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Sexual labels, I love 'em so much (1)


Adam Phillips

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The people who've e-known me for a while, from looking at this entry's title, are already either grinning or rolling their eyes: Here we go again.

 

I'm sorry, I cain't hep it.

 

Tell you a little bit about how I got onta the Internet as a dirty-story-writer.

 

Long time ago, I ran into a story at Nifty that was pretty weak technically, but absolutely compelling--at least to me--from a "story" standpoint. That story was called Fraternity Memoirs, and it was based on the college experiences of its author, who went by the screen name of John Walsh.

 

The story tells of how a college freshman decides to pledge a "renegade" frat, and tells the story of his friendship with his frat Big Brother and of his...uhhh...relationship with another kid in his pledge class.

 

One of the things that was masterful about his storytelling was his ability to convey the palpable sexual tension between him and his straight Big Brother. I was much moved by the portrayal of that friendship.

 

I emailed John thanking him for his story. It was the first time I'd ever written to a "Nifty" author. I told him a little bit about myself: Bisexual, if I had to put a label on it, but in a serious relationship with a woman. We got to corresponding via e-mail, and he became a very good e-friend.

 

He asked me to tell him the story of my first time with a guy. I wrote him a reply that took 3 emails from me.

 

Somewhere along that time I had joined his Yahoo! group, a little reluctantly. He'd created it mainly because the lag time between his chapters was pretty significant, and he wanted to let his readers know when new chapters were coming out. But, as these things often go, his group became a hangout for his groupies, who lavished praise upon him (aka "licked his ass"). You wanna talk serious hyperbole, though--he had people comparing him to Norman Friggin Mailer.

 

That was just over the top for me. I told him, jokingly, that hell would freeze over before I'd ever participate in the asslickfest which was his group. He laughed and replied that it was pretty over the top.

 

After I'd been hanging out at his place for a while, though, it struck me that I had a story of my own to tell. I was a senior in college, and it was the spring of my senior year, and I was about to graduate and move south to go to graduate school. My gf--no, by this time she was my fiancee--whom I'd known since we were elementary school kids, attended college in a different city, but she was going to be entering medical school in the same city where I'd be going to grad school. Life was about to change for me, and I too had some things from my past that haunted me a little. I was feeling the need to put some closure--or some something--on my past, as I moved into my future, and I was feeling a little pensive. But there weren't many people I could talk to about it because it wasn't easy for many people to understand me. See, the thing was, I was a mostly-straight-guy who nevertheless noticed guys, and who had fallen in love back in high school with his best friend. That friendship was intact in college, after a 2.5-year period of alienation, but it was a little strange, and I had a sense that he and I were about to walk the proverbial diverging roads, and that before too long we'd hear from each other twice a year at best--then once a year--then once every two years, etc., and think of each other once in a while as "someone I used to know."

 

God, it was killing me. But what was to be done about it? We were walking different paths. He'd gotten married that year--I was best man--and we weren't living in the same city anyway; and I was about to move even farther south.

 

I needed to talk to someone about how it felt for me. How I'd loved him so much, and how it seemed as though there would be this dark and empty place in me from then on, even in the midst of the joy I was feeling as I began to make a life with the woman who'd agreed to marry me. But who can a guy talk to about loving a man and a woman?

 

I got to thinking about how much I'd been touched by Fraternity Memoirs. I decided I'd like to write the story of myself and my best friend, talk about what happened, and put it up there at Nifty. In a way I just needed to talk it out, to Say It, as I put it sometimes. I guess, too, it was a love song to my high school buddy. I also had hopes that I might touch some reader as Fraternity Memoirs had touched me. I thought that maybe--just maybe--there might be a reader or two out there who knew what it felt like to be torn between the love of a woman and the love of a man; and maybe those readers might contact me and we could talk, compare notes, stuff like that. You don't feel like such a freak when you can talk to other people who can relate. So I took the three-email writing I'd sent John telling him about my first time with a guy, and I began expanding it. I entitled the story Crosscurrents and I submitted it to Nifty.

 

I thought the name was perfect, because it described how I felt. Out there in the surf, pulled in two different directions, by two strong currents that came together at the same place--the place of me.

 

I started getting emails almost immediately. From gay men who loved the story; and from bisexual men who got it on another level entirely, because they'd lived versions of it. That was tremendously gratifying.

 

By the fifth chapter, Nick Archer from the Archerland gay-fiction site had contacted me and asked if he could host Crosscurrents at his site. I knew nothing about all this, but I liked Nick from his email contacts, and after some further inquiry with him, I agreed. Archerland is no more, but I'm now hosted here at Gay Authors.

 

In any case, for the most part, I've enjoyed the reader email in response to Crosscurrents over the years. But from time to time I get letters either lecturing me, or confused as hell, because they don't know why "Andy" doesn't come out as gay, or why he's trying for a straight boy. I've also gotten letters telling me that straight men cannot be with gay men, can't love gay men, can't make love to them, would be repulsed by it, so the "Matt" character must be a gayboy in denial. And I've gotten letters ripping me a new one for telling a story about a "bi" man falling in love with a "straight" man. Somehow by telling a story like that, apparently I'm betraying the entire gay community (funny; I didn't think that as an author trying to talk about real-and-true things from my life I was accountable to any "community.").

