BOYS, SEX, AGE, RELIGION
Everywhere I look, everywhere I go, I see beautiful boys and men. I use the word boy loosely. For me, at sixty years old, anyone under thirty is a boy. I’m not really into the perverted pederasty thing. Young men would be a more appropriate description of the males that pique my interest of late. The boy at Country Fare—pretty white skin; young and playful. Justin Thacher at work—so skinny, small, handsome, earnest, and friendly. The townies for Jesus boy who joins the men at Panera for prayer and moral probity—skinny, handsome, pretty eyes. Boys have always been curious and kind to me. We click and I don’t know why. It’s not even necessarily a sexual thing. In fact, I have always found earnest heterosexual boys drawn to me for something or other. Spirituality. Camaraderie. Fellow-feeling. I have a thing for Justin, but I’ll keep it under wraps because I don’t want to make him or me uncomfortable. Justin seems like girlfriend material. He's a good boy who only thinks about clean, healthy sex. He wants a wife and babies to devote himself and his endeavors to. Not like me, who has always lived primarily for himself and his own comfort.
When sex has always been a powerful aspect of your life, you think about its place as the senior years approach. I have not been kind to myself with regard to sex, not as kind as I could have been. Maybe I just didn’t understand enough about myself, other people, the world. Maybe I didn’t understand enough about sex, friendship, romance, marriage, religion, or spirituality. Maybe I have never understood enough about anything in this tired, old world. I feel more useless and irrelevant with every passing year, and I don’t even know how to live anymore.
Does one ever get too old for sex? Old. Fat. Ugly. Sick. Repulsive. Fat people like sex too. Fat people of all ages like sex. Just go to Chaturbate and see. Is sex only for the beautiful boys? Can fat boys and old men enjoy it too? What about religious people? Are they allowed to enjoy sex? Are they allowed to have sexual relationships? Am I allowed to have sex with my friends, or to make friends with the guys I have sex with? Is it right or fair to require that marriage be the primary criteria for sex? I’m not claiming that all sex is moral. That’s not the point. I’m not really even talking morality here. I’m talking sexuality. We can talk morality if you want. But, right here, right now, I’m talking sex.
What happened to me? How did I get here like this? It’s like my life has been taken out of my control. I am simply a bystander, a helpless witness to the progression of my own sad, little life. I am a religious man. I am a sexual man. I am a homosexual. I like having sex with men. I like thinking about having sex with men. I look at men from a sexual perspective. I always have; it’s nothing new for me, and I have been fully self-aware of it. I have known all along what I am sexually. I chose not to talk about it. I chose to keep it private. I didn’t want to confess it or discuss it with friends and family. Why should I? What would it achieve? What would it get me? The only good, compelling reason to talk about your sexuality with someone is if you want to have sex with him. Otherwise, keep it to yourself. It’s nobody’s business. In most cases, no one wants or needs to know.
What was I thinking? What was I thinking as a young man who embraced religion and spirituality? How did I reconcile my spiritual aspiration with my homosexuality? I told myself early on that I couldn’t just give up sex. I knew that I was temperamentally incapable of abstaining from sex. What made me think that I could blend my sexuality with spirituality? What right did I have to presume that sex and spirituality could be reconciled in me? Maybe that’s the point, that they can’t be reconciled, which is a recipe for failure and disappointment. Maybe I recklessly ruined my life by serving two masters and dividing my loyalties. I was never good or pure enough to be a religious, and never depraved and salacious enough to be a libertine. I straddled the fence and paid the price.
I told myself that, regardless of religion, I was amenable to sexual friendship if I found it. I was amenable to homosexuality if it came to me by way of friendship. I made friendship and human affection my criteria for sex. How did that work out for ya? Let’s just say it didn’t work out well at all. It didn’t work at all. I don’t think my noble compromise helped with friendship, sex, or religion. I’m not sure what would have been the right approach, but placing the burden of sexuality on friendship was unfair to my friends and disappointing to me. Don’t forget that sexuality is just a part of the whole context of human relationships, most of which are platonic. Most of our relationships and friendships in life are asexual.
I think I have learned that sex has to be approached on its own terms. Sex has to be approached as sex. Friendship might be a consequence of sexual activity and adventure, but it isn’t guaranteed. I can’t speak from experience because I haven’t allowed myself much of it. I don’t know with confidence what the consequences of human sexuality are, because I haven’t done it enough. To burden sex with the qualification of friendship is frustrating and narrow. To think that you have to make friends with a guy before having sex with him places a heavy burden on human sexuality. It may be that every sexual encounter can be friendly, but who am I to say. I have lived most of my life as a sexually naïve, ignorant, immature man. But, I like to think that friendship can be a consequence of sex.
