Comfort

Monday night I started a post but did not finish it: a combination of exhaustion and not knowing how to end it. I have finally figured out the ending, but first the post, not completed and not “finished”:

Bi
Of late I have oft-times considered labels. I know: asked and answered, sexuality is a continuum, be who you are – it does not need a name. All of which is true but is not an excuse to bury ones head in the sand. My blog title remains unchanged while the underlying life - my life - swirls in confusion. Tales of a Bi “MWM”: I can assure you that I am and will continue to be male and while irrelevant, I am not of color. After that, things get sketchy: Bi – we’ll get back to that – and married – absolutely if one considers sleeping two floors apart a traditional part of that definition.

I do not write here to be cute. This is a subject that is way too important to me and I suspect even more important to others. When describing myself of late, the word is “gay”. It is simple and to the lay person direct. I go out with men, I give head, I get fucked. The guys at the proverbial water cooler would not have trouble supplying descriptive terms of various origins and bi would not be among them. My behaviour, my choices of late – gay.

Yet when I sat in my married bi/gay group last Friday listening to my friends I heard a different definition of gay: men who had not had sex, at least willingly, with their wives for years, men who did not miss it at all, men who did not dream of becoming a fuckbuddy for their wives. Beyond that men who walking down the street would not feel their eyes drawn to a pair, and I do not mean balls, or would not notice a pair of legs that seem to rise forever, men who would not imagine the joys that cleavage can bring.

I no longer doubt that I am one of these men in oh so many ways – the base sexual desires and the quiet conversations and glancing brushes of a hand or arm. And yes, the hugs. When I say I am bi, I feel like I am distancing myself: “I am bi so I am not really gay.” I have used that ploy for much of the last year and cannot continue to use it. So to avoid a lecture to everyone I come out to, I now come out as gay. I do it with comfort and do it with pride.

But there are some troubling aspects. I would gladly make love with my wife right now if she granted me the opportunity. My head will swivel while walking the streets of New York – swivel involuntarily. There is that hetero side, not nearly as strong as the homo side, but both still alive and well. So clearly I am bi. Hell, even my therapist is willing to concede the point – “polymorphous perverse” in his lingo.


That is what I wrote on Monday and I have given it much thought. Last night I had dinner with Carrie – simple Irish basics in a pub which serves the ale in pints, a few pints indeed. I explained this to her, my mixed emotions, my willingness to give up the men, to give us another try. She knew this was coming – I am not a stealth kind of guy. She had given it much thought.

We all know by now she is smarter than me and she realizes that my intentions are honorable but also a formula for disaster. Forty years of waiting, gone in an instant: I don’t think so. She has been catching up on my blog, she understands that I may not be having sex, but those bar room hugs, kisses in the corners, quiet conversations deep into the night – one does not need sex to be gay, to live gay, to find comfort in gay. She points out that hetero’s will never accept my being bi but that gays, particularly of my age will accept me in all gradations – many have been married and some have known these strange mixed emotions.

So while I may meet the technical definition of bi, it is time to leave the fine print behind. I have no illusions of my own ability to backtrack and deny. And I realize that there will be much joy and more pain ahead, but it is time to stop torturing Carrie, teasing with the men in my life, toying with reality.

The strange thing is that I expected Carrie’s reaction and while there is some sadness in me, there is more comfort, comfort in honesty, comfort in direction, comfort in acceptance.