Emotional

I've had a couple interesting conversations this week.

Tuesday I hung out with my lifelong friend, let's call her Janice. We've both had quite a rough year, emotionally. I tried to give the best advice I could to her about her problems, and she tried to help me work through mine (career and sexuality). It's nice opening up to her, it's less awkward to talk about sex topics with her than it is with my cousins. We talked in this cool little outdoor shopping center next to a fire pit. There was a young security guard there at first. We exchanged a few friendly words with him and then he left. Janice made a comment about him being very attractive, and I agreed. Hehe, nice to be on the same page as someone about who's attractive!

Today I was feeling extremely depressed all day about the other big issue, career. I don't want to go too much into where my mind is on that subject because frankly, I'm trying to control my obsessive thoughts about it. In any case, I called my mom up and spoke to her about where my mind's at. I spoke to her all about my concerns and fears and she listened and provided encouragement. Something's got to change about the way I'm going about this. I know nothing's perfect, so I just have to definitively settle on what I'm willing to sacrifice and what is non-negotiable. This passed into ridiculousness long ago, so it's time to take this anxiety/obsessive crap out and get to work on something. After the conversation with my mom I felt a little better, so hopefully that will stick and I will be able to pursue the path I currently have in mind.

Since I was on a roll, I decided to mention my conversation with Janice. I started off by telling my mom I might see an endocrinologist to see if there's a hormonal cause to my low sex drive. Then I said, in my typical roundabout way, something like "I talked to Janice about the pattern of my attractions, and she believes I'm not straight. And many times over the past few years I have tended to agree with that assessment." Man, maybe I should go into politics.

After I got the words out, something happened to me that was rather uncharacteristic . . . I broke down. I could barely get words out. First I started breathing hard and had to take deep breaths for fear of starting to hyperventilate. Then, as I continued to talk to her about it, I actually started crying. I also explained to her about how her dismissal of the issue a couple years ago was the reason why I had not tried to discuss the problem with her since. I told her about how that eventually drove me to talk to my cousins about it because I needed to talk to someone close to me, not just a psychologist. She was near family so she couldn't talk very openly, but she said I shouldn't feel stressed out about the issue, especially as it related to my family. I responded, "What about Dad?" I she replied, "Even your Dad." I explained to her that it's very important for me to be true to myself, and I want to make sure that when (if?) I'm ever in a serious relationship I want to be in it for the right reasons, and don't want to feel like I'm using someone as a means to an end. She understood that.

As far as further steps with the sexuality issue, Janice is very willing to help me out. She has offered to go to a gay bar with me if I am ever so inclined. There actually was a gay bar not far from where we met up the other night. We'll see.

As for my gay Facebook acquaintance, he didn't respond. I had contacted him via his gmail, so tonight I followed up with a Facebook message to see if he had gotten the email. If he doesn't respond to that I'll have to drop it and find someone else. Which sucks, but whatever. Argh, one of my pet peeves is when someone never responds to an attempt to contact them. What can I say, I desire closure. It's the Judging part of my personality, for those who are Myers-Briggs savvy (I'm an INFJ, by the way).

Holy #%@##%@

Oh my God, less than a minute ago I did it. I sent an email to my gay Facebook acquaintance. I explained my situation and asked him if he would mind meeting up with me sometime to discuss his perspectives on sexuality and his experiences with deciding he was gay and coming out and all of that stuff. This is sort of huge for me, haha. The only people I've revealed my secret to before this have been 1) trusted loved ones (after I spent a lengthy time testing their attitudes about homosexuality/bisexuality), 2) psychology professionals in a confidential environment, and 3) my roommate at one of the grad school interview weekends last year, whom I figured I would never see again.

Took me a while to work up the nerve to do it. And then I finally pushed "Send" . . . and a little box came up saying "Are you sure you want to send with no Subject Line?" D'OH!! Finally I sent it for real, with my real name and everything since we've only met once. I wanted to make sure he knew who I was.

