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Changing my perspective...

Discussion in 'LGBT Later in Life' started by crazydog15, Jun 10, 2015.

  1. crazydog15

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    One of the strangest, and best, things that I've gone through so far is how I see the world. It's sort of like being deprogrammed. I know that since I was a kid, since even before my first same-sex attraction, people somehow taught me that men simply don't feel attraction to other men. Men don't feel good about other men. And if a man feels attraction to another man, especially if he shows that attraction, he can only expect two outcomes: taunting or violence. One of the best things that I've realized is that that isn't true. Yes, there are some bad, or at least ignorant, people out there. But there are also men who are accepting of gay men's feelings. And, even better, there are men who feel them, too. Men who might, just might, even feel those things about me. In other words, I'm not alone in this. And it isn't really a fight. It's more about finding and connecting with other people like me, people who really do exist. I don't have to live in fear all the time. It's really a great feeling to realize all this. :slight_smile:
     
  2. Yossarian

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  3. SiennaFire

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    I learned growing up that men are aloof. My father was a good man - he worked 2 jobs to support the family. As a result, I never really knew him because he was not around. I try to be there for my son because I don't want him to feel that he never really knew me, his father. I'm also showing him my caring, nurturing side because that's a critical part of being a father as well.
     
  4. FreedMan

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    deprogramming is an interesting way to look at it. I can't say I was ever given the message "men don't feel attraction to men". I was given other basic messages about what boys do and don't do. But like you, Sienna, my dad was barely around - so mostly the messages were in school and the neighborhood gang of kids.

    What is it in kids that they turn on certain boys? How do we get selected? Was it because nobody ever taught me how to throw a ball - and everyone always said, "you throw like a girl," but I didn't know enough to know what that even meant and would continue to play time after time despite the humiliation. Who decides you're a 'sissy' and calls you out then making you a target for all? God I hated that. But I learned how to stand up to it.

    By high school I was tall and lean and finding my identity in 'artist' - which allowed me wide range and eccentricity --- a much kinder self-identified version of others "sissy". But I'd still get challenged - and I'd walk up closer to them and say, "What did you say?" and it worked every time. First lessons in: Wear the bastards down. But it wore on me, too.

    I can remember around that time an incident that branded me: my dad, who barely ever had a word to say to me had asked my mother to speak to me. She approached me just like that: "Your father wants me to tell you he noticed how you were standing the other day - how you had one hand on your hip, like so [and she placed her hand on her own]. He said it doesn't look right. You look like a girl like that."

    And I was devastated. He has nothing to say to me ever? I thought: and he sends you to basically call me a sissy?! He can't even tell me himself?!! And again, I had no clue - how does a girl stand, how does a boy stand? What am I doing wrong? why do I continually give off the wrong signals that get me in trouble? I felt pretty worthless in the 'attraction' department.

    It was that basic. Who I was, how I moved, always trying to be aware of what's considered effeminate and avoiding being perceived that way -- all the time not knowing what "that way" even was. I was just me - and being me could have a lot of helpless shame to it and feel inherently wrong.

    Many years later, I'm still me, but I stopped being 'wrong' a long time ago. It took me a few years more and some serious life trouble to not give much of a fuck anymore what anyone else thinks - other than my closest of family and a few friends. Too bad I couldn't find that as an adolescent -- but I'm happy for the younger generation today with a wider world view and at least a bit more acceptance. And happy that us with a few more years can also find more acceptance within ourselves. Yep, perspective - always a good thing to evolve. Good luck, Crazydog - thanks for stirring some thoughts giving me opportunity to talk about something I've never so plainly spoken about.
     
    #4 FreedMan, Jun 10, 2015
    Last edited by a moderator: Jun 10, 2015
  5. SiennaFire

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    OMG Brother - That is horrible. My heart goes out to you. I'm sorry that you experienced this at such an impressionable young age (*hug*)
     
  6. Yossarian

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    Brother, Maybe you should have walked up to him and said "What did you tell my mother to say?". :icon_wink

    If he didn't have the balls to say it to you himself, he was the "sissy", not you. Being gay has nothing to do with being "sissy"; it takes courage to stand up for yourself, whether you do it with your hand on your hip, or with it pre-clinched into a fist behind your back, ready to throw a long punch to the jaw if necessary. You stood up to the other guys if they tried to bully you; you are not a "sissy".
     
  7. FreedMan

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    thanks guys for having my back - just for listening and affirming:" yeah, that was messed up." I remember being angry at my mother also for doing my father's bidding for him. Figured it meant she agreed - and that somehow I was inherently flawed - which was a message that came up repeatedly in my younger years - somehow only eating internally where no one could see. I'd never let anyone see they got to me. My stoic wall proving I could still stand up and not be thrown. Still, all those voices have a way of seeping in.

    These sorts of considerations of father to son relations and communication show how important that is as you were saying, Sienna. My own lack of male presence in my young life made being a father myself a big priority, wanting the chance to do different, to do better than what was done for me -- which really wasn't a very high bar to achieve. I'm pleased to say I broke the chains of legacy on several fronts and did my small part for evolution. Step by step we climb. Thanks for aiding me in climbing up over some of the rubbish residue that I guess still remains in the corners of my psyche.
     
  8. Feln

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    That's a beautiful and uplifting post, thank you crazydog15!
     
  9. Damien

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    I'm happy for you, crazydog. :slight_smile: And I can relate to the transformation of perspective, too. A year ago, I could say to myself that it's ok to like guys sexually, and it's ok to feel androgynous a lot of the time, but I didn't feel it the way I do now.