spreadeagle
February 25th, 2004, 03:04 PM
Hombre,
You’ve been married four times. Your sexual needs have not been satisfied within your marriages and you’ve continued to have adulterous homosexual affairs. Being married and producing children should have convinced your macho countrymen of your heterosexuality. But whenever you’ve had the chance to remain single and to be free to have affairs with either men or women you’ve chosen to marry again. Apparently your fear of your neighbors and/or your desire to be married have been greater than your desire to be in a committed relationship with a man. These have been your motivations for the past thirty years; do you really think that if you lived with another man that you wouldn’t still worry about what the neighbors think? Wouldn’t still want sex outside the relationship? If you want to know how you’d behave in the future then look at how you behaved in the past.
The thought of retreating from a homophobic world to a quiet country home is a lovely romantic dream but this gay myth is unobtainable for many men because they carry their homophobia along with them in their baggage and their own fear of being gay destroys them. You can make your fantasy a reality but there’s something you have to do first. You’ve been living with the thought, ‘I can’t get what I want’, and you’ve structured your life in ways that prove that thought is true. You can expand your idea of your life so that it includes more of what you want, but the only way to do this with integrity is by telling the truth. Firstly to yourself, and then to your family.
You don’t say whether your novel has been published. Encouraging your wife to read it would be a fruitful way of beginning discussion with her about the way you feel. She’s entitled to know the whole of her husband and her positive response may surprise you. Don’t you trust her? Don’t you see a connection between the process of writing the novel, the feelings of sadness, and your desire to live a more openly gay life? I think using writing as a tool for exploring your options would be helpful.
Your life to this point has reinforced the cultural norms of your society. However, you’re in a position now where you can awaken your children and grandchildren to other possibilities and thus reduce the future level of intolerance in your country. It requires great courage to be a revolutionary.
I feel deeply with you, and I wish you strength and love.
Spread.
You’ve been married four times. Your sexual needs have not been satisfied within your marriages and you’ve continued to have adulterous homosexual affairs. Being married and producing children should have convinced your macho countrymen of your heterosexuality. But whenever you’ve had the chance to remain single and to be free to have affairs with either men or women you’ve chosen to marry again. Apparently your fear of your neighbors and/or your desire to be married have been greater than your desire to be in a committed relationship with a man. These have been your motivations for the past thirty years; do you really think that if you lived with another man that you wouldn’t still worry about what the neighbors think? Wouldn’t still want sex outside the relationship? If you want to know how you’d behave in the future then look at how you behaved in the past.
The thought of retreating from a homophobic world to a quiet country home is a lovely romantic dream but this gay myth is unobtainable for many men because they carry their homophobia along with them in their baggage and their own fear of being gay destroys them. You can make your fantasy a reality but there’s something you have to do first. You’ve been living with the thought, ‘I can’t get what I want’, and you’ve structured your life in ways that prove that thought is true. You can expand your idea of your life so that it includes more of what you want, but the only way to do this with integrity is by telling the truth. Firstly to yourself, and then to your family.
You don’t say whether your novel has been published. Encouraging your wife to read it would be a fruitful way of beginning discussion with her about the way you feel. She’s entitled to know the whole of her husband and her positive response may surprise you. Don’t you trust her? Don’t you see a connection between the process of writing the novel, the feelings of sadness, and your desire to live a more openly gay life? I think using writing as a tool for exploring your options would be helpful.
Your life to this point has reinforced the cultural norms of your society. However, you’re in a position now where you can awaken your children and grandchildren to other possibilities and thus reduce the future level of intolerance in your country. It requires great courage to be a revolutionary.
I feel deeply with you, and I wish you strength and love.
Spread.