To marry or not?

I wrote this a long while ago, but thought it was relevant to a few things I've read by others recently, so I went ahead and busted it out of draft status:

I remember the ache in a deep place in my heart. I wanted to be married so badly. I felt alone and needed someone to love me unconditionally--not just as a friend.

I've always been one to make friends pretty easily. At least, the kind of friends who are well above "acquaintance" but not quite intimate enough to call on a moment's notice to demand a shoulder to cry on. They would have said yes, of course, but I'm not one to make myself so vulnerable... even if it means being miserable in my wallowing loneliness.

Amidst the misery and self-pity, I had little insight into the fact that I was gay. I mean, I knew it in some sense. But it didn't weigh in consciously as a factor in my everyday decisions. So I still dated as if I were straight. I found no girls to be particularly what I was looking for, but I had a lot of fun just the same. On the rare occasion that I could comprehend the fun simultaneously with the inadequacy of it all, I realized I was in deep trouble. Fun wasn't going to get me a soul mate. And the soul mates I wanted were unavailable to me (as men).

Finally I got some good advice from my brother. He's an ardent Mormon in the true sense--works for the church, loves it, gives everything he has to it. I explained to him that there was a girl I had a lot of fun with (and had for years), but that it just didn't seem to be romantic or sexual. It didn't seem to be enough. Now, I suspect that he might know about my gay feelings even though we've never discussed it. He suggested that I consider all my feelings for her and not demand that it be a perfect fit. We had a connection, he said, that he had seen first hand. If we were both committed to each other, to the gospel, and recognized that life wouldn't be perfect, we might be right for each other.

Ultimately, God knows what is best. I'm one who believes there is not just one person in the world right for me, but that I could be happy with many of them. So, I asked God if she was right for me and he gave an affirmative answer. This woman knew by this point that I was gay. She accepted me anyway. We had a long history that I had never had with any other woman. We had had a lot of fun over the years. I thought that we could make it work. But there was a still a reluctant part of me that wondered if there was someone better. Should I hold out or should I just settle? My pride got in the way and the issue was suddenly not about sexuality at all, it was about finding perfection rather than accepting the love that was right in front of me. She loved me. I knew that she did. And on reflection I knew that I loved her. But the fact that it was only a deliberative love, not an unreflective one, gave me a lot of concern.

It took me several years to finally mature to the point where I realized that love can be something you perfect over time, given the proper quality and a sufficient quantity of raw materials. My gay feelings would be an obstacle more obvious than those imperfect character qualities that everyone has to deal with in marriage. And yes, it's qualitatively different, but not unmanageably so. We've made it work. And we continue to make it work. And despite all the nay-sayers who refuse to give any validity to our testimonial because of our relatively young marriage (not quite 5 years), I'm 100% confident that we'll continue to make it work.

I've never been happier and my loneliness is gone. The work continues, certainly. It's not all automatic.

But it's real. It's not a sham marriage. Despite the charges that I'm deluding myself, that I'm in denial, that I'm just a few months from melt-down... it's absolutely wonderful.

So. To the person who recently asked for advice on how to tell his family to lay off a little with their advice, I'd say just listen and relax. They might actually have something of value to relate, even if they know nothing about your sexual situation. Don't assume you will or won't marry. Live and learn, and stay open to God and his miracles. In my mind, it can always go either way until you close the door with your own self-determination.

Relationships

The further I go in my journey, the more I realize that life is all about relationships. Being lonely sucks. Loving and being loved by lots of people is much better. Who knew?

I was thinking about this because of a recent post by Samantha Stevens, as well as conjecture about the status of David and Jonathan's relationship in the Bible, as well as the discussion of Lincoln's relationship with other men. I still hold to the idea that social influences have affected my sexuality and I wonder if difficulties in relationships have been central to the whole issue.

I can think of lots of great and fulfilling relationships I've had in my life. My relations with both parents have always been above average, I think. And I've never been at a loss for friends of some sort or another. However, I think I just have a particularly needy personality... the kind that needs more than just a few casual friends and an above average connection with family members. And I haven't always gotten what I need emotionally.

I suppose there are two ways to address an unmet need. You can reduce the need itself or you can satisfy it. I think over the last several years I've done a little of both, but it's not yet quite enough. Getting married was a risky way to accomplish both at once, I suppose. Loneliness is much less of a factor than it has been, but it's by no means gone.

I find myself trying to gratify my hunger for connections in some indirect ways. I think it may be one of the reasons I'm always looking for approval of some sort--awards, recognition, good evaluations... favorable comments. ;-) And more relevantly, I think it's part of why my brain now thinks it needs to own another man in some physical way.

Now I have enough life experience under my belt to see how my relationships have played out. The exposition is done, so to speak. I make lots of quick friends and then have trouble staying in touch or "letting them in" more than a little... which leaves me pretty lonely. On the relatively rare occasions I have really let some man in and become emotionally tied to them in a more significant way, things have become sexual (short of sex, but still sexual). How this has happened, considering the men in question have nearly all been straight is really baffling. It's been more than once, and even if they're gay, it's been a pattern of me being unable to have fulfilling and intimate relationships with men without sexualizing them (and them reciprocating to some degree).

Lincoln, I think, was able to be intimate with men without being sexual. David of the Bible was too. But, the difference between them and me is that I'm gay... and what I mean by that is that I tend to flounder in that circumstance where they thrive. Not that I support the culpable connotation of it, but I am without natural affection. I either defensively disengage from deeper friendships, or I make them sexual in my mind where it is unnecessary for them to be so.

