the years of growing up invisibly gay, create an enormous reservoir of anger." Don Clark, Loving Someone Gay, p. 257
Growing up Catholic I discovered, way too late, that religions divide us with walls of ignorance and hate. They use "absolute truth" and "intrinsic evil" to divide us within ourselves, filling us with shame over who we are.
As an adolescent and young adult, I wish that I had known about and had access to the thoughts of men like Alfred Kinsey: "The history of medicine proves that insofar as man seeks to know himself and face his whole nature, he has become free from bewildered fear, despondent shame, or arrant hypocrisy." Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948)
Instead of Kinsey's healthy approach, this describes my experience: "Gay kids can carry around an internal bully that makes them feel miserable whether or not someone is picking on them personally. A kid who is a little more Velcro than Teflon, a kid who takes things to heart, is going to hear people talk about gays as if they're wicked and have an agenda. The pervasive anti-gay hate and bigotry in our culture attaches to a vulnerable kid and that internal bully becomes a powerful force in the kid's life." John Schwartz, Oddly Normal, New York Times, Nov 9, 2012
Brian Kinney (in Queer As Folk, Season 5, Episode 13) described my life: "And what would be practical Theodore? To get married? And move to the suburbs? And become a home-lovin', child raisin', god-fearin' imitation heterosexual? And for what? So that I can become another dead soul?"
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