A pleasant surprise this evening with a new post at 'House of Mattie', albeit the first half of his news was sad, about a family bereavement. It's nice to hear from him though, even if the circumstances could have been happier.
I've spent the last hour with little bits and pieces of things I might write about flitting through my mind without anything much actually coalescing. I thought about my favourite holiday haunt, Gran Canaria, but if I think too long and hard about the island, I tend to get a bit depressed, because it's almost six years since I was last there, after 15 visits in the previous 14 years. I still daydream from time to time about retiring out there, but whether it will ever come to fruition is, as things stand at the moment, doubtful at best.
I've spent a little while today thinking about the roots of my attraction to boys as well, and, to be honest, I'm pretty much at a loss as to where it comes from. I've read a fair bit about sexual orientation just 'being', as in you're born with it and there it is, and that may be the case with me, because I can't remember any specific incident in my childhood or youth that might have tipped any theoretical balance in one direction or another. It's certainly been there from my early teens, at least, if not even earlier - my closest friend when I was 8 or 9 was a 5 year old boy in the infant classes at my primary school, if that has any significance, although there was absolutely no conscious sexual component for me at that age, I was almost completely clueless about sex until I was at least 12 or 13. Maybe there is no answer, which would, in its way, be something I might find slightly difficult to assimilate, because I'm one for rationality, on the whole, so that the idea that things, especially significant things, just happen for no very good reason is rather unsettling.
Whatever the reason for the attraction being there, it certainly asserts itself on occasions. I've had a couple of teeth-grindingly frustrating sightings of 'DBJ' over the last two days at work, frustrating because I wasn't on my own on either occasion, and I was trying to look without looking, as it were, not wishing to draw attention to the object of my interest. All part of the dubious joys of living in hiding - seeing the boy is always such a big deal for me, but the idea of anyone else finding out or working out my inclinations is something that scares me if I think about it too deeply. Would that I could tell the world under my own name rather than in this pseudonymous forum, but the chances of any such tolerance any time soon are, basically, nil.
Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B
This is going to be an incredibly personal comment so please feel free to answer as much or as little as you like depending on what you feel comfortable with - there's no obligations *at all* to answer what I'm going to ask ^^
ReplyDeleteI'm fairly new to reading your blog and so I'm not aware of your situation with regards to feelings for people etc and so my question is:
Are you married/in a 'straight' relationship but have feelings for men as well?
I know that you have a daughter but reading this post has slightly confused me as to your feelings for genders overall (that's a weird way of me phrasing it - I'm sorry!!). I could always scoot off and read more of your blog to find out, which I think I'll do now, but it would be good to hear your answer too if you don't mind answering/explaining what is a personal question for me to ask ^^
Lauren x
Hello Lauren
ReplyDeleteThank you for taking the time and trouble to read my blog and post your comment. I'm quite happy to answer your question, because all of what I'm going to say is in the blog already, albeit scattered around in various posts.
I took a long time to work out and come to terms with what my sexual orientation is - and when I say a long time, I mean about 35 years! - but the final answer has proved to be that I'm bisexual, but with the 'split' between the two halves of my sexual personality being 'horizontal' rather than 'vertical', if I can describe it that way, the split coming at around puberty. I'm attracted to (adult) women, and to boys a year or two either side of puberty, the actual age obviously dependent on the developmental stage of the individual, but, to put specific figures to it, from around 11 to 16. I'm not attracted to men, and never have been, and not attracted to young children or pubescent girls, although I find some people in those latter groups very nice to look at, but only to look at. I've never had any sort of sexual contact with a boy, and probably never will, but I'd be lying if I said I never would - it could happen, if the right (or wrong, depending on your perspective) circumstances appertained, but I would never, under any circumstances, force or coerce anyone, young or old, male or female, into anything, I'd only be interested in entering any such hypothetical relationship strictly as an equal, and nothing less.
I am married, and have been for 17 years, and have one daughter, who's now 12, going on 13, and, as far as I know, my wife has no idea about my 'other side'. This may sound hypocritical, but I genuinely love my wife, and there's no way I would want to hurt her, and my secrecy about my hidden desires is part of that, because I know, from comments she's made, that she finds such things highly distasteful, as, indeed, do many, if not most people. To be a 'boylover', to use the word that those like me often use to describe themselves, is to set yourself up to be one of society's ultimate hate figures - you may find this hard to believe, or you may agree with it, but I've seen, in print, boylovers described as more damaging to society than suicide bombers, and there are certainly plenty of people out there who subscribe to the view that the only fitting punishment for those like me is death.
I hope this has answered your question, and I hope that my answer won't leave you feeling that I'm too far 'beyond the pale' to be tolerated, but I'd understand, and won't be offended, if you do find my predilections unconscionable - after all, you'd only be following what 'right-thinking people' generally believe.
Love & best wishes
Sammy B