Unreflective love

When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,
Before high-piled books, in charact'ry,
Hold like rich garners the full-ripen'd grain;
When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour!
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love! -- then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.

-John Keats

I love this because, after years of dating women, I never found unreflective love to be possible. But after some lengthy deliberations, I found my love for one woman in particular was real: reflective or not. Now, I'm enchanted at times with the stomach spinning realization that unreflective love has blossomed from our shared destiny.

I love you.

Gilmore Gripe

I can't stand Gilmore Girls this season. Or last season, really.

I think my problem is just that the characters and plot have become constrained for the purpose of extending the romantic tension. Luke and Loralei were so close to getting married, and everyone was so happy that she could finally have a bit of happiness from life, and so the writers had to sit down and come up with a way to destroy it all so that they could keep the show alive and kicking for a few more seasons.

Not having any actual good ideas, they went with the spiral of stupidity and unbelievable plot twists we've seen for the last couple seasons.

The thing about last night's show that was believable but still ridiculous and sad was when Loralei and Christopher were talking about their marriage and decided it just wasn't going to work out. They had a problem--and in my opinion it was a completely superficial and incidental problem--and they were incapable of trusting one another and moving on. They had to second guess each other until they made the rift between themselves transform from imagined to real. They chose to walk away.

This makes me want to swear a little bit.

I know that the show is designed for Loralei and Luke to be the favored couple. But inconveniently, that didn't work out and Loralei married Christopher. That should be the end. Marriage is a promise. And it was based on real love, in my opinion. Loralei and Christopher have loved each other for decades. And then when something makes it complicated, Loralei looks for advice from Suki (naturally, as best friends) but doesn't even bother to consider counseling! How can she not read my blog and know that everyone should get relationship counseling!

It's just so ridiculous. Can real people be so stupid? Wait, don't answer that.

So, here's a note of gratitude to a woman who has weathered much worse, is way more clever than Loralei, and always manages to rest comfortably in our permanent mutual commitment to one another. Oh, and she's hotter than Loralei too.

I love ya, babe. Have a Happy Valentine's Day.

My valentine

What does a guy do for the most amazing woman in the world for Valentine's Day? Please keep in mind that the guy is dirt poor... and busy... and not terribly creative about such things.

I've seen all the crap people buy, and that's just not our style. But I would like to do something special. I might even pony up some cash in a completely unprecedented show of spendthrift indulgence and get a really nice piece of jewelry.

But even then, it would be nice to give it to her in a creative way. And some of the readers here are particularly creative, so I'm petitioning for your advice (or stories of things you've been impressed with before).

Conditions of love

The issue of the give and take of love gets a pretty good treatment in States of Grace. Elder Farrell's dad says he'd rather his son come home in a coffin than come home dishonored. And, admirably, Dutcher doesn't flake out with a pat reconciliation at the end--the dad stays distant and Elder Farrell stays tormented to an extent. What kind of love is that? What kind of love wants the best for a person, thus sets up expectations of behavior, and failing those expectations withdraws completely?

Holly's parents struggle with the same thing. They love their daughter, it seems, enough to send her to L.A. first class with all their support and hope for the best as an actress. But when things go south and she makes some poor decisions out of desperation, they withdraw not only their approval, but even the most basic of personal contact. Do they see that in some strange way as being loving to their daughter?

I can understand the importance of emphasizing your moral viewpoint to your children. I can understand the temptation to give ultimatums. But sending the message that mistakes are irrevocable is anti-Christ.

I'll never turn my son out, regardless of the decisions he makes, unless he becomes a threat to the safety and well being of others for whom I have responsibility. So, the trick now is, how do I make it absolutely clear that he always has my love and support without dampening the high expectations of behavior I have for him as well? I dunno. It doesn't even seem that tricky to me at the moment. Why then do people put conditions on their love?

Idolatry

There is a philosophy of moralism that consists of timeless moral principles. Most of the Judeo-Christian world holds the ancient injunction "Thou shalt not kill" to be a transcendent and absolute principle. To seek timeless principles of value to live by is a noble venture; to be moral is good; to be good is good--but if that is the only end we are seeking, then even goodness and morality can become idolatrous.... When the quest for principles and morals becomes our sole focus--and even our god--we encounter problems when a commandment is given that doesn't seem to have a foundational principle or moral we can immediately understand.... Lacking the understanding that "man doth not comprehend all the things which the Lord can comprehend" (Mosiah 4:9), individuals may cast aside a commandment in the belief that they can still be "good" without it. For the sake of goodness, they may be able to; but for the sake of Christ, discipleship, and holiness, they cannot. Those who try to find salvation simply in goodness are trying to build a latter-day tower of Babel. They rationalize that if there is a heaven, surely a "good" God wouldn't cast out His "good" children.

Ty Mansfield in
In Quiet Desperation

This was my favorite part of Ty's book. I saved this post up from back when I was reviewing the book, and now seems to be a good time to bust it out. The idea that morality itself could be idolatry (and therefore, somehow immoral) is really interesting. I find I believe it. Same goes for love as idolatry, happiness as idolatry, and all the other good and wonderful things I've seen people use to justify their behavior when it conflicts with God's expectation. Take your favorite virtue and use it to trump God, and voila: idolatry.