He also happens to have a PhD, so I expressed interest in talking about his feelings regarding academia. You know, my other "favorite" topic, haha. Hey, since I'm talking to him, might as well see if he can give me some insight on my other big issue too :-)

So that's the big news of the day.

One more who knows

My cousin spent the weekend. He is the older brother of the other cousin who I revealed my sexuality dilemma to. At several points over the weekend I considered opening up to him, so finally last night I decided to come clean. Like me, he has very little dating experience, so he understood a lot of where I am coming from. I had feared how he might react since he is probably the most conservative of the three brothers, but I had discussed gay rights with him on a couple of occasions in the past and he seemed fairly open-minded about the subject. Funny how I tend to test the waters over a long period of time before revealing my secret. Our conversation went into sexual morality and psychology as well, it was pretty interesting. I think I learned him a thing or two, haha.

When we were discussing sexual morality, I brought up the common argument against homosexuality and gay rights: the slippery slope argument. "If we let a man sleep with a man, don't we also have to condone bestiality and pedophilia?" I told him about the usual response, which I agree with: those acts do not occur between two consenting adults, and that's why they're wrong. I ran into a tougher time justifying why polyamory and incest (between adults) are wrong. The best I could come up with is that homosexuality is an orientation, whereas polyamory and incest are not. Gay people are only capable of being attracted to and falling in love with members of the same sex; it is ingrained in who they are. But I see no reason to believe that a person would be solely capable of falling in love with a family member or with multiple people. Still, shouldn't people have the right to enter into sexual relationships with multiple partners or family members if they want to? I didn't really have an answer to that, but strangely enough today I randomly came across a couple of articles on Slate that address this very topic.http://www.slate.com/id/2278578/

http://www.slate.com/id/2277787?wpisrc=obinsite

The articles make some of the same points I've made, but also have a pretty interesting argument for why incest is wrong (and not just the usually genetics argument). They don't really discuss polygamy too much, though. My main argument against that is one of practicality. It seems like it would get extremely complicated if the government had to provide benefits to multiple partners.

What does everyone think, how sexually permissive should society be? Can you think of any other arguments against incest and polygamy?

The journey so far

It's weird, I'll go through phases when I hardly post, then I get all into blogging again. I guess that's normal. Over the last couple of days I've been browsing around the links to other blogs and have found some really good, interesting, ones that I can relate to.

It's been a while now since I first started this blog. Maybe it's time to look back and see what (little) progress I've made. Recap time. Much of this I have covered before in this blog, but I think I have a more cohesive understanding of it all now. WARNING . . . VERY long post alert.

While I can think of a few minor attractions to guys going way back into middle school, the first major attractions I remember were in high school. Still, there were only a few instances and it was mostly guys I didn't know personally, so I chalked it up to admiration. I did develop an interest in weight lifting, desiring to get more muscular. My motivation was not "to get girls" but rather, I think, because I liked the male physique and wanted to achieve it for myself. Also, I desired a higher level of emotional intimacy with a guy than I had in any of my friendships, primarily in the form of a mutual best friendship. I developed a major crush on a guy freshman year of college, and the intensity of my feelings coupled with my jealousy over the fact that he already had a best friend made me question my sexuality for the first time. At the end of freshman year, after admitting to some dorm friends that I had never masturbated before, I began to wonder if I was asexual.

I really started to notice guys physically in sophomore year. At the gym, on campus, in classes. As college continued, so did this tendency. There was at least one occasion where there was a hot guy in my class whose name I "accidentally" discovered, whom I then looked up on Facebook. Yes, that made me feel like a cyber stalker. I studied abroad in the summer after my 4th year and crushed on the male grad student who was teaching my psychology class.

Throughout all of this time (middle school through college) there were also girls who I would develop feelings for. But it would always be based on personality . . . I would never really experience physically attraction.

20 was the first time I had a "solo" experience. It was a combination of lower than average sex drive and ridiculously strict morals (and I wasn't even religious) that was behind that. I tried to use it for a while to "condition" myself to be physically attracted to women. Kind of like Pavlov's dog, I guess. I figured if I taught myself to associate hot women with pleasure the connection would become automatic. Didn't quite work, and I eventually gave up and switched over to what was naturally more aesthetically pleasing.

