Jan
01
2009
10

Hetero Challenged

I was asked by Terry in a post:

To you, what are some great things about being gay and what are the downsides to being "hetero challenged"?

For me, the only real difference between myself and others who think themselves "hetero" is the fact that I am a human male who is attracted to other adult human males, and acknowledges such in a open manner. Add to that: I have seriously questioned my sexuality in the face of what others would tell me what I have to be.

Maybe that sounds overly simplistic, but sometimes the simplest things are the best.

Two men kissing
lick to embiggen... and for the rest of the picture. (there's no nudity)

If I had to split the upside and the downside of being gay, I find it a harder question to answer, really.

Here's what I have come up with so far:

Great Things, a.k.a. "the pros":

  • I have no doubts about the accuracy of the Kinsey Report;
  • There's a married guy somewhere who is terrified of me;
  • I know my enemies;
  • After a workout at the gym, I feel like a new man... and he's right there in the shower;
  • When someone turns his back on me, I actually consider it an opportunity.

Okay. I admit, those are just jokes. (Well, maybe all but the "I know my enemies" entry.) I really don't have a list of things that are great. To me being gay is just living, as I would imagine anyone does—regardless of their sexual identity. Some days are awesome, and some days are not.

Downsides, a.k.a. "the cons":

  • The possibility of being killed by a nut-job for who I am;
  • The probability of having my personal property destroyed for what I do;
  • The actuality of being discriminated against and terminated from my job with no protection;
  • Not having the same legal rights with my partner of 11+ years that hetero couples have. I don't want special rights. I just want the same rights;
  • Having to explain or justify my sexual identity to people who have never questioned their own (much like accepting religious dogma without question, but that's another story).

So there you have it. Those are the current downsides as I see them.

What about you? What are some great things about being gay and what are the downsides to being "hetero challenged"?

Until next time...
Erik

10 comments
posted 1134 days ago at 10:26 pm in Ponderings
Aug
12
2008
10

The Way Things Work…

Reading Alexander's posts a few months back about his coming out started me thinking about my own journey. [You can read his story here in parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6.]

I've been piecing this post together since then. "The Way Things Work" seemed like an appropriate title as that is what I was attempting to figure out. Actually, I still am.


There is no manual for figuring out your sexuality...

People around me who get to know me, or are just curious, tend to ask me—as probably a lot of us get asked—how I could be gay?

I have attempted many times to write my version of events as seen through my eyes. I've yet to be able to do that in any coherent manner. So I'm going with what I have.

The recollections of my past are just murky pieces—faint flickers, really—that I cannot seem to piece together in any logical (to me) order. I remember...

...having feelings that I knew were "wrong" according to everything I had been taught my entire life by my family unit and their chosen religion—the Church of Christ. These teachings were reinforced by 8 years in Church-run schools, then 5 years in a Church-run college.

...secretly watching porn when I was a teenager (thanks to the adult channels on the huge-ass satellite dish—this was before the Internet was a consumer-grade appliance after all) and always wishing they would show more cock. Instead they always showed boobs and twat. Rarely would I catch a glimpse of a cock. But when I did I knew that was what I wanted even though it was "wrong".

...stealing my father's porno mags (go Hustler!) and cutting out the occasional pictures of men in them. Scrapbooking, anyone? My parents later found these when they searched my room while I was in high school.

[Note the mental conflict these last two caused even at a non-gay level—my father, the "devout" Christian who had his porn stashed under the seat of his VW bus and all the porn channels on the satellite. "Do as I say and not as I do..." is apparently the example he tried to live by?]

...having "feelings" for some of the male authority figures in my life. I do not remember ever having "feelings" for anyone my own age or of the opposite sex... always older men. And always authority figures: a teacher, a coach, a friend's dad, etc.

...knowing what I was feeling on the inside contrasted against what I saw going on around me on the outside: dating, girlfriends, sex. None of which I had while in high school or college. All so easy to "explain" away.

Some memories are less flickers and more like explosions. Brilliant points of light in an otherwise dark sky. I remember...

...my mom asking me if I was gay while I was in high school and me telling her "No".

...the first time someone told me they were gay. While driving home from Arkansas to Florida for a holiday break in college, I was carpooling another student to his home and somewhere along the way he outed himself to me. I fucking freaked out. I don't think he and I spoke the rest of the way (short of directions) to his house.

...downloading gay porn while at [a Christian!] college, feeling guilty about it, and deleting it. Over and over again.

...at 23 years old, getting the nerve to actually meet someone "to see how this all worked". I was scared as hell through dinner. We went back to his house. He put his hand on my knee, then started kissing me. IMMEDIATELY the switch was thrown and I knew exactly where I was supposed to be.

Even though at that moment I knew how I was, there were (and are) still many things I had to work through to know who I was.

As always there is more to this story, but that is going to be another post.... And probably in another three months I'll have it written.

Until next time...
Erik

10 comments
posted 1276 days ago at 6:57 am in Ponderings
Jun
23
2008
5

“If it can be straddled, it’ll get the job done.”