Benjamin has been explaining to me here how following prophets can be a form of idolatry, and I'm inclined to agree in some particular instance. When we follow prophets for their own sakes, when we are enamored with the men themselves, when the office is secondary to the person and therefore God is secondary to the person, it's idolatry. On the other hand, justifying not following God's prophet because it doesn't fit with our own personal feelings of what is right for us seems to be a very dangerous place to go. I'm all for personal responsibility in making choices and having integrity, etc., etc., but that doesn't equate with accepting one's own opinions as the last word on what must be right.

There are many aces to be played in the issues of life. They trump the suit, after all. "If men are that they might have joy, then I really have to do what I know makes me the happiest." "If God is love, I just can't believe that God doesn't want me to accept the beautiful love I naturally feel." "God wants me to get away from my self-hate, and now I'm sure he approves of the better place I'm in."

If only there were some way God could clarify the issues when things got confusing... if he had some sort of specific method of communicating with those who are trying to follow him that was less subjectively influenced by the natural man... if only someone on Earth could explain His will and speak with His authority... then I could accept the communication as from God and know that I'm avoiding the idolatry of morality, avoiding trusting the arm of the flesh, avoiding making God in my own image rather than the other way around.

If only.

Romance...

Romantic love is not only a part of life, but literally a dominating influence of it. It is deeply and significantly religious. There is no abundant life without it. Indeed, the highest degree of the celestial kingdom is unattainable in the absence of it.

I got this from Kim Mack quoting Bruce Hafen quoting Boyd K. Packer. (If you ever use it elsewhere, be sure to add me on the list of acknowledgments.) I've always had a favorable opinion of romantic love, but never considered it to be deeply and significantly religious. How 'bout that?

I want an abundant life, so I guess I'd better go buy some jewelry.

Johnny Lingo

Johnny Lingo, I think, was not gay.

If you're going to spend that many cows on a wife, you'd better really be fixin' to enjoy your investment. And to make that work, she's gotta know that she's worth every scrap of that beef. And that's just the trouble for me. I've become worried over the last several months that my Mohanna doesn't appreciate my appreciation... that she doesn't feel desirable. That she doesn't feel worth 8 cows. Or 4, or even 2.

Walking the dog through the park one day, I asked her whether she felt that my being gay subconsciously affected the way she perceives her own attractiveness. I asked her whether knowing that I was not strongly sexually attracted to her made her feel unsexy. I expressed my concern that she realize the difference between how a wife might normally interpret a husband's response, and how she should interpret mine.

Let me just say that walking over a bridge in a gorgeous park on a nice summer day is a good time to have this conversation. There was peace in the air, and we felt very close as we expressed our very real love for one another.

But it's one thing to think rationally through something holding hands in a scene from a Hallmark card, and quite another to have estrogen forcing you to cry when you don't want to, alone in the middle of the night. Err... so I've heard. A couple times since then things have turned hard and we've talked about it again. Something I've said or done has reminded her that our sexual situation is not ideal, and she realizes she does want to feel validated in that way... she does want to feel pursued, and sexy, and... worth 8 cows.

In my discouraged moments I think my efforts to give her 20 cows worth of affection and love are just an apology for the kind of love I'm not able to give her. And then I feel like I'm a bad husband. But in my good moments I know that 20 genuine cows worth of affection IS the kind of love I can offer and with some conscious appreciation and thoughtful effort we can work together to make sure we both have a healthy approach to our self image and our beautiful relationship. My Mohanna is worth more cows than any other woman (or man) on the island! I just need to make sure I send messages consistent with that fact.

Cognitive therapy

Don't let the post title scare you away. This is not a post about gay therapy at all. Rather, it's a post about thinking your way through a challenge. When I was rotating through psychiatry, lots of patients were prescribed cognitive behavioral therapy--fixing problems by changing the way you think about things and the way you react. Phobias, depression, delusions, and anxiety can all be helped by thinking carefully and rationally about the issue.

Here's my problem: I see the passionate experiences of folks like John Galt and Enduring Eric and I want those experiences for myself. Here are married men who had extended affairs that were by all accounts highly enjoyable and now are in the process of returning to the church and receiving full forgiveness and all the blessings of the gospel. Their own blogs explain the details and all the obstacles and heart-wrenching repentance they have and are experiencing, but at the end of it all I keep thinking they've managed to have their cake and eat it too.

I want to love and be loved in the powerful way John describes. Gay or straight, I think few people find a soul mate as attractive and perfectly suited as John has. I wonder if the forbidden nature of an affair makes it that much more passionate. Actually, I'm sure of it. Regardless, that's the kind of passionate sexual connection I've never experienced. And I should be thankful, all things considered, but I find myself feeling cheated. Why shouldn't I experience it just like John did and then repent and go on with my family life?

Commence cognitive therapy.

The problem with my thought process on this subject is that, like many church members, I've tried to distill the atonement into some kind of spiritual arithmetic--the kind that always ends with dividing by zero and being forgiven of all debts. But the gospel of Jesus Christ isn't only about the tally of sins and the ability of the atonement to "cover" them like a credit limit, it's about becoming like God. And you don't become like God by milking the system. You can't become holy by planning your sins and delaying your repentance to get the maximum experience. Every sin contributes to Jesus' suffering. Every one. What kind of person has his sexual fling knowing that the cost is another person being hung from nails through his wrists? Not a divine person, to say the least.

When Elder Eyring says:

This is my warning to you today. It is a bad estimate of your personal costs to believe that a choice to commit sin is made so free by the power of the Atonement that we can have painless forgiveness... how much better to choose to be good and to do it early, a long way upstream from the terrible effects of sin.