Browsing the Men's Health forums one time led me to a link to a bisexual guy's blog. From there I found links to other blogs and was amazed at the community of bloggers in similar situations. In early 2008 I took some major steps to figuring myself out. I started seeing a psychologist so I could have someone to talk to about my issues. I emailed some bloggers and chatted with them. And I started this blog. It was helpful, and I posted a decent amount that year. I went on my first real date with a girl and had my first (drunken) kiss with a girl. Both were awkward. Not that they wouldn't have been awkward if they'd been with men.

In early 2009 I decided that I was straight "enough" and ended the blog, determined that it would all be fine as long as I found the right girl.

By early 2010 I was back. I went to grad school interviews, planning to enter academia as a neuroscientist. One interview weekend I revealed my sexuality dilemma to my roommate (who was understanding, but fell asleep mid-conversation), and another weekend I roomed with a hot gay guy (though I didn't know he was gay at the time). And I had a major quarter life crisis where I decided that the academic lifestyle and sacrificing the ability to live near family and friends were too unappealing and I started researching other things. I went on a Eurotrip with my cousins and close friends, where we inadvertently encountered two gay pride parades and accidentally stayed at a gay hotel in Berlin.

In Sept 2010 I came out as questioning to my cousin, who is my closest confidant. He was cool with it. In Feb 2011 I did the same to my closest female friend, whom I've known since kindergarten. I knew she'd be fine as she is very liberal.

I switched psychologists to one who is more experienced with sexuality and obsessive/anxiety issues. It's been helpful so far. One of my problems is my obsessive tendency to doubt myself, which causes me to take two steps back every time I'm on the verge of declaring myself gay.

I've been flirting with the idea of reaching out to a Facebook acquaintance who works near me and is gay. I had a crush on him a few years ago (he has a boyfriend now). I figure he'd be a good one to talk to since we have few friends in common. I've also thought about visiting a gay bar with my friend, but that thought is quite scary.

Phew! Well, not as much progress as I would have liked, but I think I've definitely made psychological progress at least. Maybe soon I'll take another step.

Link of the day

Ok, I have to post again, just so I can share this link. Hilarity! Cracked.com's 6 Pro-Gay Marriage Arguments for Fighting with Crazy People.

http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-pro-gay-marriage-arguments-fighting-with-crazy-people/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=fanpage&utm_campaign=new%2Barticle&wa_ibsrc=fanpage

The latest from nutty Ann Coulter

I just watched a video clip from Bill Maher's show that featured Chaz Bono and Ann Coulter as guests (http://www.mediaite.com/tv/bill-maher-ann-coulter-chris-hayes-chaz-bono-debate/). As much as I try to give Ann Coulter the benefit of the doubt, pretty much everything she says and does elicits outrage in me. In this clip she 1) accuses Bill Maher of being a misogynist for criticizing Michelle Bachmann and Sarah Palin, but fails to offer up any other evidence, 2) claims that Christians would never need to see a psychiatrist because they have God . . . well, unless it's schizophrenia or something else "that's a chemical" (what does that even mean, and how would she differentiate between mental problems that are "a chemical" and are not?), and 3) continues to act completely condescending and overly defensive, as always. It seems whenever I see her being interviewed she reacts to people questioning her in a similar way: by refusing to back up her claims and instead acting incredulous that anyone would ask her to.

Most of the discussion is about Keith Ablow, a psychiatrist who appeared on Fox News and was the source of the "misogynist" claim about Bill Maher. Ablow also criticized Chaz Bono, saying that him being transgender is a "psychotic delusion" and endangers our "sense of what is all real and true." Well, I suppose he might have a point with the latter claim. The existence of LGBT people doesn't fit well with the fundamentalist Christian paradigm, so I suppose it is threatening to those who hold that worldview.

People with concrete-cast belief systems scare me.