 

My point is, the only negative email I've ever gotten is from indignant readers who don't want to accept that a man's sexuality could be multivalent. Many of these indignant readers insist that bisexual men are just confused and/or scared gay men. And they neither concede the possibility of, nor approve of, a "straight" man loving--intimately--a "bi" man. And then there are the readers who want to know why I don't make it more clear that "Andy" is gay and that "Matt" is at least bi.

 

What is this about? Why are people so determined to tell me what makes my body respond sexually, as if they know better than I do? I mean, I'm the owner of said body, right? I guess I know what gets my engine going, and I guess I know better than people who aren't me.

 

I've also gotten this in response to a story I helped complete that's not even mine: Dan Kincaid's It Started With Brian. The story has been an intriguing one. It takes 26 chapters for Brian to admit to Sam he's in love with him. But in that very same conversation Brian makes clear that he's straight. Or, rather, he doesn't deny it when Sam says "but you're straight." Rather, he counters with, "But I love you." And this in fact is part of the dilemma, part of what keeps Brian at arm's length for years until he finally decides, to hell with the labels, I want Sam. But I have readers who have emailed me and they seem utterly unable to just let the story tell itself. They want to know why it took so long for Brian to accept his gayness, or they tell me they knew all along Brian was gay, or they figure he must be at least bi, or yada yada yada. I've received more email asking questions about the sexuality of these guys than I've had commenting on how cool it is that Brian is finally making an attempt to get the two of them where they should have been years ago.

 

It mystifies me. Why does a label have to be attached to these guys? What's wrong with accepting the description that they give of themselves? Granted that some gay men have tried not to face their "gayness" and have hidden under descriptions that aren't accurate, why does this need to label have to attend the reading of the story? Can't the story just be the story? It's a love story, and it's a love story that happened. Why the urge to dissect and label?

 

I ask this with some urgency, first of all, because everything I've experienced in my own life, and in hearing from some of my readers, and from research and reading I've done, suggests that sexuality is much too complex and nuanced to be adequately captured by the labels "gay," "straight," and "bi." Secondly, and maybe more importantly, in the story under consideration, it's precisely the oppressiveness of these labels that keeps Sam and Brian from opening up to each other, thus wasting years, and causing both of them years of pain. Both of them were attracted to women, Brian almost exclusively so; but both of them were in love with each other. It was an awful thing that the labels shamed them into wasting years apart that they could have had together.

 

I should clarify that I'm not pissed at any of the people who've responded in this way to It Started With Brian. It does mystify me, though. I don't understand why so many people feel compelled to rush in and proclaim that a person is gay. Or straight. Or bi. It doesn't alter the fact that the story is a love story, and it only insults the characters involved by telling them they don't even know their own sexual responses.

 

Okay, I'll shut up now. Some of my readers characterize my occasional rants as Adamic Blasts. I think that's unfair. I am warm and fuzzy everywhere.

 

I do trim, though.

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Adam, do you think that it is similar to what you yourself experienced? and Sam and Brian and whoever else. you didn't 'get' the idea straight away yourself. nor did they. and I think you can put a fair bit of blame on the whole label thing and that in our heads and culture and sensibilities seems to be what we do/expected to do. and it does restrict. But do you also think that maybe it could be that it is just plain confusing on its own. I have a hard time working out what I am feeling most of the time - in all areas of my life. if something doesn't have a pattern or is unusual we are going to be thrown by it, until we can 'identify' it. or maybe :) , I am back to only feeling comfortable if I can label something - albeit label it as something ok but different and unable to be properly labelled or something I don't want to label. I suppose I'm talking understanding.

 

just my weird thoughts,

celia

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Adam, do you think that it is similar to what you yourself experienced? and Sam and Brian and whoever else. you didn't 'get' the idea straight away yourself. nor did they. and I think you can put a fair bit of blame on the whole label thing ...But do you also think that maybe it could be that it is just plain confusing on its own... I am back to only feeling comfortable if I can label something...


I think that's right, Celia. I think we label because we want some conceptual aid to help us through our confusion. I think of the people who have encountered my tale, or Sam's, and written back mystified. They didn't understand. How could Matt have allowed Andy to make love to him? He likes girls, doesn't he, and for that matter, what's up with Andy? Or, how could Brian say he's in love with Sam? Is he just gay and in denial?

Life and love are huge, and messy, and they confound our expectations and frustrate our intellects and give the lie to the tidy pictures we create of reality for the purpose of controlling it better. It only makes sense that in the minefield of sexual attraction--where it's not beyond the pale that people can be murdered for loving the wrong person--we'd be driven to get a handle on all of that by seeking to control it conceptually. To figure it out. To manage it. What better and more efficient way than by attaching a label? And sure, sometimes labels do help us understand. What makes me sad is that sometimes labels create problems and blind us from understanding. Andy and Matt had their hearts broken by that label-induced blindness. So did Sam and Brian.