I revert to my self-defeating mental exercise of rationalizing that I would be willing to endure a large amount of pain to have the intense experiences John describes. But, then I remind myself that it's not primarily about the happiness or pain involved. It's about becoming a divine person.

Elder Eyring also says:

If we stay at it long enough, perhaps for a lifetime, we will have for so long felt what the Savior feels, wanted what he wants, and done what he would have us do that we will have, through the Atonement, a new heart filled with charity. And we will have become like him. That promise also is in the Book of Mormon: "Charity is the pure love of Christ, and it endureth forever; and whoso is found possessed of it at the last day, it shall be well with him. Wherefore, my beloved brethren, pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that ye may be filled with this love, which he hath bestowed upon all who are true followers of his Son, Jesus Christ; that ye may become the sons of God; that when he shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is; that we may have this hope; that we may be purified even as he is pure. Amen." (Moroni 7:47-48.)

I don't have to experience what seems like the most passionate and intense feelings in life. I don't need to "experiment" with my gay feelings to see what it's like... to know that, yes, I really am gay, and yes, I really will be missing out on that amazing sort of passion I desire in order to become who God wants me to become.

My sweetest

I've been wracking my brain to think of something else to say about Twilight. I spent several hours of my life reading it, and I figure I need to get at least 2 posts out of it. At least! C'mon!

The problem is, as was previously mentioned, this book largely sucked. All I really have to say about it that hasn't been said is that fairy tale love isn't always unreal. Bella was in love with Edward so much that she was willing to say "consequences be damned" and go after him despite the whole murderous hunger thing.

My wife is like that. Not delicious, but so in love with me that she was willing to look past the impossibilities on the surface. She still looks past my faults on a regular basis and never ceases to amaze me.

Last week was Sweetest Day. I had never heard of it before this year. I guess it's kind of a regional 2nd Valentine's Day in October. You know, because October needs another holiday based on consuming large amounts of candy. Anyway, my sweetest has proven to me that she's the sweetest of all. Imagine a woman who can look past my faults... who can somehow feel validated even when conventional attraction isn't there to validate. How does she do it? I don't know. I just know she's amazing and I love her and I'm grateful for her.

She makes me happier every day. I hope I can return the favor.

Love

Why should I have thought I was anything other than a girl? Because I was attracted to a girl? That happened all the time. It was happening more than ever in 1974. It was becoming a national pastimte. My ecstatic intuition about myself was now deeply suppressed. How long I would have managed to keep it down is anybody's guess. But in the end it wasn't upt o me. The big things never are. Birth, I mean, and death. And love. And what love bequeaths to us before we're born.

Pg. 388, The Gun on the Wall

Every once in while Eugenides seems lazy to me. There was a passage (although I can't find it now) where Cal admits finding breasts attractive, but the narrating Cal dismisses it as consistent with every other person with testosterone. I can see how most people would skim right over this, but doesn't it seem on point with the whole book that not everyone with testosterone finds breasts attractive?

And then there's the passage quoted above. Sure the rhetorical ambiguity of love is a great literary device, but why even stick it in that paragraph? I'm sold on the unchoosable nature of birth and death, but love? I'm reminded of Fiddler on the Roof where Tevye and Golde sing "Do You Love Me?"

...
(Golde)Do I love you? For twenty-five years
I've washed your clothes
Cooked your meals, cleaned your house
Given you children, milked the cow
After twenty-five years, why talk about love right now?

(Tevye)Golde, The first time I met you
Was on our wedding day
I was scared

(Golde)I was shy

(Tevye)I was nervous

(Golde)So was I

(Tevye)But my father and my mother
Said we'd learn to love each other
And now I'm asking, Golde
Do you love me?

(Golde)I'm your wife

(Tevye)"I know..."But do you love me?

(Golde)Do I love him?
For twenty-five years
I've lived with him
Fought him, starved with him
Twenty-five years my bed is his
If that's not love, what is?

(Tevye)Then you love me?

(Golde)I suppose I do

(Tevye)And I suppose I love you too

(Both)It doesn't change a thing
But even so
After twenty-five years
It's nice to know

The crucial aspect of love in question, of course, is attraction. That's Eugenides meaning I wouldn't dispute, but I'm not sure it's a meaning that is always consciously attributed to the word "love" in passages like the one I quoted above.

One of the parts of Oaks interview on lds.org I found interesting was his discussion of whether SSA members should enter heterosexual marriages. He said:

...Persons who have this kind of challenge that they cannot control could not enter marriage in good faith.

On the other hand, persons who have cleansed themselves of any transgression and who have shown their ability to deal with these feelings or inclinations and put them in the background, and feel a great attraction for a daughter of God and therefore desire to enter marriage and have children and enjoy the blessings of eternity — that’s a situation when marriage would be appropriate.

Feel a great attraction? What kind of attraction? This seems confusing to me. If it's a strong sexual attraction he's talking about, then why is it even an interesting topic? To marry someone you love to whom you have a strong sexual attraction isn't particularly problematic, is it? It's when the attraction is strong, but not sexual, that things get complicated--when the strong sexual attractions are likely to never be there. But Oaks doesn't get quite that specific.

Love.

<sigh>

Buried Life

"No one’s spirit is gay or straight, but right now, in this life, as Gerald Pearson, I am a homosexual. I have got to follow that. You’re right. I could be celibate. If I didn’t >need to know and feel and experience, if I were content to just live on the surface of things, I could give it all up. I could squash myself down and bind myself up and tell life to go around and not through me. But, Blossom, I’m a person who needs to live! I am not an empty person. I’ve got to plunge into a life and find out what’s there for me! If I don’t, I’ll gradually die, piece by piece by piece. And I’ll be of no value to anybody, not you or the children or myself!"