While I don't agree with everything they say and sell on their website, this is taken from the latest T-Shirt Hell Newsletter:

If it can be straddled, it'll get the job done.

We're all a little too desperate to categorize both ourselves and others. Forgive me if this sounds like new age douchery, but maybe we're not gay, straight, bi, or any other label that designates sexual preference. Maybe we're all just a bunch of idiots who like to cum.

When you were twelve you would get a boner because you weren't properly situated in your chair and your pants were a little tight. Does that mean you like to fuck pants? No - It means pretty much anything will get the job done downstairs and we all care a little too much about what's fuckable and what isn't.

I agree with most of that from my observations so far of humans. It all seems to depend on who is around and watching in relation to how horny that same someone is (and sometimes what quantity of alcohol said human has in their systems).

While I do think some of us are certain of what gets us hard and what doesn't, I think there are a vast number of people out there who would (and do) fuck anything they can get their hands—or other body parts—on... or in.

And then there are some who I wish would. Or at least would me.

As Sorted would put it: "I'm just sayin'."

Until next time...
Erik

5 comments
posted 1326 days ago at 8:20 pm in Ponderings
Mar
15
2008
7

I stand accused…?

Dilemma?

Wednesday night while working on a client at the tattoo shop, I received a telephone call from a family member. I only took the call because I thought it was an emergency due to the recent events with my father. This family member harshly accused me of something. Precisely—they accused me of stealing a large sum of money. This family member—being the wonderful "Christian" they are—apparently is of the "guilty until proven innocent" mentality. Is it any wonder I moved all the way from Florida to Arkansas?

I did not take this money, not that the family member seems to believe this. I would never steal (at least not intentionally) and more so I would never steal from my own family. However, I have no way to prove that I didn't do this stealing of which I am being accused. I had opportunity—to which I was unaware—and as for motive? I have no "moral" character since I am both gay and have tattoos. Two strikes against me?

I see people being suspicious and thinking less of people who have ink that is visible to the public. I deal with it every day as both a tattoo artist and as a person with ink. I don't really understand it at all. I know the history of tattooing. I know how different cultures see tattoos. I know where the American stereotypes come from. I think it is a stereotype that will take at least another generation to dissipate. I have tattooed what I consider the full spectrum of people: from people barely scraping by, to those who make more in a day than I will in my lifetime; individuals fresh out of jail having served their mandated time, to doctors and attorneys who probably should be in jail for doing things that would keep me up at night.

We are all human. Why do we lose sight of that?

Then there's the whole being gay "issue". It's a little different of a "stereotype" to me because I believe people today have a choice to be tattooed. (Yes, there are probably people who choose to be gay, but I don't think that is the norm at all. Just as there are people who have not chosen to get tattooed but where done so by force.) People fear and shun what they don't understand or what they see in themselves that they don't want to publicly admit to the world. Enough people have discoursed on that over time I will leave it alone for now.

Why as humans do we have to "isolate" what's different: people of a different color; people of a different weight; people who have decided to decorate the outside of the "temples" they reside in. Why don't we stereotype people who's earlobes are attached to their face versus people have dangling earlobes?

As for my "two strikes" that my family sees—I don't think that will ever change. Their brains are now trained and hard-wired to think the way they do. I went down to Florida to see my father when he had his heart attack for what could have been the last time. It now might just be.

Until next time...
Erik

7 comments
posted 1426 days ago at 1:58 pm in Ponderings
Feb
17
2008
4

Is being a “pack-rat” genetic or learned?

After visiting my parent's house, I was re-reminded that my mom has become her mother. I tend to forget the condition of their house not being "local" anymore.

Parent's family room
A view of the parent's family room

My grandmother was a pack-rat. When she died at the end of 2004, it took my mom and her sisters almost FIVE MONTHS to go through all the stuff in my grandmother's house. Every weekday for FIVE MONTHS! By "stuff" I mean many of the common household and personal items as would be expected. And then there is the obscure: collections of old, green foam meat trays; old photos of people no one in the family knows who they are; old newspapers from decades ago; old crucifii (would that be the plural of crucifix?) and other catholic paraphernalia.

Fast-forward to the present. My parent's house. To start with, there is dust everywhere--dust covering mounds of papers and "stuff". Stuff just like my grandmother's "stuff". Piles of old newspapers, old magazines, stuff from us as kids, some of the stuff from my grandparents, etc.

My dad is a little eccentric. He is a "collector". He collects expensive things at least, but the condition is the same. There are hundreds of old soda trays and signs, old enameled signs, old wooden tools, carbide lamps, oriental rugs, etc. These items are displayed throughout the house, but also with a light coating of dust. Then there is every automobile ever owned sitting somewhere out on the property.

It has been pointed out by my "better" half that I am becoming like my parents--I tend to not let things go once I have "collected" it: a stack of old computer stuff that I should just recycle; old books that I will never read a second time; my first car. I have become more conscious about it in the last few years, and have endeavored to get rid of things I have collected. But how to break the actual collecting "cycle"?

How do these things happen? What causes this?

Until next time...
Erik

4 comments
posted 1453 days ago at 6:06 pm in Ponderings
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