But you're right. The labelling obsession, I think, comes from being confused and bewildered by a phenomenon, and it represents an attempt to understand.
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so how do you get to that point of understanding that you are ok with the phenomena without having to resort to inadequate pre-emptive labels? is it just something that some people are better at doing - they are more able to have a fluid mind or accept situations as comfortable even if they don't 'understand', go with the flow? as in how do you stop those wasted years.

or maybe its just they get to that point of understanding (I.e. it doesn't matter, stop obsessing, so what you don't 'understand') a lot earlier.

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Labels can be quite problematic. I'm probably on the opposite side of the fence. Gay is the label I chose, not because I'm necessarily 100% attracted to men but because my attraction to men far outweighs any curiosity or whatever towards women. To me, there are two main components to attraction. One is the more physical. The other is emotional. Emotionally, I am attracted to men and men only as far as I know. Am I capable of falling in love with a woman? I don't really know. But then there's the physical. Of course, I find men more physically attractive than women by a long shot, and there aren't a lot of woman that I do find attractive (sadly). However, I will notice when I woman has nice tits and ass (sorry if that seems too crude), so having a sexual encounter with a woman is not totally out of the question. Another aspect is the whole thing where there's something men can do that women can't (without some kind of artificial device). Thus, men are more likely to suit my needs in general. So I kind of see where you're coming from. Oh, and there's also something about a woman's softness that I really like. :*)

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I know I'm late in reading this seeing that I have already read your story Crosscurrent but I felt compelled to at least comment on this entry.  I can relate to part but not the whole of your thoughts as my life experience is just that, my own.  Let me explain further, please.  I can relate to labels in general.  The misuse of them.  Societies need to force them upon individuals so that they fit, nice and neat, into pigeon holes so they can understand, criticize, condemn or accept them.  Why??  I suppose that is the ultimate question now, isn't it.  People shy away from, condemn or just plain ostracize that to which they cannot label or understand.  Its bullshit (pardon my language) in my book.  A persons life is not for anyone else to understand.  Its personal and self contained and others should not reject, compartmentalize or force a label on anyone else.  Acceptance would be nice.  Don't understand it?  Well then maybe you aren't meant to and you should exercise some acceptance and just live and let live.

Its nice to have people to talk to about what we may not understand ourselves and for those individuals to have answers, point us in the right direction or just listen.  Sometimes all a person needs is a sounding board.  Instead what we find in society is judgment, critics and self appointed know-it-alls.  What ever happened to go old fashioned unconditional friendship and acceptance?

What you have pointed out is a bit dear to my heart for several reasons.  Some are a bit too personal to divulge here for all to read.  (Maybe I should be as brave as you and write it out in a story.  Just not so sure I can be that brave.  I commend you for your bravery!)  I will say that the forced label of "gay", "bi" or "straight" is a gross injustice to an individual.  In my life I have learned that Love is simply that....LOVE.  It is blind to gender, race, nationality, religion and all other things.  We ourselves and society as a whole can the worst of enemies when it comes to love.  We can get so caught up in social status and those forced labels that we can make our own problems and cause a rift to form in our relationships.  We can let society force its way in and reek havoc on our relationships by simply allowing society to make us feel as if we must fit within a certain label and if we are not of that same label then a relationship is most certainly out of the question cause it cannot be properly labeled within society.  Again to that I say Bullshit!

I failed someone that I dearly loved because I wasn't strong enough to go crosscurrent and stand up against the forced labels of society.  I crumbled and failed him in that I allowed society to force me to label what we had between us and try to make it fit inside one of their pigeonholes.  I couldn't accept his explanation of what we had between us.  I couldn't just accept for the sake of acceptance and enjoy the love we shared.  I had to or so I allowed society to make me believe I needed to label it, compartmentalize and explain it so they all could understand it.  Ultimately I lost more then I could, at the time, understand or fathom because of my weakness and when the dust all settled the society for which I was trying so hard to fit within, explain it to and in a sense justify it to was the very prison to which I condemned myself to be chained and tortured within its very walls.  He was not there to comfort nor listen to me and the society for which I looked to for acceptance of my relationship really didn't matter, comfort me nor congratulate me for my effort.  Misery loves company.  It was at that point that I decided that if society wanted me to join them in their misery and force me to loose out on love cause they couldn't label nor understand it then I didn't need to be a part of that society.  I would walk my own path.  Skirting along the outside of it and only interacting with it when the necessity arose.  I didn't ostracize myself.  I simply removed societies need to label everything, force explanations and decided to exercise as much acceptance as I could towards other people and myself.

I'll stop rambling now as I think I've made my point, lol.  I just wanted to let you know that I may not have ever been in your shoes exactly or in the situation you found yourself within but I do understand as much as my experience will allow me.

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