Carol Lynn Pearson,
in Good-bye, I Love You

I found this highly offensive. I tried not to. But, Gerald, am I then an "empty person"? Is life merely going around and not through me? Am I not truly living? [Makes obscene gesture at Gerald.]

Gerald isn't the first I've heard make this charge, and he's no doubt not the last. I can imagine if I were him I would quickly add that what I say applies to nobody but myself... that I mean only that I could not live such a life, but that others might (although secretly to myself I would doubt it).

Actually, I have said something very much like that. When people ask me if I think every gay Mormon man should get married I say that my path is only for me. And it's a constant theme in the gay Mormon blogs that each one must reach down deep inside one's self and decide how to deal with this difficult situation.

But then there's that nagging absolutist deep down inside of me trying to claw out. Trying to say, "No, the answer for EVERYBODY is to trust that God knows more about our happiness than we do ourselves. What we can feel is so limited. We're like young children screaming to get away from the needle coming at us, the needle that will save our life."

And then the pragmatic L steps in and sasses back, "People know what makes them happy. They know it more than they know that something unseen and unsure can improve on the here and now." And then the absolutist L violently assaults the pragmatic L with an anvil and the spectator L grabs the popcorn.

The two L's invariably come to a compromise. The absolutist L, being much older and stronger, lays down the law that I internally acknowledge that everyone will be better off following God, but the spry and resilient pragmatic L won't back down until the concession is made that everyone should be allowed to figure that out for themselves, even if it's a tragedy. Gerald, for example, got a lot less life than he expected. And that's not just because he died of AIDS. He was unhappy as a gay man (although I'll save the quote on that for a later post).

But, pragmatic L insists, plenty of gay guys are plenty happy. It's not all tragedies. Absolutist L mutters under his breath, "Yeah, in this life." And spectator L throws his popcorn at the two and says, "Shut up, the poem is coming up."

...Alas! is even love too weak
To unlock the heart, and let it speak?
Are even lovers powerless to reveal
To one another what indeed they feel?
I knew the mass of men conceal'd
Their thoughts, for fear that if reveal'd
They would by other men be met
With blank indifference, or with blame reproved;
I knew they lived and moved
Trick'd in disguises, alien to the rest
Of men, and alien to themselves--and yet
The same heart beats in every human breast!
...
There rises an unspeakable desire
After the knowledge of our buried life;
A thirst to spend our fire and restless force
In tracking out our true, original course;
A longing to inquire
Into the mystery of this heart which beats
So wild, so deep in us--to know
Whence our lives come and where they go.
...

-Matthew Arnold

When Gerald heard this poem on Music and the Spoken Word, it was the first moment he knew absolutely that he was gay. Spectator L munches on a handful of junior mints and chuckles at the irony of why the poem was probably included in that religious program vs. how Gerald interpreted it.

Detestable

"I don't want to turn our children over to an organization that will teach them to hate their father," he said.

"Gerald," I responded quickly, "you know that there is no person or organization anywhere on this earth that could teach your children to hate you. You know they love and adore you, and they always will."

"But the Church will tell them that I am evil."

"Look, Gerald," I said. "I understand your feelings toward the Church, but without it you wouldn't have developed into the person you are, or have the spiritual interest you do. I think the Church has done a lot for you."

There were tears in Gerald's eyes when he answered me. "That's the trouble, Blossom. I love the Church. And the Church detests me. That's why it hurts so much!"

Carol Lynn Pearson,
in Good-bye, I Love You

I have to admit there's a lot here that I just plain don't get. Not that the actual words have obscure meaning, but the pervasive disagreement about the church's actual attitude toward homosexuality held among gays, members, and SSA practicing Mormons. The church says they love us. Gays say the church hates us.

I was interested to learn that the church had advocated electroshock aversion therapy at BYU and that priesthood leaders have said such offensive things as that it would be better to be at the bottom of the Great Salt Lake with a millstone around your neck than to be gay or that homosexuality is equivalent in depravity to bestiality.

Apologetic apologist or not, I come out with a kind take on the church. I'm inclined to think one can believe whatever one wants about the church in this regard. I wonder if it's one of those things that reflects on the interpreter more than the subject material itself.

For example, priesthood leaders are either plain wrong (not unheard of) or overemphasizing something for its rhetorical impact when they speak of death being better than sin. It's certainly a notion that has home in parts of the scriptures and makes sense in a tactical "how will you make it through life's tests" sort of way. It also has the unfortunate side effect of alienating the vulnerable person who already feels ashamed and desperate--of giving the false impression that the church wants the person dead. Not a strategic repentance-motivating discussion I would endorse, but also not literally technically inaccurate. Rhetorically stupid, yes, but stupidity is more easily excused than hatred.

I haven't given bestiality much thought, but my guess is that it is wholly different from homosexuality and that those who compare them are just plain wrong (and perhaps willfully ignorant, I don't know). I don't know that folks are actually attracted to animals, I've always thought it was kind of an elaborate form of masturbation. It's really disgusting though, and on that basis I can see how some people would compare it to their view of gay sex. Again, poor communication and ignorance are bad, but not necessarily the same as hatred.

