The Cost of Being Gay

I want to give a trigger warning. I’m about to “shoot from hip” as we jokingly say in my family. I’m just going to share from my gut and my heart. Because of a series of events and experiences, I need to write and express some thoughts. I come from a background of ex-gay ministry and reparative therapy and some of that is being stirred up by a whole host of negative things going on and I cannot guarantee that won’t eek out in what I write. I don’t mind being controversial so as to be real and if I am off, I appreciate others pointing it out to me so I can correct course. I accept what you may say but I am also going to be my real self.

Being gay has a cost and the cost? It is your life. In so many ways. It can be the result of losing relatives, friends, jobs, places of worship, you name it. I didn’t really lose relatives but I lost friends for sure and a whole church network. Many may imagine that once we phone a few friends and dodge darts from angry relatives after coming out of the closet, we put on our thongs, wigs, and drape rainbow capes over ourselves, and party all the time. Well, it’s kind of not far from the truth for about half of us but there is another half that wants more. I guess it probably isn’t that much different than straights who are in denial of their trauma and drown it in partying and sex. We are just a smaller community that has largely been thrown underground so it feels like a bigger problem. Maybe. However, when I talk to a good number of men and go through many gay coaching websites and programs what I hear most is that most don’t necessarily come out hoping for only sex and partying kind of connections, at least not for their whole “gay” life, but they find that is all there is. For me, it is something of a mossy wall with fungus I am now staring at and wondering how I climb over, dig under, or just completely walk away from. While I watch other men walk up the wall swipe a mess of slime and cover their body with it. Am I supposed to do that? It’s just not me.

I’m not saying I am beyond being sexy or even slutty. I’ve found myself sinking to new lows at times and I know many others do. But then you have your fill and still your ID is a dick or ass pic. Gay men are the highest ranked in the world to end up single and alone later in life. Why? Because gay men just don’t know how to do relationships. They go for the quick fuck and hang out with their female friends, family or gay friends they don’t fuck or go it alone. Anything deeper than that is just tooooo much trouble. It’s too serious unless you are about fun and good times. It is like the song “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.” Many gay men are like that and when issues come up, they run. Well, relationships aren’t always rainbows, furry kittens, and unicorns. The role models haven’t been out there for men and affordable counseling that take insurance is rare. Even rarer, are the men who have the courage to take that step when there are quick-fix sex and party circuits, which is so much easier to do and more heavily promoted.

I remember going to my first-ever gay resort and I will be honest. It was fun! A different kind of fun though. A gay Disney World kind of fun of the kinkiest kind. Of course, people were friendly because they were on vacation. There’s always that. But also nudity and sex abounded. Themed parties too. And at my time of exploration, well, I entertained what it would feel like if I lived in a gay mecca where THIS was my life all the time. I could see it being fun and I would have lots of friends. That would be cool! I could just be my gay self, whatever that would be, and have this huge network of gay friends and sex whenever I want it and maybe a relationship would come down the road but everything would be gay gay gay gay gay! …..but it would also be spiritually lacking and shallow. All the people I was meeting were pretty much that way here. Where were other things I deeply valued like faith, real love, and spirituality going to fit in with a world of nudity (look at my dick!) and sex, and me me me me and us us us us locked away, say in some exclusive community that was largely just about living this media ideal of a gay life? Probably not much of that deeper stuff and more fluff. I could see how some people would want that. It is fun and can be positive and joyful in its own right but I knew for me, I would need more than this gay yellow brick road.

I mentioned being in ex-gay ministry and reparative therapy and I am glad I am away from that. I truly am. I wrote a book about it that is located in my store on this web page. But they had some things right that no one will ever admit. I am not exaggerating when I say I hear this every day if not every moment of the day: gays complain about all the time about how sex-focused the gay community is, how gay men largely aren’t seeking monogamy, how shallow and cruel the community is to one another and that there is a lot of unhealed trauma being taken out one another. Gays say this about the community all the time and it’s not getting any better. Doesn’t make ex-gay ministry right either– as to whether we are born gay or whether being gay is bad or good, of course. That’s craziness. But they aren’t wrong on the systemic problems that infect our community keeping us from any kind of growth.

I’ve been a part gay churches, writing clubs, gay support groups, choirs, and sports leagues with only the best intentions to make friends, serve and connect and I can say except for the gay church in part, I eventually found these places riddled with people stabbing one another in the back, falling apart in the end, splitting off, or making it so uncomfortable for me I had to leave after about two or three years. I think of the people I know who were sexually assaulted in these places, kicked out, rejected, and left dejected. Who will then look over what was done to them and still pine for these people’s attention? The people who stick around unscathed and carefree or clueless in these places are as shallow as a mud puddle to begin with, having agendas all their own. They are part of the problem that supports the toxic behavior in those groups unchecked. A man I knew worked a lot of hours in his very noble profession, but he spent most of his spare time at two of these organizations I would no longer step my foot into because I know the people there. He on the other hand thought the better of everyone and better of himself and his ability to handle problems on his own without anyone’s help. At these kinds of places, sports clubs, or choirs in our area, there are the types of gays who pretend to be your friend and aren’t. It’s all more surface-level entertainment for the soul and that’s what ranks supreme. What pleases the eye, and ears and what brings the best entertainment and nothing deeper than that. Meanwhile, what can we say about you when your back is turned. So for years this man never made the friends in them because he had a heart and they did not but, like me for 2 or so years, he imagined they did. He never got the invites he even posted about on social media. He got older and lonelier and though many people loved him, he couldn’t receive it. He wanted it from the gay community, from the gay brotherhood in these well know social circles where it wasn’t being given, but it’s all we have here. So, he never got it really. Not the way he needed it. The result was he took his own life which broke my heart. There are more reasons to his suicide but this is part of it–loneliness. A gay male plague of loneliness. He was desperate for acceptance from his own community within these social circles where he spent the most time and didn’t get it. They didn’t have it to give.

I think about the gay church I was at which was largely a positive experience but also getting feedback from someone that I am still single because I am a loser living with my mother (he didn’t realize I no longer do live with her, but he himself can barely hold a job) or the gay sports league where I was bullied by the coach younger than me for one mistake over the whole season. There was the gay club where I was brought to the board for intentionally misgendering and a transgender woman who never once told me I was misgendering her but asserted I should have known by overhearing her correcting others in our social events at a noisy bar. Welcome to being out! You think and hope after so much rejection from society and then also rejecting yourself, that once you are brave enough to step out there, you will find welcome arms. And you do. Don’t get me wrong. Everyone loves a newcomer but you often walk in blind to their intentions. Just because people are welcoming you under the banner, “we are all gay here”, doesn’t mean they aren’t out to use you for something on their own agenda or abuse you. And the blinder you are, the better for them. You are walking into a community of a whole lot of hurt individuals who by and large haven’t done much about it but come out and label their pronouns. Tread cautiously. It will save your life. It is sad to say our own community isn’t a safe place for our souls any more than any straight place is. In an odd twist of events, my small Presbyterian of fully straight people is probably more safe for me than any gay church.

Sexuality is complicated and it is only one small piece of the puzzle of who we are, and when I make it the biggest thing, I am blind to all other parts that need to be tended to. I’m not sure exactly why every movie and TV show seems to turn some characters gay now. I guess it is a hyper focus from where we were and it is great that the straight world is becoming friendlier and friendlier to us. If only we were to each other, genuinely compassionate to one another. Then it would truly be worth the cost. Until then the price seems a bit too high.