This one has been fermenting in my mind for quite a few days, almost a fortnight, in fact. It revolves around a single word, the title of this post. I left a comment on another blog, in response to an item about the aftermath of the Penn State sex abuse allegations. Among some fairly predictable stuff about 'grooming' of 'vulnerable children', there was a line about 'scientists' not knowing why 'some adults are attracted to children....it could be like a sexual orientation'. I commented that, at least in my case, it isn't like a sexual orientation, it is a sexual orientation. The blogger concerned replied to my comment, and while I've got no doubt at all that he's a genuinely caring person, the fact that he said that he offered me his 'sympathy' brought me up short. I am what I am, and I really don't see my nature as being an object of pity. I have frustrations, well documented here, but I'm far from being the only person in the world who has to live with not being able to be themselves. It's a fair indication of the depth of contempt that boylovers are held in, that even caring people seem to find us pitiable.
Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B
You are exactly correct, and I will not lower myself to offer you pity...that's not what is needed nor wanted here...acceptance, the realization that feelings and desires do not translate into actions...much more in line...
ReplyDeletePeace <3
Jay
Hello Jay
ReplyDeleteThank you - would that everyone could recognise the difference between thoughts and deeds. I do feel sorry for myself sometimes, but those regrets are around my situation, not my orientation. As I've said here before, I'm not proud of being a boylover, but I am, equally, not ashamed, because it is, for whatever reason, who I am.
Love & best wishes
Sammy B
Hello Sammy. Catching up on your blog here. I wonder if the sympathy the blogger was offering was not for your orientation, but the difficulties that come with it in this day and age.
ReplyDeleteYou have mentioned the pains and trials associated with having these needs, and not being able to legally be able to satisfy them in any way. That has got to put such a strain on you.
I think of being gay and not being able to show any hint of being attracted to guys. I remember my first few attempts at finding someone and being rejected. Awkward and painful, fraught with total rejection and possible endless ridicule. At least as a gay man looking of other gay men it is much more accepted now.
With today's complete hysteria about the human body and about sex, even consensual minors having sex,I could see where even mentioning your orientation as freely as you do could bring great stress and even physical harm from some people.
I am sorry you were hurt by the choice of words used. I would ask you to remember that written words are often misunderstood, as the person writing them may have one idea and the person reading them another idea entirely. I always try to ask if I think something may have been misunderstood, as I know I am not as clear as I wish sometimes, and I know I have not read what others wrote the same way they intended it.
Hugs and best wishes, Scottie
Hello Scottie
ReplyDeleteThe impetus for me to write this post wasn't just the bare words, or one word in particular, or even my interpretation of them, but the resonances that were set up in my mind.
I don't know if you're familiar with the film Another Country, but there's a scene towards the end where the two main characters, one gay, the other a Communist, both outcasts within their milieu (a 1930's English public school) have a conversation, which to paraphrase, goes something like this - the gay character 'comes out', in modern parlance, to his Communist friend, who responds with a patronising "I'm very sorry". The gay character's following impassioned speech ends with "for all your talk of equality and fraternity, you still think some people are better than others because of the way they make love". In other words, even though a person is a member of a despised minority, there's almost always someone lower on the 'food chain' they can despise in their turn. I'm not ascribing that attitude of superiority and condescension to you personally, but it is quite prevalent in the GLBT spectrum, that, yes, they might hate me because I'm gay, but we can still hate him because he's a boylover, the lowest of the low.
To respond to something else in your comment, something related, I am well aware of the potential, if my 'real life' identity became known, for abuse, discrimination or even physical harm to be directed my way, which is why I'm as careful as I can be, without resorting to outright falsification, in maintaining my anonymity. Even then, though, my main concern is to protect my wife and daughter from any 'fallout', rather than any special aim of self-preservation. I'm a big boy, and I'm prepared to look after myself, but my predilections and opinions are no fault of my family, so there's no way want them to be caught in the crossfire.
Thank you for your feedback, and please don't think that what I've written is in any way a personal attack on you, because it isn't.
Love & best wishes
Sammy B
Hi Sammy;
ReplyDeleteI think I understand what you are saying... in all, for all of us: We are who we are. And, like my mother has told me in the past: sometimes if you don't ring your own bell it just doesn't get rung. We all have to look into the mirror, accept and be proud of ourselves, love ourselves. Other people with other motivations may not understand the other person.
One of the things I love about your blog is that, similar to mine, here you are completely outside the shackles of reality and thereby able to be very real. Very honest. So free, you allow others the chance to examine their own thoughts.
Do we, as humans, ascribe so closely to the social ladder, judgement and rank, even when we don't mean to? Even when, say, it's the very last thing we'd want to?
I think I've been guilty of such. Thank you for making me think about that... and reminding me that sometimes words said in the best context can have an effect not intended.
hugs;
randy
Hello Randy
ReplyDeleteI do try to be honest in my blog, because so much of my life, in my own eyes at least, is spent in hiding, in dissimulation, in telling 'the truth, the whole truth and a hole in the truth', to steal a line from Nabokov. And it is my place, as I've said before, to be myself. 'Outside the shackles of reality' is an interesting concept, because most of the tension and frustration in my life comes about through what I am and what I want, and what 'society' has decided that I'm allowed, which, pretty much, is nothing. All too realistically shackling.
Thanks for your continued interest in my blog, and your kind words - I'll try and keep the thought-provocation quotient as high as I can.
Love & best wishes
Sammy B