You were recommended to me by an acquaintance familiar with your
column and podcast. Lacking other resources at this particular moment,
I have decided to write to you. I am a twenty-year-old male, and as
such have certain desires that almost all twenty-year-old males have
(desires of a sexual nature). However, I am deeply religious. Religion
has been for me a source of strength in my times of weakness, a rock in
the times of storm, and above all a home to return to when I have lost
my path. In the teachings of my particular religion, to indulge the
particular desires I am experiencing will condemn me to fates too
grotesque to mention. I am rational enough to realize that there is no
way that I can “pray away” these desires. My question is this: How does
one prepare for a life of celibacy and solitude (as that is what is
required of me to remain a member of this particular faith)? Based off
of what my friend has told me, I know you have little respect for
religious practices and beliefs. However, these desires are not exactly
something I can talk about with other members of my spiritual
community. And while I am currently seeking counseling related to other
issues, I was wondering what a so-called expert on sex and sexuality
would have to say.
Clever Acronyms Escape Me
Get over yourself, faggot.
If it’s possible for you to act on your
unnamed-but-easily-identified desires in an ethical manner — if
you desire to do whatever it is you desire to do with consenting adults
who desire to take their turn doing it to you — this so-called
expert on sexuality thinks you should crawl down off that cross and
find yourself a boyfriend already. (“Pray away” the gay? I’m guessing
you’re Christian, probably Catholic.) And if you experience a moment’s
anxiety the first time you stick your ass in the air — pull the
Jesus stick out first! — just remind yourself that things have
been crawling on top of each other and madly humping away for 850
million years. Sex came first, then humanity (200,000ish years ago),
then religion came along tens of thousands of years after that. Which
may explain why religion, when pitted against sex (really old) and
human nature (pretty old), always loses. Always.
If you’re on the cross, CAEM, it’s because you put yourself up
there. Which means you’re not some poor mortal trapped between a cosmic
rock and an existential hard place; you’re just another closeted
cocksucker with a martyr complex.
Look, kiddo, you get one life, one chance at happiness. If it gives
you a spiritual semi to fantasize about a God who created you gay but
forbids you to act on your emotional and sexual attraction to men,
knock your damn self out. But you can have a boyfriend and Jesus, too
— look at the pope — you just have to do what people have
been doing since the first terrified idiot invented the first bullshit
religion: improvise. Find yourself a brand-new religion or sect, or
jettison the bits of your current faith that don’t work for you. If you
know anything about the history of Christianity — and it sounds
like you don’t — then you know that the revisions began before
the body was cold. No reason to stop now.
And finally, CAEM, there is no God — you do realize that,
right? No hell below us, above us only sky, etc.
I’m an only child, male, born to a single mom. I’m about to turn
21, and I’ve been with a great guy for over a year. I may be in love.
We both have steady jobs, and we want to move in together. He came out
to his parents after we started dating, and now I think it’s my turn.
Problem is, I don’t know how to break it to my mother. She’s a tiny
Mexican woman who isn’t afraid of smacking me. I’m afraid to tell her.
She always talks bad about the gay lifestyle because she considers
herself Christian, although not the churchgoing kind. When and how do I
break the news that she’s not getting grandkids from me?
Her Only Male Offspring
Your mom is my favorite kind of “Christian.” She’s not the
“churchgoing kind,” as that would require some personal sacrifice on
her part (of her Sunday mornings, at least). And she certainly didn’t
let her faith interfere with her sex life (I’m assuming your conception
was something short of immaculate*). But when it comes to other
people’s lives, when it comes to your sexuality and mine, HOMO, then
her Christian values kick into high gear.
How convenient.
Okay, HOMO, lots of us have come out to hostile moms and dads and
watched in awe as they morphed into the loving, supportive parents we
didn’t know they were capable of being. For some parents the process is
quick, for others it’s slow, but it can’t start until you come out.
Now here’s when you come out: The sooner the better — but
don’t come out to your mother while she has the power to harm you,
i.e., if you’re dependent on her for a place to live or if she’s paying
for your education. And here’s how: by U.S. mail. Don’t give your
mother the chance to smack you. Write her a letter, include the contact
info for the PFLAG chapter in your area, and tell her you’ll discuss
this with her after she attends a meeting, not before.
Finally, when I came out to my mother, the first thing out of her
mouth was, “I don’t ever want to meet any boyfriends.” She said the
word “boyfriend” like it had been dipped in shit. On her deathbed, my
mother told me to tell my boyfriend that she loved him (“like a
daughter”). My mom came around, HOMO, and so can yours.
But not until you tell her.
My husband and I got married recently. His first pick for best
man was his older brother, “St. Paul,” a seminary student studying to
become a priest. When my husband asked, he started crying and said he
had hoped my husband would return to the church. We are both liberal
ex-Catholics. For a wedding gift, Paul gave us a book called Man
and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body, 700 pages of
dogma by JP2. In the five years I’ve known him, he has rarely said more
than one sentence to me, yet he speaks boldly in favor of the church’s
most conservative doctrines at family gatherings. How much of his
bullshit do I have to deal with? I’m a huge fan of yours, and I know
that you’ve had some issues reconciling your own life with loved ones
within the Catholic Church. Your advice would be appreciated.
The Schismatic
Man … so intolerant.
I’m talking about you, TS, not your brother-in-law. Don’t get me
wrong: Your brother-in-law sounds like total douchedrizzle. But he has
a right to his opinions and a right to express them. You have a right
to your opinions, too, of course, and just as much a right to express
them. When St. Paul goes off on premarital sex or the ordination of
women or the gays and their Prada loafers, smile and tell him he’s full
of shit. But unless you live with him — and I can’t imagine you
would’ve omitted that detail — you don’t see him too often,
right? Tolerate his bullshit — that’s what family does —
and count your blessings.
And don’t complain about every word that comes out of his mouth and
then gripe about how little he has to say to you.
* Note to Bill Donohue: Yes, I’ve confused the virgin birth with the
Immaculate Conception. So sue me, motherfucker.
