I posted this note on my facebook……and thought it might be releveant here as well.
Thanks for your email Anthony.
Regarding your ‘I guess the question arises – what happens if you and the guy you occasionally have sex with fall in love and want to share a life together…what happens with your wife then????’
That is the bit I would struggle with…and that scares the sh!t out of me.’ Whether you “fall in love” or not maybe depends on your age. The older you are, the less likely you would be so taken with another human being.
Bill.
Hi Bill
From my personal experience and from the many gay men I’ve worked with …..it is frequently falling in love that is the catalyst that jolts them out of denial about their sexual orientation.
For many…up until the point of falling in love…….they are happy to live with term bi…..assuming that because they have sex with their wives and have sex with men on the side makes them bi. For about 90%……they have sex with one woman many times and have sex with many men once.
When you really fall in love with another man everything changes. You only want to have sex with him, you want to spend time with him….you may even want to grow old with him. It is at this point we realise that our homosexual orientation is not about behaviour but is far more profound…..and is the very essence of who we are. It is at this time many of us will use the term gay to describe ourselves and all the shame and guilt attached to the term disappears. The identity we have rejected we are willing to embrace and accept.
If we decide to stay in the heterosexual marriage we need to be aware that our emotions are an area we will have to constantly monitor…..possibly shut down all together. Personally I think this is sad. But I always respect peoples personal choices…..its their life to live…not mine……but I think our choices need to be informed ones.
I let my guard down a few weeks before my 40th birthday……..and the end result was that I didn’t experience sex with a man clouded with shame, regret and guilt…..I experienced something that I never knew was possible. That night was a turning point in my life. For a brief while I regretted that encounter because of the long term implications….but in the long run I’m grateful it happened.
I’m not saying these things to scare anyone in this group…….but just to make people aware of the enormous difference between sexual behaviour/activity……and our sexual orientation. Orientation is about love, affection, intimacy, tenderness and partnering. So if we are same sex oriented……we will only ever experience those things in their fullness in a same sex relationship……not in one night stands….anonymous sex…..or casual encounters with other men who need a sex fix.
Anthony Venn-Brown
Author of ‘A Life of Unlearning – A Journey to Find the Truth’
Available in all Australian major bookstores, Barnes and Noble and Amazon.com
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Blog http://alifeofunlearning.blogspot.com/
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