Shock therapy doesn't bother me nearly as much as some people. Medical history is filled with unsuccessful interventions that made lots of sense on paper. We hurt people all the time in medicine to bring about some positive result. Surgery is "cut to cure". We literally flay a person's chest open with huge metal retractors and then rip pieces of their body out... and they let us because they're better off afterward. To the extent that participants were not compelled to undergo the shock therapy and the practitioners had reasonable hope that the outcome they all desired was possible, it's not as huge of a deal as it seems. It is grotesque to think about and unfortunate to say the least, but not some scene out of Frankenstein that it's painted to be by the activists I've seen describing it.

The church has repeatedly expressed its love for gays (although they stubbornly use their own language) and its desire based on that love that gays repent and enjoy all the happiness and blessings of the gospel. God, His prophets, and His organization don't "detest" us. However, there is still too much ignorance, still offensive language used, and still misunderstandings, and battling it all is worth a go.

Pearson, 1

"I was not being dishonest with you when we married. I loved you. You were wonderful and I really did love you. I thought that the problem would be taken care of. They told me it would be. I did everything they said to do. And I thought for a few months that everything was changed."

"But, Gerald," I interrupted, "we were--I was--happy."

"And I was too, in many, many ways. Blossom, this is not your fault. Maybe you think it is, but it has nothing to do with you, only with me. Yes, we were happy. I liked being with you. I even liked being with you physically. But to me it was like...like we were such good friends that we shared everything with each other, even sex. It was never quite like... like lovers. There is this other thing in me, Blossom, and it has never gone away and I know now that it never will. There is this thing in me that needs, that insists that my strongest feelings be for a man. It is a need that seems to be as deep in me as my need for food and breath. I tried to beat it to death, to strangle it, to smother it. And it has not died. Blossom, I know the anguish you've been through this last week. Can you understand that I have been in anguish too? And for more than a week."

"Gerald," I said, "it's wrong!"

"Wrong!" Gerald put his face into his hands and then looked up. "I have taken that word and used it like a whip on myself. I have flagellated myself with that word until I'm bloody. But it does not change things. I have fasted, I have prayed. How many thousands of prayers I have prayed! And it does not change things. If my homosexuality is wrong, then I am wrong, the fact of my being is wrong. Because that's what I am!"

Carol Lynn Pearson,
in Good-bye, I love you

I read Pearson's book about her gay husband dying of AIDS a few weeks ago. It was before I read the article about her daughter, Emily, having also married a gay man and thinking she could make it work. The book was strange to me. I kept reading it trying to assess Pearson's view of homosexuality. I tried to read it for the underlying message. It wasn't until I abandoned that approach and just appreciated that she was telling a story--a story with all the ups, downs, questions, and ambivalence left intact--that I really started enjoying it.

There were places she made me angry. There were many places she made me cry. I was in a public place and kept feeling self conscious. I recommend it to anyone interested in homosexuality and Mormonism.

As for the quote above, I have a few comments. I can agree that my wife and I are not lovers in a burning infatuation and lust sort of sense--something I miss greatly. But we are lovers in the most literal sense of the word. We "make" love of the true kind. We produce it from thin air by being what we are and what we want and what we can be for each other. Love is something I've been meaning to blog on but haven't gotten around to it (yes, I say this all the time!).

This passage brings out so many other issues--the hope for change, the futility of forcing the issue, the very real and unjustified self-hatred we experience, the confusion, the logical quandaries inherent in identity. Happiness without happiness. It makes me feel strangely close to Pearson.

Index of Pearson posts
Pearson, 1
Detestable
Buried Life
Alone
Sacrifice
Pearson, 2

Always the guest

Over the weekend I had an experience that interrupted my peace... brought up a rush of familiar angst. As I talked to my wife about it, my mind wandered to high school and an experience that may be meaningful.

The experience itself doesn't really have a story to it, it's more of a snapshot. I'm lying on my back in a field watching the stars with three guys from school that I really admire. Two of them are the co-captains of the soccer team, two are on the school's competitive academic team with me, one is a leader in band with me, and one is my best friend. All three are way smart, good looking, self confident, and all around nice guys. In short, I find them to be oddly appealing and incomprehensible. I want to be like them. I want... them.

And how does one have another person?

I think the healthy way to dispatch such feelings is to become good friends with people I admire. To come to know them well enough that they are at once a real person with real faults, someone who affirms my own humanity and value, and someone who is worth knowing even when I see they aren't as perfect as I thought.

That didn't happen for me in high school. Well, not enough, anyway. As we chatted under the stars about friends from school, astronomy (yeah, we were geeky like that), and everything else, I felt great. There was acceptance and an intangible affirmation for me. But ultimately, after the campout was all over I felt like an outsider. These guys had known each other longer than me. I felt like they had a friendship with each other that was more genuine than my own. I was the last invited on the campout. I hadn't been invited to others at all, but that was probably because I lived further away and was a relative new-comer. I was a guest.

I don't want to be a guest. I want to have them for myself. How can I satisfy that hunger? How can I be home?

Eternal sex

There is, I admit, something definitionally inadequate about sex with my wife. I deny charges that we don't have adequate emotional intimacy or sexual intimacy or more intimacy than you can shake a stick at, but there is something there to be desired. And that's why I'm trying to objectively look at the data about changing my sexual orientation. It's actually quite difficult with the shrieking always in the background from people who (wrongly) claim that the question is already answered, or that I'm bound to end up suicidal if I undertake such an interest and hope.

Not to worry, I'm not going to become suicidal. And even if I don't achieve certified straight sex in my life, the sex we do have will suffice quite nicely, I'm sure. And the happiness and intimacy we currently share in our marriage increases constantly and I have no reason to believe that will stop despite the expressed fears of some that marriages like mine end up like some prison sentence.

