Dear Anna,
I enjoy your Friday column. I’m a somewhat happily married male with strong urges to go down on another male. Gay porn is a total turnoff, but I have gone down on a couple of guys and loved it. Kissing a guy, however, would make me ill. What is wrong with me? I presume you do not have this problem but can give me some advice. — NSG
Dear NSG,
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You’re wrong about that — I have had this problem! Kinda. When I was figuring out that I liked girls (around 20 years old), my first attempts to be physical with them made me sick — literally. I threw up! My stomach knotted and folded in on itself (thankfully not WHILE we were getting down, but shortly after). Why, I wondered, did I have these strong desires if my body was simply going to reject them?
Looking back now, it seems shockingly obvious that I was working through a routine bout of internalized homophobia, which is, simply put, negative feelings we have about homosexuality. As far as we’ve come in the arena of LGBT acceptance and civil rights these past few years, we’re still largely taught that being queer isn’t “normal.” That it’s deviant. Wrong. Sick. Even if we have liberal, supportive families, or live in communities that don’t try to “pray the gay away” or beat us up for it, we still hear and internalize these subtle, anti-gay messages, which can manifest in weird ways. Why else would a hot girl cause me to lose my lunch?
I’m not trying to pathologize you, or challenge your orientation. You seem like a mostly straight dude with occasional gay urges. The good news is that nothing is wrong with you! But the thought of kissing a dude making you ill? That’s homophobia. It may have to do with the act of kissing itself, which many of us consider to be a somewhat romantic gesture, and which would, presumably, conflict with your sexual identity. Oral sex though? Not so romantic. Intimate? Certainly. But not romantic. Very few poems have been written about fellatio (sadly).
How you choose to deal with these negative perceptions is up to you, but I would encourage you to sit with your discomfort the next time any ill feelings arise. Don’t try to push them away — surrender yourself to them. Don’t judge, just notice. What comes up when you allow yourself to rest in that space of unease? Once you’ve cultivated some awareness, your next task is to learn to respect your desires, no matter how idiosyncratic they are, or how little they conform to your or others’ perceptions of a straightish dude. Try not to censor yourself. Our longings don’t always make sense, but there they are. Welcome them.
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