I'm not Gay, I'm Homosexual

On Role Models

Recently I read in the newspapers that a well-known actress said we should not have role models.

It surprised me the naïve wishful thinking of this person.

Since the moment we are born we learn mostly from others: Mother and father being the first reference (if you are lucky or unlucky to have them), then relatives, teachers, fellow students, tv and movie actors, sportspeople, etc, etc. the list gets bigger and bigger.

Those people that we willingly (and sometimes blindly) want to emulate or copy in their behaviors, mannerisms and look are what usually we could describe as a role model.

We are sponges during our young years and as such we take in everything that happens around us. Little by little, we start to show a mind of our own but when this happens, we already have internalized some habits, we are challenging others and we are acquiring new ones shaped by the specific characteristics of our surroundings.

So whereas we like it or not we do have role models and if we do feel we do not have any most of us will work hard in order to find one.

In the heterosexual world role models present themselves openly and in a variety of shapes in front of our eyes: From the macho, rough Casanova to the sophisticated and elegant gentleman, from the overly feminine, righteous and vulnerable woman to the fiercely aggressive men eater one.

All of them are there for you to choose if it happens you identify yourself as heterosexual; your choices will be made taking into account the education that you have received, the family and friends you have and the sense of belonging you have developed so far.

Now, we homosexuals where from do we take our references?

No many years ago those references in tv or movies were expressed presenting overly camp and effeminate characters as their "comic qualities" allowed them to survive the judgment of the "straight eye".

But there were no models to copy or get inspired by in regards to how to love another man, how to seduce him, how to face that first night, there was nothing.

So where our eyes turned at?

They turned to the heterosexual model where there is a woman and there is a man. If to this we add the way we were being portrayed in TV and movies, who do you think will be a model for many gay men? The famous Divas I heard you saying and you are right!

For many, many years in gay conversations even if there were not camp individuals you still could hear "masculine" guys addressing each other using feminine pronouns.

That becomes the norm and it was so strong and omnipresent that it ended being part of what defined the "gay identity".

I always found that very offensive, why many of the "out" gays assumed because I was homosexual, they could address me using feminine pronouns? If they have the right to choose a "she" I have the same right to choose a "he" too. As simple as that. The rest is a pure fascist attitude.

And that was my position since very young, that cost me some "friends" but I was OK with that. If I have to be like them in order to be friends then where is the friendship? That is not friendship, that is a gang.

Fortunately, with the decriminalization of homosexuality new characters appeared in TV and movies, so masculine guys who preferred masculine men started to appear more and more breaking the misconceived idea that everybody that was gay had to be effeminate.

The human condition is so beautifully rich that we need to understand and respect that the way we express ourselves as heterosexual, homosexual, etc is not related necessarily to the way we look but about who we are attracted to.

Now, what about sex and drugs?

The first models in this regard come from that heterosexual model we talked about earlier. So if you were gay you must-have feminine attributes hence you like to be penetrated, basically, you have to be a bottom.

If you were not effeminate but look not strong and your partner has a rougher look than you automatically that makes you a bottom too. All these quick conclusions were based on that male-female model; it shaped the way we see each other.

All this started to happen very fast during a time where the sex liberation was happening when drugs were in abundance and in a not illogic way the gay population took both and incorporated them as part of their understanding of freedom. Both of them remain up to today, sadly understood, as being part of the gay identity: limitless sex and drugs.

Have a look at movies; so many of them involve drugs, even the most "romantic" ones, few beautiful ones like "Shelter" escaped the vicious circle.

This situation is so embedded in the gay culture that Grinder, one of the most popular gay apps for the gay community don't do much for stopping the presence of prostitution and the selling of drugs on their platform. The number of escorts is extraordinary and how some of them and other "members" offer openly drugs is just incredible.

That is the "gay community".

We talked about Genre identification, sex, and drugs but what happened with love? What happened to the most beautiful of human feelings when knocking at the door of our hearts? How we react to it? Who does teach us how to love a man? What are the rules? What are the codes?

In this field, we have been badly injured as well.

With all that sexual liberation, with all this drug fever, we were not keen to copy the heterosexual model of monogamy (not all of them are monogamous of course, but the romantic idea of it is still ambitioned by many), that our predecessors thought that would be too much. This caused  the idea of loving somebody deeply, of being a person enough going down to the drain and promiscuity prevailed up to that extend that open relationships became the norm among gay people.

Another box to be ticked if you want to feel part of the "gay community".

Personally, I think open relationships may work but due to the characteristics of the human condition, just a few, very few couples can really achieve true happiness and satisfaction from it.

Up today I do not know one gay couple who has an open relationship where both of them look happy, no one.

If they are young and full of sexual energy that is when it works the best as everything moves around sex and self-indulgence but when you see more mature people in the same circumstances one of them is left behind by the other, bringing bitterness to the relation. Yes, usually they endure those moments and then it happens the other way around. Is that the definition of a beautiful relationship?

Where are the couples that can teach us about love, commitment, fulfillment, a life of companionship and respect? We need them too.

When I was a young man my parents get divorced and my two small siblings were left without a father, it was me who had to help them to reach adulthood, a role I was no prepared for.

In my simple mind, the first "talk" as the older brother I gave them was about sexuality. I believed it was very important for them to know. So I told them everything I knew about the existence of sex with and without love, we talked about AIDS, we talk about prostitution, we talk about everything and I ended my conversation saying: There is no way that I can be there with you when you are facing all or some of these aspects of life but at least if you know about them you can take an informed decision based on what you want at the moment and the risks you are keen to take. I don't want you to go blind to any of these situations. You have the freedom to choose, but choose well informed.

I believe as humans we deserve people who can share their experiences with honesty and transparency to help us see the different options and their implications we will find ahead of us. If we decide to follow one route and it fails we know why. Having a clear starting point as a reference we can start again and hopefully we can get it right this time.

We homosexuals, men, and women, we do need role models, many of them so we can see on them the person that we want to be or at least the minimum that we want to be so we can aspire to more, to be happier and more fulfilled.