Even if, as the data seems to suggest, deliberately changing one's sexual orientation is unlikely in this life, I still think I'll achieve "full sexual expression" in the next life. I mentioned something about resurrection in the SLT article and it was quoted on some blogs and ridiculed savagely. (Savage ridicule is so... worthy of reciprocity.) Granted, I can't annotate a great concordance with all the scriptural references for my belief in this department, but my thoughts seem highly consistent with what I know about the gospel and our eventual destination.

I think the biological components of same sex attraction--the actual neurological pathways and genetics and brain imprinting--will be "healed" in the resurrection to be consistent with the actual purpose of the reproductive system. The psychological aspects like emotional ties and relationships I'm not so sure about (which is one reason I think chastity is an eternal true principle). Ties to men loved during mortality will no longer be supported by physical attraction nor sanctioned by legal or divine authority. A life of love and common experiences will end when we're set to whatever our eternal jobs will be. But the emotional ties will probably remain, and to that end gays will have inadvertently created an eternal situation ironically similar to the temporary one I'm in now--one in which they are not fully sexually compatible with the person with whom they've shared their life. I imagine this might be an instance in which my imagined explanation of why gay love is ultimately wrong applies... of why gay love is good, but not good enough.

Anyway, those musings are ancillary to the true point of this post. The point is, I look forward to a time when, if not in this life then the next, I will be fully sexually compatible with my wife. What a foolish thing, some believe, to gamble so much on faith in a situation after death. But, I'm happy to do it. Gambling on my spirituality has yielded nothing but returns so far.

A live-oak growing

I SAW in Louisiana a live-oak growing,
All alone stood it, and the moss hung down from the branches;
Without any companion it grew there, uttering joyous leaves of dark green,
And its look, rude, unbending, lusty, made me think of myself;
But I wonder’d how it could utter joyous leaves, standing alone there, without its friend, its lover near—for I knew I could not;
And I broke off a twig with a certain number of leaves upon it, and twined around it a little moss,
And brought it away—and I have placed it in sight in my room;
It is not needed to remind me as of my own dear friends,
(For I believe lately I think of little else than of them;)
Yet it remains to me a curious token—it makes me think of manly love;
For all that, and though the live-oak glistens there in Louisiana, solitary, in a wide flat space,
Uttering joyous leaves all its life, without a friend, a lover, near,
I know very well I could not.

-Walt Whitman

Being the artistic type, I made my own Christmas cards for friends one year in high school. They were pretty great cards, actually. They were a watercolored painting with a calligraphied poem, both chosen because they reminded me of that person. I gave a painting of a tree with this Whitman poem to my best friend. I didn't mean anything gay by it. I just meant that I loved him. I think he took it just the right way (but now that I know Whitman was gay I sometimes wonder what his parents thought of it!).

I like this poem because, despite how Whitman may have intended it, it describes well the visceral yearning I have for a man's love. It's something reparative therapists describe just as gay advocates do. There's a need there for companionship and love irrespective of sexuality. But in my case (and some would argue every case), the need is a paradoxical need of sorts. Ideally, one's companion could be everything to that person, including sexually. But a man could never give me a family. And a woman could never fulfill me sexually. My yearnings for mutually exclusive ends need a little cognitive oversight.

Despite how hard it has been to give up on my desire for a fully deep and sexual relationship with a man, I took the step to build a relationship with someone who my feelings never told me was ideal. Because, despite that I loved to be around her, and she was my best friend, she was a woman. The decision took a long time coming. And the relationship building has a long way to go. But I'm delighted to find myself uttering joyous leaves of dark green. I love her more every day. And although I'm getting used to the nay-sayers, it's sometimes scary to think about the terrible possibilities for future failure.

Perhaps I'm less like an oak in Louisiana, and more like a juniper on the coast of California. For whatever reason, I find myself growing on a hard craggy slope, I'm windswept and bent, water is scarce. Anyone might have a hard time uttering joyous leaves under such circumstances, but my friend and lover brings me water, helps prune at times, and together the design we're pursuing is God's.

And for now, I grow.

A Congregation of One, part 6

I was not well. Becky, my wife, was in class in the Library and Information Science Lab in the main campus library while I was sitting on a toilet on the second floor. And had been for a while. Oddly, a foot belonging to the man in the next stall inched toward me under the wall. It started tapping slowly and insistently. Deliberately. I recognized the proposition. One of the many skills my 35 grand yearly tuition had paid for. Placing catheters, IV lines, and recognizing anonymous gay sexual propositions.

Human Sexuality was an integral part of the Foundations of Clinical Practice course in medical school. Our small group was visited by a member of “the community” in an educational venture that was criticized by conservative students for its irrelevance and liberal students for its sensational “petting zoo” feel. There we were edified on the definitions and customs of tea rooms, Turkish baths, and “the family” by a middle-aged gentleman who audibly sighed as he expressed his deep regret that barebacking with strangers was no longer safe. When the meeting was over and the physician facilitator was gone, two of my peers began loudly endorsing the lesson, among other things. “I can’t believe people in our class are so narrow-minded. I mean, those guys who left the cerebral palsy video the other day just missed out on the most profound lesson we’ve had in months.” They were referring to an optional video in which sexuality for handicapped individuals was eplicitly explored. During this exchange, the two students steadied their gaze far away from me—a subtle clue that this conversation was being broadcast in my direction. They knew I was Mormon. And, I doubted the fact had escaped them that I was one of those who excused myself from the video. They didn’t know that my reason was a scheduling conflict. Or that I was gay.

