Acceptance

It is strange, almost a month post Chicago; post the trauma of going, the pleasure of being and the pain of returning. Since then I have gone to a married bi/gay support group: I have written of that long evening, the group, the camaraderie, and yes, the bar afterwards.

Since then I have had lunch with Sam, lunch as in a table, a sandwich and talking from the heart. Since then we have met a few other times, met as friends.

Since then I have had dinner with a man I met in my group, a dinner in a restaurant filled with other gay men, a dinner followed by some clubs. Lots of conversation and yes some groping and kissing: but they were add-ons, not the core of the evening. A night of shared friendship, of shared growth, but not of shared bodies, not of a shared bed.

Since Chicago I have not had sex: not with a man and no, not with a woman. Not a moral issue, not a change of heart. But I wonder about it – me, Mr. Horny – me, the man who has defined his sexual orientation using my dick as a compass, looking for a mythical magnetic North.

Since Chicago I have not had sex – I will soon I am sure – but still for a month I have not. It is surely not fear – I am out to my wife, to my family and friends. I am living in the basement, in my own space where I happily type at this too late hour. It is not a lack of desire – I am always ready, my hand remains familiar, and now that I have my computer in a private space, in my bedroom, well the things you find on the Net.

Since Chicago I have grudgingly – not easily, not without some heel digging – inexorably come to accept that I am Gay: that I am not going back, that there is only forward. I have come to accept that my desire to be with men, to interact with them goes beyond a blowjob. At one point Saturday night I was in a corner settee, watching the crowd and I settled into my friend’s arms and at one point we kissed, and we sipped our drinks, and we watched the crowd ebb and flow. And it all felt right.

Does part of me want the famed “slut” phase that those who newly discover their sexuality talk about – yes, and I suspect in time I will. That may need to wait, maybe for an apartment or maybe for Carrie and I to be further along in the concept of sharing a house. But I am not worried about that tonight.

It has taken sixteen months – maybe a lifetime in actuality. But I finally get yet another thing that many have tried to tell me. This post had its genesis in Flip posting on a comment left by Spider, a discussion of “it’s all about acceptance from other men...” Seven words. Yes, for me also “it’s all about acceptance from other men.”

And I’m thinking that understanding those simple words make the interactions better, make me more comfortable in my own skin, will lead to healthier relationships - with men and at home - and yes will lead to some wonderful sex.

All of this will not come to pass overnight, will not come without work and faith, but it will come. And it will be good.