Gay, perhaps, but uninitiated. Thanks to my tea room friend, I knew that the main library second floor bathrooms were once the best place on campus for gay pickups. Ostensibly in the past. And yet, there was the tapping foot.

Had I been tripping gaydar? I knew I had in the past. When I left my long-time girlfriend before coming to medical school, I finally decided to level with her. We sat under the stars on the edge of a playground in Sandy, Utah. The playground felt familiar. It felt as if our whole five-year relationship had happened on a playground. We were giggling children—fun, happy, and platonic. I stammered out an explanation on that night as to why our relationship had never gone anywhere—why she had suffered as I retreated from commitment again and again. She replied that she already knew. She hadn’t always, but she did now.

What tipped her off, I wondered? How many people suspected? Would most people be surprised if they knew, or would it have been like me with Jeremy—a confirmation of what had already been suspected.

The foot tapped.

This was ridiculous. I was in a filthy restroom feeling sick, and yet there was a feral urgency in me that wanted to tap my foot back. Something was inexplicably taking hold of my thoughts and desires. Allowing me to wonder what would happen if I tapped back.

After coming to medical school, my long-time girlfriend moved to Iowa as well. We were soon engaged, then married. We had taken the risk despite the weighty realization that only about 6 or 7 percent of marriages with one gay partner last beyond 7 years. We loved each other enough to move forward. The years being married had been difficult not only because of uni-directional sexual compatibility, but also because of clinical depression on Becky’s part. We made it through the depression and being gay, and we sure as hell were going to make it through the disembodied tapping foot.

I had read on a gay Mormon blog once,

In my studies of relationships, I've come to understand that every pairing, after two years on average, settles into things, and whatever feelings of infatuation they had for one another dissipate and either the union crumbles (if there is no fundament of true friendship and real love) or is replaced by a more profound love (if it is founded on true friendship and love). I avoided that entirely. I don't have to worry that one day I will wake up and not be "in love" with my wife because those twitterpations that convinced me to forge a union with her have dissipated... no. Our love HAD to originate from the real and the profound and the deep swellings of actual interpersonal comprehension and appreciation and real communication and mutual desires for true happiness... the things that LOVE truly is.

A few minutes later, the foot walked past me in the library hall while its head glanced sideways and then steadied its gaze ahead.

Index for A Congregation of One
part 1
part 2
part 3
part 4
part 5
part 6
part 7
part 8

Affirmative therapy

While support of the gay man in adjustment to his life challenges is a worthy [Gay Affirmative Therapy (GAT)] goal, we take issue with GAT's assumptions.

At the foundation of those assumptions is the intractable conviction that homosexuality is a natural and healthy sexual variation. With this a priori assumption, GAT then proceeds to attribute every personal and inter-personal problem the gay person develops to social or internalized homophobia. GAT's theoretical model frames the life experiences of the client in the context of victimization, inevitably setting him against conventional society and disenfranchising him from family and even ethnic identity...
...
Ironically, GAT and reparative therapy agree on what the homosexual man needs and desires: to give himself permission to love other men. However, GAT works within the gay ideology of eroticization of these relationships. We believe this sabotages the mutuality that will lead to bonding.

Joseph Nicolosi, Ph.D.
in Reparative Therapy of Male Homosexuality

I particularly like this part (except the last sentence). Mainly, because I absolutely love the idea of giving myself permission to love men. It feels right. And yet, I think the common view of reparative therapy is that it attempts to instill an aversion to men. Hence the misguided sentiment I've seen on other blogs that reparative therapy isn't desirable because the writer doesn't want to lose the will to love.

And then, of course, there's the debate about whether homosexuality is normal. Insert political hot-button here. But, hey, I'll be honest (after all, I'm pseudo-anonymous here and I doubt any of you will come throw eggs at my house). I believe it is not normal. [gasp!] I've compared it in the past to obesity in that it is a physiological adaptation that carries risks but is itself normal, but even that is pandering a bit. Because when it comes down to it, I think it might fit better with my concept of disease--a condition of abnormal functioning. And of course, I think that deserves no more derision or discrimination than any other disease (so don't even go there that I'm phobic or prejudiced or something.) Sure, a gay person can live a normal and happy life (so can a person with 6 fingers, but that doesn't make it less an abnormal condition). It's not about prevalence or social function, or any other host of reasons why I've heard people declare with absolute disdain that no reasonable person could consider it a disease. It's about sexual function. And sexual function from a physiological perspective is much more than putting a smile on your face. It's primarily about babies, folks. Nicolosi thinks it's a disease because it is pathological. Others think it's a disease because it's abnormal. I think they're both reasonable conclusions, but so is the conclusion that it is an uncommon normal variant. Semantics.</digression>

Nicolosi goes into a lengthy discussion about how therapists are guilted into not offering reparative therapy (afraid of making themselves vulnerable to homophobic charges) even though there are folks like me who WANT the therapy and will make the attempt with or without a professional there to minimize the risks. Like the woman who will perform an abortion on herself with a coat hanger if she doesn't get one from her medical provider, a gay man hungering for reparative therapy should not be turned away by any decent therapist. I believe the ethical position of the APA is lamentably wrong. But, I'm not going to stand up in their House of Delegates to testify on the subject either. So it's no wonder gay advocates carry the day in organized medicine.

All in all, this was an interesting chapter.